01.D 01. Prayer and The Holy Spirit
PRAYER AND THE HOLY SPIRIT “I will pour upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and of supplication.” — Zechariah 12:10.
“Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” — Galatians 4:6.
“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” — Ephesians 2:18.
“The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that 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.” — Romans 8:26; Romans 8:27.
“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit.” — Ephesians 6:18.
“Praying in the Holy Spirit.” — Jude 1:20. No one can read the above passages without seeing at once that the Holy Spirit bears a very intimate relation to the prayers of a Christian. All spiritual experience finds its source in the indwelling Spirit of God, and as prayer plays so important a part in such experience, the fact just stated ought to occasion no surprise. It is Andrew Murray who says, the mystery of prayer is the mystery of the divine indwelling,” and John Owen, who has remarked “that it cannot be denied that the assistance which the Holy Spirit gives in our prayers and supplications is more frequently and expressly asserted in the Scripture than any other operation of His whatsoever,” and many a one has confessed his agreeable surprise in discovering, on going through the Word, how much real prayer is one of “ the things of the Spirit,” and has lent glad testimony that prayer becomes immeasurably sweeter, an altogether new experience, when the soul is properly under His control in this most holy exercise. Let us therefore endeavor to see something of the Spirit’s place in prayer. Everything may not be altogether clear to our limited vision, but if our study help us to appreciate Him a little more, it will be time well spent. Just how “the Spirit helpeth our infirmity”; just the way in which He “ intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered,” we may not know; but to know that He does; what an encouragement to ** come boldly to the throne of grace.” Our ’Spraying in the Holy Spirit” may not be without its mystery, but that we may so pray, and so pray acceptably; what an encouragement to take our place in the school of prayer that the Spirit Himself may teach us how to pray.
If you will turn first to the Old Testament you will find that one of the distinct purposes of the Holy Spirit’s coming was that He might have Testament a part in the prayer life of God’s children. The passage is Zechariah 2:10, “I will pour upon the house of David and upon thj inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication.” Supplication is not needed for any member of the Godhead, and the Spirit’s work in this respect must therefore be for us, and what is promised here to the weakest saint in the outgoing of his soul to God is the cooperation of the all-knowing, all-powerful Spirit of God Himself.
If you will now turn to the appointed time for the fulfilling of Old Testament promise, you will read in Galatians 4:6, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Here we find God doing exactly what He promised to do; sending the blessed Holy Spirit, and sending Him as a Spirit of prayer, enabling us to say, “ Our Father, who art in heaven.” Notice in passing, please, that this Spirit is called the Spirit of His Son. Because we have the Spirit of His Son we are Sons. Now read 1 John 3:1, and think of all this means! It is rich with blessing for those who understand. It is through the Son that “we have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18). We can *’come boldly to the throne of grace” because our Father sits upon it. It is the Spirit of Sonship that distinguishes prayer from beggary. “When the evidence of sonship grows dim we knock feebly at mercy’s door.” But this is not all the Word says about the Holy Spirit in prayer. We read in Romans 8:26, “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” The word “infirmity,” while referring to our human weakness in general, has its special reference here to our weakness in prayer. The word “helpeth” is a queer compound in the original, composed of three different words, and literally means, “to lay hold of in connection with.” It is the same word Martha used when she told the Master to bid Mary help her in the work she was doing. How precious this truth! What if the new birth does not wholly relieve us of all infirmity? Have we not One ever with us whose strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)? And when “we know not what to pray for as we ought,” how does He help us?
It is said that “He maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” The word “intercession” is the same word used of Christ in 1 John 2:1, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.” We have, therefore, two advocates continually pleading our cause before the throne of grace. Christ’s intercession takes place in heaven; the Holy Spirit’s takes place on earth in the believer’s heart.
