What does it mean that our sufficiency is of God (2 Corinthians 3:5)?

Verse 5. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as from ourselves" (aph heauton … ex heauton.), etc. The thoughts of man are not the thoughts of God; nor is an apostle of Christ an exception to the general case. His words here are an answer to his despairing enquiry, when measuring the ministry entrusted to him against any human or created strength (2 Cor. 2:16). He was indeed, in view of all that could oppose, unshaken in his trust; but it was because he trusted no longer in himself. He had learnt thoroughly the lesson which the Master sets for all whom He will acknowledge as disciples (John 15:4, 6; 2 Cor. 1:9). Of "self-help," the fairest of nature's idols, he would know nothing as a minister of God. That which in things temporal is both right and indispensable, is a thing to be renounced and an obstacle to be vanquished, in the true service of Christ. For in the former case both thought and action are our own (though in the management even of our own we do well to remember whose we are, 1 Thess. 4:11; John 4:13-14), in the latter Paul confesses that he can neither think nor act as from himself. For the thought is parent of the work, and man's thoughts can neither plan nor regulate the work of God. But if thus self-emptied, it was that he might be filled more completely with the energy of God. He boasts of a sufficiency for the work he has in hand, and in declaring its source, he gives glory to Him to whom power alone belongs. "Our sufficiency is of God." In that Name, and to His praise, Paul could and would assert his fitness for the office which he claimed. And now, having thus eliminated from the question of spiritual ministry all shadow of human authority or even sufficiency, and referred both the method and the doing of the work to its divine Originator and Performer, he passes in the following verse to a consideration of the ministry itself, viewing it in contrast to that which had been wrought in earlier times, by the will and at the bidding of the same Eternal Author, but for another purpose, and by a different and secondary means.

This is ministered by the apostles, for they have communicated the truth by which the Church is established, and by which she is enabled to represent Christ before the world. But this letter is written, not with ink, not as a formal declaration, but by the Spirit of the Living God; therefore in the power of living reality. And in contrast to the ten commandments written in tables of stone, this is written in fleshy tables of the heart. For the law was as hard and cold and impersonal as the stones upon which it was written. The Spirit of God writes upon that which is both living and yielding, impressing and affecting the heart, which responds thankfully, affectionately, spontaneously. Certainly therefore it was proper that these servants should have such trust toward God as would enable them to prove faithful in the trust given them of ministering the new covenant in unadulterated purity.

God had not chosen the apostles on account of their own competency in matters so great and marvellous, for this was infinitely beyond mere human competency in any case. But when He chooses a vessel, He supplies the ability for carrying out the work with which He entrusts that vessel. It was God Himself who had made them competent as ministers of this new covenant, and Paul would not in any way separate the competency from its source: if so the competency is immediately lost.

(V. 5, 6). At the same time he is careful to disclaim any intrinsic competency in himself. He was entirely dependent upon God for the grace that enabled him to proclaim the truth. His competency was of God, Who had made the Apostles competent ministers of the new covenant.

How solemn then is the effect of a true preaching of Christ! What eternal issues hang upon it! This is so, whether the lips that utter it be Paul's in the first century or ours in the twentieth. No wonder the question is raised, "Who is sufficient for these things?" It is raised, but, not answered immediately. It is answered however in verse 5 of the next chapter. The whole thing being of God there is no sufficiency but of God. Would that every servant of God always bore this in mind! What deep-toned earnestness it would produce in us: what dependence upon the power of God. How careful we should be not to adulterate the message, and not to carry out the work just as we like, or as we think best; but to serve according to the Word of God.

