Next Friday (July 10th) marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of the great reformer John Calvin. Standing back and taking a look at his life gives you the idea that he surely was self-reliant, strong, confident, and self-assured—all of the characteristics often considered necessary for success in life. Nothing seemed to dissuade him, it would seem, in pursuing his dreams or achieving his goals. A glance at his life reveals accomplishments that would have taken dozens of competent men to achieve. He wrote a commentary on almost every book of the Bible; preached or lectured every day, often several times a day; transformed the city of Geneva; established a minister’s school and academy; mentored hundreds of pastors, many of whom became key instruments in the Protestant Reformation; carried on weekly correspondence to a degree that staggers the imagination; regularly counseled people in his church, city, and beyond; sent out hundreds of missionaries and church planters; translated the Bible and books into French; ministered to the pastoral needs of a large congregation; engaged in writing, debating, and speaking on the key theological and ecclesiological issues of his day; wrote his Institutes, a systematic theology, while in his twenties and revised it several more times until its present form of two large volumes. I could go on but this gives you at least an idea of what was an amazing life.
I’m sure that many would covet that kind of achievement by a single person! What amazing self-confidence, self-reliance, and self-assurance! Or at least it seems.
Or was it? Did that characterize John Calvin? As Jim pointed out in the excellent study he did earlier in the summer on Calvin, the reformer had no intention of being a reformer or influencing a city or starting a minister’s academy or pastoring a church or instigating church planting and mission sending. He was contented to study and write, hoping to do so in quietness. Yet he had exceptional abilities and skills that he did not realize; he had boldness that he did not know he could show; he wielded influence that he never dreamed.
Why would I make these assertions? John Calvin regularly confessed his weakness. He felt it deeply. He struggled over knowing God’s direction for his life, moving to serve in Geneva only by constraint. He faced lifelong physical ailments that often plunged him into despair. Rather than self-assured and self-confident, John Calvin considered himself a man of great weakness. Yet in that weakness, God manifested remarkable strength to carry out a level of ministry that can only be described as a demonstration of God’s mighty hand. Calvin’s comments on this passage reveal his dependence upon the Holy Spirit working in weakness.
That the faithful may not make this objection—that they are so weak as not to be able to bear so many and so heavy burdens, he brings before them the aid of the Spirit, which is abundantly sufficient to overcome all difficulties. There is then no reason for any one to complain, that the bearing of the cross is beyond their own strength, since we are sustained by a celestial power… For as experience shows, that except we are supported by God’s hands, we are soon overwhelmed by innumerable evils, Paul reminds us, that though we are in every respect weak, and various infirmities threaten our fall, there is yet sufficient protection in God’s Spirit to preserve us from falling, and to keep us from being overwhelmed by any mass of evils. At the same time these supplies of the Spirit more clearly prove to us, that it is by God’s appointment that we strive, by groanings and sighings for our redemption [italics added, Calvin’s Commentaries, XIX, 311-312].
God the Spirit especially aids us in our weakness. Knowing this gives us courage to face even the most difficult challenges and to press on in even the most fearful of times. Jesus Christ does not leave us as orphans; He comes to us through the Holy Spirit even when we do not realize His presence (John 14:18). Why does Paul make this same point in Romans 8?
Consider the marker or reference point that begins our text: “In the same way.” It identifies the content of the present declarations. The apostle’s subject is not new. The context is related, connected to the balance of what he has taught us regarding assurance, hope, and future glory. If we are to make sense of these verses then we must keep in view what has already been established in Romans 8.
So what does Paul intend in this passage? “In the same way” that the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, in the same way that hope serves us in suffering in order to set our minds on future glory, we can also be assured that the Spirit helps our weakness. He does so in order to give believers’ confidence that when we cannot see the way clearly that we are to choose, when we do not have adequate strength to face present adversities, when we are at a loss in knowing how to pray for God’s will in a given situation, and when we do not understand the trial or suffering’s intent and thus do not know God’s will, the Holy Spirit comes to our aid. Let us work our way through this truth from the Word by considering it in the three natural divisions in the text: our weakness, the Spirit’s help, and the Father’s searching.