Christ pleads at the throne of glory for His redeemed that He may obtain for them the benefit of His sacrifice; the Holy Spirit pleads at the throne of grace for all the deep and hidden needs of the soul. As to the precise character of the Spirit’s intercession for us, we find ourselves in the realm of that which, to a certain degree must remain unintelligible. The verse is a mine of truth, and if you would discover all of its hidden treasure, you must dig deep down. There are two interpretations, and since what we are writing is designed as a help in the study of this so very important subject, we shall here endeavor to set them forth in such way as to help you to a conclusion of your own, reserving, of course, the same privilege for ourselves.
One of these interpretations has been developed recently and at length in Kuyper’s somewhat overloaded work on the Holy Spirit (“The Work of the Holy Spirit,” page 636). This interpretation, which has remained for Dr. Kuyper to elaborate in such detail, is very ingenious, and withal so attractive that we have found ourselves almost wishing that the Scripture in question had made it a little clearer that such is really its meaning; for Dr. Kuyper’s explanation is by no means an unsubstantiated one, though much he has written in connection with it is gathered by inference rather than from the Word of God. In a word, Kuyper argues that the intercession of the Holy Spirit is altogether independent of our spirit, and that the unutterable groanings in our heart are His, the Holy Spirit’s, and not those which we, incited by the Spirit, heave forth. His reasons for this view are as follows, 1. Since the groanings of Romans 8:23 properly belong to us, the “likewise” of Romans 8:26 must “introduce a new thing,” and the groanings therefore are not ours as in Romans 8:23, but the Spirit’s.
2. The word “intercession” is the same as used in Romans 8:34, and since Christ’s intercession is wholly His own, why is the same not true of the Spirit?
3. One of the prepositions (anti) in the word “helpeth” confirms this explanation. The word “helpeth” is made up of two prepositions and a verb. The word is “sunantilambano”; sun (with), anti(over against, or in place of), and lambano (to take hold).
4. Romans 8:27 says that God knoweth the mind, not of the man, but of the Spirit who maketh intercession.
5. The intercession is made “according to the will of God,” and this can be said of the Holy Spirit alone. With this explanation thus confirmed in his mind, Kuyper deducts from it a most pleasing view of the Spirit’s work in prayer. Such independent intercession of the Spirit in our behalf takes place because of our infirmity. If we were brought at once by regeneration into the condition of perfect holiness, such intercession of the Spirit for the saint would not be necessary, for the saint then being himself all that he ought to be could pray as he ought to pray. Such unutterable groanings of the Spirit in the Christian’s behalf are therefore to be thought of as taking place in proportion as the Christian fails to properly pray for himself. Such we are to believe to be especially the case in the heart of the young Christian, because in his early Christian experience, being yet a babe in the new life, he knows neither how nor what to pray for as he ought. Such, Kuyper would have us believe, is true of “the child regenerated in the cradle and deceased before conversion was possible, and who could not pray for himself”: The Holy Spirit in him, therefore, prays for him with groanings that cannot be uttered.
Such intercession He also makes for the indifferent disciple and the backslider and for the one who *’has fallen into temporary apostasy.” Thus, when the man has ceased praying altogether, the Holy Spirit’s prayer within him continues and never fails. But even while the Spirit thus prays in our behalf. He is teaching us more and more to pray correctly for ourselves, and as we advance in the art. His own intercession becoming thereby more and more superfluous, He takes up his work in our own prayers, and cries unto God through human lips. His praying for us gives place more and more to His praying with us.
