“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” Philippians 2:12
In Philippians 2:12 Paul uses a phrase that makes us pause, He tells the Philippians to “work out their own salvation with fear and
trembling’. As believers we understand that those who reject God should fear Him. God tells us about the horror of hell – the permanent abode of those determined not to accept Gods free gift of forgiveness and salvation. We understand why the horror of separation from God and all He is for all of eternity should cause fear and trembling. But Philippians is written to believers. They will spend eternity with God and enjoy His goodness and love for eternity. What does it mean for a believer to live with fear and trembling before the God they worship?
Fear Strongs Concordance says this word implies reverence or awe,
particularly in the context of the fear of the Lord. This is a profound respect and recognition of God’s power and holiness. The term is used both in a negative sense, as in fear of danger or judgment, and in a positive sense, as in reverence for God.
Trembling This word conveys the idea of trembling or quaking, particularly in the presence of God or in response to His actions.
What can we learn? Fear and trembling, both for the believer and the unbeliever are directly associated with the holiness of God. Holy is the only attribute of God that is repeated three times in describing His nature – “holy, holy, holy”. It is the characteristic of God that is repeated continually before His throne for all of eternity. Holiness reflects that God is set far above Hi entire creation.
There is no one or no thing like Him, nothing close to His majesty. That alone causes awe and reverence in believers – to think that this great God would allow His creation to love, fellowship and dwell with Him.
There is a second part of God’s Holiness that creates fear and trembling in the souls of all his creation and especially believers. God’s holiness means that God can have nothing to do with sin. When a word is repeated twice in the Bible it adds extra emphasis. For example when scripture says “peace , peace” it doesn’t mean double peace, it means perfect peace. When “holy” is used of God three times it conveys a level of purity that in unfathomable to our human minds. This level of purity shows why sin, all sin, must be separated from God. What we see as “white lies” and small insignificant mistakes or errors (sins) are an abomination to a thrice holy God. As a believer matures they begin to see the gap between us and God in a clearer, more Christ-like fashion. When we were saved we realized our sin was deserving of hell. We gladly received Christ’s payment of our debt. Yet as believers mature and begin to “know God” in a fuller way, we begin to see the horror of what we really are in God’s sight. We see the magnitude of what we really deserve. We see the greatness of God’s love as we contemplate how holy God truly is and sinful we truly are. Not only that but we see the sin that still lives within us after we believed. Despite God’s love we still do what a thrice holy God
hates. Paul realized the gap between him and God when he cried out “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” When we begin to understand the gap between our sinfulness and God’s holiness, we begin to realize the greatness of His salvation and the punishment we deserved had He not saved us. That is the motivation to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling”. We fear doing more evil that is an abomination to the holy God who loved and died for us. We tremble at living in
a way that is displeasing to Him so we work to live holy before Him. He is thrice holy! There is another aspect of fear and trembling that is critical for the believer. We tremble at not fulfilling the work God has given us to do for that would mean we do no please Him, What a condemnation this is to the Laodicean church today – the lukewarm church which loves the world as much as it loves God. Tremble in this life for when we meet God we will stand in front of Him to give an account of how we “walked” in this life. Make sure we “walked worthy“!