Work Out Your Salvation

St. Augustine once prayed, "God, command what You will and grant what You command." The prayer brought about the Pelagian controversy in 400 AD when Pelagius took the position that we have the natural ability to do what God commands. The Pelagian Heresy, as it was termed, was shot down at the Council of Carthage in 418 AD and again at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, but it still lives today, which is odd because it stands in stark contrast to what Scripture says.

Paul wrote the letter to the church at Galatia because they had a "works" problem. They were being told that we are saved by grace and works. They thought it was "another gospel" and he assured them it was anathema -- accursed (Gal 1:6-9). "You foolish Galatians," he wrote, "who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:1-3) And I'm pretty sure that a lot of Christians would be baffled by the question. "Well, yes, we do perfect it by our efforts, don't we?" No! That's Paul's point. We don't get saved by works and we don't live the Christian life as a function of works -- a function of our efforts. How, then? I mean, doesn't Paul himself say, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" (Eph 2:10)? So how does this operate if not by works? By the Spirit. Paul puts it most plainly in his letter to the church at Philippi. "It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Php 2:13). That, Paul says, is how you "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Php 2:12) -- God at work in you.

There is no doubt that the natural product of faith in Christ is works. If works do not follow faith, James calls that faith "dead" (James 2:17). But it is not we who produce those works. It is God at work in us. It is God who gives us the will to obey. It is God that gives us the power to do. Good works accompany genuine faith, but they are the fruit of God at work in the believer and not the product of the believer's hard work. Thus, biblically, God commands what He wills and supplies what He commands. Even if your current belief system disagrees.