I am astounded by the practical way that our text works into the events of daily life. It seems that in my conversations, not only within our church but far beyond, I find myself regularly coming back to the promises and certainties found in Romans 8.
This week I received a note from my brother that one of my friends from high school who also grew up in the same church as we did, was on a Mediterranean cruise with her husband and two other couples. I’ve not crossed paths with her in many years, and as I recall, I only met her husband once. As they were enjoying the scenery of the Riviera, her husband died of a heart attack. Five thousand miles away from home and family, she is faced with staggering loss and totally refocusing her life. She faces a bombardment of questions expecting answers and decisions so that she can deal with the immediate crisis and get on with her life when she returns home.
How do you deal with this as a Christian? For that matter, how do you deal with a thousand other distressing, difficult, trying, and perplexing situations that we shall all face in this fallen world? As I sent her an email, I thought of our text and the surrounding context as a point of clarity for not only her need but also for our own. I mentioned to her the irony of enjoying a cruise with her husband and friends in one of the most beautiful places in the world only to face a most shocking, distressing reality. Yet in no situation does the Lord abandon us. Instead, He draws near to us in our suffering. Just as much as we know His nearness in times of joy and exultation, our Lord also meets us with as much, if not more, intenseness of His goodness and presence when encountering suffering in this fallen world.
Look how this is layered in our context. The Spirit indwells those who are in Christ (8:9). The Spirit gives life to you (8:10). The Spirit enables you to put to death the deeds of the body (8:13). He leads you as evidence of sonship (8:14). He gives you a spirit of adoption, even making it so personal that you confidently call God, “Abba! Father!” (8:15). He testifies with and in your spirits that you are children of God (8:16). Glimpses of future glory are given to put present suffering in its temporal place (8:18). Hope for the future redemption of the body—thus total liberation from the effects of the fall—gives you zeal to persevere as believers in Jesus Christ (8:23-25). And then amidst all this, “the Spirit also helps our weakness” (8:26). Just about the time that we are ready to give our excuse to the Lord, “But Lord, I am just too weak to handle suffering! I am too weak to keep going on! I am too weak to know even what to pray for in the midst of living under the weight of this fallen world!” In just such time, the Lord tells us, “The Spirit also helps our weakness.”
The indwelling Spirit helps us in our weakness. How does He do this? Well, He is God, we might say, so certainly He can help weak people. But let us make this more focused. How does the Spirit come to your aid when you are weak, struggling, and needy? Let’s consider how the Spirit works in our weakness.
What have we noticed thus far in our study of verses 26-27? We are weak people! Weakness is the inevitable consequence of the fall. Not all weakness is sin but all weakness has its roots in the fall described in Genesis 3 when the creation fell into corruption. Even the natural order longs for restoration of the perfections that belong to those redeemed by Christ and ultimately restored in future glory (8:19-22). Yet all the while, we are still affected by weakness. Sometime it is the weakness of the “flesh” by which we sin against the Lord; other times we face the weakness of our personalities, physiology, circumstances, and emotions. Weakness implies that we are lacking. It may be lack of strength, stamina, wisdom, direction, insight, knowledge, power, etc. Whatever the weakness, the Spirit helps us.
Let that truth settle into your thoughts. The Spirit helps us. He comes to our aid. Weak people that we are, we are never alone in the struggles and trials that regularly dog us in a fallen world. The Spirit comes to us; He lends a hand; He stands with us in the need and offers His strength and power. This promise is not for lazy, passive approaches to the Christian faith. “Helps” implies that we are engaged in a struggle, facing great need, and in the midst of it, the Spirit comes to aid us. Just as Martha wanted Mary to help her (not replace her) with the kitchen preparation and serving, the Spirit helps us by coming to our aid (Luke 10:40).
One significant way that the Spirit helps us is by interceding for us. That is, the Spirit prays when we cannot or we do not know what to pray for. The word “intercedes” means that the Spirit takes up our cause, stands in our behalf, and gives clarity to our need before the Father. But Paul adds an explanation about this intercession: “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” That brings us to the point where we stopped in our previous study. So let’s continue with the third aspect of the Spirit’s help.
Admittedly, groaning is an unusual term to consider! We think of it as expressing anguish in pain or inarticulately voicing complaint or sounding off over aching joints and muscles. We all groan from time to time. I’ve even heard my son’s dogs groaning when they cannot get their way!
Yet here we find a special groaning, that of the Holy Spirit in the believer who faces weakness and need. Some respected expositors tell us that this groaning is not that of the Spirit but that of the believer, pointing out that the Spirit, being God, cannot groan. Yet I would counter that the same Spirit that grieves over our sin also groans in our need (Eph. 4:30). Groaning is no threat to the divine omnipotence any more than grieving. Contextually, this groaning by the Spirit culminates in the promise of future glory.
