The Ministry of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:15-27)

In this chapter of Romans, as we have so far considered it, Paul has given three responses about how Jesus delivers his people while they have an awareness of their sinfulness. First, the Holy Spirit enables them to love God’s law – they fulfil the righteous requirement of the law, which is to love God and neighbour. Second, Christians should reflect on the radical difference that exists between them and other people – they are in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Third, believers should by the power of the Spirit engage in mortification of sin throughout life, putting to death that which will not die completely while they are in this life.

Now the apostle mentions further activities of the Spirit that they experience, and some of them are hard to explain because often the actions of God are beyond us. We can approach them by noting that the Spirit is called the Spirit of adoption, that there is a connection to the eternal inheritance, and that his intercession is one of groaning.

The Spirit of adoption

It is not clear if the word ‘spirit’ in the phrase ‘the spirit of slavery’ refers to the Holy Spirit or to a general attitude that Old Testament believers underwent due to not living in the New Testament period. Paul is describing the experience of God’s people in Israel in Old Testament times. In Galatians he says that they were under the law, an experience which was like that of a teacher of young children unable to appreciate their inheritance. Many were genuine believers, but they did not have the degree of revelation given to new covenant believers, and therefore they did not have the degree of insight that comes from new covenant experience. Paul could be saying the same thing here when he contrasts the spirit of slavery with the Spirit of adoption. Whatever the connection, he is highlighting the new covenant experience.

There are three features of this experience mentioned by Paul. First, the presence of the Spirit of adoption brings intimacy into the communion Christians have with their God. They address him as Father. Paul uses the Hebrew and Greeks words for Father when he says that they cry ‘Abba! Father!’

Second, the presence of the Spirit also brings intensity into the relationship, and we can see this intensity in two ways. First, the verb for ‘cry’ describes a loud, confident cry, and second, we can see that exclamation marks follow both words for Father, stressing the strength of the experience. The Holy Spirit comes alongside us in our cry of Father and so bears witness along with us to God that we are his children.

Third, the presence of the Spirit brings expectancy into the outlook of God’s people. They focus on the inheritance that they will share together in the world to come. The inheritance is an astonishing one because it is the same inheritance that Jesus has as the head of creation – they are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Obviously, this is an astonishing inheritance to have, and unlike the time of the law, the inheritance is not limited to one ethnic group, the Jews. All of God’s people will have all of God’s inheritance, which is an astonishing range of blessings.

Moreover, Christians will only experience the fullness of the inheritance when all the people of God are glorified physically. The state of glorification is clearly a marvellous one, a development in conformity to the likeness of Jesus that no one on earth can describe. Yet reflection on it is beneficial.

Paul’s point seems to be that the person who cries, ‘O, wretched man that I am,’ also cries ‘Abba! Father!’ The presence of the one is compatible with the presence of the other. Indeed, the second cry is evidence of the Spirit testifying along with them as they approach God the Father that they are the children of God.

Paul then writes about the inheritance that believers have as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

The inheritance

How are we to view creation? Paul mentions several details in this section. First, it is a place of multiple sufferings. There are human sufferings as well as other levels of suffering. In addition, Christians have sufferings connected to their faith. 

Second, although the sufferings are great numerically and in intensity, they are not as great as the state of glory. Suffering marks everything here, glory will mark everything there, but the permeation of glory there will be much greater that the permeation of sufferings here.

Third, the creation is aware of the glory connected to the revealing of the sons of God. Paul personifies the creation here. What does he mean by creation? He does not mean fallen angels and unforgiven humans because their sad destiny is stated elsewhere in the Bible. Nor does he mean believers because it is for their unveiling that creation waits. He does not mean good angels because they were never cursed by God. I suggest that he is looking with the telescope of the Old Testament prophets as they described the future harmony of creation. The Old Testament speaks of the lion and the lamb sitting together, of trees and hills singing at the coming of the Lord.

Fourth, God pronounced a curse on creation when Adam fell, but that state is not a permanent one. The first Adam lost his glory by his rebellion and creation, his inheritance, suffered as well. When the last Adam and his people appear, the creation, their inheritance, will recover from God its glory and be a suitable place for them. Fallen Adam could not have a perfect inheritance and instead lived in a world where all is corrupted. A corrupted creation is an unsuitable place for a glorified Saviour and his glorified people to be forever. On that great day of liberation, not only will the redeemed be free from all that restricts them, but so too will the creation.

