We live in the age between Jesus' first coming and second coming. It's a time when the Kingdom of God is here, and yet, it's far off. Our nature is transformed to hate sin, and yet, we perpetually sin.
Sometimes we are tempted to view God as slow, left here in a world condemned for destruction, but we want out. The earliest believers also faced this predicament:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:9 ESV
Peter makes clear that we're here for the long haul. God has a mission and He uses us to accomplish His purpose. Since we're here to participate in God's salvation plan, he hasn't hasn't left us alone.
Jesus told his disciples that he would leave the Helper (John 16:7), who teaches us and points us towards Jesus (John 14:26, 15:26), and convicts the world of sin (John 16:8-9). The Apostle Paul later extends this further with the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), a list of signs of spiritual renewal.
There are many amazing things that can be said about the Holy Spirit, however I want to explore his role in intercessory prayer for us. We'll be focusing on the following verse:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Romans 8:26 ESV
Reading this verse, my first observation is that Paul confirms the Holy Spirit as our Helper. He 'helps us in our weakness'. Our weakness is our sinful nature, our weary desire to pray, our inability to discern what to pray, and our incompetence in praying as we ought.
I sometimes jest that prayer meetings are a time when Christians become heretics.
We stumble over words saying things such as the Father died for us instead of Christ died for us. Clearly we need to mature in prayer, which comes through practice, but the Holy Spirit helps us throughout our lives by interceding and praying for us.
My second observation is that we all need intercession. Paul's use of 'our weakness' makes it clear that it's a universal problem. The apostles needed intercession just as much as you and I need it today.
The reason is clear. We are all sinful and all weak, therefore we all need intercessory prayer.
Satan raises accusations against us day and night (Revelation 12:10), but we have a high priest that intercedes for us daily (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus pays the price and therefore no charge is brought against us (Romans 8:33), and the Spirit intercedes for us in prayer to the Father (Romans 8:26).
My final observation is that the Gift of Tongues cannot be intercessory prayer.
Some of our brothers and sisters use this verse to suggest tongues is the mechanism by which the Holy Spirit prays what we can't in our own languages. Therefore claiming tongues is an intercessory prayer language.
In believing so, they conflate a gift of the Spirit and the work of the Spirit.
The first weakness to this theology is that the Apostle Paul instructs us to pray with our mind (1 Corinthians 14:15). Prayer is communicative and only effective when we understand what we are communicating.
The Holy Spirit intercedes in prayer because he understands the will of God; he prays what we ought, not what we can't.
While we can all acknowledge our inability to fully express ourselves in prayer, Paul makes clear that not all believers have the gift of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30). Therefore, we cannot conflate this gift for a few, with a prayer for the many.
A second weakness is that the gift of tongues clearly cease (1 Corinthians 13:8). We need to resolve whether it's the heavenly language that ceases, or the miraculous ability to speak it. Ultimately, we need to ask "how will we praise God in heaven?"
There are four ways we can attempt to resolve this problem:
First is to conclude that the miraculous nature of the language ceases, but we all learn it like we learned English.
Second is to conclude that the heavenly language ceases, but we adopt a new language such as English.
Third is that the need for prayer and effective communication ceases, thus tongue become obsolete.
Fourth is to push the issue upstream by creating a fuzzy line that tongues is not the only means for intercessory prayer, but it is one way that it manifests in a few believers.
But the final and best solution is to conclude Paul didn't have angelic tongues in mind when writing that the Holy Spirit intercedes with 'groanings too deep for words'.
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