While He is praying for us, He is at the same time teaching us better how to pray for ourselves, that gradually His own independent praying may become superfluous; not that it will ever in this life become wholly superfluous, for even in our most advanced state on earth we will still have our limitations, and be circumscribed somewhat by our infirmity. Nor is it meant that the Spirit teaches us to pray, that He may leave us to ourselves in proportion as His intercession becomes unnecessary, for only as we “pray in the Spirit” (Jude 1:20) can we really pray at all, but, comforting as the thought of His intercession for us may be, how infinitely better that our own prayer life be perfected by Him than to live in such spiritual infirmity as forces Him to cry continually to God in our behalf. We ask you now, whoever you may be that reads these pages. Is not this a most inviting thought? It is rich with meaning. It flashes with beauty like a jewel in the sunlight. It is full of comfort. Just to sit and think of it means to be “lost in wonder, praise, and love.” And it is not an unlikely thought. Nor is there any reason for doubting its truth. It is not unscriptural. I mean by that, there is nothing in Scripture to oppose it even if it be not explicitly taught in the verse under consideration.
Now let us see what others have said about this remarkable verse. There is another interpretation. It belongs to the expositors of the earlier period, and is the interpretation that has been usually received. It is that the groanings in question are the unutterable sighs of the human soul as it is incited and wrought upon by the Holy Spirit. Olshausen and most critical students of the past century are so emphatic in their opposition to ascribing groans to the Holy Spirit that it takes several exclamation points to express their surprise that any one would ever think of doing it.
Ponder over the verse as we will, we cannot get away from the impression that in some way these groanings are to be associated with the consciousness of the individual, and when once this is admitted, it becomes, in part at least, fatal to the view which Dr. Kuyper has championed.
Doubtless you have already inferred from the discussion of that view that the independent intercession of the Spirit is in Kuyper’s mind something altogether apart from the believer’s consciousness. In fact, he says, “We are not conscious of it.”
We remark,
1. This does not necessarily follow, even though you think of these groanings as belonging wholly to the Spirit. Strange enough, Kuyper himself admits that these groanings may be through the human organs of speech (and so, of course, something, we must say, in which the believer necessarily shares), though seemingly unaware that such admission is utterly incompatible with the teaching for which he makes the verse responsible. This we will make clear in a moment.
2. The groanings may be attributed to the Spirit, as the author, inspirer, and finally the interpreter of them, and yet in a very certain sense be said to be our own. In two other instances the Holy Spirit is said to be the agent of expression within us. In Matthew 10:20 it is said, “Take no thought (overanxious concern) how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given unto you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.” It is here the Spirit who speaks, and yet not apart from the disciple’s consciousness nor without the use of the human organs of speech, nor in such a way that it cannot be said in a very certain sense that it is, nevertheless, the disciple who speaks. This is made clearer still by other Scripture. In Galatians 4:6 it is said, “Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” and in Romans 8:15 it is said, “But ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” What in one passage the Holy Spirit is said to do, in the other is predicated of ourselves as influenced and incited by the Holy Spirit.
3. The words, “We know not what we should pray for as we ought,” which serve to introduce the particular help given by the Spirit, strongly intimate an effort on the believer’s part.
4. The words “cannot be uttered” favor this view. They must refer to human incapacity. If the phrase, which is one word in the Greek, could be translated “unuttered,” that is, mute, inaudible, it might not be altogether inadmissible to say they belong wholly to the Spirit, for such groanings might then be thought of as some fervent internal sighing of the Holy Spirit constituting a silent, inarticulate outgoing to God on the Spirit’s part in our behalf. But if, on the other hand, the translation, “unutterable,” that is, cannot be uttered or expressed in words, — if this translation be preferred, then, whether the groanings be silent or otherwise, now can we predicate of the Holy Spirit any such incapacity? Is there any thought that cannot be expressed, if only we are capable of finding the proper vehicle of expression? And in this we may fail, but certainly not the Holy Spirit.
Now that both the Authorized and Revised translation of the word is correct, and that the emphasis is to be laid not on the groanings being unuttered, inaudible, but on their being unutterable, that is, incapable of being expressed in words or distinct terms, is evident from the fact that only this can be proved by linguistic usage, and is favored by the analogy of all words of like ending with this one, and adopted by nearly all scholars, past and present.