Notice that groaning also takes place in both creation and redeemed humanity. “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (8:22). Why does creation groan? It groans in anticipation of future glory when all the trappings of the fall are swallowed up by the culmination of redemption—the glorified bodies of the saints. Until future glory becomes present, eternal glory, the creation continues to groan as a sign of anticipation of the certainty of what Christ has secured through His death and resurrection.
“And not only this,” Paul writes, “but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (8:23). Creation groans but so do believers! Is it a groaning of complaint? No, as our text points out, it is a groaning of anticipation. We feel the reality of our weakness, living in a fallen world in bodies marked by sin. Yet we know the promise that is ours in the gospel of Jesus Christ! We know that one day these bodies will no longer bear any effects of the fall but will radiantly reflect the glory of Jesus Christ bodily. Creation groans in anticipation of what belongs to us; and we groan with that same kind of anticipation of glory.
So what of the groaning of the Holy Spirit? “But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” He does not groan out of weakness—He is omnipotent—but in anticipation of all that Christ has done through His redemptive work being fully applied to the redeemed! The Greek is emphatic, “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings.” The groaning joins in concert with creation and the redeemed, of the certain hope and anticipation of all the effects of the fall totally eradicated. It is a compassionate groaning by which the Holy Spirit knows our weakness, while at the same time, He knows far better than we do the future glory that we shall one day experience without measure. His groanings form intercession toward our sanctification and glorification.
In each case, the groaning expresses the confident expectation of future glory while facing the reality of living in a fallen world. As the Holy Spirit buoyantly shares this same confidence in groaning with anticipation of our future glory, we should find encouragement to persevere. If He grieves over our sin, does it not make sense that this living person also groans in anticipation of future glory when no more sin remains to grieve over?
The Spirit’s groaning also bears evidence of His personality. He is not a force or a thing or some kind of impersonal spirit. He is a living person, the third member of the Godhead. His personality is evident when He grieves over our sin (Eph. 4:30), is quenched by our despising the proclamation of God’s Word (1 Thess. 5:19-20), and when He groans for our perfection in holiness. His groanings are another way that we understand that we are indwelled by a living person. He is not some dormant force trapped in us. He is God that has come to dwell in us through the gospel in all His glorious personality! That’s why He “helps our weakness.” He has come as the down payment of our future inheritance and as one who wills and works within us for God’s good pleasure (Eph. 1:14; Phil. 2:13). The groaning shows that He is fully engaged in our lives, partnering with us in these inward groanings of anticipation of future glory.
Do we hear the Spirit’s groanings? Some declare that we do and thus validate the practice of not praying with clarity or detail but simply groan in like manner. Yet that cannot be what Paul proposes because the Spirit’s groanings are “too deep for words.” That literally means that His sighs and groans are inaudible. Do His groanings in anticipation of future glory influence us? Perhaps that is the case though the text does not tell us. Instead, the weight of this text falls on the Spirit’s action in us while interceding. His inward work and influence surely urges us on in the disciplines of the Christian life, though His groanings remain inaudible to us.
Do you and I always pray according to God’s will? We would like to think so but we must admit that we fall far short of praying always in God’s will. Some have the idea that if they are Christians, and if they have some desire and ask God for it, then it is inevitably the will of God. If that were the case, then why does John declare, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14)? That is the significance of asking in Jesus’ name, as well. “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14). That is not an okay for proposing a huge shopping list to the Lord! It is rather a caveat to our praying: it is to be done in His name, that is, according to His purpose and will.
But what happens to us in the midst of “weakness”? When the pressures of this fallen world and our fallen natures press in on us, we feel the weight of weakness. We do not know what to do, how to handle the demands we face, or even how to appropriately pray. As Paul points out, in weakness, “We do not know how to pray as we should,” or literally, ‘For what we should pray according to what is needed we do not know.’ “Should” translates a word that means ‘moral necessity.’ In other words, what Paul aims for is that in times of weakness we certainly should pray according to God’s will. There are particular things we ought to pray for and about. Yet due to our weakness, we cannot think clearly or see straight enough to do so.
“The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words,” in such times, and “He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Do you see the implications for us? Let me explain it like this. My friend whose husband died this week faces weakness. How should she pray? What about when it comes to all the details coming together to return her husband’s body to the United States for burial, what is God’s will in this? How about all the legal work that must be done, what is God’s will for her in going through all the contacts to get this done? How about what she is to do when she returns home, what is God’s will for her in refocusing her life and energies? What is God’s will for her in dealing with the financial changes she faces? Can you state God’s will for her with clarity? We all have some assumptions but we may miss the precision of God’s will with our assumptions.
