2 Corinthians 3:5

Since the Lord's call comes before all merit, and he does not find a thing deserving but makes it so, for that reason it is called gratuitous; otherwise it would be called just. So this is the good will which summons and draws us. We …

By "from us" Paul means "from one another."

Since he showed that the New Testament is above the Old, and it was natural to conclude that we too — the apostles, ministers of the New Testament — are above Moses, who served the Old Testament, but this seemed arrogant, he says: nothing is …

To attribute sufficiency to one's own virtues and free will is a matter of presumption with respect to however small a good, since the Apostle says in Second Corinthians 3: Not that we are sufficient, etc. But to attribute this to divine grace, which one …

But the cause of this confidence is that whatever I do, I attribute to the very beginning of the work to God. Therefore, he says, not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, much less say and accomplish. For …

All our sufficiency is of God; to him therefore are owing all the praise and glory of that good which is done, and from him we must receive grace and strength to do more." This is true concerning ministers and all Christians; the best are no more than what the grace of God makes them.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves,....

The Greek is, "Not that we are (even yet after so long experience as ministers) sufficient to think anything OF ourselves as (coming) FROM ourselves; but our sufficiency is (derived) FROM God." "From" more definitely refers to the source out of which a thing comes; "of" is more general. to think--Greek, to "reason out" or "devise"; to attain to sound preaching by our reasonings [THEODORET].

Read also the Revised Version of the same text, for it will be often used in this discourse— "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6.

Read also the Revised Version of the same text, for it will be often used in this discourse— "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6. PAUL had given some account of what God had done by him and had described the work in these words—"You are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." Before he had worked out that charming figure, he had asked the question in the 16th verse of the second chapter—"Who is sufficient for these things?" I seem to hear that question repeated as he finishes the description. The more wonderful the work, the more intense the inquiry—"Who is sufficient for these things?" Who can turn hearts of stone into flesh? Who can write without ink? Who can write on the heart? Who can so write that what is written shall be eternal? "Who is sufficient for these things?" The more we study the work of Grace worked by God through his ministers, the more are we forced to ask, "Who is sufficient for these things?" To raise the dead, to turn a stone to flesh—who is sufficient for these? To give eyes to the blind and ears to the deaf. To subdue the proud will and enlighten the darkened heart. To deliver men from the fascinations of sin and Satan. To bring them out of darkness into God's marvelous light.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves - We do not arrogate to ourselves any power to enlighten the mind or change the heart, we are only instruments in the hand of God. Nor was it possible for us apostles to think, to invent, such a scheme of salvation as is the Gospel; and if we even had been equal to the invention, how could we have fulfilled such promises as this scheme of salvation abounds with? God alone could fulfill these promises, and he fulfils only those which he makes himself. All these promises have been amen-ratified and fulfilled to you who have believed on Christ Jesus according to our preaching; therefore, ye are God’s workmanship and it is only by God’s sufficiency that we have been able to do any thing. This I believe to be the apostle’s meaning in this place, and that he speaks here merely of the Gospel scheme, and the inability of human wisdom to invent it; and the words λογισασθαι τι, which we translate to think any thing, signify, properly, to find any thing out by reasoning; and as the Gospel scheme of salvation is the subject in hand, to that subject the words are to be referred and limited. The words, however, contain also a general truth; we can neither think, act, nor be, without God. From him we have received all our powers, whether of body or of mind, and without him we can do nothing. But we may abuse both our power of thinking and acting; for the power to think, and the power to act, are widely different from the act of thinking, and the act of doing. God gives us the power or capacity to think and act, but he neither thinks nor acts for us. It is on this ground that we may abuse our powers, and think evil, and act wickedly; and it is on this ground that we are accountable for our thoughts, words, and deeds.