Fifth, Paul says that there is a universal groan sounding every day. Yet the groaning is a positive one like that of a mother willing to go through pain to have a child. The outcome is worth the suffering. This is an astonishing thing to say about the creation, and the question that comes to us concerns whether we hear its daily groaning.

The Spirit and groaning

Paul then says that it is not only the creation that is groaning, but believers groan as well. Yet he does not stop with saying that believers groan because he also says that the Holy Spirit groans along with them. Of course, each type of groaning is optimistic. For Paul, there is not a contradiction between groaning about the effects of sin and the strong expectation that a better-by-far day is coming of cosmic deliverance.

This groaning is a consequence of having the first fruits of the Spirit, the initial down payment of having him in his fullness. Christians are made for greatness through God’s purpose, but not the selfish greatness of the sinful world where only some reach the status of temporary greatness. They are conscious that things are not what they should be about spiritual matters, and they know these things because the Holy Spirit reveals those concerns to them.

Paul links the groanings of the Holy Spirit to his intercession for the saints, an intercession that is too deep for words, another way of saying that they are indescribable in human language. In some way, the Holy Spirit is involved in our earnest prayers, sympathising with our groanings and strengthening them. In what ways can that happen? Here are some suggestions, although believers experience more than only these.

A Christian can groan for deeper affections for Christ at the Lord’s Table. He or she may yearn for greater understanding of spiritual things. Believers desire intensely to be good witnesses for Christ. They have a longing to be more heavenly-minded. They mourn over the divisions in Christ’s church and anticipate the future union of all believers in the eternal world.

A further area of concern for believers is indwelling sin, the concern mentioned by Paul in Romans 7. The cry he mentions, ‘Oh wretched man that I am,’ is obviously a groan, but it is not a negative groan because it anticipates the deliverance that Christ will give to his people. Nevertheless, a Christian is aware of how far he fails in coming up to the requirements of God’s holy demands, of his heart disobedience to his gracious Father, to his compassionate Redeemer and to the sensitive, indwelling Spirit. As he realises his sin, a recognition which is the evidence of the Spirit’s working, he confesses it with groans produced by the Holy Spirit.

God and this twofold groaning

Paul then says that the Father who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit about each of his people. The Father sees what the Spirit desires for us and through us. Is this not an extraordinary divine activity and expression of interest in our spiritual struggles? Such desires expressed in our prayers certainly receive answers from the Heavenly Father. Through his powerful grace, he meets the intense spiritual longings we express often in negative ways.

We can also deduce from this twofold groaning that, in an authentic way, the involvement of the Spirit brings accuracy to our prayers. Often, our assessment of things is inaccurate, even our assessment of our own spiritual state at any given time. Frequently, we do not know what to pray for even as we are praying. Here are two examples. One example often given is when an aged believer is ill. His friends lovingly pray for his recovery, but it may be that the Spirit’s groans are about that believer’s soon arrival in heaven. The other example concerns a believer’s desire to serve Christ, say as a missionary. He may have a burden for a country, but even when he is expressing a desire to serve there the Spirit is interceding that he goes to another country, and eventually that is where the believer will go. The groans of the Spirit receive answers, but God often corrects our groans before he answers our prayers.

Another feature connected to this fatherly response to our prayers is that the devil does not know what the Spirit is doing as he groans along with his people. The devil can hear our sighs and words, but he cannot enter the divine communion between the Father and the intercessions of the Spirit. The groaning of the Spirit in prayer is beyond infiltration by the powers of darkness.

Spurgeon points out in a sermon on this verse that prayer is an area of the Christian life where the Spirit acts as a counsellor. ‘He dwells within us as a counsellor, and points out to us what it is we should seek at the hands of God. We do not know why it is so, but we sometimes find our minds carried as by a strong under current into a particular line of prayer for some one definite object.’ There are many things about the twenty-first century not mentioned in the Bible and we need guidance as we pray about matters. Sometimes, the Spirit indicates clearly what he wants us to do, but when that happens we should be careful about revealing it, mainly because no one else may have been given that conviction.

True prayer is both simple and profound; it is both clear and mysterious. We should be thankful that there are heavenly aspects to our prayers that are beyond our ability to grasp. James Montgomery expressed it in a verse of one of his hymns:

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed,

The motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear,

the upward glancing of an eye when none but God is near.