Untitled Sermon (7)

Intercession by the Holy Spirit

: “In like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered; and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

But the very form of the word trd “helpeth” indicates coöperation, and this must be of something other than the spirit of man himself. The undoubted difficulties of the passage, which are strongly urged by Lange (see Lange’s Comm. on ), must be acknowledged. At the same time the statement seems to be very clear and definite. An explanation has been given that the Holy Spirit is here referred to as dwelling in us, and thus making intercession. The Divine Spirit is said to be a Spirit of supplication (). The distinction which is made between the intercession of Christ in heaven in His priestly office and that of the Holy Spirit interceding within the souls of believers.

Bevan, L. D. (1915). Intercession. In J. Orr, J. L. Nuelsen, E. Y. Mullins, & M. O. Evans (Eds.), The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Vol. 1–5, p. 1487). Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company.

1. Christ’s Intercession Viewed in Its Priestly Aspect

The function of priesthood as developed under Judaism involved the position of mediation between man and God. The priest represented man, and on man’s behalf approached God; thus he offered sacrifice, interceded and gave to the offerer whom he represented the benediction and expression of the Divine acceptance. (For the various forms of these offerings, see special articles.) As in sacrifice, so in the work of Christ, we find the proprietary rights of the offerer in the sacrifice. For man, Christ as one with man, and yet in His own personal right, offers Himself (see ; and cf with ).

We know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. .

We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; we know what it is to pray in the Spirit; but we do not so often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays in us prayers which we cannot utter. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.

“He,” the Spirit in you, “maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God,” and God searches your heart not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what is the prayer of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God needs the nature of the believer as a shrine in which to offer His intercession. “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.”

IN WHAT SENSE THE HOLY SPIRIT SOLICITS FOR US, CRYING, ABBA, FATHER

And this especially since “we know not what to pray for as we ought,” says the apostle, “but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; and He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to God.” What is “the Spirit Himself maketh intercession,” but, “causes to make intercession,” “with groanings that cannot be uttered,” but “truthful,” since the Spirit is truth? For He it is of whom the apostle says in another place, “God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, “crying, Abba, Father!” And here what is the meaning of “crying,” but “making to cry,” by that figure of speech whereby we call a day that makes people glad, a glad day? And this he makes plain elsewhere when he says, “For you have not received the Spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the Spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry, Abba, Father.” He there said, “crying,” but here, “in whom we cry;” opening up, that is to say, the meaning with which he said “crying,”—that is, as I have already explained, “causing to cry,” when we understand that this is also itself the gift of God, that with a true heart and spiritually we cry to God. Let them, therefore, observe how they are mistaken who think that our seeking, asking, knocking is of ourselves, and is not given to us; and say that this is the case because grace is preceded by our merits; that it follows them when we ask and receive, and seek and find, and it is opened to us when we knock. And they will not understand that this is also of the divine gift, that we pray; that is, that we ask, seek, and knock. For we have received the spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry, Abba, Father. And this the blessed Ambrose also said. For he says, “To pray to God also is the work of spiritual grace, as it is written, No one says, Jesus is the Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.”

Augustine of Hippo. (1887). A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance. In P. Schaff (Ed.), R. E. Wallis (Trans.), Saint Augustin: Anti-Pelagian Writings (Vol. 5, p. 551). New York: Christian Literature Company.

Caught in the tension of living in the overlap of the ages, the period of the ‘now and not yet’, believers experience weakness, but in the midst of this weakness the Holy Spirit helps them through his intercession on their behalf, particularly when they do not know how to pray.

8:26 While believers hold on in hope, enduring the sufferings of this present age, they are not left alone. Paul goes on: In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ‘In the same way’ seems on first reading to connect the groaning of the Spirit’s intercession for believers with their own experience of groaning as they hold on in hope, awaiting their final redemption. However, what the text says is that likewise the Spirit ‘helps’, not likewise the Spirit ‘groans’. ‘Likewise’ then refers back to some antecedent activity of the Spirit, not to the groaning of believers. Smith argues that ‘likewise’ is best understood to link the active work of the Spirit in intercession here in 8:26 right back to the active work of the Spirit confirming believers’ sonship in 8:16 despite the amount of material separating the two statements. He sums up his view: ‘Paul is saying: “Just as the Spirit is at work within our hearts to confirm to us our adoption (8:16), so in the same way also the Spirit is at work within our hearts to bear up our weakness (8:26)” ’.

