“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”
“being confident of this very thing”
“I am persuaded of this. I am certain of this.” Paul was confident that the God who launched a good work in the Philippians would continue it. When God begins the work of salvation in us, He will finish it. God never starts anything that He cannot complete. When God begins a work in us, He will see it through to completion.
God will either work in us, or He will work on us, but He will finish the job. He will finish it whether we want it finished or not! Once we have come to know Christ, we cannot say, “Stop the process—I want out.” Paul said, “I am certain of this; this is not debatable. I am sure I am confident.”
It was this confidence that gave Paul joy. “Confidence” means to come to a conclusion based on reasonable ground. God has taken care of billions of people over thousands of years and has not let one person down. Paul’s confidence was in the capacity of God, not in men. The Greek tense indicates that Paul carried settled conviction about this. His faith in God’s ability to finish what He starts did not waver.
“that He who has begun a good work in you”
God began it; God will finish it. At the point of salvation, God did a complete job. It was not inadequate or incomplete. God did the most that He could for us in our salvation. Here is the principle of this passage: if God did the most for us at salvation when we were His enemies, what can He do now that we are His children? Answer: much more than the most. This is a paradox, but note what Paul said in the next phrase.
“will complete it until . . .”
The word means to bring to a completed end. God finishes what He starts. He puts His finishing touches on it.
Many people are bedeviled by the idea that God may lose control of their situation. But God will not give up on us. He will let us go about as far as a dog on a leash. When we run from the Lord and come to the end of our leash, we come to a terrible jerk.
The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. (Psalm 138:8)
For if while we were reconciled with God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Romans 5:10)
PRINCIPLE:
The unfinished work of Christ intercedes for us in time.
APPLICATION:
Do we have confidence in Christ’s present work for us? Can we trust Him to intercede for whatever we are currently facing?
Susan, you may want to study 1 Peter because the entire book deals with Christians in trial. This study is an example: https://versebyversecommentary.com/1-peter/1-peter-16/ Keep advancing until you finish the next few verses.
Thank you so much. I will begin today.
Hi Grant, In this scripture, Apostle Paul as you have stated is speaking on the work of salvation. How does this correlate with Ephesians 2:8-10 in terms of creating us for good works?
Ephesians 2:8-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Paul, the “work” here is God’s work. It is His work in believers in a generic sense, that is, His providential work in sustaining the believer in his or her Christian life.