It seems almost unpatriotic to admit weakness. We pride ourselves on being strong, self-confident people that can handle whatever comes our way. We’ve heard banter along this line over the past few years especially with regard to acts of terrorism or despotism. ‘Bring it on,’ some quip, ‘we can handle it.’
But I have a subject much higher than patriotism for us to consider. It is one thing to evaluate the circumstances of politics and make certain claims. It is yet another to face the struggles of real life, day in and day out, watching your confidence evaporate in light of suffering. When the façade of toughness and rugged individualism fades, and we come to grips with human weakness, how do we continue to live buoyantly and triumphantly? It does not come by all of Oprah’s self-help gurus. It comes by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
It is significant that Paul uses the first person plural when describing weakness! “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness.” Not just the weakness of the Roman Christians who were aware of how small they were in the mighty empire, but also the great apostle himself knew his own weakness. He admitted to the Corinthians and Philippians that he had things of which he could boast—things that others would consider to be great confidence boosters. He had a religious pedigree that would be the envy of others. He was well schooled in all matters of theology. He had personal zeal in the tasks assigned to him. Others showed confidence in his ability to get things done. He was admirable when it came to religious devotion and practice. But when he added those things up he realized they were props to appear self-assured rather than anchors to hold him in the stormy seas of life. In the final analysis, he counted these things as loss (Phil. 3:4-8). Even when he had received great revelations from the Lord and saw things that he could not tell others due to their magnificence, he found that a “thorn in the flesh” sapped all confidence and self-assurance from him. The Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for you”—not your revelations or understanding or achievements—“for power is perfected in weakness.” Then the apostle made this audacious claim: “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
Paul was not lecturing the Romans on the horror of their weakness and why they needed to receive from the Spirit’s aid. He included himself, “our weakness,” as well as each of us.
The fall struck at the heart of humanity as well as the rest of creation. “Weakness” invaded the world, wreaking destruction, decay, and havoc in the created order, while waylaying the human race with disease, emotional struggles, fatigue, stress, and a host of other effects. That’s why the creation “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” It realizes the weakness stemming from the fall that saddles it with a constant sense of “futility” until the day of our final redemption. And it is why “we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
It is in this same context that Paul brings up the Spirit’s help in “our weakness.” Not only are we given “hope” as both subjective experience and objective reality, but also aided by the indwelling Spirit in our weakness. Hope is that confident expectation that the promises of the gospel will be fulfilled and that the redemption of our bodies so that we are liberated from all the effects of the fall, will indeed take place. Objectively, it centers on the Person of Jesus Christ—“who is our hope,” as Paul put it in 1 Tim. 1:1.
Yet even with that great hope, we are often paralyzed in obedience, joy, service, witnessing, worship, and loving others when overcome by a sense of our weakness. “Well, the way to deal with that,” someone might say, “is just not to admit any weakness.” Then that would be to deny the obvious, on one hand, and to outright lie to ourselves and to God, on the other. It is not a matter of whether or not we are weak. We are fraught with weakness whether we admit it or not. The more we battle against that reality the less we will rely upon the grace of God in Christ.
If anyone should have been without weakness it surely would have been Paul. Yet he admitted to the Corinthians, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3). So troubled and so conscious was he of his weakness that the Lord came to his side one night in Corinth to remind him that He was with him and with him in blessing (Acts 18:9-10).
What is this “weakness” that Paul speaks of in verse 26? He only uses the word twice in Romans, here and in 6:19. In that passage, he referred specifically to “the weakness of your flesh” in being able to understand how to live out the gospel in holiness. In that sense, weakness has to do with lack of understanding how to live the Christian life in every setting. He uses it in 1 Corinthians 15:43 to describe the overall frailty of the human condition contrasted with the glorified body: “it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” Paul uses the same word to describe his “bodily illness” to the Galatians (4:13) and Timothy’s bodily ailments (1 Tim. 5:24). It is also the same word used in 1 Cor. 2:3 referred to earlier that expressed the emotional, mental, and even spiritual weakness that Paul sensed when he was in Corinth.