The verb ‘to help’ used here is found only twice in the NT, here and in (‘But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” ’—italics added), where it clearly means to ‘lend assistance’. Here in 8:26 Paul maintains that the Holy Spirit ‘helps us in our weakness’. While the Spirit undoubtedly helps believers generally in their weakness, the particular weakness in which the Spirit helps them is their not knowing ‘what we ought to pray for’. This is surprising, for elsewhere Paul gives many instances of what people ought to pray for and the things for which he himself prays. Nevertheless, it is clear that the apostle is aware that there are times when he and others just do not know what to pray for—perhaps in times of suffering and persecution. When this is the case, he assures his audience that the Spirit lends us assistance.

The assistance the Spirit gives is that he himself ‘intercedes for us’. The idea of the Spirit interceding for people is found only here in the NT, and is not found in the OT or pre-Christian Jewish literature. Some have suggested that Paul is referring to believers’ prayers in tongues inspired by the Spirit, but this seems unlikely because: (i) the apostle is speaking of the Spirit’s intercession for us, not his inspiration of prayer in tongues by us; (ii) Paul says that the Spirit’s intercession is ‘through wordless groans’ (lit. ‘unspoken groans’),379 which suggests that the intercession is silent and not oral as is speaking in tongues.

While there is clearly a verbal connection between the groaning of creation, the groaning of believers, and the groaning of the Spirit, the Spirit’s groaning is clearly of a different order. In the former cases groaning emanates from frustration or suffering, whereas in the case of the Spirit this is certainly not so—his groaning is associated with intercession for believers.

8:27 In this verse Paul explains further the Spirit’s intercession, in particular the basis of its efficacy: And he who searches our hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. In the OT God is regularly depicted as the one who knows or searches the hearts of human beings (; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ). In the risen Christ says: ‘I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds’.

Only here does Paul speak about God knowing the mind of the Spirit, but in he discloses that the Spirit knows the mind of God: ‘The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God’. Clearly there is a deep mutual understanding between ‘God’ and ‘the Spirit of God’. Two things inherent in this mutual understanding guarantee the efficacy of the Spirit’s intercession for believers: (i) God knows what is the mind of the Spirit, and (ii) the Spirit intercedes for believers ‘in accordance with the will of God’.

d. God Works All Things Together for Good for Those Who Love Him, 8:28–30

Here the apostle encourages his audience by reminding them of another of those things ‘we’ know; in this case ‘we know’ that God works all things together for the good of believers whom he has called according to his purpose, those whom he has predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

8:28 Having encouraged his audience with the fact that the Spirit intercedes on their behalf, and that God knows the mind of the Spirit, Paul now encourages them with something that we know: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. This is one of five occasions in Romans where the apostle says that ‘we know’ something.383 What ‘we know’ in 8:28 is that ‘in all things God works for the good of those who love him’. This text could also be translated: ‘for those who love God all things work together for good’ (construing ‘all things’ as the subject of the verb ‘work’) or possibly, ‘for those who love God he works all things together for good’ (construing ‘he’ as the implied subject of the verb ‘works’), yielding the same sense as that provided by the NIV. There is a textual variant that makes this latter sense explicit: ‘for those who love God, God works all things for good’).384 While this variant reading is generally regarded by scholars as the result of scribal emendation to make explicit what the scribe thought was implicit, Rodgers has argued that, for the sake of stylistic improvement, a scribe may have omitted an original second reference to God. In addition, he suggests that there may be an echo here of , which reads: ‘You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives’. Gignilliat, noting that synergei (‘work with’) denotes a collaboration, argues that this rules out ‘all things’ as the subject of this verb, and this is further supported by the fact that the verb ‘work’ in Paul’s letters ‘takes a personal subject, not an impersonal one’ such as ‘all things’.

If God is the implied subject of the verb ‘to work’ here, with whom or what does he work together? As Gignilliat notes, Paul has already suggested a synergistic collaboration between God and the Spirit in the matter of intercession for believers in 8:26–27. This idea of synergistic collaboration is then carried forward into 8:28, where God and the Spirit work together for the good of believers. The context suggests that the ‘all things’ that God works together with the Spirit to promote the good of believers includes their suffering (8:18) and weakness (8:26), though the ‘all things’ here should probably not be restricted to sufferings but include all the circumstances of their lives. In 8:35–39 the apostle insists that nothing that believers encounter will be able to separate them from the love of God.