Work out Your Own Salvation

You are “freed from sin” already, says the apostle. So, it is now possible for you to choose not to sin.

By Simon Padbury • 3 July 2019 • 10 minutes read

It may be, dear Christian, that you have not yet found it within yourself to believe that your old nature is dead—and so you dare not reckon it to be dead (see Romans 6:11; Colossians 3:1-10).

So, you continue to fear that your old fallen, corrupt nature is still you—and that is still a controlling slavemaster over you. But if you are a Christian, then it is a wrong to think of yourself as still dominated by your corrupt natrure. Are you worried that you will never make any progress in bearing spiritual fruit?

But this does not change the fact: if you really are a Christian, then your “old man” has been crucified with Christ. This not only in the “high court of heaven” in God’s verdict upon the Christian as not guilty of their sins because the Lord Jesus Christ has died for their sins in their place two millennia ago—but when Christ sent the Holy Spirit to regenerate you, the domination of your old man was broken—it has been, as it were, crucified.

The apostle Paul is not overstating this truth when he expresses it as follows: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

You Are Freed From Sin Now

You are “freed from sin” now, already, says the apostle (Romans 6:7). So, it is now possible for you to choose not to sin, and to successfully resist temptations to sin, and to break your sinful habits.

This is the true free will, that has been given to you at your conversion. And this ability to succeed in resisting sin, to succeed in walking in newness of life and to succeed in bearing spiritual fruit—is all being continually enabled within you by the Holy Spirit who indwells you (Romans 7:4; see also Galatians 5:22. Ephesians 5:9).

But it is your responsibility to use your God-given ability.

All Christians down the centuries are commanded by the apostle Paul, who was moved to command us by the Holy Spirit: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure”1 (Philippians 2:12-13).

Christian, you are saved, and you must work out your own salvation! You are responsible for the outworking of your salvation in your life.

God Really Is at Work Within You

You will discover and prove that God really is at work within you, and that he has given you the responsibility (“to will”) and the power (“to do”) to live a new life in which you both will and do what is good and pleasing to him.

As you take definite steps in your new life in Christ, you are increasingly putting away your old life.

Although you will not reach a state of perfect sinlessness during the remainder of your life on earth—a state in which it is impossible to sin, yet you will indeed grow and mature in the Christian life, and you will increasingly “put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” (Ephesians 4:22).

This is what we call mortification: reckoning yourself dead to your old way of life and putting your old ways out of your new life.

Christian, God is working in you.

This is why true Christians persevere in the faith, living an increasingly sanctified life. They strive to live as Paul lived: “But I keep under my body,2 and bring it into subjection” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Christ Died To Redeem His People—Body and Soul

The ancient Greek ascetics and the Gnostics (who sought to make a hybrid of Christianity and Greek asceticism)3 believed that the material world, including human bodies, is inherently evil. And therefore, much of their religion consisted in abstaining from the “physical realm.”

But the truth is: nowhere does the Bible teach that physical things—including human bodies, natural sexual desires, and normal appetites for food and drink—are in themselves evil.

Ascetic practice “as an aid to the religious life” has continued in various forms to this day. But the truth is, in Paul’s teaching on the remaining indwelling sin in the Christian soul, when he spoke about the “flesh,” the “body of death,” and the “old man” (e.g. Galatians 5:17; Romans 6:6; 7:24; Ephesians 4:22), he did not mean our muscles, nerves, hormones, organs, and bones.

Of course, the primary meaning of the word “flesh” does refer to physical bodies. And the Bible often uses the word in that primary way too (e.g. Genesis 1:21,23; Exodus 12:8; 1 Corinthians 15:39; 2 Corinthians 7:5). According to the Bible, the original cause of death in this world is human sin. Death has come upon mankind, and upon all the earth, in consequence of the sin of our first father Adam (Romans 5:12)4. This is why we have mortal flesh—this is why we die physically.

The false doctrine that matter and flesh are evil is clearly incompatible with Christianity. For if flesh is evil, then there could have been no incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ (see John 1:1-3,14; Acts 20:28; Hebrews 1:1-3,8; 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 John 4:2-3; 2 John 7).