5. There is an argument in the soul’s experience. What child of God has not been in the place of uncertainty when he was not sure of the Father’s will; in the place of a straightened soul when he could hardly find the heart to pray (2 Samuel 7:27); or (if his experience has been in any degree what it ought to be) to the place of spiritual exaltation which seemed like a foretaste of something still beyond, in all of which he felt that no distinct words could express to God the infinite good for which he longed or the blessing that would allay the distress of his heart?
Since such experience, which is actual, harmonizes with what many have always supposed to be the meaning of the Scripture in question, it cannot be unreasonable to suppose that the one finds, to some extent, its explanation in the other. And if it be true, what comfort then in moments of such uncertainty and such intensity when the only human relief is in our own unutterable sighings and groanings, just to be assured that the Holy Spirit is beneath it and back of it and in it all, and that in these outgoings of the soul God can see the mind of the Spirit who is through them making known our hidden needs at the throne of grace.
6. The arguments set forth by Dr. Kuyper to confirm his view are not unquestionably conclusive. See them again on page 131, for we are now to examine them.
(a) The “Likewise” simply introduces a new ground of encouragement. Our patience born of hope is the first ground, and now is introduced the Holy Spirit’s help as a second. Even though we grant the word looks further on to the new groanings to be introduced, it can hardly be said to define in any way, even by contrast with Romans 8:23, the more particular character of the groanings.
(6) The fact that the usual word for intercession is used carries little if any weight in determining this particular question, unless Dr. Kuyper can show that the view he opposes could more reasonably expect some other word.
(c) The word *’helpeth,” which Kuyper argues in support of his position, favors, we are forced to feel, the very opposite.
It is only used twice in the New Testament, the other passage being in Luke 10:40, where Martha begs the assistance of Mary to help her in the work she was doing — to share with her in serving. It is used a few times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and always with this same meaning; not to do something in place of another, but to share something with another. This the preposition “sun “(with) argues. It may also be argued from the preposition “anti,” whose primary meaning is “over against,” “opposite,” and not “instead of” or “in place of,” which are secondary and derived meanings.
{d) and (e) These are Kuyper’s strongest arguments. Yet even these hardly warrant the wide distinction he has drawn in this operation between the acting of the Holy Spirit and our own. It does not say that God knows the mind of the man, for the man has practically no mind himself in the matter; his spirit, stirred and exalted by the Holy Spirit, has gotten beyond his understanding, and while he knows he wants something, just what that infinite good for which he yearns may be he cannot tell, and under the operation of God’s own blessed Spirit he comes to the place where his emotions are too big for utterance, and where he can do nothing but give himself to inexpressible groanings, and whether they be groanings vocal or sighings inaudible, God can see in them, deeper down than human thought or feeling, what is the mind of the Spirit who is the responsible agent in it all. And why? Not because He is or must be informed by the Spirit, but because the Spirit, having searched the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10), has only been urging the believer on toward what God Himself has prepared. It is all “according to God,” and must therefore be intelligible to Him, and in it all He discovers in all its sublime reality His own holy purpose for His praying child.