So what do we need to live faithfully each day as Christians? We need spiritual insight and knowledge. We need courage. We need physical stamina. We need emotional stability. We need consistency in applying the spiritual disciplines each day. We need boldness in speaking up concerning the gospel. We need healthy relationships in knowing that others accept us. We need a sweet spirit of contentment. We need a firm grasp of Scripture. We need boldness and clarity in praying.
How well do you stack up on all these areas? Do you struggle emotionally in the battles of life? Do you face fearfulness and anxiety? Do you sometime lack the insights in understanding the right decisions to make? Do you feel at a loss when it comes to biblical knowledge? Do you inwardly wrestle because of broken or strained relationships? Do you have to fight to show contentment and joy? Do you wonder what God’s will is when praying about issues that you face?
We’re waiting for Paul to chide us for being weak! But he doesn’t. He simply states it and includes himself. “Weakness” is the condition of the human race; and it is the condition of even the redeemed. It is not a few immature Christians but the whole lot of us, or else Paul would not have included himself.
Yet some of us struggle with admitting that we are weak. We think that to do so indicates failure; or even worse, to do so would mean that God would not accept us. We’ve grown so accustomed to thinking that only the strong, self-reliant, and self-assured are the acceptable in life that we’ve transferred that mindset to the Lord. We think that He will only accept us if we are strong and confident in all things. Then, if that is the case, God did not accept Paul since he numbered himself among the weak.
I would go so far as to say that a marked sign of spiritual maturing is that you grow in understanding how weak you really are. You see that you are weak but the Lord is strong. That presses you to put your confidence in Him and not your self.
The Holy Spirit “helps our weakness.” Otherwise, we get the idea that we do not need Him; we can do it ourselves. That’s not a good position for followers of Christ who sent the Spirit to indwell us, bring all things to our remembrance, and to be with us in weakness so that we would not be alone and without help.
We learn some remarkable truths about the Holy Spirit in these two verses. We’ve already discovered much about this third person of the Godhead in this chapter. He sets us free from the law of sin and death (8:2). All believers are distinguished as walking “according to the Spirit” (8:4). He gives life and peace to all that rely on Him (8:6). He indwells all believers and apart from His indwelling, none are Christians (8:9). He gives life to our mortal bodies (8:11). He enables us to put to death the deeds of the body (8:13). He leads all who are sons of God (8:14). He gives us the spirit of adoption as sons of God (8:15). He testifies with our spirits that we are children of God (8:16). He is the first fruits of those whom Christ has redeemed (8:23). But there is more.
Let me reiterate that the Spirit is God, not some kind of force or energy or impersonal power. He is not a third God—that would be polytheism and heresy. He is the third person of the Trinity who is one God. We’ve noticed the Trinitarian understanding of the Spirit already in Romans 8. Paul referred to “the Spirit,” “the Spirit of God,” and the Spirit of Christ” in one verse (8:9)! He showed us that if the Spirit dwells in you, Christ dwells in you—demonstrating the unity in the Godhead (8:9-10).
Primarily, rather than giving us characteristics of the Spirit we see His work explained in the New Testament. That’s what Paul does in these verses. He reveals four aspects of the Spirit’s work in every believer. Let’s consider these areas of His work to add to what we’ve already studied in Romans 8. Yet in doing so, let us not view these areas as merely neat ideas to tuck away in our theological banks but to know that the Spirit is given for enabling us to live as Christians in even the most difficult settings.
“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness.” The word “helps,” though correct is inadequate to express what is meant. It is a long word made up of two prepositions prefixed to one root word (sunantilambanetai). Translators have expressed it as “to lend a hand together with,” “at the same time with one,” “to come to the aid of someone,” “to take on interest in someone,” “take part with” [ELKGNT; BAG]. The only other use of the word is in Luke 10:40 when Martha complained to Jesus that Mary, her sister, had left her to do all the preparation and serving. “Tell her to help me,” Martha asked the Lord. Tell her to come alongside me and give me aid. Tell her to assist me in preparing and serving. Do you see what is taking place? It is not a word that calls for our inactivity or passivity. Instead, the Spirit comes to our aid, joining with us in the issues we face to bring us along.