Christ died to redeem his people—body and soul. And in the Resurrection at the end of the world, Christ will raise us up with new glorified bodies (see 1 Corinthians 15:50-56; Romans 8:30; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

Our Lord has promised this resurrection to his people since time immemorial, and so Christians can affirm with Job: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25-26).

This material universe too will be dissolved, and Christ will make all things new again—with no more curse and no more bondage of corruption. And in this new creation his people will dwell with him forever (Romans 8:19-22; 2 Peter 3:10-13; Revelation 21:1-5; 22:3).

Totally Cease and Desist From Sin

Now consider this metaphor that the Lord Jesus Christ taught: “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:29-30; see also Matthew 18:8-9; Mark 9:43-48).

Our Lord’s doctrine here is simply this: that we must repent of our sins, and in this repentance, we must totally cease and desist5 from looking at anything and doing anything that would condemn our souls to hell. As our Saviour himself said, “Sin no more“ (John 8:11).

In Christ’s “if” argument above, he did not imply that he thought our eyes or hands actually entice us to sin! You will not find that doctrine taught anywhere in the Bible. Obviously, he was not speaking literally but metaphorically. No, of course Jesus was not teaching us to gouge our eyes out or to dismember ourselves!

Paul understood his Lord correctly. The apostle says, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:13). Notice that he explains mortification as putting off sinful “deeds”—sinful actions. Not amputating or mutilating.

Elsewhere, Paul teaches, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Understand that these “members” to be dismembered are not physical body-parts but evil thoughts, words and deeds, such as those he mentions in his list. And again, it is our “former conversation,” our old sinful lifestyle, which we are to “put off” (see Ephesians 4:22).

Appendix

Joseph Alleine, Alarm to the Unconverted; or A Sure Guide to Heaven, Chapter 2.

A carnal person may have some shreds of good morality, but he is never good throughout the whole cloth. Conversion is not a repairing of the old building; but it takes all down, and erects a new structure. It is not the sewing on a patch of holiness; but with the true convert, holiness is woven into all his powers, principles and practice. The sincere Christian is quite a new fabric, from the foundation to the top-stone. He is a new man, a new creature; all things are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Conversion is a deep work, a heart work. It makes a new man in a new world. It extends to the whole man, to the mind, to the members, to the motions of the whole life.

Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State, Part 2 Section 2.

Now, this sanctifying Spirit, whereof believers partake, is to them, [1.] A spirit of mortification; “through the Spirit they mortify the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13). Sin is crucified in them (Galatians 5:24). They are planted together with Christ in the likeness of His death, which was a lingering death (Romans 6:5). Sin in the saint, though not quite dead, yet is dying…He does not make sin his trade and business; it is not his great design to seek himself, and to satisfy his corrupt inclinations: but he is seeking for Immanuel’s land and is walking in the highway to it, the way which is called the way of holiness, though the wind from hell, that was on his back before, blows now full in his face, makes his travelling uneasy, and often drives him off the highway.

Thomas Watson, The One Thing Necessary, a sermon on Philippians 2:12. In Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Volume 1.

It should be a Christian’s great work to be working out his salvation. The great God hath put us into the world and into a vineyard, and here is the work he hath set us about, the working out salvation; there is a parallel scripture to this: “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10). When estate, friends, life cannot be made sure, let this be made sure. The Greek signifies to study, or beat the brains about a thing. This word in the text, “work out,” implies two things. First, a “shaking off spiritual sloth.” Sloth is a pillow on which many have slept the sleep of death. Secondly, it implies the uniting and rallying together all the powers of our souls that we may attend the business of salvation. God hath enacted a law in paradise, that no man shall eat of the tree of life, but in the sweat of his brows.

  1. Clearly, this is not referring to “salvation by works”—since Paul writes to the (already saved) Christian. This work which we must do is our own real efforts to co-operate in the work of sanctification, having a holy fear lest we should fall back (see Hebrews 6:4-12). ↩︎

  2. By “my body,” Paul is speaking metaphorically—he means his old fallen nature. This will be explained in the following post, Walk in Newness of Life. ↩︎

  3. Ascetic practice was brought into the Church in the early centuries AD after the apostles. The Gnostics, and those who inherited their errors, wrongly interpreted some things taught in the Bible in support of their false religion. ↩︎

  4. See Death Passed upon All Men. ↩︎

  5. To desist means not only to stop, but to never start again. ↩︎