The Intercession of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26-27)

 

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Have you ever heard the expression, “God’s perfect will for your life”? Now, I believe that God’s will, along with every other attribute of God, is perfect.  But often when this phrase is used, it is in reference to what God wants us to do, and in particular to his “secret” plan for us in the various details and decisions of life.  They call it secret because it is not in God’s word, his revealed will.  But nevertheless, the idea is that God wants us to discover it.  So, for example, the Bible doesn’t tell you which college to apply for, or the name of the person you are to marry, it doesn’t tell you which job to take, it doesn’t tell you which car to buy, it doesn’t tell you what kind of diet you should follow: it doesn’t tell you a lot of specifics with regard to the innumerable decisions that we have to make.  Now of course God’s word does speak to everything in a general sense.  But those who advocate for discovering this perfect, yet secret will of God, are supposing that there is always only one path for each of us to take, and if we don’t take the right one – the one in conformity to this perfect will of God – then we are going to suffer the consequences.

So let’s say Bob is trying to discern which job to take.  He has several job offers.  Let’s suppose that he could faithfully serve the Lord in every one of these positions.  Let’s suppose that every job is near a good church, and that each of them would allow him to deploy his own unique gifts and that he could adequately provide for his family in each of them.  For the sake of the illustration, let’s suppose that he’s working through three different job offers.  He has a week to make a decision.  What should he do? 

Here’s really the question I want us to wrestle with: all other things being equal, does it matter before God which job he chooses?  Those who advocate for this “perfect will of God” mentality would say that it does, that even though he has three job offers and even though he could faithfully serve the Lord and provide for his family in every one of them, it does matter which one he chooses, because only one of them is in God’s perfect will for Bob.

Now I hope by this point you can see that I am not in agreement with this perspective.  It really is a terrifying perspective to have, and I don’t see how it can’t drive a person insane, or lead them to paralysis if you really believe this.  Of course, there are those people who are so sure of themselves that they can’t imagine that God would be on a different page than themselves, and so I suppose this kind of person might actually like this way of thinking about decision-making.  But for those who have a modicum of honest self-reflection about them, it can’t but lead to paralysis and fear and anxiety.  Every decision becomes like one of those puzzles, where there are two doors and behind one door is a dragon and behind the other is a pot of gold and you got to choose one of them.  Open the right door and you’re instantly wealthy.  Open the wrong door and you’ve just become a dragon’s lunch.

When I was a bit younger, I was faced with some major decisions, and I was at a sort of fork in the road in my life.  And though I don’t think I would have necessarily verbalized this “there’s only one perfect will of God for you” mentality, I think I had absorbed it in some way, and I was really struggling as a result.  It was a heavy time of life for me.  I wasn’t sure what to do, and I was afraid of making the wrong decision.  

In God’s gracious providence, John Piper was preaching through Romans at the time, and he was preaching in Romans chapter 8.  And he was preaching on these verses 26-27 in fact.  And what he showed me that this passage teaches was something that I found to be incredibly freeing to me, and I’ve never forgotten it.  It was like the chains came off.  One of the things he said in a sermon on this passage was, “Don't add to your burdens the worry that you don't know all the will of God.”   That’s an incredibly freeing truth, isn’t it?  

And so what do you do in that situation?  You simply take the next step in faith and love and obedience to Christ, and do the next thing, trusting in him to lead you.  You make the best decision as far as you can see it and move on.  That’s what you do.  And it’s okay if you don’t know all the will of God in matters that he hasn’t revealed to you.  As Deut. 29:29 puts it, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”  Don’t worry about the secret things.  Just do everything you do so that you are always in conformity with his revealed will and you will be okay.

Now how does this passage help us to see that?  It helps us to see that because this passage is about people who don’t know God’s will in a given situation, and yet God does not rebuke them.  Instead, he intercedes for them!  Let’s consider the central concern or problem that this passage addresses, and then the Biblical solution to the problem that it gives.

