The Help of the Holy Spirit

Introduction

Over the last weeks and months we have considered the work of the Holy Spirit as He frees, indwells, seals, regenerates, resurrects, leads, mortifies, adopts, and testifies. Last week we considered the testifying work of the Spirit in our adoption, and how that testimony provides the proof for the soteriological reality that we are children of God, and if we are children, we are heirs of Christ’s glory, and if we are heirs of Christ’s glory, we must walk the road of Christ’s suffering.

We examined that suffering in detail last week, providing a picture of the suffering of this life giving way to the glory of the next.

Paul now turns his attention to yet another work of the Holy Spirit, namely, the help of the Holy Spirit.

My intent today is to demonstrate four truths from this text:

The road of suffering can only be walked by right prayer.

Right prayer is only accomplished by the help of the Holy Spirit.

Spirit-helped prayer is in accordance with the will of God the Father.

Spirit-helped prayer is heard and honored by God the Father.

We will examine this text according to the following outline:

The Nature of the Help

The Purpose of the Help

The Means of the Help

The Outcome of the Help

Let’s begin.

The Help of the Holy Spirit

Before we look at the ways Paul describes the help of the Holy Spirit in this text, we would do well to examine the word help itself.

This word help is highly unique. It is only used twice in the entire New Testament, and it is pronounced syantilambanetai. It comes from the Greek root lambano which either means receive or take, depending on the context. Walter Bauer says that to help in the ancient Greek context of this word is to come to one’s aid or be of assistance. The simplest version of the word would be the version we see here: help. The picture being painted by this word is perhaps best illustrated by the story of Simon of Cyrene, who help Jesus carry His cross. Our Lord is borne down by a heavy burden, too much to bear alone, and so Simon comes to His aid, assisting Him as He bears the load. This then is the picture of the Holy Spirit’s work. Coming up under and alongside, providing assistance to the Christian.

But Paul provides further clarity on the help of the Holy Spirit in this text, in two ways.

1. Help like the testimony

Paul says that the Spirit helps in the same way. But in the same way as what? Well we have to rewind. What is the last thing Paul said the Spirit does? Go back to verse 17. What does the Spirit do there? Testify that we are children of God. The Spirit provides corroborating witness to us, in our souls, that we are children of God, that we are recipients of adoption.

So Paul is effectively saying here that the manner in which the Spirit testifies, is the same manner in which He helps.

What then can we learn from the testifying work of the Spirit that also applies to the helping work of the Spirit?

It is a certain testimony, therefore it is a certain help. Paul makes no qualms about the certainty of the Spirit’s testimony. In fact, as we saw last week, the experiential implication of our own inner testimony as we cry out is that our testimony of God as our father can wax and wane. But the Spirit’s testimony is certain. So also is the Spirit’s help then.

It is an inner testimony, therefore it is an inner help. The testimony of the Spirit is not something audible, but something that resonates with our soul. It is not something that we only acknowledge with our minds, but something that we sense in our heart. It is an experiential, spiritual testimony, residing within the life of the inner man. So also then, the Spirit’s help is understood to be an inner, spiritual, experiential help.

It is a synchronous testimony, therefore it is a synchronous help. I mean here simply that the testimony of the Spirit is given in conjunction with our own inner testimony. The two happen together, the Spirit’s testimony strengthening and confirming our own. In the same way then, the Spirit’s help is also synchronous, the Spirit coming alongside our own experience and bearing the load of our sufferings. Charles Hodge says: “The Spirit dwells in the believer as a principle of life. In our consciousness there is no difference between our own acting and those of the Spirit. There is, however, a concursus, a joint agency of the divine and human in all holy exercises, and more especially in those emotions, desires, and aspirations which we are unable to clothe in words.”

So we see first that the help of the Spirit is of like kind and quality to the testimony of the Spirit. But we also see that this help is specifically intercessory in nature.

2. Help that is intercessory

Paul tells us that it is intercessory help, that the Spirit intercedes for us. This word here translated intercedes only occurs here in the entire New Testament in this particular form. In the Greek it’s hyperentynchanei, and essentially it means the Spirit overintercedes, or intercedes in a way that is too high or too deep for our understanding, which is why this intercession is described by Paul as too deep for words. It is an intercession that is beyond expression, which we will look at more closely in a moment.

