12 Therefore,
my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but
much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for
it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
NOTE: The
"working out" of our salvation is not a salvation by works but the
sanctification part of our salvation obtained by faith, faith alone. Why is it
called salvation? Because we are being saved from our flesh through the renewal
and transformation of our mind. We are being saved from the old nature. That is
the battle that Paul describes in Romans 7 where we do what we don't want to
do. To make progress in this battle, Paul encourages us in four areas (Rom
12-16). 1) We need to surrender our lives and our selfishness. 2) We need to
transform our mind but changing the input and feeding the word of God into our
life. 3) We need to involve ourselves in a community of believers, a body. And
4) we need purpose in our lives which is found in taking the gospel message to
the unbelieving world. If we do these things, we will, from degree of glory to
another, change to become more like Jesus Christ. And so we will not only have
eternal salvation by our new position in Christ achieved through justification
by faith, but we will also achieve salvation from our fleshly sinful bodies
that are corrupted by sin. We will become more and more useful to the kingdom,
and we will be able to accomplish the good works which God has prepared for us.
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