Philippians - Verse-by-Verse Biblical Exegesis

freewill determining his own destiny with God uninvolved on the sidelines. The ultimate objective
for the Calvinistic non-dispensationalist is that our salvation and our life is for “His” good pleasure.
The ultimate objective for the Arminian dispensationalist is to become Christians and live our life
for “the” good pleasure. I say, “Let the two sides fight over another passage, because both of their
respective theologies taint their understanding of Paul’s encouraging words here and create a
theological debate where one does not exist.” Nevertheless, I have cited opinions from all sides of
the equation below so you can compare and contrast for yourself.
REVELANT OPINIONS
God causes everything in nature to work and to move in the direction of a predetermined end. So
God also enables His rational creatures, as second causes, to function, and that not merely by
endowing them with energy in a general way, but by energizing them to certain specific acts ...
There is not a single moment that the creature works independently of the will and the power of
God. It is in Him that we live and move and have our being. This divine activity accompanies the
action of man at every point, but without robbing man in any way of his freedom. (L. Berkhof) The
indwelling life and power of Jesus Christ is better than any law … Doesn’t it seem more useful and
even necessary to let Jesus live through us? That is the liberty to which we have been born in Him.
(K. Lamb) It is God that works both the willing – the very original impulse to right action; and the
doing – the carrying out of that will in action. God’s grace is at once prevenient and co-operant. (J.
Robertson) God’s power system is perfect in that it not only leads to spiritual maturity but also
motivates its own momentum. (R.B. Thieme, Jr.)
Arminians assume that the antecedence of divine sovereignty empties subsequent human effort of
any spiritual significance. If foreknowledge or predestination or foreordination or any other act of
God is causally antecedent to human activity, the latter is morally vacuous. The obvious trouble with
this view is that it lacks biblical warrant. No text of which I am aware says any such thing. This
philosophical assumption is based on what the Arminian considers “intellectually reasonable.” It is
brought to the text as a pre-exegetical criterion to be used in deciding what a passage will be allowed
to say. When confronted with texts that simultaneously assert the antecedence of divine sovereignty
and the significance of human behavior, Arminians recoil, insisting that such is at best theologically
contradictory and at worst morally devastating. Interestingly, neither God nor the authors of
Scripture seem bothered by what agitates Arminians. A case in point is the comment by Paul in
Philippians 2:12-13. This text does not directly address the issue of divine election or that of prayer
or evangelism. Nevertheless, in it Paul articulates a principle that will go a long way in clarifying the
relationship between God’s sovereignty and the responsibility of the church to pray for and witness
to the lost. Moreover, this passage is an explicit denial of the aforementioned Arminian assumption.
Here Paul asserts the urgency of responsible human behavior based on the antecedence of divine
causality. Far from undermining the responsible activity of the believer, God’s sovereignty is its
inspiration! Paul unashamedly asserts that antecedent divine causality is the foundation on which
Christian men and women actively and responsibly build the superstructure of holiness. He does not
believe that the causal priority of divine power enervates the decision making of man. Far from
undermining human volition, God’s sovereign power inspires it by reassuring us that our efforts, if