hhodgson & now faith have already attempted to answered this question. I say "attempted" bec you apparently do not accept their answer. As a visitor in this forum, I don't want to contradict you & tdidymas. But I'm encouraged by the position of other WOF believers. Here is the whole passage:
Php 2:12 So then, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only when I was with you, but also now much more in my absence, continue to
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 In fact, it is God who is
working in you, both to will and to
work, for the sake of his good pleasure. 14
Do everything without complaining and arguing,
The apparent contradiction between verses 12 & 13 is mostly absent in the Greek original.
In verse 13, the word translated "to work" is STRONGS NT 1754: ἐνεργέω, from which we get the English "to energize" and the noun "energy." God can be known (i.e. experienced) in His energies. It is by His grace / energy that we are saved. Without God working / energizing in me, I can do nothing.
In verse 12, the word translated "to work out" is STRONGS NT 2716: κατεργάζομαι. "To work out (Latinefficere), i. e. to do that from which something results; of man: τήν σωτηραν, make every effort to obtain salvation,
Philippians 2:12"
"To 'work out' is (as in
Ephesians 6:13) to carry out to completion what is begun. This is the function of man, as fellow-worker with God, first in his own soul, and then among his brethren. God is the “beginner and perfecter” of every “good work” (see
Philippians 1:6); man’s co-operation is secondary and intermediate.
"To work out your own salvation is to exercise the new moral power bestowed on the regenerate man, without the exertion of which he would fall away again from the state of grace to which he had attained in faith, and would not actually become partaker of the salvation appropriated to him by faith, so that the final reception of salvation is so far the result of his moral activity of faith in the καινότης ζωῆς.
"The regenerate man brings about his own salvation (κατεργάζεται) when he does not resist the divine working (ἘΝΕΡΓῶΝ) of the willing and the working (ἘΝΕΡΓΕῖΝ) in his soul, but yields steady obedience to it in continual conflict with the opposing powers (
Ephesians 6:10 ff.;
Galatians 5:16;
1 Thessalonians 5:8, al.); so that he περιπατεῖ, not ΚΑΤᾺ ΣΆΡΚΑ, but ΚΑΤᾺ ΠΝΕῦΜΑ(
Romans 8:4), is consequently the child of God, and as child becomes heir (
Romans 8:14;
Romans 8:17;
Romans 8:23)."
The above quotations are from Thayer's Greek Lexicon and Meyer's NT Commentary. I hope they make clear the synergistic relationship between God's work / energy and the working out of the believer to achieve salvation.