This week’s promise: God promises that you will work out your salvation
Philippians 3:10-16 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
Paul makes several important points in the above passage that are helpful to us who are working out our salvation. I have posted a little “extra” here simply so we’ll be reading it in context. He starts out saying what all who are saved feel that he wants to really know Jesus closely and personally, through experience and not just “head knowledge”. He wants to know the power of His resurrection, which now dwells in us, sharing in His suffering and becoming more and more like Him in all ways. The text reads “becoming like him in his death”, but Paul isn’t saying that he wants to die like Christ did. The words “becoming like him” translate to mean “being transformed inwardly in one’s experience to something”. As Jesus died for sin, believers are to die to sin. We are to daily cut ourselves off from our old sinful ways, setting ourselves apart from them, and live our new lives by the power of Christ’s resurrection. This then is a very good description of what our “work” is and of how we are to “work out our salvation”.
Paul says He wants this and hopes that he will somehow be able to attain the resurrection from the dead. What he is actually referring to here is the rapture! Paul was hoping that he would still be alive when the rapture happened, and who can blame him? I think just about every believer ever born has hoped for that. I know I certainly do!
Basically in the above passage, Paul is listing his goals and ambitions, in the hope that others would understand better what the Lord was asking of them, and would imitate him. Knowing that many believers put him up on some kind of pedestal, Paul also lets them know that he hasn’t attained his goals yet, but is instead steadily working toward them which is exactly what we are supposed to be doing. He didn’t want people to read his words and think that it was all good and well for Paul to do these things because he was special or had more power or something. He was telling them that he was no different then anyone else, and that all should be working toward these goals.
Once he’s sure that we understand that we are all to work toward these things, he then tells us how to work toward them. First he says that he forgets what is past. This is no easy matter as most of us know. Satan is often bringing up our past to us and telling us how awful we are because of it. Paul is telling us that if we are going to be effective that we must not allow ourselves to get entangled with our pasts again. All of that is behind us; it’s over and done with and we’ve already been forgiven for it so there is no reason at all to be going over it in our minds any longer. Instead he says that we are to strain toward what is ahead for us, press on toward our goal. What is our goal? What is God’s goal for us? (they should be one and the same thing) Our goal, just as Paul said his goal was, is to be transformed so that we are becoming more and more like Jesus every day.
2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
The Lord works this transformation in us as we work toward it by studying His Word, praying, and constantly cutting ourselves off from our old sinful ways, the ways of the world and living by the spirit in God’s Ways. The last thing Paul says is that all who are mature in Christ should have this viewpoint. This then is a mark of spiritual maturity and yet anther way we can tell if someone is still a baby Christian or if they are indeed working out their salvation and becoming mature as we are supposed to be doing. Paul even puts an end to any discussion about this, basically saying that this point isn’t negotiable and if they think differently that the Lord Himself would show them the truth of what he’s said. His last point is that if nothing else we should at the very least live up to what we have already attained.
What is it that we have “already attained”? Even a brand new baby Christian has attained salvation and knows the Truth that Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life, and that they are a new creation and heaven bound. So even brand new Christians should at the very least be continuing on the narrow path of salvation, holding onto what they’ve already learned, applying it to their daily lives and always striving to learn more. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at what Paul says next. For today though let us all strive to press onward toward our goal of spiritual maturity.
