Grace, Fear, And Trembling

Dr. Augustus Neander (1789-1850) from his "Scriptural Expositions on the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians" - Second Section pp 80-87 (PDF available here):

It is customary with Paul to commence his letters with a recognition of whatever is praiseworthy in the church to which he is writing.  In this appears his wisdom as a spiritual guide. 

The confidence of men is far more easily won, and a hearing secured for whatever one has to say in the way of admonition and rebuke, if it appears that he nowise overlooks or undervalues what is good in them, that he does not willingly find fault, but is ready to acknowledge every real excellence with cordial approbation.

Good and bad, moreover, stand frequently in close connection with each other. The good lies at the foundation; but the evil mingles its disturbing influence with the good, and hence it is through the latter that we can best reach and remedy the former.  It is in the clear perception of this relation, and in the skillful use of it for the correction of error, that Paul manifests his wisdom.

Of this a striking example is furnished in the first epistle to the Corinthians. Thus Paul regards whatever of real value he finds already existing in the churches, not as something produced in them from themselves and by their own agency, but wrought in them by the Spirit of God, that Spirit which has begun to transform them into new men. Hence he feels himself constrained to thank God for that which He has wrought in their hearts and in their lives by his grace, before he offers to Him the prayer, that what He has already wrought in them He will more and more purify, carry it forward, and bring it to perfection.  Upon the good which already exists in them he builds the hope that they will ever continue to advance in goodness, even unto perfection.

Not indeed upon the good as a work of man can he rest such a hope.  He knows too well the weakness of man, too well how subject is everything human to constant change. But this is the ground of his hope: that in this beginning of the Christian life he sees not the work of man but the work of God. He thus builds his hope upon the truth and faithfulness of God, who will certainly carry forward what He has begun, through all conflicts and trials, safely to its consummation. It is not God's way to do things by halves. Thus too does Paul begin his letter to the Philippians; thanking God for their living fellowship in the gospel from the beginning up to the present hour; and then expressing the confidence, that He who has begun in them the good work will also carry it on to its completion.

In this it is indeed always presupposed by Paul, that they likewise will do what belongs to them, by yielding themselves to the power of God which works nothing without man, albeit man without it can work nothing; as in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans (v. 22), he represents the continued manifestation of God's goodness in men as conditioned on their continuing in His goodness, and thus susceptible of the grace of God by truly yielding themselves up to its influence. 

It is on this connection between the divine and the human he founds the exhortation," to work out their salvation with fear and trembling”; for he adds, "it is God who worketh in you both the willing and the doing, of his own good pleasure."  

It is here assumed that the salvation of man is conditioned upon his own conduct. He is himself to work out his salvation. And yet Paul always represents the salvation of man as something which can be accomplished only through the grace of God, as the work of God in man. But he adds, in this passage, a more exact designation of the temper of heart with which they should work out their salvation, viz., "with fear and trembling."

This would not be appropriate if he were speaking of what lay merely in the hand of man, in which case all would depend upon his own strength. It is because Paul is conscious of the weakness and insufficiency of all human strength, because he presupposes that man can do nothing without God, and must constantly watch over himself, lest through his own fault he lose the aid of divine grace, without which all human efforts are in vain;  it is for this reason that he designates this temper of mind as one of fear and trembling, as the feeling of personal accountability and helplessness, of insecurity and instability in ourselves, by which we may be ever admonished to continual watchfulness, and to ever-renewed waiting upon God as the fountain of all our strength.

Hence, as the ground of such an admonition, he appeals to this consciousness that we can of ourselves do nothing, that it is God who alone bestows upon us the power to will and to perform what is needful to our salvation; that all, indeed, depends upon his sovereign will.

This feeling of dependence, the ground-tone of the Christian life, is ever to be maintained. It is this which must combat the presumption of a vain human self-reliance, which, finding itself deceived in the result, so easily gives place to dejection and despair.

All the admonitions which Paul gives the Philippians in reference to the Christian walk are comprehended in this one; that they should "walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ."  And what is required of them in their position, in the midst of a corrupt world, he points out in chapter ii. 15-16. Inasmuch, he says, as they are called to live as children of God in the midst of a corrupt world, they are called to maintain unsullied, amidst all the defilement of surrounding pollution, that divine life of which, as children of God, they have become participants, and to show forth its glory in contrast with the perverse generation in which they live.

The terms "crooked and perverse," in which Paul describes this wicked generation, have reference to the perversion of the original godlike nature, which can be restored only through the new creation. So also, as children of God, they are to shine as lights, as radiant luminaries in the world of darkness. Whilst all around them is darkness, here alone shall all be light. So indeed does Christ say to those who belong to his kingdom, that they are to be the lights of the world, just as He is the Sun who sends his light into this dark world, its light in the highest and only true sense. Thus what He is, is communicated to those who enter into fellowship with him, and they too through him become the light of the world.

This light shines in the holy walk of Christians, and thereby do they testify of Him who is light itself, and in whom is no darkness - thereby do they glorify him and lead others to acknowledge and honor him as Christ himself has said: "Let your light so shine before men, that they seeing your good works may glorify your Father which is in Heaven."

They are to testify of that which is life, to show forth the true life in this world of death.  Everything which men, in accordance with the revelation of the law written in their consciences through the impulses of their moral nature, are accustomed to account moral and virtuous belongs also to the peculiar stamp of this new divine life, in which the children of God manifest themselves as such. All must find its fulfillment here; only that is done away which proceeds from the disturbing influence of sin; as Christ says, that he "came not to destroy but to fulfill."  

Hence it is the conclusion of Paul's exhortation that their minds be directed only to "what is true” - (true and good being in the biblical sense one and the same, the truth here appears as that which penetrates and gives direction to the whole life; all has its root in the truth, the true is the divine)  to “what is becoming, what is upright, what is chaste, what is lovely, what is of good report, whatever is virtue and whatever is praise."  Thus it is implied by Paul, that the divine life must manifest itself in an amiable form before men; and he appeals to what they had learned from his instructions, and had witnessed in the example of his own life. Although, as we have seen above, he was far from holding his life to be entirely pure and perfect, yet he could with confidence assume the essential correspondence between his life and teachings, and that his conduct did not give the lie to his instructions.

And thus he was able, without untruth or self-exaltation, to hold up to the Philippians the example of his own course among them as an admonition to them. Self-exaltation is the less to be attributed to him here, as he was himself fully conscious, that whatever in his own conduct he proposed as their example was only the work of grace, the fruit of the new creation in him.

So may the Christian when made aware, by a comparison of his earlier and later life, of having gained the victory over the old nature in any of its sinful tendencies, be fully conscious of this and freely rejoice over it; for this is no self-exaltation. He knows that it is not to his own nature or his own strength that he is indebted for it; that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ has wrought this in him; and therefore the consciousness of his victory only impels him to praise and to thank Him through whose power he has attained it. And at the same time, he feels himself constrained to acknowledge how much still remains for him to contend with and with the Apostle, whose words we have quoted, to forget what is behind and press continually forward.