“Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent 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 (NIV).
The letter kills but the Spirit gives life – in us!
Jesus gave us a clear example of this. We read in John 8:1-12 about the woman who was caught in adultery and according to the law she should have been stoned to death. The Pharisees were going to do this because Moses had commanded this in the law.
But Jesus sat down and wrote on the ground. Maybe what He wrote was another of Moses’ laws: “You shall not desire...” The Pharisees saw what Jesus wrote and all went away, the eldest first. Desiring something that belongs to someone else is a sin that happens inside a person. Because the desire was hidden, no one could punish it, and no one could keep that law in their own strength. So, everyone felt guilty.
Then Jesus said to the woman, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” John 8:11 (NASB). According to the letter of the law, the woman had to be stoned to death. But Jesus came with the spirit of the law, with the gospel of the new covenant, and that is that we can stop sinning.
Jesus says, “Sin no more!” He gives us power through the Holy Spirit so that we can stop sinning, and that the sinner may live and come to a good life. That is much better than the sinner being put to death. In the old covenant people feared to keep sinning, because sin was punished, sometimes by death. But what Jesus came with was far better. People can now come out of sin and come to a good life, a completely new life in Jesus Christ.
The letter kills but the Spirit gives life – in our ministry
Paul was a Pharisee. He knew what punishment should be given for each offence. But he didn't know the hidden things, the reasons why the offender did what he did. Judging people according to the letter of the law can be very destructive when it comes to our work with other people. That’s why it is so very important that we learn to hear what the Spirit has to say, for He knows the hidden things.
Paul was in weakness and in fear. He told the Corinthians that he did not come to them with human wisdom, but that he had to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:3-5.) What he feared was that everything that he had learned as a Pharisee about the letter of the law would influence him, so that he couldn’t hear what the Spirit was speaking.
So here he needed revelation from the Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit could reveal the hidden things to him. That's why he came in weakness and fear and much trembling. He couldn't do anything of himself. Because now it wasn't just the matter of knowing what the punishment was for each offence, but he had to lead people to a new life.
In Isaiah, God says, “Listen to Me, My people.” We need to learn what God wants, what His will is; we need to listen to Him and hear what He thinks, because as the heavens are higher than the earth, so God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9.) We need to stop listening to everything of this earth. Then we start hearing what God thinks about things. We begin to hear the voice of the Spirit.
It says further in 2 Corinthians 3:17 (NCV), “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” There isn't freedom for just anything, but there's freedom from sin, we can become free from sinning, and we can change to become like Jesus. This is the freedom that we can come in. This isn't a false freedom, but it's true freedom when we are changed to be like Jesus, from glory to glory. (2 Corinthians 3:18.)