Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.
Not that of ourselves we are qualified to take credit
for anything as coming from us;
The old Saul felt that he did have qualifications based on who he was and the work he put in. He was trained by one of the leading rabbis of his day (see Acts 22:3). He gave all of the reasons he had for confidence in the flesh, "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless" (see Philippians 3:5-6). Moreover, it seemed to him that such characteristics were precisely what should qualify someone, that he or she should need a resume or curriculum vitae to demonstrate, more or less, that they deserved or earned the position they sought. It is still extremely easy for us to believe the same thing, since for positions in the world, we still have to play those games to a greater or lesser degree. How surprising then, indeed how shocking, to see the complete change of heart in Paul.
rather, our qualification comes from God,
who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant,
not of letter but of spirit;
Paul saw that there was no way to build a sufficient skill set to escape the death that the letter brought. No matter how zealous he may have been he could never rebuild the broken relationship between heaven and earth from the bottom up. Such an effort could only come from the top down. This is exactly what he found in Jesus.
In the Kingdom Jesus came to bring qualification did not come from greatness but from littleness, not from mighty deeds, but from being childlike. Those who would become agents of the Kingdom were not necessarily those with the best resumes or the strongest skill sets. Some were uneducated peasants. Some were highly trained, like Paul himself. But none of them earned their position on the basis of past performance. There was no way to look at their past and predict what God would do with them.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (see John 3:8)
The Spirit would not call the qualified, but rather would qualify those whom he called. And so there was just no way to predict in advance the ones whom he would call as Apostles. Even today, we should not place limits on what he might choose to do through us or through others based on our perceived capabilities and skills. It is true that grace perfects nature, that our natural giftings are not lost in our call. But at the same time, they are transformed and put to work in ways which we would likely been unable to guess in advance.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets, but in a way that Moses and the prophets themselves would not have been able to spell out or exactly predict.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
The gifts of Moses, Elijah, and the rest were put to use, transformed, and remain valuable, but not in the way they would have thought. So with us. Jesus did not come to do away with our nature, but to fulfill it in a way that was better than anything we could come up with ourselves.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
There was a radical newness in the message of Jesus. But it was grounded in the timeless and unchanging words of the Old Covenant. We too must be grounded in the whole of Sacred Scripture, because only in that context can we realize how the promises of God are being fulfilled. Only when the Spirit interprets the letter can we realize the potential contained within ourselves without mucking it up with pride and self will. Our others options are to interpret the letter as it suits us, the way Saul did before he knew Jesus, or to disregard entirely. Instead of these, we must read the letter by the one who wrote it, by the Spirit who gives life.
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