Many who have encountered the grace of Jesus have heard opponents of the finished work say: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” This paints a picture in which Jesus died on the cross, and now we have to finish the work of our salvation that He began. “If you don’t finish it, you go to hell, so you have to fear and tremble.” Then it’s not clear why Jesus said “It is finished” if we have to work out our salvation ourselves. It becomes a kind of muddle: are we saved? “Yes and no! It all depends on how you look at it.” But God is not the author of confusion but of peace. [1 Cor.14:33] Paul writes plainly and clearly: “Or the things I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be Yes, Yes, and No, No? But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us — by me, Silvanus, and Timothy — was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes.” [2 Cor.1:17-20]

As we see, when Jesus Christ is preached there is no uncertainty or wavering, because in Christ all the promises of God are “Yes” and “Amen”! And what is written in His Word? “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior” [Tit.3:5-6] Has He saved us for ever and ever? Yes and Amen! Did He finish the whole work of our salvation when He said “It is finished”? Yes and Amen, and no uncertainty at all! “But doesn’t Paul write, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling?” Peter wrote the truth about Paul’s words: “and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” [2 Pet.3:15-16]

That is how untaught and unstable people have twisted Paul’s words “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, tearing them out of the context of what Paul said. Firstly, the word translated “work out” [Greek katergazomai] has nothing to do with completing unfinished work. Completing a work in Greek is “teleō”. That is what Jesus said before He gave up His spirit. [Jhn.19:30] Katergazomai means to produce, or to put into action what you have. And secondly, salvation in Hebrew is yeshua, which is the very name of our Saviour Jesus. So if we put the name of Jesus in place of the word salvation, the meaning changes at once: “Work out your Jesus with fear and trembling.” And how do we work out, or put into action, the Jesus who lives in us? In the next verse Paul explains: “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” [Phl.2:13] The word “works” [Greek energeō] literally means to be at work, to act. God acts in us, and His action produces in us all kinds of desires and the actions that go with them.

But if we, like the Galatians, try to complete the finished work by the efforts of the flesh, we fall from grace, Christ profits us nothing and faith is made void. [Gal.5:2; Rom.4:14] Only under grace, through faith, does God act in us, and we work out [show the world] the Jesus who lives in us. That is why there in Philippians 2:12 Paul writes: “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence…” Obeyed what? “That form of doctrine which set us free from sin.” [Rom.6:17-18] What doctrine? The sound doctrine that Paul preached. [2 Tim.1:13] And what did Paul preach? The good news of Jesus Christ, in which the righteousness of God [Jesus Christ] is revealed, and that everyone who believes becomes this righteousness. [Rom.1:16-17] In fact, in Philippians 2:12 Paul writes the same thing as in Colossians 2:6: “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” And how did we receive Him? By the hearing of faith. [Gal.3:2] So we walk [live, work out our salvation] in the same way: by the hearing of faith, by hearing the good news of Christ and His finished work. You heard that you are righteous forever and that our works have nothing to do with righteousness, you believed it, and then you work out [produce, show, put into action] this righteousness.