--- title: "Work Out Your Salvation with Fear!" description: "As Bible-believing dispensationalists, we believe in rightly-dividing verses to the right group of people and the right time period. By not doing that, one will combine verses together and come up with wrong doctrine. There are 4 main time periods: Old Testament, Church Age, Tribulation Age, and Millennial reign. Whenever verses talk about salvation, and […]" image: "https://het.realbiblebelievers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/missing.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/work-out-your-salvation-with-fear" --- • Doctrines• Salvation # Work Out Your Salvation with Fear! 5 min. read ![](https://het.realbiblebelievers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/missing.jpg) As Bible-believing dispensationalists, we believe in rightly-dividing verses to the right group of people and the right time period. By not doing that, one will combine verses together and come up with wrong doctrine. There are 4 main time periods: Old Testament, Church Age, Tribulation Age, and Millennial reign. Whenever verses talk about salvation, and has works involved, the context involved will always refer to the **Jews**. Jews were used in the Old Testament but right now, God has temporarily put them off and now He is focusing on the church. God focuses His attention on the Jews again at the Tribulation and fully restores them in the Millennium. Salvation in the Church Age, however, is not a works system, but by faith alone. ## What about New Testament passages where it shows faith and works for salvation? We argue that the apostles’ ministry was to the Jews. The Apostle Paul was to the Gentiles. God was not done with the Jews yet, He was still using them. But later on, when the Jews rejected Jesus Christ, God focused completely on the Gentiles, that is why God kept on saying He was going to turn from the Jews and turn to the Gentiles. He was still dealing with the Jews, but this slowly faded out. During the fading out process, the apostles were ministering to the Jews. In the general epistles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and Revelation — anything that has to do with works, we would refer that to the Jews, and the time period would be in a Tribulation reference as well. That’s why it is easy to debunk different cults who are good in apologetics by using dispensationalism. These different cults have never heard of different salvation plans before. These cults know that we rely a lot on the apostle Paul and use these passages to argue against us. ## Philippians 2:12 – Work OUT your salvation > ***Phillipians 2:12 –** “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”* CatholicAnswers.com use this as their favorite verse to debunk Bible-believers. Whenever one uses Romans and Galatians to debunk works for salvation, these cults will use this verse to say that works for salvation is required. We know that salvation in the church age is “no works” because of the apostle Paul. Any Pauline verse one looks at is going to show faith, and no works. Phillipians 2:12 did not say work *for* your salvation, it says work *out* your salvation. This means one is not working for one’s salvation or to get saved, but that salvation was previously accomplished *before* one worked. Before any one should work *out* salvation, salvation was already *in* the person! Ask a simple question, **how can one work out salvation if one was not already saved to begin with?** The Catholics and cults are saying that one cannot know for certain if one is saved, that if a person died right now one would go to heaven. They cannot say for certain because going to heaven depended on one’s works. If one does not even have salvation in themselves, one cannot even work out their salvation, and Phillippians 2:12 would not apply to them! This verse does not apply to Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses or any others, but only applies to saved Christians. That’s why no matter what good work one does as a lost person, it is counted as *nothing*. It is counted as filthy rags in God’s eyes, it is not counted for salvation at all! ## Once saved, a Christian has the opportunity to do good works and work OUT their salvation For a saved Christian, they must not waste that salvation. Jesus died for us and saved our souls, we should be putting that to good use now. We should pray, read the Bible, go to church, win souls and start doing good works for Him! Before being saved, the good works did not count, and God ignored all of that. Now that one is saved, one has a chance to start doing good works and accomplishing something for the Lord! > ***Phillipians 2:13 –** “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”* One can only work out one’s salvation because God’s already in the person! Because God already previously entered into the person and worked in that person, hence being able to work out that salvation. > ***Ephesians 2:8-10** – “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”* In verses 8 and 9, the context is salvation, and in verse 10, the context is the Christian walk. Phillipians 2:12 is not about salvation, but it is about Christian walk. If one insists that this verse is about salvation, why would it say to work *out* the salvation, instead of to *receive* the salvation? The greatest evidence is now in Ephesians 1:13. > ***Ephesians 1:13-14 –** “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” * How did God get inside a lost person? One simply had to believe, not work! And then God is sealed in the saved Christian. How long is the sealing? All the way to the rapture! One cannot do work until one is saved. God is sealed inside you! Isn’t it a waste to live your life in sin and not do good works? God is sealed inside you hence you should work it out! That is how we get the saying that the Holy Spirit can fill so much in a person and even come out of that person and affect people around them. 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By not doing that, one will combine verses together and come up with wrong doctrine. There are 4 main time periods: Old Testament, Church Age, Tribulation Age, and Millennial reign. 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