This statement by Paul speaks to the great doctrine of the Holy Spirit as an advocate, or you might know it as the doctrine of the Paraclete, coming from the Greek word paraklētos. This is the word used four times by Jesus in the Upper Room discourse in John 14-16 to describe the Holy Spirit. The word there is translated helper in the NASB. The translators of the NASB sought to illustrate the allusion that Paul is making in Romans to the teaching of Jesus in John’s gospel. Perhaps the best translation comes, as it often does, from the NIV, which translates paraklētos as an advocate to help. In other words, Jesus understood the Holy Spirit’s role to be summarized in this paraklētos concept: that the Spirit’s purpose in coming in His fullness at Pentecost, and coming in His fullness into the heart of every true believer, is first and foremost to provide advocacy, intercessory help.

This idea of paraklētos really sums up Paul’s teaching here. For the ancient Greeks, a paraclete was a corroborating witness that testified to the truth in a court of law, as well as an assisting presence, providing comfort and support to the defendants in the courtroom. So the work of the Holy Spirit as helper should be understood as the work of the one who comes alongside, testifying both internally and externally of the truth - that the Christian is adopted by God as his or her Father.

Louis Berkhof said that the work of the Spirit as intercessor mirrors the work of Christ as intercessor. As Christ stands in heaven, testifying of the merits of His life and death and resurrection before God in heaven, so also the Spirit stands on earth, testifying of the merits of Christ’s life and death and resurrection before the church on earth.

So now having considered the nature of the help, we now need to consider the purpose of the help.

The Purpose of the Help

The fact that the Spirit helps us necessitates the pre-condition that we do in fact need that help. So what is it that the Spirit aids or assists us in?

There are two items here for Paul:

1. The Spirit helps our weakness

Some translations render this word infirmities, the Greek word here asthenia could also be translated sickness or disease, and should be rightly understood in conjunction with the suffering Paul elaborated on in the previous verses. The longing, the futility, the slavery to corruption, the groaning, the suffering, the waiting, all these are eased, helped, by the Spirit as He helps our weakness.

But all this weakness, all this suffering, this present body and creation, beset by corruption from which we long to be freed, takes a specific, practical, experiential form. Namely, our weakness, suffering, corruption in this world and in this life all prevent us from knowing how to pray as we ought, which is Paul’s second item, his second reason for why the help of the Spirit is necessary. First, we are weak, secondly we do not know how to pray.

2. The Spirit helps us to pray as we ought

Paul implies here that there is a right and wrong way to pray. We can pray as we should or we can not pray as we should.

Paul is thus alluding to the most famous explanation of how the Christian should pray.

Matthew 6:9–13 NASB95

“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. ‘Give us this day our daily bread. ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’

Let’s step back and zoom out for a minute and summarize what Paul means here. Going back to verses 14-15, the Spirit is leading us, and by so doing is establishing our adoption. That adoption prompts one thing in Paul’s mind: this personal, passionate cry of Abba Father. Paul now takes that idea a step further and explains to us that the personal, passionate cry is actually a personal, passionate prayer, but that prayer is inhibited by the weakness and suffering of our present state. As we walk the road of suffering on our way to glory, we cannot walk it without prayer, and we cannot pray without help. But for Paul, the Spirit provides that help to pray, and therefore provides the help to walk the road of suffering that leads to glory.

Therefore, we can summarize by saying that the helping work of the Spirit is accomplished because in our weakness, we do not know how to pray, nor do we know what to pray. It is therefore only by the help of the Holy Spirit that we can pray as Jesus taught us to pray.

So we do not know how to pray, and therefore require the help of the Spirit. What does that help actually look like? Let’s look now to the means of the help.

The Means of the Help

Paul not only tells us about the help, he not only tells us why the help exists and is necessary, he also tells us how the help happens, or what it looks like in real life. Paul tells us how the Spirit helps in three ways.

1. He helps with groanings too deep for words

Now what is meant here by the groaning being too deep for words? First of all, there’s a play on words here. These groanings, here poured forth by the Spirit, are the very same groanings of the creation and of the Christian back in verses 22 and 23. By giving us this play on words, Paul is further cementing the fact that in all things, the Spirit is with us. As we groan, the Spirit groans, as the creation groans, the Spirit groans. The implication then is that this three-part harmony of groans and sighs is internal. It’s too deep for words. It’s beyond our ability to express. Have you ever felt that way? As you’re praying or crying out to God, you’re at a loss for words? That’s what’s in view here. As we walk the road of prayerful suffering, by the help of the Spirit, looking forward to glory, we are overwhelmed. We can’t speak. And even in that weakness, that inability, the Spirit is with us, groaning with us, helping us. On this ground then Charles Hodge summarizes:

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Commentary

The Spirit dwells in the believer as a principle of life. In our consciousness there is no difference between our own acting and those of the Spirit. There is, however, a concursus, a joint agency of the divine and human in all holy exercises, and more especially in those emotions, desires, and aspirations which we are unable to clothe in words.

2. He helps the saints

The sense of this intercession is that it is fundamentally and essentially on our behalf. Paul says the Spirit intercedes for us. You might say that the Spirit speaks the things we desire to speak, prays the things we desire to pray, but cannot fully articulate because of our present state of corruption and suffering. This picture captures Paul’s tension at the end of chapter 7. We desire to pray as we ought, but our weakness of body and mind prevent it from being so. The Spirit thus intercedes, He echoes, He translates our prayers into that which is pleasing to God. Going back to our statement earlier that the help of the Holy Spirit is synchronous, we can say that the Spirit comes with us, as it were, to the throne of grace.

This is reflected in a funny story that happened to me in college. This was the fall of 2017, and I was on campus a few weeks early for student staff training. My friend Nathan was also there with me. Now Nathan had been talking to this girl over the summer on Instagram and over text. They had a lot of mutual friends, including me, but they had never met in person. Now this girl was also on staff, and so we were having this big dinner to welcome all the student staff people back, and I see across the lawn that this girl is here. I immediately say to Nathan “Hey man, you gotta go over there and talk to her. It’s weird that you’ve been texting all summer and you don’t go talk to her in real life. Now come on. Here, I’ll go with you.” And we walked over and talked and we all ended up sitting together for dinner. Fast forward to today and Nathan and Maya have been married for four years.

That’s the picture here. As we cry Abba Father, the Spirit goes with us, cries out with us, helps us to pray as we ought.

3. He helps according to the will of God

Paul says that the intercessory work of the Holy Spirit is according to the will of God.

This intercession is always in keeping with the will of God, and therefore when we pray, by the help of the Spirit, as we ought, we are praying according to the will of God. Therefore, as we walk in Spirit-helped prayer on the road from suffering to glory, we walk in accordance with the will of God. Hodge again provides helpful commentary:

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Commentary

The desires produced by the Spirit of God himself are, of course, agreeable to the will of God, and secure of being approved and answered. This is the great consolation and support of believers. They know not either what is best for themselves or agreeable to the will of God; but the Holy Spirit dictates those petitions and excites those desires which are consistent with the divine purposes, and which are directed towards the blessings best suited to our wants. Such prayers are always answered.

This is what John was talking about in 1 John 5:14-15

1 John 5:14–15 NASB95

This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.

So we see that the road of suffering can only be walked by right prayer, right prayer is only accomplished by the help of the Holy Spirit, and Spirit-helped prayer is in accordance with the will of God the Father. This leads us to the final outcome of the help of the Spirit.

The outcome of the help

He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is.

Now Paul doesn’t directly define who “He” is. He leaves it up to the presumed prior knowledge of his readers. This statement alludes to at least 7 Old Testament passages from David, Solomon, and Jeremiah that testify that Yahweh is the one who searches, who sees, who tests, who knows the hearts and minds of men. The one who searches the hearts then is the one to whom we cry Abba Father, the one to whom we pray.

And that same God who searches our own hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is. In context, as the Spirit is helping us in our weakness, helping us to pray as we ought, helping us to walk worthy as we suffer through this world, the mind of the Spirit reflects the mind of the one in whom the Spirit dwells. Thus, by the intercessory help of the Holy Spirit, God the Father can commune with us in this life. As the Father knows the mind of the Spirit, He also knows the mind of the one in whom the Spirit dwells.

John Calvin summarizes:

Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans Chapter 8

This is a remarkable reason for strengthening our confidence, that we are heard by God when we pray through his Spirit, for he thoroughly knows our desires, even as the thoughts of his own Spirit. And here must be noticed the suitableness of the word to know; for it intimates that God regards not these emotions of the Spirit as new and strange, or that he rejects them as unreasonable, but that he allows them, and at the same time kindly accepts them, as allowed and approved by him. As then Paul had before testified, that God then aids us when he draws us as it were into his own bosom, so now he adds another consolation, that our prayers, of which he is the director, shall by no means be disappointed. The reason also is immediately added, because he thus conforms us to his own will. It hence follows, that in vain can never be what is agreeable to his will, by which all things are ruled. Let us also hence learn, that what holds the first place in prayer is consent with the will of the Lord, whom our wishes do by no means hold under obligation. If then we would have our prayers to be acceptable to God, we must pray that he may regulate them according to his will.

