“Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We like for things to be simple and direct. Okay, that’s not entirely true. We often complicate things endlessly, but still, when things can be either this or that, black or white, we’re happier. That’s especially true when it comes to the Scriptures and key theological concepts. We are drawn to the idea, for instance that salvation is all God from start to finish. Or, we are drawn to the idea that we play a role. What we actually find, though, is something a bit messier than that. While there are definitely places where Paul emphasizes the entirely divine nature of salvation, there are also passages like this one. Let’s check it out.

We have already talked about this once on the way of this journey. Back in chapter 2, we talked about Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians that they should “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” and how this obviously points toward some sort of role we play in the salvation process. If not in the actual obtaining of it, at least in the living out of its implications. Paul seemed to swing the pendulum way over in the direction of human effort as a major player in the process.

But then in the very next breath, he affirmed that “it is God who is working in you both to will and to work.” In other words, it’s all God from start to finish. We not only couldn’t do the things involved in working out our own salvation without God’s active and abiding help, we wouldn’t even want to do them in the first place unless He put the idea in our minds and the motivation in our hearts in the first place. This swung the pendulum way back over in the other direction toward God’s complete sovereignty.

Are those two ideas contradictory on their face? Yes. Do the authors of the Scriptures consistently hold them both in tension without any kind of regard for our discomfort with tension on issues like that? They sure do. It’s like they were committed to presenting the truth without any real concern for our feelings. Oh wait…they were.

Here, at the midway point of chapter 3, we find Paul at it again. He has been talking about the fact that everything that might have been considered a credit to him in terms of pushing him positively in the direction of God by the world around him he rejected and counted as a net detraction from his standing before God. He is emphatic that no amount of effort on our part will ever be enough to bring us into a right and saving relationship with God. The only thing that matters is knowing Christ, is our faith in Him to grant us a righteousness – His righteousness – that is not rooted in our works, but in His works and His grace. Our salvation is all God.

Here, though, in the next breath, he pushes things back in the other direction. He starts with the humble acknowledgment that he’s not nearly so prideful as to think he’s already getting this right. He is nowhere in the vicinity of perfected in Christ’s image. “Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect.” Paul made sure he was always at the very front of the line of those who would have characterized him as a sinful failure in this life. But for Christ, he was. But for Christ, we are.

So, Paul hasn’t gotten it all right yet, but he is working on it. “But I make every effort to take hold of it.” Now we’re back to what Paul is doing to obtain or at least live out his salvation; to make himself over to be more like Jesus. It almost feels like we’re on a carnival ride with all this whiplash-inducing back and forth. And the ride isn’t over. Paul is making every effort to take hold of it, sure, but look at why: “Because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.” So, he’s doing it, but only because Jesus is doing it in him. Back and forth and back and forth. Cue the merry-go-round memes.

Finally, Paul flips back in the other direction in the last couple of verses here. “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” In other words, “I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m doing everything I can to move in that direction.”

Remember that in v. 11 Paul noted that it is the assumption of his eventual and final salvation that drives him to turn his back on everything else in favor of knowing Jesus. That assumption, that promised prize, is the thing that is motivating all of his efforts. Those efforts may only be possible because of what God in Christ has done in him, has enabled him to do, but he’s going to make them for all he’s worth. He has recognized that this prize of eternal life is worth whatever he has to sacrifice to get it.

I am convinced that this truth is why God left this uncomfortable tension in place in the Scriptures. As much as we would have liked to have salvation and whether it is all God or all us resolved in a nice, neat package, number one, that’s simply not how salvation works, but number two, the risks of resolving things were too great. If God left us to think it was mostly our effort that gained us salvation, all of the problems with a works-based understanding of salvation that we have talked about at length elsewhere would have fallen firmly into place. The existential guilt and societal-stratification along with a stifling legalism would have been intense beyond belief.

Yet, on the other hand, if He had insisted that we don’t play any role in the process, that it was all and only Him, our temptation into spiritual laziness would have been too great to resist. If we don’t have to do anything to obtain and apply our salvation, then we won’t. We will just sit back and wait for God to do everything for us. We blame Him for things that are really our fault. We will refuse to lift a finger to help others because we expect that He is going to do it for them. Things here really don’t turn out any better than they do when we think it’s all on us.

The right synergy here is found in pursuing salvation just like Paul says here. We reach and strive like our very lives depend on it, and if we don’t do it, we’re never going to get it. We throw ourselves into the spiritual disciplines with passion. We serve others out of the love of Christ as if our lives depended on it. We forgive quickly because we want God’s forgiveness for our own failings. We study the Scriptures relentlessly. We are fervent and passionate and insistent in prayer. We are joyfully active in the church, serving and strengthening the body with fierce commitment. But we do all of this knowing beyond a shadow of doubt that if God isn’t the one empowering and enabling and directing all of our work, none of it is going to happen. It’s all God from start to finish, and we commit our whole selves to joining in and reflecting His work with every bit of effort we have in us with His help.

Both. And.

Now, to be clear, there’s no both-and when it comes to Jesus. He alone is Lord. He alone saves. There is indeed no other name under heaven by which people can be saved. But under His lordship, there are a whole lot of both-ands. When we are willing to accept that tension and live into it, we will truly begin to find out just how broad and wide and deep is the kingdom we now inhabit. We will find out how big our salvation is. We will find out just how big God’s world can be. When eternal life is our end and the universe is our playground, not even the sky is the limit. Let’s strive with and in Christ for that very thing.