TEXT FOR THIS SESSION
Romans 8:26-30
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession [g]for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
CONTEXT
Romans 8:18-25
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption[decay] into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. 24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
To summarize what we’ve seen so far …
- Our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared to our future glory. (v.18)
- All of creation is anticipating this coming glory. (vv.19-22)
- Believers also groan and wait for the coming glory (v.23) … so we need with perseverance. (v.25)
What we are about to see …
God’s help, through the Spirit, is an enduring promise that is available to us now (vv.26-27) … and God has the ability to work all things for good and to see us through to glorification (vv.28-30). (Guzik)
So, let’s dive in …
Romans 8:26-30
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
- Why do we need the help of the Spirit?
- Because we are weak (we have weaknesses)
- What is one area in which the Spirit helps us?
- Prayer
- Why do we need help in that area?
- Because we don’t know the future
- What do you think are the “groanings” which cannot be uttered?
- This help from the Spirit may include praying with the spiritual gift of tongues (1 Corinthians 14:2, 14-15), but it is certainly not limited to praying in an unknown tongue. (Guzik)
- Where do you think those “groanings” come from?
- Read Romans 7:26 again
- Why does the Spirit always gets answers to His intercessions?
- Because He makes intercessions according to the will of God
- Why do you think the Spirit is able to pray according to God’s will? What does the Spirit know that we don’t know?
- The mind of God
Romans 8:26-27 (NLT) 26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.
27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
Romans 8:26-30 (Barclay) Even so, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know what we should pray, if we are to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings which baffle speech to utter; but he who searches the hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because it is by God’s will that he intercedes for those whose lives are consecrated to God.
Romans 8:28-30
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Romans 8:28-30 (NLT) 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
Romans 8:28-30 (Barclay) We know that God intermingles all things for good for those who love him, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he knew long ago, he long ago designed to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brothers. Those whom he long ago designed for this purpose, he also called; and those whom he called he put into a right relationship with himself; and those whom he put into a right relationship with himself he also glorified.
According to Guzik …
Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses: When we are weak, and do not know exactly how we should pray, God Himself (through the Holy Spirit) helps by making intercession for us.
groanings which cannot be uttered:
i. The idea is simply of communication beyond our ability to express. The deep groanings within us cannot be articulated apart from the interceding work of the Holy Spirit.
ii. This, of course, is the purpose of the gift of tongues – to enable us to communicate with God in a manner that is not limited to our own knowledge or ability to articulate our heart before God. The purpose of tongues is not to prove that we are “filled with the Spirit” or to prove that we are especially spiritual.
according to the will of God: The Holy Spirit’s help in intercession is perfect because He searches the hearts of those whom He helps, and He is able to guide our prayers according to the will of God.
5. (28-30) God’s help is an enduring promise; He has the ability to work all things for good and to see us through to glorification.
And we know that all things work together for good: God’s sovereignty and ability to manage every aspect of our lives is demonstrated in the fact that all things work together for good to those who love God, though we must face the sufferings of this present time (Romans 8:18). God is able to make even those sufferings work together for our good and His good.
all things: God is able to work all things, not some things. He works them for good together, not in isolation. This promise is for those who love God in the Biblical understanding of love, and God manages the affairs of our life because we are called according to His purpose.
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son: The eternal chain of God’s working is seen in the connection between foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. God didn’t begin a work in the Romans simply to abandon them in the midst of their present suffering.
i. “Paul is saying that God is the author of our salvation, and that from beginning to end. We are not to think that God can take action only when we graciously give him permission.” (Morris)
ii. “Of course I believe in predestination, since it’s plainly taught in the Scriptures. The doctrine could be assumed, even if the word was never explicitly used. It’s a thrilling truth that doesn’t upset me at all. The fact that He chose me and began a good work in me proves that He’ll continue to perform it. He wouldn’t bring me this far and then dump me.” (Smith)
to be conformed to the image of His Son: However, our participation in this eternal plan is essential, reflected in its goal: that we might be conformed to the image of His Son; and this is a process that God does with our cooperation, not something He just “does” to us.
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren: This is the reason for God’s plan. He adopts us into His family (Romans 8:15) for the purpose of making us like Jesus Christ, similar to Him in the perfection of His humanity.
A commenary on Romans 8:26-30 … according to William Barclay …
ALL IS OF GOD
Romans 8:26-27 form one of the most important passages on prayer in the whole New Testament. Paul is saying that, because of our weakness, we do not know what to pray for, but the prayers we ought to offer are offered for us by the Holy Spirit. C. H. Dodd defines prayer in this way–“Prayer is the divine in us appealing to the Divine above us.“
There are two very obvious reasons why we cannot pray as we ought.
- First, we cannot pray aright because we cannot foresee the future. We cannot see a year or even an hour ahead; and we may well pray, therefore, to be saved from things which are for our good and we may well pray for things which would be to our ultimate harm.