The central concern of this passage

The central concern or problem is that “we know not what we should pray for as we ought.”  Now in this epistle the apostle has been emphasizing all along that there are things that we are supposed to know and it does matter that we know them.  But here is something that he says we don’t know.  We don’t always know what we should pray for as we ought.  As we ought.  That’s an interesting way to put it, isn’t it?  Does that mean that this is a sinful ignorance?  Is this something that we should know, or ought to know, but don’t and it’s sinful that we don’t know it?  

I don’t think that Paul means by this that our ignorance is sinful.  Rather, he is referring to ignorance that is a part of our infirmity: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.”  He doesn’t say the Spirit helps our sin but our infirmity.  There is nothing sinful about being infirm in the way that Paul is speaking of here.  We know this because the infirmity here is linked to the previous verses.  “Likewise” the Spirit helps our infirmity (26).  Likewise how?  Likewise in the sense that just as hope enables us to endure through infirmity (24-25), even so the Sprit helps us to endure through infirmity (26-27).  We have infirmity because we live in fallen world. The apostle has just said that “we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (23).  And we noted that the groaning is not linked to any particular kind of suffering but to the fact of living in a world that is broken by sin.  

So we should understand the infirmity in verse 26 in a similar way.  It is not sinful to be ignorant in the way that Paul is speaking of here.  So why does he say that we don’t know something that we ought to know?  Well, the oughtness here is not the oughtness of moral responsibility but the oughtness of what is most fitting or best for us.  We use this language all the time, don’t we?  For example, we might think that Bob would be a good candidate for a particular political office and for that reason say, “He ought to run for that office.”  We don’t mean by that that he would be sinning if he didn’t!  We just mean that it would be fitting for him to do so.  In fact, the Greek word that the apostle uses here could be translated that way: “We know not what we should pray for as it is fitting.”  

What determines what is best for us? Well, the next verse tells us, doesn’t it?  The Spirit of God intercedes for us, helps us, because “he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (27).  Technically, the phrase “according to the will of God” is just “according to God” in the original language.  It is translated as “godly” or “after a godly manner,” in 2 Cor. 7:9-11.  What Paul is saying is that the Spirit intercedes for us in a way that is most pleasing to God.  We don’t always know what that is.  We don’t always know which path to take so that by our choice we will most please God and glorify him in this world.  We don’t always know which choice among many that may be presented to us will most contribute towards our godliness.  But the Spirit of God knows, and he intercedes for us in accordance with that knowledge, the very thing that we don’t know.

So the central concern of the passage is that we are often ignorant of what will be the best for us, not in terms of what will make us the most wealthy in this world, or what will maximize our ability to influence others in this world, but in terms of what will most contribute to our godliness and a life that pleases God.

And Paul assumes that this is something that we will want to know.  Is it?  Is this something that is a burden for you?  Is this something that you groan over?  Do we weep over the things that we ought to weep or do we moan and groan because we aren’t achieving the American Dream or reaching our maximum potential in this world in terms of fame, health, and wealth?  Does it make you sad that you aren’t more sanctified than you are?  That’s what’s behind this groaning here!  Is it behind ours?

Now our infirmities make this a problem in a thousand different ways.  Infirmities are never planned; suffering is never planned, and that’s one of the reasons it brings not only hurt but also often great uncertainty, doubt, and difficulties of various kinds.  Some grievous trial enters into our lives, upsetting our plans, interrupting our schedules, and dashing our hopes upon so many rocks.  We may have had things planned out, but now we just don’t know what to do.  Often trials tend to put decisions in our laps one after the other that we have to make and don’t have a lot of time to do it.  And we know that all these decisions are going to have an enormous impact on the rest of our lives.  

Of course, if you’re a Christian these moments will drive you to prayer.  But what Paul is saying here is that so often in that moment, you don’t know what to pray!  At the very moment when clarity is most needed, we often cannot see two inches in front of us.  We find ourselves in the midst of a fog.  We’re afraid of going through the wrong door.  And that’s the problem.  We afraid of messing things up further.  We’re afraid of doing something that will not be for our best spiritually.  We don’t know what to pray for so that God will be most glorified in our lives.  That’s the problem.  So what’s the solution?