Conclusion

The path of suffering to glory can only be walked by right prayer. Prayer is only right inasmuch as it is helped by the Spirit. Therefore, right, Spirit-helped prayer is in accordance with the will of God, and because it is in accordance with the will of God, it is heard and honored by God.

The application is quite simple: the shoes on your feet and the stick in your hand on your trek toward glory are right, Spirit-helped prayer. In the same way that you would not take the first step on a long hike without sturdy boots, so also you would not take the first step on a long journey to glory without prayer.

What should I pray, you might ask?

Jesus taught us:

Our Father - pray with filial love. Pray in acknowledgement of the miracle of adoption. Pray with confidence that as a father longs to protect and provide for His children, God longs to protect and provide for us.

Who is in heaven - Pray with humility. Pray with the acknowledgement that God is so high, so holy, so transcendent, that we are unworthy to be in His presence even as slaves, let alone as sons and daughters.

Hallowed be Your name- pray with praise. God is transcendent, yet He has condescended and made Himself immanent. His name, his works, his characters are hallowed and worthy of praise, worthy of worship, worthy of honor, worthy of glory.

Your kingdom come - pray with longing. Pray with eagerness for God to reveal His kingdom through the reign of Christ by the power of the Spirit. Even as He has already revealed His kingdom through Christ, pray that He would continue to reveal it in greater and greater ways.

Your will be done - pray for obedience. Pray with Adelaide Pollard: Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way! Hold o'er my being absolute sway. Fill with thy Spirit till all shall see Christ only, always, living in me! Pray for the obedience of yourself, your spouse, your children, your family, your church. Pray that not your will, not our will, not my will, but that His will be done.

On earth as it is in heaven - pray for holiness, love, and peace. Heaven is so many things, but at least we can affirm succinctly with Jonathan Edwards that heaven is a world of love, that heaven is a world of holiness, that heaven is a world of peace. Pray that these things would be made reality first in our own lives. That we would walk in holiness, love, and peace. And then that the holiness, love, and peace of heaven would penetrate and permeate the whole earth, starting with your family, followed by your church, followed by your city, state, and nation. On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread - pray for provision. The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains. Every good and perfect gift comes down from above. For this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food? And the body more than clothing? But seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Pray then, for my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors - pray for forgiveness. If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Be gracious to me, O God, according to your lovingkindness. According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil - pray for deliverance from temptation and evil. We live in a world surrounded by evil, surrounded by temptation. Pray that God will deliver. He will. He has promised that He will, if we will only pray!

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and glory forever - pray with confidence. A God who reigns in glory over all the earth, doing as He pleases, is certainly a God who can answer your prayers, and do it with power and glory. Pray then with confidence! Don’t pray as though you are wishing wistfully that something might come to pass. Pray with confidence, knowing that if you pray according to God’s will, it will happen. If you pray as Jesus commanded, all these things will come to pass. God will be praised. His kingdom will come. His will will be done. Heaven will come down to earth. We will have all we need, both physically and spiritually. We will be forgiven our sins. God will do it.

But we can’t pray like this by ourselves. Paul is clear: We can only pray like this by the help of the Holy Spirit. We can only draw near to our Abba Father by the help of the Holy Spirit.

So as we close, I want to first share and then illustrate what I have found to be the best method of prayer. This comes from John Piper, and he says that this is the way live your entire Christian life, beyond just praying, but even Bible reading, attending church, doing all the things we do in our lives. It’s a little acronym, APTAT.

A - Admit: Admit that apart from the help of the Holy Spirit, you cannot pray as you ought.

P - Pray: Pray for the Spirit to help you pray as you ought.

T - Trust: Trust that the Spirit does indeed help us by testifying and interceding, bringing our prayers to God the Father.

A - Act: Do it! Pray the disciple’s prayer. Pray for yourself, your family, your church.

T - Thank: Thank the Spirit for His interceding and testifying help as we pray.

So let’s do this now.