Sufficient Grace

J. S. Blackburn

In writing to the Corinthians, Paul speaks of ‘the messenger of Satan’ that brought affliction upon him (2 Cor. 12:7). The opposition of the devil is a fact to be reckoned with in every aspect of Christian life and service. It is this fact which makes life and service a warfare. Three references to it in 2 Corinthians have often been noticed because, in the Authorised Version, they happen to be alliterative.

First, the enemy is the god of this world and as such he blinds ‘the minds of them which believe not’ (4:4). What power can suffice to bring light to blind eyes? Nothing less than the power which first caused light to shine out of the primeval darkness. It is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who hath shined in our hearts (4:6). 

Second, the enemy is a serpent and as such he beguiles as we see in chapter 11:3. The imagery in chapter 11 is that of a betrothal. The saints are espoused as a chaste virgin to one husband. The point of the enemy’s more subtle attack is to enfeeble the faithfulness that can only be sustained by hearts enraptured with Christ. To this end he brings to the believer the things which rival his eternal lover.

In the third place, the enemy is our adversary and as such he buffets the worker (12:7). In Paul’s case it was by his thorn in the flesh. We need not pause to consider what this was, except that it was some bodily affliction. The deep emotion which breathes through these words, reaching us across two millennia, brings them very near to our own experience. Fourteen years had passed by, but Paul tells the story as though it were yesterday. His resource was prayer — not apparently prayer every day for years, but so wonderfully like the Lord in His agony in Gethsemane, a prayer three times repeated that it might depart from him. He asks once — a clear, definite, single request that it might depart from him. He waits for an answer. How long he waits we have no idea. He asks again, and a third time — the same clear, definite, single request that it might depart from him. The answer he receives is as clear and definite as the request and the matter is closed. Paul, thorn and all, gets on with his work — not as a stoic with steeled heart, but strengthened by the grace of Christ. 

That same answer is available to every suffering saint. And how often the Lord has by these words of Scripture answered the prayers of His servants: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’ (v. 9).

‘My grace’

Grace is an outstanding New Testament word. It is used in so many different connections as to make true the hymn:

Grace is a mine of wealth
Laid open to the poor;
Grace is the sovereign spring of health;
’Tis life for evermore.[1]

A fundamental element in the Bible meaning of the word is a free gift given as a favour. It is as though the Lord said here, ‘What I can give is sufficient for you.’

‘Is sufficient’

The Lord’s words state that His grace is exactly equal to our need. We know that in Himself His grace is a limitless sea. He is full of grace and truth (John 1:14). But when we receive of His fulness, as Paul testified, it is exactly equal to our need — no less, no more. It is, at the same time, as John testified, ‘grace upon grace’ (v. 16). This deep, sweet fountain never runs dry, but is always exactly right to meet our present need.

‘For thee’

These words were spoken to a man of like passions with ourselves. They were spoken to a man whose life was the full tide of missionary effort, who knew the full round of journeyings oft, perils by the heathen, perils in the wild places; of weariness and painfulness, and watchings often; and superimposed on all this the daily care of all the churches (2 Cor. 11:23–28). They were spoken individually to him: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’. ‘Sufficient for thee’ means sufficient for a man with a thorn in the flesh, sufficient to strengthen his heart (which was indeed established with grace and not with meats: Heb. 13:9) and make him glad in spite of the continued suffering of the thorn. He was not steeled against it. He received such inward consolation in the comfort of Christ that his weakness became strength. ‘Sufficient for thee’ also means sufficient to enable this man to sustain, with his thorn in the flesh, terrific missionary labour. ‘Sufficient for thee’ — words which, for the faith that rises to them, are a rising tide engulfing bodily infirmity and the mental anguish belonging thereto, but also rising to be sufficient to support the most tremendous labours, the most appalling enterprise, to storm the citadel of Rome itself and pass on to Spain and to the regions beyond.

Is it conceivable that these words of individual assurance, confidence and faith would have found a place in the sacred canon unless each disciple of Christ, each suffering servant and each missionary confronting appalling labours were authorised to take them to himself or herself? Rather, is it not true to experience that, in daily meditation on the Word, the Lord personally speaks words to us when we need them and so His grace becomes sufficient for us also?

We do not know when Paul received his first comfort from these words, but it must have been early in his missionary course. Fourteen years later, with that fight, that course, that faith mostly behind him, it had lost none of its sweetness or power for him. 

J S Blackburn[2]

[1] Thomas Kelly, Spiritual Songs hymn 10.

[2] Adapted from Scripture Truth (1958) vol. 39 p. 277. Courtesy of Scripture Truth Publications.

From: Truth and Testimony, 2023