- Second, we cannot pray aright because in any given situation we do not know what is best for us. We are often in the position of a child who wants something which would be bound only to hurt him; and God is often in the position of a parent who has to refuse his child’s request or compel him to do something he does not want to do, because he knows what is to the child’s good far better than the child himself.
Even the Greeks knew that. Pythagoras forbade his disciples to pray for themselves, because, he said, they could never in their ignorance know what was expedient for them. Xenophon tells us that Socrates taught his disciples simply to pray for good things, and not to attempt to specify them, but to leave God to decide what the good things were. C. H. Dodd puts it in this way. We cannot know our own real need; we cannot with our finite minds grasp God’s plan; in the last analysis all that we can bring to God is an inarticulate sigh which the Spirit will translate to God for us.
As Paul saw it, prayer, like everything else, is of God. He knew that by no possible human effort can a man justify himself; and he also knew that by no possible effort of the human intelligence can a man know for what to pray. In the last analysis, the perfect prayer is simply, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. Not my will, but Thine be done.“
But Paul goes on from there. He says that those who love God, and who are called according to his purpose, know well that God is intermingling all things for good to them. It is the experience of life for the Christian that all things do work together for good. We do not need to be very old to look back and see that things we thought were disasters worked out to our good; things that we thought were disappointments worked out to greater blessings.
But we have to note that that experience comes only to those who love God. The Stoics had a great idea which may well have been in Paul’s mind when he wrote this passage. One of their great conceptions was the logos of God, which was God’s mind or the reason. The Stoic believed that this world was permeated with that logos. It was the logos which put sense into the world. It was the logos which kept the stars in their courses and the planets in their appointed tracks. It was the logos which controlled the ordered succession of night and day, and summer and winter and spring and autumn. The logos was the reason and the mind of God in the universe, making it an order and not a chaos.
The Stoic went further. He believed that the logos not only had an order for the universe, but also a plan and a purpose for the life of every individual man. To put it in another way, the Stoic believed that nothing could happen to a man which did not come from God and which was not part of God’s plan for him. Epictetus writes: “Have courage to look up to God and to say, ‘Deal with me as thou wilt from now on. I am as one with thee; I am thine; I flinch from nothing so long as thou dost think that it is good. Lead me where thou wilt; put on me what raiment thou wilt. Wouldst thou have me hold office or eschew it, stay or flee, be rich or poor? For this I will defend thee before men.'”
The Stoic taught that the duty of every man was acceptance. If he accepted the things that God sent him, he knew peace. If he struggled against them, he was uselessly battering his head against the ineluctable purpose of God.
Paul has the very same thought. He says that all things work together for good, but only to them that love God. If a man loves and trusts and accepts God, if he is convinced that God is the all-wise and all-loving Father, then he can humbly accept all that he sends to him. A man may go to a physician, and be prescribed a course of treatment which at the time is unpleasant or even painful; but if he trusts the wisdom of the man of skill, he accepts the thing that is laid upon him. It is so with us if we love God. But if a man does not love and trust God, he may well resent what happens to him and may well fight against God’s will. It is only to the man who loves and trusts that all things work together for good, for to him they come from a Father who in perfect wisdom, love and power is working ever for the best.
Paul goes further; he goes on to speak of the spiritual experience of every Christian. The King James Version rendering is famous. “For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called them he also justified; and whom he justified them he also glorified.” This is a passage which has been very seriously misused. If we are ever to understand it we must grasp the basic fact that Paul never meant it to be the expression of theology or philosophy; he meant it to be the almost lyrical expression of Christian experience. If we take it as philosophy and theology and apply the standards of cold logic to it, it must mean that God chose some and did not choose others. But that is not what it means.
Think of the Christian experience. The more a Christian thinks of his experience the more he becomes convinced that he had nothing to do with it and all is of God. Jesus Christ came into this world; he lived; he went to the Cross; he rose again. We did nothing to bring that about; that is God’s work. We heard the story of this wondrous love. We did not make the story; we only received the story. Love woke within our hearts; the conviction of sin came, and with it came the experience of forgiveness and of salvation. We did not achieve that; all is of God. That is what Paul is thinking of here.
The Old Testament has an illuminating use of the word to know. “I knew you in the wilderness,” said God to Hosea about the people of Israel (Hosea 13:5). “You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” said God to Amos (Amos 3:2).
When the Bible speaks of God knowing a man, it means that he has a purpose and a plan and a task for that man. And when we look back upon our Christian experience, all we can say is, “I did not do this; I could never have done this; God did everything.” And we know well that this does not take freewill away. God knew Israel, but the day came when Israel refused the destiny God meant her to have. God’s unseen guiding is in our lives, but to the end of the day we can refuse it and take our own way.
It is the deep experience of the Christian that all is of God; that he did nothing and that God did everything. That is what Paul means here. He means that from the beginning of time God marked us out for salvation; that in due time his call came to us; but the pride of man’s heart can wreck God’s plan and the disobedience of man’s will can refuse the call.