How the Holy Spirit Helps Us Pray
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will Romans 8:26,27
Paul ends this section with one more encouragement, again concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In this chapter he has so far outlined four ministries of the Spirit. Firstly, He enables us to fulfil the law (8:2-8). Secondly, He helps us subdue our fallen nature (8:9-13). Thirdly, He assures us of our adoption into God’s family (8:14-17) and fourthly, He is the guarantee and foretaste of our future inheritance (8:18-23).
The world is in pain, groaning in the birth-pangs of new creation. The church shares this pain, groaning in our longing for our own redeemed bodies, suffering in the tension between the ‘already’ of possessing the firstfruits of the Spirit and the ‘not yet’ of our mortal existence. The church is not to be separate from the pain of the world. Now we discover that God Himself does not stand apart from the pain both of the world and of the church but comes to dwell in the middle of it in the person and power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us pray.
Prayer is a Trinitarian experience. We can approach the Father only through the Son and only by the Holy Spirit. The inspiration of the Spirit is just as essential for our praying as the mediation of the Son.
As our Christian hope sustains us, so does the Holy Spirit (‘In the same way’ [8:26]). ‘The Spirit helps us in our weakness’ (8:26), in the frailty of our ‘not yet’ existence, in praying. ‘We do not know what we ought to pray for’ (8:26). But He knows what we don’t know. So, ‘the Spirit himself intercedes for us’ (8:26). How? ‘With groans that words cannot express’ (8:26). The phrase ‘that words cannot express’ is literally ‘wordless.’ Paul isn’t saying they can’t be put into words. He’s saying they aren’t put into words. In context these groans must be related both to the groans of God’s creation (8:22) and the groans of God’s children (8:23), agonised longings for redemption and the consummation of all things. We don’t know how to pray so the Holy Spirit helps us. His groans are unexpressed but not inexpressible. God’s creation and God’s children groan because of their present state of imperfection but there is nothing imperfect about the Holy Spirit. He identifies with our groans, with the pain of the world and the church, and shares in the longing for the final freedom of both.
Though wordless, these groans are not meaningless. God the Father ‘searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will’ (8:27). So there are three involved in our praying. Firstly we in our weakness don’t know what to pray for. Secondly the indwelling Spirit helps us by interceding for us and through us with speechless groans but according to God’s will. Thirdly, God the Father who both searches our hearts and knows the mind of the Spirit hears and answers us.