And in like manner the Spirit joins also its help to our weakness; for we do not know what we should pray for as is fitting, but the Spirit itself makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Romans 8 has already described a groaning creation. Here another groan rises inside the believer, and it is God's own Spirit. Two questions follow: why does a Christian still not know what to pray for, and how can a wordless groan be prayer at all?
The problem here is not sin. We see only part of the picture, so our prayers fall short.
As we look at the growing sorrows of this groaning creation, and feel our own need, we may find relief in prayer. Even then we do not know how to pray as we ought. While we are down here, we know only in part. We cannot take in the greatness and glory of Christ, or the weakness of our own flesh, or the sorrows of the groaning creation.
That gap does not shut us out of prayer. It is where the Spirit comes in.
Our ignorance of how to pray as we ought surely shows us our need of the Spirit's work, and should make us submit ourselves to Him all the more.
A groan is not a failed prayer. It is feeling that has outgrown speech, and it needs a listener who reads hearts rather than sentences.
Moved by the Spirit of God, we present our needs with an earnestness that no human words can express. A groan always assumes a depth of feeling beyond the power of words to utter. For this reason only God can interpret a groan. That is why Scripture says, "he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit." The Spirit expresses that mind in us by a groan.
The believer feels the groan as his own, yet Scripture credits it to the Spirit. That settles a fear many have — that their groaning is only selfishness or unbelief.
So it is my heart that groans, while it says, "the Spirit intercedes" — oh, the wonderful ways of God! It is a great comfort to know these are not selfish groans in me. While I groan along with everything around me, I might think, "Careful, there may be unbelief in that." But it is the Spirit's groan in us. Selfish groans we find in Romans 7. There it is all I, I, I — no Christ and no Holy Spirit until the end of the chapter. Romans 8 is full of Christ and of the Spirit.
The Spirit does not stand apart from the believer and plead on his behalf. He works inside, so that when God looks into the heart He finds the Spirit's own desires there. (The ESV reads "intercedes for us." The writer below follows older manuscripts that leave out "for us.")
The words "for us" in Romans 8:26 are not in the best texts. Like many well-meant additions to Scripture, they only spoil it. Adding "makes intercession for us" here would suggest that the Spirit and the saints are two separate parties. It would make Him someone outside of us, praying on our behalf. The next words show that this is not the meaning. God looks down into the heart. He sees there the desires and prayers the Spirit has worked in. That intercession, made inside the saints and on their behalf, is according to God.
Christ intercedes in heaven, and the Spirit intercedes within. One writer pictures this double support in a scene from Israel's history, where two men held up the arms of Moses during a battle.
Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on each side… What divine strength this gives in the hour of strong temptation. On one side is the exalted Son of God, in the very presence of God, holding up the hands of faith and making intercession. And on the other side, down here, in the believer, the Holy Spirit is making intercession. How doubly we are held up!
This is why misdirected prayers are not a disaster. He does not answer at the level of our understanding.
God searches all hearts, and He knows the mind and desire of the Spirit. The Spirit's desires and prayers match the mind of God exactly, whatever our own desires might be. So God hears according to the Spirit's desires, not ours. We can be very thankful for that.
- Weakness — Not knowing what to pray for is the admitted condition of every believer here; we know only in part.
- Helper — That very ignorance is where the Spirit steps in. The weakest prayer is not left to its own strength.
- Groan — Feeling too deep for words is not failed prayer; only God can interpret a groan, and He reads it perfectly.
- Within — The Spirit prays inside us, not from outside. When God searches the heart, He finds the Spirit's mind there.
- Answer — God answers the Spirit's desires, not ours. Christ prays above, the Spirit prays within, and the believer is held up on both sides.
But he who searches the hearts knows what [is] the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for saints according to God.
The Spirit helps us in our weakness with groanings too deep for words. Verse 27 tells us what God finds when He looks into the heart that produced them, and by what standard He hears them.
Scripture often speaks of God testing hearts. One writer says the search here has a different aim: God looks for what His Spirit has produced.
In earlier times, under the law, people always thought of God as the Searcher of the heart, the One who tests the inner life of people. He searched hearts to reward each person according to his work. But the apostle reveals God as the Searcher of the heart with another intent. "He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit." He is not searching the heart to reward the works, or even to refine it as gold is refined. In His search of the heart He finds the inner exercises of the spirit. His search does not end in finding evil, but good — good that He owns as fitting Himself, not evil that He judges and punishes.
The verse holds two things together. The heart is mine, but what God finds in it comes from Someone else.
The verse credits the thoughts and feelings God searches out to my heart, because the Spirit works in my heart. But it goes on to the source: in my heart it finds the mind of the Spirit... and last of all, it is the Holy Spirit Himself who makes intercession in the saints. It is me, because it is produced in my new nature; but as to the power that produced it, it is not me. The Holy Spirit does it in and by me. It is me as to the act, but it is He as to the source.
Some Bibles add the words "for us" to verse 26. One writer explains why the shorter reading matters.
The words "for us" in Romans 8:26 are not in the best texts, and, like many well-meant additions to Scripture, they only spoil its perfectness. "Makes intercession for us," inserted in this verse, would give the idea of the blessed Spirit and the saints as two separate parties, with Him making intercession for us from outside of us. The next words show that this is not the sense... So God looks down into the heart and sees there the desires and prayers the Spirit has worked in. And the intercession the Spirit makes there, on behalf of the saints, is according to God.
