NOTES for Php 2:12-18

Reflecting on the Christian life, Paul draws the Philippian brothers' attention to the Christian's main task: to walk the path of salvation. This statement is akin to the traditional rabbinic idea of following the Torah as the main task of everyone who belongs to God's people. But there the issue was the path of righteousness; here it is salvation and participation in the life of the Kingdom. The choice of the path of righteousness always depended on the one choosing, just as the choice of the Kingdom did after the Savior came into the world. Yet the righteous person's progress along the chosen path depended to a considerable degree on his own efforts, although, of course, without God's help it was impossible to stand firm on that path. The path of salvation, which begins with participation in the Kingdom and ends in the Kingdom, depends on God's will and cooperation to a far greater degree, as the apostle reminds the recipients of his letter (v. 13). In the Kingdom nothing happens without God's will, without His direct and immediate participation, whether it concerns the inner life or the outer life. That is why resolve and humility are especially important here, excluding every wavering that usually gives rise to grumbling and doubts, which Paul urges the Philippian Christians to avoid (v. 14).

And the point here, of course, is not that otherwise God will become angry or offended, but that without resolve and humility it is almost impossible for a person to become a resident of the Kingdom. In fact, when the Kingdom is at stake, a person is always only the receiving party; in his present state he has nothing that he could bring into the Kingdom or do for it. The only thing available to fallen humanity when the Kingdom is at stake is to let God make a person fit for the new life that awaits him there. And for this the one seeking the Kingdom absolutely must learn an art that is very difficult for fallen humanity: the art of completely giving up life according to one's own understanding, even with the best intentions, which, alas, often pave a road that leads anywhere but to the Kingdom. According to the apostle, the ability to live this way is what distinguishes Christians who live by the laws of the Kingdom from other people who live by the laws of the untransformed world, and Paul connects with it all hopes for salvation and for the triumph of the saved on the day of Judgment (vv. 15-16).

Christians are often asked: "why go to your Church? why be baptized? Why can't one simply be a good person?" The detailed argument of the questioners, the "disputers" in New Testament terminology, comes down to this: since in the parable of the Last Judgment the Lord promises a better lot to those from the nations, that is, from among unbelievers, who do good to their neighbors, the Church is not needed.

In today's apostolic reading, the apostle Paul gives us a remarkable indication of how the life of a Christian differs from the life of "simply a good person." Calling his readers in Philippi to work out, with fear and trembling, their salvation, the Greek word here can literally be translated as "work out, develop, produce," the apostle says as a self-evident fact: "for God is at work in you." "God works in you both to will and to act according to His good pleasure." God, the apostle writes, έστιν ό ένεργων, is the One who acts in you, the One by whose energy both your will and your action are accomplished in you, according to His good intention. A Christian is an ordinary person, often even a weak one, but he is open to the action of God's grace, which produces in him both the good will and the action itself: the doing of good.

The difference, then, is that a simply good person has hope for a reward in the future, while a Christian already lives and acts together with God and under His rule.