"Two questions have to be faced: first, what was it that led up to your present condition? and, second, how can you be restored to spiritual health again? As to the first, I judge that you shouldered far more responsibility in Christian work than your spiritual experience warranted, and that you leaned on your own understanding and trusted your natural ability instead of turning wholly to God for wisdom and strength. I fear that you had not learnt the lesson of your own nothingness as Paul had when be cried, 'Who is sufficient for these things? …' Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; 'BUT OUR SUFFICIENCY IS OF GOD' (2 Cor. 2:8). This you ought to humbly confess to God, if it is so. All those who engage in the work of the Lord should remember that power from on high is necessary for it. To take up His work in independence of His grace and of His Spirit is really presumption, it is a slight to the Lord, it is injurious to us, and it gives Satan an opportunity that he is not slow to seize.

But thus, God was no more addressing men with a message carved upon inanimate tables, but by living messengers, His own wonderful workmanship. Such confidence with regard to them the apostle had through Christ. He knew that, alas, the flesh was in believers, and even prominent in them, and that his confidence as to them must be confidence through the Lord. But this is, therefore, an unfailing ground of confidence, and of this, — satisfied that they were after all truly the divine workmanship, — he could speak as he does here. It was not to make much of himself, of his competency in the ministry which God had given him. All competency was derived from God Himself, who in fact works in all this for the glory of Christ, and will not suffer Christ to be without His testimony amongst men. Thus had he with others been made the competent ministers of a new covenant, a covenant not of letter, as the old covenant of the law, but a covenant which was of spirit. In fact, the new covenant is, as we know, entirely the declaration of God's "I will"s: not a demand upon man, but an assurance of that which He works for and in men. It is of grace, therefore, necessarily. The covenant of law, the letter, killed; but the power of the Spirit which effected that of which the new covenant speaks, gives life.

The reference to the new covenant in v.6 may be effectively translated, “competent [as] new covenant ministers”. The expression describes not the content of the apostles' ministry, but the character of their ministry. The ministry of the apostles—and indeed all true Christian ministry—has this character, the same character as the new covenant. It is a ministry of supply, not a ministry of demand.

Paul contrasts this writing of the Spirit of God on the hearts of the believers with the writing of the law on tables of stone. The one was inward and connected with the imparting of life, while the other was an external demand that could only condemn those that failed to meet its standard. Paul and his fellow labourers had been made competent ministers of the gospel, which he calls here ‘[the] new covenant’ ministry. The definite article does not occur in the underlying Greek text, showing that it is the character of the new covenant that is being referred to. The new covenant is not made with the assembly or with Christian believers, but God in His grace is working now according to the spirit of it. Living in the power of the gospel Paul, Silas and Timothy were enabled by God to present the truth of the glad tidings without impairment.

This work of Christ and of the Spirit had been carried out through Paul. He had been the minister. Every servant of God who preaches the Gospel is in that position. Yet Paul had that place in a very special sense. He had no more sufficiency for it than we have, yet he had very specially been made "able" or a "competent" minister of the New Covenant which had found its basis and foundation in the death and resurrection of Christ. The New Covenant, of which Jeremiah prophesied is of course to be formally established in the future with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, but the basis of it has already been laid, and the Gospel preached today is of a new covenant order. The blessings promised in the New Covenant are found in it, as well as blessings that go beyond anything that the New Covenant contemplates.

Again in verse 6 the living character of the Gospel ministry is emphasized, whereas the law brought in death. We get the expression "the letter" twice in verse 6, and the same word (in a slightly different form) occurs in verse 7, where it is translated, "written." The New Translation renders it, "the ministry of death, in letters, graven in stones," which shows that in this passage the term, "letter," refers to the law. The law kills. Its ministry is to death. The Spirit quickens.

In contemplating that in preaching Christ's Gospel the servants of the Lord were "the savour of death unto death; and … the savour of life unto life," Paul wrote, "And who is sufficient for these things?" (2 Cor. 2:16), but he could add, "our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us ministers of the new covenant" (2 Cor. 3:5-6). The new covenant will be made with Israel in the coming day, but the spirit of the new covenant is now ministered in the Gospel, and for us it is a ministry of righteousness and a ministry of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:8-9). The glory of the new covenant dims the glory of the old, and we now see the glory in the unveiled face of the Lord, and it is our privilege to be occupied with His glory.