The Biblical solution presented in the text

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities” (26).  In the previous verses, Paul has been encouraging suffering saints by hope.  Remember what he says in verses 24-25: “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”  Hope is one of the great things that God uses to sustain the wavering saint.  It is a helmet for our head: “for an helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:8).  But a runner who is running a marathon doesn’t just run on hope that he or she will make it to the end.  You need strength every step of the way.  You need calories!  I remember a young guy who used to ride his bike a long way each Sunday to church.  One Sunday he didn’t make it, but he explained the next week that the reason he hadn’t was because he had run out of calories!  I’ve never forgotten how he put that.  You need energy to make it to the end.  Well, in a sense that is what the apostle Paul is reminding the Christian who is in difficulty, who feels worn out.  You are not alone.  “The Spirit helps our weakness.”  This is not just a promise for the future – that was the point in verses 18-25.  Rather, this is a promise for the present.  The Holy Spirit, the third Person in the Holy Trinity, is giving the saint present help.  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1).  

This is at least part of the fulfillment of our Lord’s promise to us concerning the Spirit: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (Jn. 14:16-18).  The word “Comforter” that our Lord uses to describe the Holy Spirit there is the word Paraclete, which certainly includes the idea of one who comforts, but it is also broader than that.  Most generally, it means one who comes alongside and helps.  It is also translated “advocate” in 1 John 2:2 in reference to our Lord himself.  This is what the Holy Spirit does.  He dwells in the believer (cf. Rom. 8:9, 11) in order to strengthen and sanctify us along the way: “to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16).

Nuclear subs are able to stay under the water almost indefinitely because they have what is essentially an unlimited source of power.  But the believer has an even greater source of power: the God who created the energy of nuclear fission is the one who indwells the believer.  It may not feel like it because we are weak.  We are infirm.  We are limited.  But the Spirit who is not weak and infirm and limited helps our infirmities.  Let us never forget that.

But the thing that the apostle focuses in on in these two verses is our ignorance in prayer.  And the particular way the Spirit helps us is to make “intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”  What is Paul saying here?  This seems a little strange, doesn’t it?  Is he saying that the Spirit himself is groaning?  I don’t think so.  I think we’re the ones who are groaning, but that the Spirit inspires these groans, amplifies them, and purifies them, and sends them up to heaven to be heard in a way that brings about God’s will for our lives.  

Here’s why I think it’s we who are groaning, but that the Spirit is the one who inspires them.  I think we have a parallel case in the previous verses, especially verses 15-16.  Remember how we compared Rom. 8:15 with Gal. 4:6.  In the Romans passage, we are the ones who cry, “Abba, Father,” but in the Galatians passage, we are told that the Spirit is crying “Abba, Father.”  But it is obvious in that case that the Spirit is not the one directly calling God “Father,” but that he is inspiring us to do so.  He gives us the disposition of sons by which we cry out to God as our Father.  So that passage is a clue that something similar is going on here.  It’s not the Spirit who is groaning in a direct sort of way, but that he is doing so in an indirect way by inspiring us to do so.

Now the fact is that the previous verses have also already alerted us to the fact that the saints are groaning (23).  So it seems to me that Paul is picking up that thread again here, and relating it to the work of the Spirit in our hearts.  After all, why would the Spirit need to groan?  It is a sign of weakness that we do so, and the Spirit is not weak. We are the ones who are weak.  The Spirit is not ignorant; we are the ones who are ignorant.

How is this help?  How is it help that the Spirit inspires these unutterable groanings in prayer?  It is help in the sense that the Spirit is driving us to do the one thing that we need most to do when we are in trouble, and that is to pray.  And to pray even when we don’t know how to pray or what to pray for.  He drives us to prayer even when all we have to offer God are groanings, when we don’t even have the words for prayer.  Ah my friend, we often think that unless we can formulate wonderful, articulate, holy-sounding, liturgically-rich prayers, that God won’t hear them.  We imagine that God is up in heaven with a clip-board grading the rhetorical value of our pleadings.  But that is simply not the case!  Though we don’t want to go so far as to say that words are never important (of course they are, for our Lord teaches us how to pray in terms of words), yet the fact of the matter is that God is not impressed with our words.  What he is impressed with is a Spirit-inspired faith and trust in God to provide, lead, guide, and protect, even when we don’t know the words and when we don’t know how best to ask for any of it.  

