Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

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.