Here is the Christian struggling with his weakness in knowing what to pray or struggling with joy in the midst of suffering or understanding the will of God in the midst of trials. He is much engaged in trying to work through these times but he realizes that he is inadequate. He is much too weak to handle such strain on a mortal body alone. So the Spirit helps his weakness. He comes to the Christian’s aid, coming along side him to lift the load, to carry him through, and see the issues through to their proper conclusion.
There is no ‘let go and let God’ called for by this passage. Pray, struggle, wrestle, seek, labor…whatever the issue may call for but do so with the consciousness that the Holy Spirit “helps our weakness.” Just as hope of future glory enables us to walk through suffering, “in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness.”
Does this mean that we are to wait in entering into an endeavor until we are conscious that the Spirit has come to our aid? Absolutely not but rather, labor on with the consciousness that the Spirit “helps our weakness.” Lean on that certainty when you are seeking to live to the glory of God, when you are stretched and strained by your weakness that the Spirit comes to your aid with “a celestial power,” as Calvin wrote.
Paul uses another compound word, this time prefixing it with the preposition, “on behalf of,” or “for” with the root word, “intercede” [huperentugchanei]. It’s the only time this word is used in the New Testament. “For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” The word means that the Spirit pleads on our behalf or that He has turned to us with the purpose of pleading our cause. The first picture has Him coming to our aid as we struggle with our weakness. This word picture has Him pleading on our behalf in ways that we cannot. The pronoun, “Himself,” intensifies what He does on our behalf.
Let me explain it like this. I read a fascinating book recently entitled Lone Survivor. It tells the story of a Navy Seal that had parachuted into Afghanistan with three teammates before the invasion to begin to root out terrorists. The four Seals ended up in a lengthy battle in which three of the men died. Marcus Luttrell struggled, wounded and incredibly weak, to survive in hostile territory. He hid from Taliban troops as they hunted for him. Barely able to move, he slowly rose to work toward an area where he could signal for help. Often fainting, he heard the sound of running water and fought to quench his thirst but he lacked the strength to make it. In and out of consciousness, he crawled toward the water when he heard footsteps. Not Taliban troops this time but local villagers had spotted him and made their way to him. Among the villagers was an older man whom Marcus later learned was the village elder. He came to his aid, taking him to safety in his village, and then the elder took up Marcus’ cause and pleaded for him with the rest of the village. The entire village stood in danger of Taliban attack for harboring this Navy Seal but the village elder would not give in. Marcus did not understand the situation or the village customs or the costliness for this act. All he knew was that he survived because this one man interceded for him, not only with the villagers but also with the Taliban who were bent on killing him.
The Holy Spirit finds us in weakness. Day after day, He sees that we lack strength, that we struggle to find the words to ask for God’s help, that we wrestle with what is or is not God’s will in a given situation, and that we fight to maintain our joy. He knows this about us. He sees it. Yet He does not thrash us or turn from us or wait until we can get our act together. He comes to our aid. And then He pleads our cause. That little preposition, huper, translated “for us,” is more than just a nice thought. The Spirit stands in our place. He takes up our broken words and thoughts, and even our own soul groanings and gives them clarity on our behalf. He knows that we mutter and groan, unable to say what needs to be said, not even sure what we need to pray. And He then does it for us!
Do you see what this means? Some of you think that God is watching and waiting for you to mess up so that He can pound you. So you have worked yourself into a rigid, self-reliance in the Christian life. Your joy is fake. You function out of sheer duty not delight. You continue with this because your view of God is skewed. If you told the truth, you really don’t even enjoy your Christian life because you think that God accepts only your success. Then hear these words: “The Spirit also helps our weakness…the Spirit Himself intercedes for us.” Weakness qualifies you for the Spirit’s intercession. Weakness opens the floodgates of “celestial power.” Weakness leads you into strength you never imagined.
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