On the Philippians passage, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, etc.,” and bringing into it the standard that the Bible does interpret itself, it has to mean that we must work out our new lives within the knowledge of the great gift our salvation is, knowing we have been snatched from the fire, that we live in reliance only upon Christ, etc.
About my only problem with that is the part I bolded. And my problem is not intrinsic to what you said, but more about what it's like to be me (except for the incredibly good-looking part).
That is, the first thing I do when I reach a conclusion that seems really good to me is ask,"What did I miss? Is there another way to look at this.Is my face even now heading toward my palm?"
I mean, this is wonderful pair of verses. Am I so goldarn smart that I am sure I understand them?
A new reform Baptist church is opening up where I live, and the pastor is running some very good ads (If you over look the digs at us feelthy papists, that is.) He says in one that we should interpret the harder verses by the easier ones.
My immediate skeptical response (and really, this is more from me as would-be philosopher than as Catholic) is, "Says WHO? Where does THAT come from?"
I mean, consider: Paul himself suggests there is something we might call 'growth' in the spirit and in wisdom. If we assume the growth is benign, then we have to figure that, at best, I am dumber now than I may one day be.
If that's true, then what something looks like "it has to mean" today, may have to mean something else later. And to take the "easy verses" as the standard may be the error of thinking the design of the door determines the layout of the palace.
... we must work out our new lives within the knowledge of the great gift ...While I respond extremely positively to this, I see it as a problematic formulation (which is okay, not a refutation just a comment.) It's grace "all the way down," and ANY work I do, even the work of "resting" (abiding?) in the Love of God comes from God by HIS grace. Even my work to stop working, to trust, to "be still" while the Lord fights for me.(Exodus 14:14, one of the brighter gems in the bejewelled story of the Red Sea crossing) is grace all the way down.
The other day I remarked that while in one critical sense I am born again, yet in another I feel like maybe I just made it into the cervix -- transition and delivery lie ahead and everything around me is in travail together until now.
I immediately got mugged for being a slave to works righteousness-- an attack that struck me as formulaic.
And then I remembered what I noted as a shepherd -- which sometimes seems to be ALL about obstetrics: Ewes generally have an easier time delivering a live lamb than a dead one. So while no one thinks that the lamb births itself, yet there likely is something about muscle tone, about autonomous reactions to the ewe's squeezing and pushing... that is, there may be something the lamb, so to speak, FINDS ITSELF DOING, that 'cooperates' in the birthing process to make it go better.
That lamb who took any credit or claimed any merit for this "cooperation" would be a fool, but still there was something sorta, kinda like work for the lamb to do.
It was "working out its own birth" while the ewe and the whole wonderful biology of parturition was working in it both to will and to do.
And we see something that resonates with that great verse Eph 2:10>
Oh, I've written too much!
My point is that I think that "works righteousness" could be seen as sneaking into what you say the verse "has to mean", and that that MAY BE because of an assumption that the opposition of "works of the law" and "grace" exhaust all the possibilities. Now MAYBE that's right. But it does not HAVE to be right IMHO. I need some Hebrew scholar to help with Exodus 14:14, but I note it doesn't just say, "The Lord will fight for you, period, end of sentence." It says, "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still." Sometimes being still is very hard! Yet it is laid upon us.
So If I saddle up and journey again through Scripture, this time STARTING with Phil 2:12,13, with Eph 2:10,, and with Ex14:14, I find the Grace of God fully trumpeted and proclaimed, perhaps more fully, because I find that the alleged "problem" everybody's least favorite verse from James, 2:24, evaporates. To oversimplify,the works are not ours, though we do them. Okay. That is QUITE enough. Thank you for your patience.
I know what you mean. It comes down to the child’s game of “Says who?” I carefully avoided saying in my post that “I believe” but you fingered the ruse in your response. Sly one, you.
Honestly, those who are at the very top of the reading chain in the Catholic Church I have found to be very close to the top of the reading chain in the Presbyterian Church, which would be consistent with the transfers at that level.
The very significant issue to me, and what I have endeavored to teach those in my care, is that we will stand alone before Christ to give our account of how we lived and treated His Gospel and loved His people.
In all honesty, because this issue of responsibility vs. sovereignty is so mysterious, I tell my children to believe God is Sovereign in salvation, but live like it is all up to you.