Peripheral Context
That was my first proof: word definition. Phrases used elsewhere, including the context broadly, prove, beyond doubt, that a fear of being cast away is an apostolic experience, not just a novel idea. The apostle’s preaching to the Corinthians was ‘in much trembling’ (1 Corinthians 2.3.) Comparing this to 9.27, it is not difficult to see the association. A man who feels the full weight of his responsibility to convey the message of salvation to others will judge his own profession of faith in light of how well he executes his task. The apostle eyed his salvation relative to the faithful execution of his ministry. “This I do for the gospel’s sake,” he says, “that I might be partaker thereof with you” (9.23.) That he will partake of what? ‘Thereof,’ that is, of the gospel, which means: of the merits of our Lord’s obedience and death: of that by which we may be saved. Then comes his communication in verse 27: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” In other words, he tells himself, as he tells the church, that there can be no salvation without a mortified life and a faithful work ethic. That is what these verses teach. He prosecuted his ministry in a trembling spirit. That he was holy enough to take it that seriously means that he must have been mortified in every department of his life. His ministry was mortified because his whole life was temperate. Worldliness had no access by which to water him down. That he had a trembling ministry means that he was not chummy and conversational with his congregations. It means that he did not strut across a platform with his chest puffed out and his thumbs under his belt. He preached Christ crucified with much fear. He did not prate feel-good stories and jokes. He did not exhibit a vain show. He feared God; he was afraid. He was determined to do nothing by which he could suspect his faith to be merely nominal.
This doctrine of fear is for the church too, not just for the apostle, and not only for ministers. He instructs the Philippians to work out ‘salvation with fear and trembling’ (2.12.) He exhorts them to practice nothing less than what he did for the faithful prosecution of his preaching ministry. “Necessity is laid upon me,” he says. “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9.16.) Who preaches today as if some necessity is laid upon him by the Lord? If pastors feel no necessity, it must be because they fear God only little, if at all. If they have no doubts or fears, it must be because they are smugly assured. Because he feared God, the apostle did not aim to produce a sensation from his preaching; his aim was to have his preaching attended with power from on high: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (2.5.) He endured “all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation” (2 Timothy 2.10.)
Necessity, fear, trembling, woe—why such frightful, fateful words? How come was he so terribly serious? Was it because he feared to lose some of his rewards? No, but because he feared the loss of his soul. He subdued his fleshly appetites because the Christian who does not, and especially the preacher who fails in this, feels threatened with, “I myself should be a castaway.” This fear is the work of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Ghost does more than assure and comfort. When it isn’t the devil doing it, it is the Spirit’s work on the conscience that causes doubts to be kicked up. The Spirit assures; but he also convicts; he makes demands. But how could an apostle, who believed his salvation was assured, as is evident through the whole of Romans 8, and who had such precious visitations of the Spirit, speak of being a potential castaway? In the realm of spiritual experience, a sense of obligation will be as intense as one’s sense of being accepted. Such is the gravity of devotion that one cannot contemplate the possibility of a substandard ministry without doubting the conversion that underlies the calling. The devout spirit feels the least exertion of the flesh. When the flesh exerts itself, therefore, the devout spirit recoils, examines itself, accuses itself, and entertains a doubt. Then the Christian gets right back to prosecuting his mission in earnest, once more acutely conscious of the fact that “no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5.5.) A holy doubt, whether it be a recurring scruple, an intermittent suspense, or a lingering influence, is a good thing, and it should not be pretended away or rationalized to mean something else. This kind of doubt is a holy thing; it helps to protect the child of God from sinning, thus aiding him to go on toward perfection. The unbelieving professor or false minister, contrariwise, will not brood on a doubt because he is not holy. Instead, he will give in to the flesh and be proud of whatever moral progress he thinks to be making. Fear of being cast away is a wonderful safeguard; it is a heavenly pressure. And because it is biblical, it is in harmony with the frequent appeals in Scripture to self-examine. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13.5.) There is such a thing as vain faith (1 Thessalonians 3.5.) In one of the principal passages that we look to for joy in the prospect of rewards to come, our acceptance is hung on the hinge of our faithful labor. “We labour, that…we may be accepted of him” (2 Corinthians 5.9, emphasis added.) Not just labor to make sure that we will be rewarded for our deeds, but labor as though our acceptance relies on those deeds. We are not saved by deeds, but our deeds must be of the kind, temper, character, and quality that proceed from a faithful, grace-filled life. We should press on and labor in reverent fear. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (verse 11.) Conformity to God’s moral law is a mark of grace. Jonathan Edwards would perhaps say that it is not a sure mark—not a certain proof of a person being a Christian. But still, no person is a Christian without it. That we are under grace does not mean that the law is not a threat, only that we are no longer cursed. The law is no longer a terror to persons believing in Christ, but it may still be a threat that says: if no evidence of faith is found, the law was never fulfilled for you in particular, and its curse was never borne on your behalf. To be God’s worker is to have orthodox beliefs, right thoughts, and good conduct. This must be proven, or else why do warnings so often come in? If we should ‘receive not the grace of God in vain’ (2 Corinthians 6.1), then there must be a sense in which we may receive God’s grace amiss. That is what the apostle touches on in his letter to the Philippians. He counts all things loss that he may win Christ, “and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3.9.) There is no righteousness by the law; that is his point. This is a matter of perseverance in the state of grace, but also of holy fear as some kind of engine, or motivating factor. Better still, if perseverance is the engine, fear of being cast away is a whistle warning the soul to persevere, to shovel in the coal for a full steam ahead. Had the apostle not already won Christ? He speaks as if he ‘may’ win Christ in verse 8. Christ is never taken for granted, no matter how great the apostle’s faith, no matter how much he has suffered for preaching the gospel, no matter how many churches he has planted, no matter how many disciples he has made, no matter how much labor he has accomplished, no matter how many visions he has had, and no matter how close to his dissolution and victory he may be. The letter to the Philippians is one of the last ones that he wrote. Yet after all his years of service and after the attainment of great faith, he strives toward the light from under the penumbra of doubt, which penumbra attends his ministry just as the star of Bethlehem assisted the Magi. A ‘penumbra’ is the outer part of a shadow; our fear of being cast away comes from the outer part of our remaining corruption—from what remains, after regeneration, of the pollution of our flesh and the corruption of our nature. This is why the apostle says things like: “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead” (verse 11.) He is aiming, even at this late stage of his faith and life, to be found, at last, resurrected unto life everlasting. This is the meaning. He is apprehended of Christ Jesus; but he does not count himself to have apprehended (verse 12.) He strives after what he hopes to have obtained by faith. Doubts and fears nip at his heels; he does not assume that all is won, much less Christ. That is part of his theology, regardless of what he believes concerning the power of God to keep him saved, and the divine promise that this power will be extended. The question is, “Is the person who thinks he is saved, truly saved?” The apostle did not think that salvation is revocable. He knew, however, that there is such a thing as hypocrisy. The abundance of hypocrites is why doubts concerning the welfare of our soul should never be shrugged off as if our being a hypocrite is not possible.
We need to subject ourselves to regular examination. We need to prove ourselves with regularity, not once and for all as if we can name-and-claim our salvation. The apostle was assured of his salvation. But, in the knowledge that hypocrites have a counterfeit assurance, he mortified and he persevered, allowing the least doubt that he had, to do its part to push him forward. If he had never had a doubt, he would never have written as he did. If he never had a doubt, such phrases as ‘lest…I myself should be a castaway’ and ‘receive not the grace of God in vain’ are empty words in the word of God, which is oxymoronic and blasphemous. If he did have a doubt, and we understate this doubt, our interpretation is dishonest, misleading, and harmful. By not taking phrases like these at face value—by understating their full force—we devalue the apostle’s experience and doctrine; we deny the fact that we have our own doubts; and, living in denial, we become smug instead of circumspect, perhaps all the way to hell. Many persons who are too proud of their faith to muse over their doubts, will wish, after it is too late, that they had done so; many others who think that they stand only to lose rewards will suffer the loss of their souls because they were not taught, and did not believe nor practice, perseverance unto salvation. Fear of being cast away is a sentinel against damnation by self-deceit.
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