13. For--encouragement to work: "For it is God who worketh in
you," always present with you, though I be absent. It is not said,
"Work out your own salvation, though it is God," &c., but,
"because it is God who," &c. The will, and the power
to work, being first instalments of His grace, encourage us to
make full proof of, and carry out to the end, the "salvation" which He
has first "worked," and is still "working in" us, enabling us to
"work it out." "Our will does nothing thereunto without grace;
but grace is inactive without our will" [ST.
BERNARD]. Man is, in different senses, entirely
active, and entirely passive: God producing all, and we acting
all. What He produced is our own acts. It is not that God does
some, and we the rest. God does all, and we do all. God is the only
proper author, we the only proper actors. Thus the same things in
Scripture are represented as from God, and from us. God makes a new
heart, and we are commanded to make us a new heart; not merely because
we must use the means in order to the effect, but the effect itself is
our act and our duty
(Eze 11:19; 18:31; 36:26)
[EDWARDS].
worketh--rather as Greek, "worketh effectually." We cannot of
ourselves embrace the Gospel of grace: "the will"
(Ps 110:3;
2Co 3:5)
comes solely of God's gift to whom He will
(Joh 6:44, 65);
so also the power "to do" (rather, "to work effectually," as the
Greek is the same as that for "worketh in"), that is, effectual
perseverance to the end, is wholly of God's gift
(Php 1:6;
Heb 13:21).
of his good pleasure--rather as Greek, "FOR
His good pleasure";
in order to carry out His sovereign gracious purpose towards you
(Eph 1:5, 9).
JFB.
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