The God of grace began his good work within us and he will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  Of course, we work out the good work of God in our daily lives but only as he works within us by his Spirit in union with Christ.   We are liberated to become all that God wants us to be because of what the Triune God of grace has done, is doing and will do.

In living union with Christ, we are assured that we are the Father’s dearly loved children free to grow into the reality of who we already are. We have confidence to grow up into Christ as we share in his intimate relationship with the Father by the Spirit .  We are not turned in on ourselves engaged in a long, gruelling battle with sin that we must fight in our own strength.  No, turned out of ourselves to Christ by the Spirit, we work out daily our transformation freely and joyfully as we share in God’s triune life of love.

T F Torrance points out that too often we are thrown back upon ourselves to become the kind of persons we ought to be by our own efforts.  In contrast, the New Testament continually throws us onto the grace of our Father in union with his Son free to grow into ever deeper likeness to Jesus by the power of his Spirit.