Now, with such help as we have tried to give, you must decide for yourself which explanation in your own judgment is preferable. We repeat that by our judgment we are inclined to the second, and prefer to think of these inexpressible sighings as those of the human soul under the influence and incitement of the Holy Spirit. And now it is quite easy to see how such a view, which we accept as correct, is fatal, in part at least, to the teaching which Dr. Kuyper draws from his. And this will be seen by simply asking, Who is it that longs so unspeakably for what God may have to give? If these groanings may, in the sense above described, have a reference to the acting of the human soul, of what Christian is it that such reaching out after God may be affirmed? Plainly not the half-hearted and indifferent one, not the one who has “’fallen into temporary apostasy,” but just the one whose prayer life has been most perfected, the one who has progressed furthest in divine things. The more such an one drinks at the fountain, the deeper becomes his thirst. Conscious still of unsatisfied yearnings, though he may not understand just what the needed blessing is, nor exactly how to pray under the given circumstance, not knowing altogether “what to pray for as he ought,” he knows full well his need is understood at the throne of grace whence comes all supply, and though carried on by the Spirit beyond the experience of the more ordinary Christian, because of his “weakness,” which he may not expect to disappear entirely in this life, he finds relief only in those Spirit wrought sighings and groanings so intense as to be unutterable, and so leaves his case in the hands of God. This is certainly true of spiritual blessing, and not unfrequently so when seeking for material good. “This arises,” says Principal Brown, principal “partly from the dimness of our spiritual vision in the present veiled state and the large admixture of ideas and feelings which spring from the fleeting objects of sense that there is in the very best views and affections of our renewed natures; partly also from the necessary imperfection of all human language as a vehicle for expressing the subtle spiritual feelings of the heart. In these circumstances how can it be but that a degree of uncertainty should often surround our spiritual exercises, and that, in our nearest approaches and the fullest outpouring of our hearts to our Father in heaven, doubts should spring up within us as to the exact needs of the soul and the precise frame of mind altogether fitting and well pleasing to God in such exercise. Nor do these anxieties subside, but rather deepen with the depth and ripeness of our spiritual experience.”
Consequently, instead of the Spirit’s intercessory aid decreasing as we advance in spiritual life until it “gradually becomes superfluous,” it is just in proportion as we thus advance that His help is most needed. The higher we climb the more we need His help to reach out after the things beyond. And thus we see that the main reference of the verse, so far as the child of God is concerned, is to one of the highest aspects of prayer in the experience of the most advanced believer, and not to prayerless, indifferent, and thoughtless Christians. Of course, the Master at whose feet such an one has sat all the course through is the same all-sufficient Spirit of God, and the intercessory help to which we have been referring, although the chief import of this wonderful verse in Romans is but one form in which His much needed assistance is vouchsafed to us, and the perfecting of the prayer life, which Kuyper represents as increasing in proportion as the Spirit’s intercession decreases, is just the course through which the Christian passes on his way to those deeper experiences in which the Spirit makes intercession for him with groanings that cannot be uttered. And all this is what Paul meant by “praying in the Holy Ghost.” Oh, if we did but realize vividly all that true prayer implies, and our own spiritual infirmity as we undertake to engage in prayer, I am sure we would as vividly realize our own utter helplessness apart from the Spirit’s gracious help; but thank God, the Holy Spirit knows our infirmity, and with divine pity He looks upon us, and lends Himself to us, and so purifying our affections, enlightening our minds, and begetting holy desires He works in us the prayer that God would have us utter.
McCheyne used to say that a great part of his time was occupied in getting his heart in tune for prayer. It does take time sometimes, and the heart never would get in tune if it were not for the Holy Spirit of God. It is He who prepares the heart for prayer; He who creates within us the desire to pray. This does not mean that we ought never to pray save as we are certain of the impulse of the Holy Spirit. We “ought always to pray,” and even though the heart be out of tune, though it be dull and cold and heavy, even though we do not feel like praying, we ought to bow humbly and reverently before God, and tell Him how cold and prayerless our hearts are, and as we thus wait in silence before Him our hearts will be warmed and stirred and strangely impressed with the mind of God, and coming thus into tune with the heart of God it shall be made indeed a heart of prayer.
What a wonderful Helper He is! But more. When you have waited, and are still uncertain, and the impulse of hope almost fails, or have reached the place where some spiritual good beyond anything we have ever known we feel must come if what we may rightly call the distress of our hearts is to be relieved, and we can do nothing but pour out our soul in fervent and unutterable sighings — when we have reached such a place; that He, the Holy Spirit, should give to these inexpressible yearnings which He Himself caused to well up within us a language in which God reads His own best thought for His praying child — this is help in itself wonderful beyond expression. Do you remember the Holy Spirit’s other name?
It is Paraclete, *’One called to our aid.” Is He not exactly what His name implies He is?