The Spirit's Intercession

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eight
THE SPIRIT’S INTERCESSION

Scripture Reading: verses 26-29

LIKEWISE THE SPIRIT ALSO HELPETH OUR INFIRMITIES: FOR 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. 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. AND WE KNOW THAT ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THEM THAT LOVE GOD, TO THEM WHO ARE THE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE. FOR WHOM HE DID FOREKNOW, HE ALSO DID PREDESTINATE TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON, THAT HE MIGHT BE THE FIRST-BORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN.

Perhaps the keynote of this entire passage is struck in the end of verse 28, “according to his purpose.”¹ How little the people of God realize the precision and immutability of God’s purpose. He is working all things after the counsel of His own will and through matchless grace we form a part of that vast scheme of divine purpose with the Center of it all – the Lord Jesus Christ. How these thoughts should establish every one of us in the faith, banishing from our hearts and minds the doubts and misgivings that Satan constantly seeks to instill in us. Little wonder the twenty-sixth verse brings into view our infirmity in connection with prayer.² This verse is often misunderstood. In view of the vast scheme of blessing which God will inaugurate in and through the Lord Jesus Christ for the entire universe, and in view of the fact that we are moving toward that at this present time, prayer becomes a large and weighty affair. In view of the purpose of God, each one of us must appear very small, and the tiny cup of our own apprehension can hold little of the vast ocean of God’s eternal blessing. Therefore, in connection with our prayer life we are indeed weak and infirm, and we do not rightly know what to ask for. It is here that the Spirit’s power comes in, taking up our infirmity. He Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Let us not confuse this with groanings that can be uttered, and the various noises we sometimes hear religious people indulge in under the name of prayer. The groanings mentioned here are “groanings that cannot be uttered.”³ They are the deep yearnings of the human heart, silenced before the immensity of the tremendous need around us, the need of the hand of God intervening in a world of sorrow, trial, and unspeakable suffering. These are groanings that cannot be uttered, not to be confused with the weird noises in which some indulge when supposedly in prayer.

Sensing this deep yearning in our hearts and in common with needy humanity around us, we cry out to God for weaknesses and infirmities besetting us. The Lord who is on the Throne – He that searches the heart – knows the mind of the Spirit because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Thus, there is intimate communion between our Intercessor on high – Jesus Christ, and the Intercessor within our hearts, the Holy Spirit. The answer comes back from heaven and the result is: “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Looking back over our lives, surely we realize how much the intercession of the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, has to do with our walk and ways. Certain needs arise in our lives, spiritual needs of which we know little. Perhaps we sense there is a need, but what that need is we are too infirm and weak to either grasp or express.

Perhaps it is a yearning for deeper communion with the Lord. Then the Spirit prays, and the Lord on high hears that prayer, although it be in groanings which cannot be uttered; and the answer at once comes back. Perhaps the Spirit of God has seen that the only way the communion we desire may be reached is by allowing us to go through deep waters of suffering through some particular trial. The Spirit of God prayed; then perhaps we meet with an accident, and are hospilized. It seemes as if our whole life had gone away. For a time, our hopes are crashed in ruins and the entire scheme of our life of service for the Lord, as well as our usefulness to those dependent on us, came to an unexpected suspension and we are laid aside in weakness and helplessness. It was the Spirit of God, knowing our infirmity, who prayed for that, and the Lord, who searches the heart, knew the Spirit intercedes according to the will of God. And so the entire highway of our life suddenly made a detour into the shadows of trial and difficulty. Was it an accident? There are no accidents among God’s people. The Spirit of God, and the Lord on the Throne knew it was the only way to bring forth some particular blessing; and so it was allowed. Thus it is with every detail of our Christian lives; thus we know “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

How infirm and weak we all are in relation to the circumstances of life. But God is weaving a marvelous pattern of harmony in every Christian life. He knows how beautiful it will be in the day of glory when it is put on display. Meanwhile, it may seem as if there are many loose threads in the hand of the Almighty and the entire plan and scheme of our little lives are disjointed and broken. Let us remember that the Spirit of God – the divine Person indwelling our hearts – is supervising every step of the way. He sees ahead and knows our need. We do not know what to pray for, but He does, and His petitions go to the One on the Throne at heaven’s highest height. Thus, there is a divine arrangement of every detail of the Christian pathway. It is with this background that Paul says, “We know that all things work together for good.” We can all look back on seasons in our lives when everything seemed to go wrong, and sometimes we thought God was punishing us for something, whereas it was His loving-kindness seeking to impress on our hearts some particular item of blessing which we could never have learned except through suffering. Remember the Word of God concerning our Lord Jesus Himself:

Though He were a Son yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and, being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him.

