A book, like human life on earth, must come to an end. This is true whether the book (or the life) is good or bad. If the content of this final chapter achieves its purpose, it will make your life better. The message will substitute faith for frustration and hope for hopelessness. It will take you by the hand and lead you in the path God has marked out through the "garden of prayer." And it will give meaning and power to your existence on earth.
This chapter will be devoted to a discussion of things mentioned in one chapter of the New Covenant Scriptures. Romans 8 can be called the chapter of the Holy Spirit. Every chapter in the Bible is such by origin, but this chapter deserves the designation because of content. It is a marvelous presentation of the blessings to be derived from the indwelling Spirit, an oasis for the earth-dweller who must wander through the desert with a desperate need for refreshment. If Martin Luther was correct in regarding Romans as the Alps of the Bible, this chapter is the highest peak, sublime in its towering majesty.
Recently I talked with a young man, a graduate from college, who had returned after a period of service abroad in the armed forces. He had started out to be a Christian while a mere lad, but when he was thrown into rough company away from home he allowed the temptations of the flesh to overcome him. He was unhappy, filled with remorse because he was living contrary to every principle he had been taught by godly parents. He felt powerless in the grip of sin and loneliness. One night, alone in his quarters, he opened the Bible for want of something to do, and by chance he began reading Romans 8. So powerfully was he impressed that he got up, went outside and walked under the stars, promising God that he would allow the Spirit to take over and command his life from that time on. Reinforced by this indwelling Helper, he returned home stronger than he was when he went away.
There is something tremendous about a chapter that can cleanse and purify lives in this manner. I know that, while I do not comprehend everything involved in this glorious chapter written by Paul, I have grasped enough of it to realize that it holds the divine secret for a power-packed life. I never read it without being elevated in heart. Romans 8 is God's chairlift to take me from the valley to the peak where I can breathe the pure air of Heaven and look down upon the smog.
Here the Spirit of the Lord becomes my friend and companion. Surely one who lives in the same apartment with another should come to know him. The Holy Spirit has moved in to the inner room of my tenement. He has taken down the "empty" sign and become the occupant together with my spirit. Now I am never lonely, for I am never alone. I do not feel forsaken or forlorn! I am happy in the knowledge that the heavenly visitor shares my abode. Let us look at what it really means to entertain this royal guest.
Perhaps no other thought brings a greater sense of despair to man than that of the condemnation hanging over him because of his sin. Life itself becomes a prison cell in which he is a captive awaiting death, and that is the foretaste of everlasting doom. But to be freed from dread, to know that death is conquered--that is a blessing almost indescribable. Yet, the apostle assures us "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1; KJV). Out of Christ, condemnation reigns and man is under the sentence of death. In Christ there is no condemnation. Out of Christ men walk according to the flesh. In Christ they walk according to the Spirit.
To "walk after the flesh" means more than simply to cater to passion. It entails this, but it means to live in such a state that Christ is left out of consideration. He is ignored. Decisions are made, and steps are taken without recourse to the demands of God. No authority is recognized except that of one's own wish and pleasure. On the other hand, to walk after the Spirit is to be ever conscious of the will and direction of God, regardless of the cost.
"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace" (Romans 8:6; KJV); I think I may have talked about that for years before I really understood the profound truth embodied in it. The carnal mind simply discards God. Denial of the existence of God is not necessary. All that is necessary is to act as though God is not there and to order one's existence with no thought of the divine will. The carnal mind thinks only in terms of the present. It asks immediate gratification and discounts the idea of any future reckoning. Because it looks forward to nothing, it grasps greedily at the now. It dies today for it has no tomorrow.
The Spirit changes all of that. He provides a happy yesterday because of memory without regret, a glorious today in the experience of God's joyful love, and a wonderful anticipation of tomorrow in a state of blessedness. Peace can be disturbed by the thought of past sins, present suffering, or future punishment. The spiritual mind, being free from all of these, has life and peace.
Anyone who has wrestled with some evil tendency knows the agony of his trying to overcome it while the flesh cries out for gratification. Paul described the condition by saying, "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not" (7:18; KJV). God made us, loves us, and knows more about our nature than we do. For that reason He has not left us to grapple alone with the problem.