The verse gives the measure of this praying: "according to the will of God." The writer below quotes the older wording, "according to God." Either way the standard is God's own character, and that lifts the weight off our search for the right words.
It is a far deeper thing to have the right desire than to have the right words... "He makes intercession for the saints according to God," in complete agreement with the character and will of God. How much uttered prayer is after all no prayer at all! How useless is eloquence, in view of these groanings which cannot be expressed!
Our stumbling words still reach God — and they arrive carrying a worth that is not their own.
But the God who searches our hearts knows perfectly the mind of the Spirit — what He is working in us. Our imperfect, faulty words go up to Him and reach His ear. They fall far short of expressing what the Spirit means, yet He gives them all the value of His own mind.
The Spirit prays with an aim in view, and it is not the aim we would pick.
He intercedes along that line. His aim is not to make the circumstances of our lives down here easy. He prays according to the aim that God Himself has in all the circumstances He takes us through. God's own finger marks out our whole path, and that path is meant to prosper the work of God in our souls.
Believers have two advocates, not one.
We have an Advocate with the Father, but also the Holy Spirit, who has come from the Father and from the Son to be the advocate within us. Part of His action is that He carries on intercession for saints according to God... The twofold divine advocacy covers all our need effectively. Wherever we have a difficulty, wherever a trial, a sorrow, the Spirit never fails. Wherever we are weak or ignorant, the Spirit comes to our rescue.
- Searched — God looks into the believer's heart not to expose evil but to find the good His own Spirit has put there.
- Sourced — the groan is mine, produced in my new nature, yet the power behind it is the Spirit Himself.
- Standard — the Spirit's prayer matches God's own character, so right desire counts for more than right words.
- Supplied — God takes our weak, faltering words and gives them the value of the Spirit's mind.
- Steered — the Spirit prays for God's purpose in our path, not for easier circumstances.
But we *do* know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to purpose.
Paul has just said that we often do not know what to pray for. This verse answers with something we do know. It ties three things together: the reach of "all things," the people who love God, and the purpose behind their calling.
This promise sits right next to our failure in prayer. One commentator notes that we know it now, and that it holds for other believers as well as ourselves.
Even Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, did not know what to pray for as he ought. But the Lord was faithful and showed him that His grace was enough — an answer far better than the prayer. And not Paul only — we too know that all things work together for good. Not merely that they will one day — they do it now. And this holds for others as well as ourselves, for those who love God. Without this, sorrows only irritate. Here they are blessed twice over: a blessing to those who go through them, and a blessing to other children of God.
Nothing sits outside the word "all." One writer spells out the list.
All things — not one is left out. The bitter and the sweet, adversity and prosperity, sickness and health, yes, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword: all are only instruments in the hands of our God to work out the end He has purposed. How calmly then we may rest in Him and in His love!
Faith can hold this promise long before it can trace how it works.
We may not always see how this loss, or that trial, is working for our good, but faith knows that good will be the result in time and eternity. We may have to wait before we understand how all things work for good. It was so with Peter, when the Lord told him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." Someone else has said, "The sorrow may not be remedied, but the sorrow is blessed."
Jacob, in the book of Genesis, had lost one son and feared losing another. He read those troubles the opposite way from this verse.
His complaint was, "All these things are against me." And so indeed it appeared. He had yet to learn that all these things were part of God's plan for his ultimate good. At the end of his life he could speak of "the angel who has redeemed me from all evil" (Genesis 48:16).
The promise names a group, so it is worth asking who belongs to it.
The fact is, the expression "those who look for Him," like "those who love God" (Rom. 8:28), is simply a Bible way of describing believers. If a man does not love God, and does not look for Christ, he cannot be called a Christian.
Another writer points out which way that love runs.
What underlies Romans 8 is that we know God and we love Him. It is not merely that God loves us; our affections are with Him and in line with Him.
The verse does not rest our assurance on our love alone. It also points to God's call.
To assure our hearts that all is working for good, we are reminded that we are "the called" of God; and, if called, God has a purpose for us. God saves us because we need saving; God calls us because He wants us. All God's ways with us in the present have in view the fulfilment of His purpose for us in the future.
Kelly explains why calling and purpose are brought in here at all:
This is carefully stated here, in case our love toward God should weaken the thought of grace on His part. That is why purpose, and calling according to purpose, are put forward.
Our idea of a good outcome may not be God's. One writer looks at the whole section to find what God means.
And what is the "good" that God has in mind? I believe we must take this section as a whole. The great thing in mind is that God will conform us to the image of His Son. Could you think of any greater thought than that? Divine love has set itself firmly and constantly to bless us, and has entered with sympathy into every circumstance we could pass through.
- Known, not felt — the verse starts where prayer breaks down. It promises a sure outcome, not an explanation of how.
- All, not most — bitter and sweet, sickness and health, persecution and sword are all tools in God's hand. He leaves nothing out.
- Called, not merely loved — our love marks us out as believers, but our assurance rests on His calling. God saves us because we need saving; He calls us because He wants us.
- Conformity, not comfort — the "good" God aims at is likeness to His Son, so today's circumstances serve tomorrow's purpose.
- Jacob's error, our warning — "all these things are against me" was his verdict on events that were working for his good.