1“Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. 3If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. 4You know where I go, and you know the way.”
5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 7If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him and have seen him.”
8Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. 11Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake. 12Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. 13Whatever you will ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. 15If you love me, keep my commandments. 16I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever: 17the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive, for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. 20In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.”
22Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?”
23Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who doesn’t love me doesn’t keep my words. The word which you hear isn’t mine, but the Father’s who sent me.
25“I have said these things to you while still living with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you. 27Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. 28You heard how I told you, ‘I am going away, and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I said ‘I am going to my Father;’ for the Father is greater than I. 29Now I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe. 30I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me. 31But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded me, even so I do. Arise, let’s go from here.
Working Out Your Salvation
Blacksmith Working at the Anvil
In recent years, I have met believers who maintain that as new creations in Christ, we have no real duty to strive to “do better” to live a life of holiness. They claim this for several reasons. First, they claim that since the Bible says we’ve been made holy (sanctified), then we essentially are sinless. They don’t use those words, but that is the essence of what they are saying. This is a very dangerous teaching because it insinuates that grace results in no need to exert any effort to live in a manner worthy of our calling (Ephesians 4:1). If we don’t need to do something to live in a manner worthy of our calling, why does Paul tell us to do so?
These sweet Christians are mired in the misunderstanding that words can be used in different ways. When I say I love salmon and I love my wife, I am saying two very different things. The word sanctification is used in various ways in scripture. When scripture tells us that we are sanctified in Christ, it is speaking to the fact that we have been justified (1 Corinthians 6:11), meaning our sins have been paid for on the cross and we have been “set apart.” Jesus took the penalty of our sin on Himself. Secondly, they maintain that it is too stressful to have to “strive for” holiness, and that it somehow runs counter to the whole business of sanctification and grace. This “striving” is indeed work, but it is fundamentally the work of surrender. Paul tells the saints in Rome, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” This means giving up your own agenda and asking God to replace it with His agenda.
This second type of sanctification is what Paul is talking about when he says to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It is the exhortation to engage in sanctified (holy) living actively. This exhortation is repeated in 1 John 2:27, John 14:15, James 1:22, Romans 6:22, and many others. I think “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” is succinctly stated in Colossians 1:10. Paul urges, “So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him; bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Walking in a manner is not something you are, but something you do. And, you and I can only do this successfully in and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The beautiful part is that as you choose to walk worthy of your calling, God will enable you and empower you to do so. Paul adds that as you work out this salvation with fear and trembling, it will be God who is working in and through you to do that which pleases Him. Don’t get hung up on this. Don’t overthink it. This is not an admonition to work for your salvation. It is an admonition to consciously move out of the way and let God have His way with you. He desires to work in you as He wills for His good pleasure.