Much modern hymnology goes wrong in this point, that it represents
the Spirit's intercession as presented in heaven rather than as
taking place within the personal being of the believer. There is a
broad distinction carefully observed throughout Scripture between the
representations of the work of Christ and that of the Spirit of
Christ. The former in its character and revelation and attainment was
wrought upon earth, and in its character of intercession and
bestowment of blessings is discharged at the right hand of God in
heaven; the whole of the Spirit's work, on the other hand, is wrought
in human spirits here. The context speaks of intercession expressed
in 'groanings which cannot be uttered,' and which, unexpressed though
they are, are fully understood 'by Him who searches the heart.'
Plainly, therefore, these groanings come from human hearts, and as
plainly are the Divine Spirit's voicing them.
II. The Spirit's intercession in our spirits consists in our own
divinely-inspired longings.
The Apostle has just been speaking of another groaning within
ourselves, which is the expression of 'the earnest expectation' of
'the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body'; and he says that
that longing will be the more patient the more it is full of hope.
This, then, is Paul's conception of the normal attitude of a
Christian soul; but that attitude is hard to keep up in one's own
strength, because of the distractions of time and sense which are
ever tending to disturb the continuity and fixity of that onward
look, and to lead us rather to be satisfied with the gross, dull
present. That redemption of the body, with all which it implies and
includes, ought to be the supreme object to which each Christian
heart should ever be turning, and Christian prayers should be
directed. But our own daily experience makes us only too sure that
such elevation above, and remoteness from earthly thoughts, with all
their pettinesses and limitations, is impossible for us in our own
strength. As Paul puts it here, 'We know not what to pray for'; nor
can we fix and focus our desires, nor present them 'as we ought.' It
is to this weakness and incompleteness of our desires and prayers
that the help of the Spirit is directed. He strengthens our longings
by His own direct operation. The more vivid our anticipations and the
more steadfast our hopes, and the more our spirits reach out to that
future redemption, the more are we bound to discern something more
than human imaginings in them, and to be sure that such visions are
too good not to be true, too solid to be only the play of our own
fancy. The more we are conscious of these experiences as our own, the
more certain we shall be that in them it is not we that speak, but
'the Spirit of the Father that speaketh in us.'
III. These divinely-inspired longings are incapable of full
expression.
They are shallow feelings that can be spoken. Language breaks down in
the attempt to express our deepest emotions and our truest love. For
all the deepest things in man, inarticulate utterance is the most
self-revealing. Grief can say more in a sob and a tear than in many
weak words; love finds its tongue in the light of an eye and the
clasp of a hand. The groanings which rise from the depths of the
Christian soul cannot be forced into the narrow frame-work of human
language; and just because they are unutterable are to be recognised
as the voice of the Holy Spirit.
But where amidst the Christian experience of to-day shall we find
anything in the least like these unutterable longings after the
redemption of the body which Paul here takes it for granted are
the experience of all Christians? There is no more startling
condemnation of the average Christianity of our times than the calm
certainty with which through all this epistle the Apostle takes it
for granted that the experience of the Roman Christians will
universally endorse his statements. Look for a moment at what these
statements are. Listen to the briefest summary of them: 'We cry,
Abba, Father'; 'We are children of God'; 'We suffer with Him that we
may be glorified with Him'; 'Glory shall be revealed to usward'; 'We
have the first-fruits of the Spirit'; 'We ourselves groan within
ourselves'; 'By hope were we saved'; 'We hope for that which we see
not'; 'Then do we with patience wait for it'; 'We know that to them
that love God all things work together for good'; 'In all these
things we are more than conquerors'; 'Neither death nor life... nor
any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of
God.' He believed that in these rapturous and triumphant words he was
gathering together the experience of every Roman Christian, and would
evoke from their lips a confident 'Amen.' Where are the communities
to-day in whose hearing these words could be reiterated with the like
assurance? How few among us there are who know anything of these
'groanings which cannot be uttered!' How few among us there are whose
spirits are stretching out eager desires towards the land of
perpetual summer, like migratory birds in northern latitudes when the
autumn days are shortening and the temperature is falling!
But, however we must feel that our poor experience falls far short of
the ideal in our text, an ideal which was to some extent realised in
the early Christian Church, we must beware of taking the
imperfections of our experience as any evidence of the unreality of
our Christianity. They are a proof that we have limited and impeded
the operation of the Spirit within us. They teach us that He will not
intercede 'with groanings which cannot be uttered' unless we let Him
speak through our voices. Therefore, if we find that in our own
consciousness there is little to correspond to those unuttered
groanings, we should take the warning: 'Quench not the Spirit.'
'Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God in whom ye were sealed unto the
day of redemption.'