Cast your eyes to the temple and see two men in prayer.  There is the Pharisee: very well-spoken, very sure of himself, especially when it came to his relationship with God.  Then over there, in a corner, you see a despised social-outcast, a man who worked for the enemy, a tax-collector for the Romans, and he is praying too.  But he has no wonderful words, and he is utterly unsure of himself.  All he can do is beat his breast (do you hear his groanings?) and say, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”  What is our Lord’s appraisal?  He said that it was the tax-collector who went to his house justified, rather than the Pharisee.

However, the Spirit is not just there to strengthen us, nor is he just there to drive us to prayer.  He is there to intercede for us: “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” (26-27).  It’s not just that the Spirit inspires and sanctifies our groanings but with our groanings he pleads for us with God the Father on our behalf.  

And God the Father hears God the Spirit because he is the Spriit of Christ (cf. verses 8-11).  Of course he does, “because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”  There are two ways to take this last part of verse 27 depending on how you translate the Greek word behind “because.”  It could either mean “because” or “that.”  In other words, it could give the reason why God hears (knows) the intercession of the Spirit, or it could give the content of the Spirit’s intercession for us. Or it could be that both are implied here.  They are certainly both true.  In fact, I don’t think you can have one without the other.  God hears the Spirit because his intercession is pleasing to him, and it is pleasing to him since God knows that the Spirit intercedes in accordance with his will.

God is described as the one who searches the hearts because this is where the groaning is happening.  Perhaps no one else knows about our trouble.  We can’t even enunciate our problems to God, let alone to others.  All we can do is groan.  But God hears and knows the mind of the Spirit.

You may wonder, “Is all this necessary?”  If God the Father and God the Spirit are one in essence as the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us, then doesn’t God the Father automatically know what God the Spirit knows?   Yes, of course he does.  This is not done for God’s benefit.  It’s not as if the Father is waiting for the Spirit to intercede in order to know what needs to be done for the saints.  So why does he do it this way?  He does it for our benefit.  God so orders his providential dealings with his children so that the intercession is real and the response of God to it is real, so that we will seek the Lord even when we don’t know how to pray or what to pray for.

One more thing.  For whom does the Spirit intercede?  “He maketh intercession for the saints.”  Who are the saints?  In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle opens by identifying his audience this way: “the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1)  These are not different audiences: the saints are the faithful in Christ Jesus.  In particular, they are all those who are united to Christ, who belong to Jesus.  These are the ones for whom the Spirit intercedes.  He does not do so for the world.  Just because a person prays does not mean that they are being heard.  God does not hear the prayers of the wicked; this is something that is repeatedly said in Scripture.  And though all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, the wicked are distinct from the saints as those who continue to reject the authority of God over their life.  They are those who do not submit to the righteousness of God in Christ.  They are those who reject the gospel, who will not come to God through Christ.  It is only through Jesus, and Jesus alone that we have access to the Father by the Spirit (Eph. 2:18).  As the author of Hebrews puts it, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19).  If you want to be able to claim this privilege, you must be a person who embraces Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  I want to encourage every person in this room to do so!  Because even though it is true that God does not hear the wicked who are estranged from Christ, yet he does hear every sinner who comes unto God by Jesus.  I know that because our Lord himself said it: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (Jn. 6:37).

It’s important therefore for us to remember that “saint” doesn’t mean “holier than thou,” but rather those who have been cleansed from their sin by Jesus Christ.  And it means that if you belong to Jesus, it doesn’t matter who are you are where you are or what circumstances you are in.  It doesn’t matter what troubles or problems you are facing, and it doesn’t matter if you even know how to pray or what to pray for.  What matters is that God is your Father in Christ, and that united to Christ you are able with boldness to bring every care, every anxiety, every trouble to him, even if it is only with groanings.  And we can do so in the confidence that even our groanings are inspired the by the Spirit and that God will hear him so that his will is worked out in our lives. So that all things work together for good for them that love him who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28).