The Spirit’s Prayer and the Father’s Promise in Romans 8:26–30
The Holy Spirit helps us on our way to heaven. He lives within us, empowering us for good and enabling us for service, and He endeavors by praying for us to the Father. Romans 8:26–27 teaches us about the Spirit’s ministry of intercession.
Some of what Romans 8:26–27 teaches is fairly clear. Our human weakness limits our ability to pray as we ought, and, when our prayers are insufficient or absent due to ignorance, the Spirit intercedes for us according to the will of God. Other matters are not so clear, however. What are the groanings of the Spirit? And how does the Spirit groan within our hearts?
In context, “groanings” recalls the groaning of creation and the sons of God (cf. Rom 8:22–23). This groaning is a longing to be freed from sin and corruption and to be fully redeemed—to be glorified and thus no longer living in perishing bodies, fighting our indwelling sin, and suffering on occasion. But the Spirit Himself is God and must therefore groan in some other way. As He lives within us, His groanings are for us—not only that He would bring about our glorification one day, but also that He would enable us to overcome until then according to the will of God (cf. Rom 8:18–25).
The Father hears the Spirit’s petitions as He searches our hearts to know the Spirit’s prayerful mind for us. There in the heart, in words that we ourselves cannot utter or express due to our human weakness, the Spirit intercedes and communicates His mind to the Father on our behalf. These prayers are comprehensible petitions to the Father for us to carry out His will. “Groanings,” then, are not inarticulate expressions of the Spirit in our hearts or somehow through us as we pray. Rather, these groanings are inaudible to us and thus metaphorical. Still, though they are apart from our consciousness and comprehension, they are meaningful prayers by the Spirit, given to God on our behalf.
Stated another way, the Spirit really wants us to get to glory and prays for us to persevere according to the will of God. He prays in a way that, due to our weakness, we do not comprehend. But that doesn’t mean that the Spirit’s prayer is incomprehensible to God. The Father receives these prayers that the Spirit prays within our hearts, praying for us to persevere and achieve our future glory.
Adding to our encouragement, Romans 8:28–30 then promises the answer to these prayers. All things work together for our eschatological glory and good—in part, due to the Spirit’s prayers. What God planned of our salvation from eternity past will certainly come to be. We will be perfectly conformed to the image of His Son and glorified with Him.
Praise God for His promises to us, and praise God for the Spirit who prays for us to accomplish His will as God accomplishes His purpose in us!
David Huffstutler is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Rockford, IL. He blogs here, where this article first appeared. It is republished here by permission.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay