So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)
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D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones |
The New Testament talks about justification, sanctification and glorification; those are the divisions of the term salvation. The New Testament talks about people being justified before God, which means that God regards these people in Christ as guiltless; he forgives them in Christ; they are justified by faith. However, sanctification is not that, but something different. It is that process which is going on within us, and which is making us perfect. Sanctification is continuous, whereas justification is God once for all regarding us as sinless; it is God clothing us with the righteousness of Christ and thereby regarding us as free from guilt. Sanctification is Christ being formed in us, our nature being purged and purified and cleansed and perfected. And then the ultimate state is that of glorification, the state in which you and I, and all Christian people, will be when, beyond this life and death and the grave, we shall stand face to face with God with a perfect resurrected body, entirely free from sin and evil and pollution. There we shall be glorified. . . .
. . . There are those who think that sanctification is something in which you and I are quite passive. There are people who teach that as you have been justified by just believing and doing nothing, so you must receive your sanctification in exactly the same way. They say that you are justified by faith, and that the big mistake that most Christian people make is that they strive and endeavor to improve and perfect themselves. That, they say, is an error; you have nothing to do but to stop and give in and receive this sanctification and then you will be held to be perfect. They put it sometimes in a phrase like this—'Let go and let God,' and they have based it upon this word that we are considering together. You have nothing to do but to let go and wait upon God and then you receive. And yet the answer is found in the Apostle's words here, which are an active commandment: '
work out,' do something, 'work out your own salvation, with fear and trembling.'
Now that is where the confusion of doctrine comes in. By all my efforts and working and striving I can never make myself a Christian, but because, and only by the grace of God, I have become a Christian, then I must work with all my might and with all the energy and effort that I can command. Once having been made a Christian I am in a position to work, and so the exhortation to me is to work out my salvation. Paul, then, exhorts us to work and to labour and to strive and fight the good fight of faith. He says in Romans 6:11 that we must reckon ourselves to be 'dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.' Therefore, it does seem to me to be entirely contrary to the Apostle's doctrine to teach that we are to be sanctified in a passive manner and that we should do nothing but wait for God to do everything for us. . . .