WORKING OUT YOUR SALVATION
Salvation is a gift, pure and simple. Nobody gets it because she deserves it. Nobody receives it at the end of the day for having worked hard to be worthy of it. Jesus even taught a parable, in fact, to teach that nobody receives salvation as wages for work. It is always and only a gift.
Matthew 20:1-16 (NIV) “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
In the Parable of the Landowner, a man hired workers at sunrise, 9 a.m. and noon. He even hired a few more as late as an hour before quitting time. When he came to settle up, he paid every person in his vineyard a full day’s wage. As you might have guessed, the ones who had worked from early morning – and, using their own language, had “borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day” – were outraged at the injustice of it.
Ah, but that is the point of the parable. That anyone should be saved is a matter of grace, not justice! “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” asked the landowner. “Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matt.20:1-16).
Strange as it may sound to you, there are still people who resent the abundant generosity of our God. The very idea that a dying thief hanging next to Jesus could be saved needs explanation. The report that so notorious a criminal as Jeffrey Dahmer could repent of murder and cannibalism and be baptized into Christ is more often received with skepticism and abhorrence than rejoicing. On and on the stories could go – until one passes the limit of your acquiescence. Or perhaps my own.
“But Christ demands something of us!” comes the protest. “If somebody really wants to get saved, he’ll have to repent, start on a new course of life, and prove that he really means it. The Bible says to ‘work out your salvation with fear and trembling,’ doesn’t it?”
Those words are in the text, all right. But they don’t begin to mean what that statement and claim imply. They are Paul’s Spirit-given words, but they are not his instructions to lost persons who want to be saved. They are a challenge to godly believers that they should, by their devoted walk with Christ, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil.2:12-13).
God grants salvation by his grace to all who are in Christ
Romans 6:3-4 NIV Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Galatians 3:26-27 NIV So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Such persons never work for their salvation but will work out its implications for their unique life situations. Over time, the God who works in them will lead them to work out the consequence of their new standing.
If you’ve ever been in love, you have an insight for grasping this truth. God’s redemptive grace hits you the way being in love does. Somewhere in the depth of your being, something momentous shifts. You are never the same again. You understand yourself and your life in an entirely new way. Then, over time, you work out the meaning of what has happened – with great joy and peace.
Don’t ever begrudge grace or be envious of God’s generosity. Instead, just be grateful. For it must come to you as it has to the rest of us – an unspeakable gift.
