Salvation: "working out" and "working in"

Anthony Hoekema provides a needed word distinguishing the players in sanctification (i.e. God and man) and their respective roles throughout this process. Hoekema draws from Paul's words in Philippians 2:12-13.

Note Paul's striking words in Philippians 2:12-13: "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 pleasure." The word translated "work out," katergazesthe, is commonly used in the papyri of the early Christian centuries to describe what a farmer does when he cultivates his land. "Work out your salvation," therefore, means: "cultivate" the salvation God has given you; "work out" what God has "worked in"; apply the salvation you have received to every area of your lives - work, recreation, family, life, culture, art, science, and the like. In other words, Paul is telling his readers to take an active part in the adornment of their sanctification. "For," he goes on to say, "it is God who works in you to will and to act." Willing and acting (or "working," ASV, RSV) designate everything we think or do. It is God, therefore, who is continually working in us the entire process of sanctification: both the willing of it and the doing of it. The harder we work, the more sure we may be that God is working in us. In sanctifying us God deals with us both as persons and as creatures.(1)

(1) Hoekema, Created in God's Image. Eerdman's Publishing, 1986, pg. 9.