We certainly could say that the will of God is the glory of Jesus Christ being shown through the whole experience. Yet what details will God be pleased to bring about for the glory of Christ? In our weakness, we do not fully know. Does that mean that she is not to pray and that others are not to pray for her because we lack the infallible understanding of God’s will? Certainly not since we are command to pray and expected to pray. Yet we do so in weakness. Does God reject our praying because we are not totally in sync with His will? Not at all, rather “the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how [or how] to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words…He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” In other words, the Spirit never misses the will of God in praying. And the Spirit prays “for us,” so that in spite of our weakness even in our prayers, the Father hears the Spirit’s prayers on our behalf.
Again, I ask in light of the Spirit’s praying, does that mean that we are not to pray but just to rely on the Spirit to do all the praying? Remember the thesis of this verse. “The Spirit also helps our weakness.” He joins us in our weakness when praying to give clarity and accuracy to what we need to pray. Yet in doing so, He does not replace our prayers. He supplements them. Then how are we to conduct ourselves in prayer? Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who not only was an exceptional pastor and preacher in the 20th century but also a man of prayer, offered some good rules to help guide our praying.
To whom are these prayers addressed? Jesus told us to pray to the Father. Here the Apostle tells us that the Father searches the heart with reference to the Spirit’s prayers on our behalf.
The Psalmist prayed with assurance, “O Lord, You have searched me and known me” (139:1). He goes on to identify the fine details of life—that the Lord is ever present, ever searching, and ever at work in all points for our good and His glory. Paul concurs. “And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is.” Whose hearts are being searched? Our hearts! Of course, that word “hearts” points to the deepest recesses of our souls; it is the point of our longings and desires. Here we pant after God. Here, in spite of the sin that affects us, we long to do the will of God—and He who searches the heart knows it. Here we also recognize our deepest weaknesses, our struggles with sin and obedience. He who searches the heart knows it, as well.
In one sense, this statement is most comforting. Even when I falter and fail, the Father knows my heart’s desire to follow Christ. Yet in another sense, it is most terrifying. The Father also knows every sin that I harbor, every command that I resent and reject. Were it left up to us entirely, we would find little to comfort us here. But remember what the Apostle has told us. “The Spirit also helps our weakness!” Yes, at just the point where we struggle most, the Holy Spirit comes to our aid, grabs our hand and pulls us along, pleads our cause, and He does all “according to the will of God.” Here is comfort immeasurable! The Father searches and keeps searching our hearts (present tense) and the Spirit answers and keeps answering on our behalf!
Do you ever have trouble communicating with others? Do others ever have trouble communicating with you? Maybe you’ve sat down with your preschool children or grandchildren and tried to carry on a conversation. You’ve smiled at the chattering that takes place even when it does not make sense. You are able to read through the mumbling and chatter to comprehend something of what the child seeks to convey. Yet your understanding of what the child is communicating is never infallible.
That’s not the case with the One who searches the hearts. He “knows what the mind of the Spirit is.” In other words, the Father knows what the Spirit is thinking, even when it is in inarticulate groans! The Spirit intercedes for us. He intimately knows our needs. And without missing even the slightest detail, the Father knows precisely what the Spirit prays on our behalf. Why is this important? Do you think that the Spirit’s prayers are denied? Oh no! He prays “according to the will of God” on behalf of the saints. No prayers are wasted. None are frivolous. None are simply to check off the “daily prayer” box in our devotion. He prays the will of God, and God the Father “knows what the mind of the Spirit is.” What does that imply? It declares that the infallible knowledge by the Father of the Spirit’s careful intercession results in answered prayer. God accomplishes His purposes in our lives. “ He works all things together for good” (Rom. 8:28). He does “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).
Paul states twin certainties about the Spirit’s work in the believer. First, “He intercedes for the saints.” Who are the saints? These are not special Christians but every believer. The word means “holy ones,” and is used throughout the New Testament for ordinary believers. This is contrary to the Roman Catholic teaching that the saints intercede for the lesser Christians. On the contrary, the saints need the Spirit’s intercession! And He promises it for every Christian. You may be weak and needy. Be assured that the Spirit prays for you. “Christ is [your] intercessor in the court of heaven…The Holy Spirit is [your] intercessor in the theatre of [your] own hearts” [John Murray, NICNT: Romans, 311].
Second, “The Spirit…intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” If that is the case, then you are assured that He prays for just what you need to bring you into future glory and to form Jesus Christ in you through the process. Even when you falter in praying the will of God, the Spirit does not; and He intercedes on your behalf.
The Spirit helps our weakness so that we may approach every day with confidence that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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