Footnotes:
¹ To be called “in one body (the church)” (Col. 3:15), and that “through the church” there might be made known “the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:10,11). This, properly understood, eliminates the widespread misunderstanding with regard to God’s calling of the redeemed. Paul here did not speak of individuals as such, but of the whole body of the saved. That body, composed of the whole number of the redeemed, is indeed called and foreordained to eternal glory; but of an individual person, it must be said that he is called from before all time and predestinated to everlasting life, only if his affirmative response to the divine call has brought him into union with Christ, and if he so continues. Thus, the germ of foreknowledge is found in the very first word of Paul’s revelation on this tremendous subject. God’s purposing was “kept in silence through times eternal” (Rom. 16:25), and was an event prior to the creation of the world, “which in other generations was not made known” (Eph. 3:5), “which hath been hid for ages and generations” (Col. 1:26), “which God who cannot lie, promised before times eternal” (Titus 1:2). God’s eternal purpose of gathering the saved of all ages into one body “in Christ” was a design “which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory” (1 Cor. 2:7), which must be identified with “the mystery of God.” A careful study of the passages here cited shows that in all of the “mystery” passages Paul was speaking of “the wisdom of God” and of his “eternal purpose” of uniting all people in Christ through the church which is his body. In his Commentary on Paul’s Letter to Romans, p. 280, Moses E. Lard provides the following: “We now have but little difficulty explaining the clause ‘called according to his purpose.’ In the [@prothesis] all things pertaining to man’s redemption were set before God, and among them his predetermination that man should be called by the gospel, ‘to which salvation he called you by our gospel.’ Hence, to be called according to God’s purpose, [@prothesis], is to be called by the gospel. It is therefore not to be called by some secret impulse of the Holy Spirit; neither is it to be called ‘effectually,’ or ‘ineffectually,’ as the schoolmen phrase it. This call we are absolutely free to accept or reject; and, accordingly, as we do this or that, we shall be saved or lost.”
² ?And 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 that cannot be uttered.? There are two intercessors for the Christian: (1) Christ at the right hand of the Majesty on High (Heb. 7:25), and (2) the Holy Spirit within the Christian himself. Thus, there are two sources of encouragement open to the Christian: (1) the blessed hope within himself, and (2) the help of the Holy Spirit. This entire arrangement supplies both human and divine encouragement to the child of God. ?We know not how to pray as we ought? does not mean that Christians have no knowledge of prayer; but, as Moses E. Lard noted on p. 277 of his Commentary on Paul?s Letter to Romans: ?Our weakness and ignorance in this life are so great that in many respects, possibly as a rule, we know not what we should pray for as we ought. We want many things, and it may be pray for them, which, were they granted, would prove our greatest rots. fortune; while, we do not want, and never ask, for many things which would be our greatest blessings. Here then is ignorance of what we should pray for; and, as to how we should pray, I imagine we are equally at a loss. Confessedly then, we are weak and need aid.?
³?With groanings that cannot be uttered? is a reference to the dimly perceived and partially understood longings of the redeemed soul which are impossible for the Christian to frame into articulated petitions to the Father, but which needs, though inadequately understood, are nevertheless understood by the Spirit of God who transfers such inexpressible yearnings of the soul to the Throne itself. This identification of the groanings mentioned here with the believer?s inadequacy, rather than with any insufficiency of the Holy Spirit. In his book, Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul, p. 334, John Locke paraphrased this verse: ?Such therefore, are our groans, which the Spirit, in aid to our infirmity, makes use of. For we know not what prayers to make, as we ought, but the Spirit itself layeth for us our requests before God.? Therefore, when the Christian?s prayers have reached the boundary of language as a vehicle for the conveyance of thought, when such prayers become more of a heavenward sigh than a formal utterance, then the Christian may know that the inward Intercessor is fully able to convey the soul?s true desire to the Throne.