Philippians 1:6
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.
Philippians 1:6 (NKJV)
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:6 (NIV)
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6 (KJV)
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Philippians 1:6 (NLT)
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6 (ESV)
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:6 (NASB)Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].
Philippians 1:6 (AMP)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.
Philippians 1:6 (AMPC)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMPC), Copyright © 1954, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.
Philippians 1:6 (MSG)Scripture quotations from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
New Covenant Meaning
God Is Both the Beginner and the Completer
Philippians 1:6 places the entire project of the believer's transformation and sanctification in the hands of God. He began it. He will complete it. The believer is not the primary agent of their own spiritual development. They are the recipient and the willing participant in a work that God initiated and God will bring to its goal. This does not eliminate human cooperation, repentance, faith, or obedience. But it does mean that the success of the project does not depend on the consistency or quality of human effort. God's commitment to complete what He started is not contingent on the believer's perfect cooperation. He knows He is working with imperfect material and has committed to see it through anyway.
"Until the Day of Jesus Christ": The Horizon of the Work
The completion of the good work is set at the day of Jesus Christ, the final day of His appearing. This means the work of transformation is ongoing from the first moment of salvation until that final horizon. It is not completed at a particular stage of spiritual maturity that can be achieved in this life. The day of Jesus Christ is the point at which Paul says the work will be complete. In the meantime, the believer is in process: genuinely changed from the beginning, continually being changed, but not yet fully changed. This removes both perfectionism (the work is finished before it is) and despair (the work has not been abandoned just because it is not finished).
Paul writes this as a statement of his confidence about the Philippians, not primarily as a general promise. He is expressing his own settled certainty that God will not abandon what He started in them. The confidence is grounded in the character of God: He is a God who finishes what He begins. The same confidence is available to every believer about their own life: the God who began the work in you is the same God whose commitment to completion is the basis of Paul's certainty about the Philippians. You can apply this promise to yourself with the same confidence Paul expresses about them.
Application for Your Life
You Are Not Responsible for Your Own Completion
The most important practical implication of Philippians 1:6 is that you are not the one who has to get yourself to the finish line. God began the work. God will complete it. Your role is cooperation, not completion. When your spiritual life feels inconsistent, when you fail to live up to your own standards, when you wonder whether you are making any progress at all, Philippians 1:6 is the answer: He who began it will complete it. The project is not on your shoulders. It is in His hands. This is not permission for passivity. It is relief from the impossible burden of being the guarantor of your own sanctification.
Confidence About Others' Spiritual Lives
Paul expresses this confidence about the Philippians, not just about himself. He is confident about their completion, not his own. This is a model for how to hold other believers in your prayers and your heart: with the same confidence that God will complete in them what He started. When a fellow believer struggles, when they seem to be going backwards, when their spiritual life is fragile, Philippians 1:6 allows you to hold them with hope rather than despair, because the project is God's project and His commitment to them is as real as His commitment to you.
Prayer Based on This Verse
Father, I am confident of this: You who began a good work in me will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. I receive this confidence. I am not the one responsible for completing myself. You are. You started this work at my conversion and You have been faithfully continuing it ever since, even through my failures, my inconsistencies, and my weaknesses. I trust You with the completion. I cooperate with You today, not as someone straining to earn their completion but as someone resting in the certainty that the One who began is also the One who finishes. In Jesus name. Amen.