Romans 8:26-27, intercession, Holy Spirit
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Sep 08, 2014 - 01:00 PM
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Sep 08, 2014 - 02:28 PM
This is God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit that dwells in all true believers. This is the Spirit that God places in you and this is the Spirit that you are now governed by. In verse 9 of this very same chapter it says that if you have the Spirit of Christ in you, you belong to Him. If you do not have God’s Spirit dwelling in you, you do not belong to Him. It is His Spirit in you that governs your life. You are no longer governed by the flesh because you are now governed by God’s Spirit. That is, if you truly have His Spirit dwelling in you.
Having God’s Spirit in you results in three things. First of all, we are led by the Spirit of God. Secondly, God’s Spirit intercedes for us, and that is what we see in verse 26. And then thirdly, God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And it’s with our spirit that He bears witness, not with our flesh. God’s Spirit will never identify with the flesh and say “well, because of what your flesh is doing, you don’t belong to me.” So, it is with our spirit!
Now I’m looking at verse 26, and here it is from a literal translation. It says, Likewise the spirit (That is the Holy Spirit) also helps with our weaknesses. Please notice that from the literal Greek translation, it is weaknesses (Plural). Some English texts only say weakness (Singular) because it is describing a condition. Everything described so far is considered weakness. We are in the weakness of our flesh. We are in a weakened condition. Without Him (Jesus Christ), we cannot do one thing. That is a weakened condition! So, the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Christ helps in our weakness or weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, or as it is necessary, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered.
Now there are three things and the first two things are in verses 26 and 27 which gives us the assistance of God’s Spirit. And then in verse 28 which is a very popular verse, this is the assurance of God because of His Spirit. And thirdly, in verses 29 and 30 we have the acts of God. That is His purposes and what He has purposed for us.
The Spirit helps in our weakened condition. The word helps in Greek is actually made up of three Greek words and literally how it is translated, it means to take the place of someone.
Listen to this. Because I am weak, God’s Spirit takes my place in my approach to the Lord. I come to realize after studying the scriptures that I don’t even approach the Lord. God’s Spirit does through me. That’s how weak I am and how impoverished I am spiritually. Because I am weak, God’s Spirit takes my place in the presence of God.
It is a beautiful thing to see and to understand why God would give us His Spirit. Not only does the coming of God’s Spirit save us, but God’s Spirit is in us because God says you can’t do it! You are in a weakened condition because of sin. You are waiting for the redemption of your body, and so the children of God are groaning and all of creation is groaning so the Holy Spirit has been given to us until that day when Christ is to come for us.
So literally it is translated, “Likewise the Spirit also takes our place on account of our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.”
Now let me share with you two technical points.
We don’t know what we should pray for. If anyone knows what to pray for, they have gone against the scriptures. I don’t have the foggiest idea! But what it says here is that we do not know what we should pray for. Do you see the word “for?” In Greek, it is literally “on account of it” and what it really means is that we are groaning, and in the weakened condition, we do not know what we should pray for on account of this condition. And you put the word “ought” which means necessary, and it literally means that we don’t know what’s necessary to pray for on account of this weakened condition that we are in.
But God’s Spirit has been given to us to take our place because He knows. We don’t know! We do not know what we should pray for on account of this condition as it is necessary, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession on our behalf. Now the word intercession means to meet with someone on behalf of someone else.
In 1 John Chapter 2, it talks about the paraclete. It talks about Christ who has interceded for us, and it is a legal term, a defense lawyer. It’s like if you ever go to court, you don’t know the legal system, you don’t know what to ask for. Plus, you don’t know all the terms, and you don’t know how you are supposed to approach the situation and that’s why you get somebody to represent you.
Well, God looked at our weakened condition and He says you have no idea how to approach God and you have no idea how to approach your situations and all of creation is in groaning and all of the human race is in groaning, waiting for that day of the coming of the Lord, and you don’t have the foggiest idea what you should pray for or what you should do.
So the Holy Spirit has taken your place and the Holy Spirit actually prays through us. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all involved in this process, and you can see this later on in the book of Romans. Jesus Christ stands before the Father and He’s interceding for us in Heaven. The Holy Spirit is praying for us and He’s interceding here on the earth. And God the Father knows the mind of the Spirit and the Son, and He is actually responding on behalf of the intercessory prayer of the Holy Spirit and Jesus at the same time.
This emphasizes even more that when Jesus came, the Father said from Heaven “behold my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
Now I don’t want to insult you or anyone else here, but the bible says that God the Father is only pleased with His Son. He is not pleased with us because of sin and because of rebellion. But, because we are in Christ Jesus, the Father accepts us. You see, without Christ we are unacceptable! There is no way that we can stand before God the Father on our own because we will never make it.
Someday I will have to stand before God by myself. That is a scary thought! But, I am never going to stand by myself. Jesus Christ is going to stand with me, and because He is with me, and because I am in Christ, I am going to enter in.
So the Holy Spirit Himself makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered. Literally in respect to groanings which are without utterance or speech. Meaning there is no sound to it. This is important to know and understand because this verse is often used by people that try and say that this is referring to speaking in tongues, but it has nothing to do with speaking in tongues. These groaning are “Unutterable” meaning without sound, period!
The Holy Spirit with respect to groaning is interceding for me and it has nothing to do with verbal expression. This is what verse 27 is explains. Verse 27 explains that last phrase. Look at this. “Now the one who is searching the hearts (That would be God the father) knows what the mind of the Spirit is.”
Now the Holy Spirit, catch this now and picture this in your mind because this is very important. God’s Spirit is communicating to God the Father. God the Father knows the mind of the Spirit. So the Spirit is constantly praying according to the mind of the Father. I cannot do that because I don’t know what He has on His mind, but God the Father is searching my heart. He is searching all of our hearts and He knows what our hearts need.
And do you know what the Holy Spirit is doing? The Holy Spirit is inside of us and He is looking at our heart and He’s going “Hmm, well, I’m going to pray to the Father for this guy because he’s one of God’s children. So the Holy Spirit prays for me and it isn’t human. You can’t even hear it! In fact, it’s going on right now. The Holy Spirit right now is making intercession for me to the Father and I don’t even know it’s going on. It’s a private conversation and God the Father knows the mind of the Spirit and He searches my heart, but He listens to what the Holy Spirit is praying because the Holy Spirit is praying according to the Father’s will.
That should give great comfort to the believer because if we stop to look at it and we see that we are in the midst of this groan and then we try in our own fleshly way to figure out what to do in our situation. We go to bookstores and look for books on “How to effectively pray” and other such “how to do it books” but someone is getting rich off of us because we don’t understand this biblical concept.
If we understand the concept that the Holy Spirit is constantly making intercession for us, talking to the Father for us, and the Father knows the mind of the Spirit, and we know from 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 that the Spirit knows the mind of God. We do not know the mind of God and therefore we do not know what to pray for as it is necessary, but God’s Spirit does. We are covered!
Now, God does want for us to be involved in this process also. However, we need to realize and understand what prayer is for. Here is what I believe prayer to be. Prayer is the means by which I express my submission to God’s will. That’s what prayer is. When we get to the point to where we realize that we don’t know, and we cannot do anything spiritually without Him, and once we realize that His Spirit in us is making constant intercession on our behalf to the Father, then we can be at peace.
Sep 21, 2014 - 11:13 AM
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