In the first place, Jesus paid the full obligation we owe to the flesh. The debt of sin was canceled by His blood. "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh" (8:12). I do not owe sinful human nature one thing. I am free from every debt it once held against me. No sin can have any rightful claim upon my life. I have been bought with a price and so I no longer belong to myself.
In the second place, God has invested me with His Spirit to put to death the evil deeds that once enticed me. Listen! "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (v. 13). We sometimes use the word mortify in these days to indicate embarrassment. We may use such an expression as, "I was mortified by the language he used in my presence." But that is not the meaning of the word in the Scriptures.
Mortus means death. A mortal wound results in death. A mortician prepares the bodies of the dead. A mortuary is a place where the corpses may be viewed. To mortify means to kill. Paul is simply saying that the power of the indwelling Spirit of God enables us to put to death the evil passions and corrupt desires.
In recent years those who had been addicted to drugs have occasionally testified that when they surrendered wholly and completely to Christ and turned their lives over to God, they were able immediately to conquer the dread habit without any physical withdrawal symptoms. This was seriously questioned by men in the medical profession, and research projects were inaugurated in some cases to determine the accuracy of the reports. In several cases it was found that former addicts were telling the truth about their victory. One research team reported, "Our investigation indicated that those who testified to immediate conquest of the addiction when subjected to a religious experience of deep significance were stating a fact. It was as if some powerful inner force was operative, enabling them to overcome the need to which they had been subjected and of which they been victims."
The Holy Spirit is that "powerful inner force" and dwells in men to help them glorify God in both body and spirit. A man who had grown up in a home where profanity was a way of communication, found himself powerless to overcome the habit, for it had become natural to him. When he turned himself over to Jesus, he prayed for divine help. He said that he felt as though his heart had been scrubbed clean and his tongue had been purged. His manner of speech was transformed. The Spirit had put to death the deeds of the body.
Another man had become a compulsive gambler, and had wrecked his home, forcing away his wife and little son. He was led to believe in Jesus by a former gambling companion who had found an answer for his own life in the Son of God. The man who had neglected his home, his business, and all else to sit at the gambling table, now implored not only divine mercy but divine aid. He was serious about it and from the time he gave himself to Christ Jesus he no longer felt the need to engage in games of chance. On the contrary, he became a living example of the rescued life. He was thrilled when I told him that Christians were known in the world of the early Greeks as "the gamblers" because they were willing to risk everything, including life on earth, to follow Jesus as the Lord of life.
It does not seem advisable to leave this line of thought without pointing out the statement immediately following the expression, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." The very next sentence is "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." The word "for" joins the two sentences and demonstrates that we are able to overcome the baser passions and desires. We have a relationship to the Father in which the Spirit becomes the energizing power enabling us to become more like God.
Think of the implications in the phrase "led by the Spirit of God." The original for "led" is ago. Two things can be said of its usage in the New Covenant Scriptures. First, it generally applies to persons, and has to do with their motivation to act. Second, it implies willingness and cooperation on the part of those who are led. The leading is not by force. It is not against the will. To be led by the Spirit is to surrender to the influence and guidance of the Spirit. This is a proof of divine sonship. Only sons of God will be led by the Spirit, and thus, when one is so led he has a personal relationship with God. This is quite different from the measuring rods employed by men.
Jesus placed the term "son of God" on a higher plane, morally, than a mere tie of relationship with the Father. There are certain characteristics stated as conditions. For example, only peacemakers can be truly regarded as children of God. This is brought out by Jesus in Matthew 5:9. If one belongs to a religious organization and has a good knowledge of Scripture, yet is guilty of sowing discord among brethren or of refusing to labor for peace, he cannot be called a child of God. True children of God wage peace as actively as others wage war.
Again, Jesus postulates love, even for those who despitefully use you and are enemies, as the criterion of sonship. He says, "Love your enemies, and pray for them which persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:44; KJV). Love for those who are hostile toward God and ourselves is not simply the best policy, or the way of kindness and pacifism. Love is an essential of the divine-human relationship. This kind of love is a fruit of the Spirit. Not simply an outgrowth of temperament, it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The sons of God are those who are led, directed, motivated by, and filled with the Spirit of God. What a triumph over the flesh when one can walk in the Spirit, that is, when every step he takes is in the atmosphere created by the Spirit. Thus, we glorify God.
Romans 8:15-17 is one of the most comforting passages in the revelation of God. It is so filled with beauty and majesty that perhaps most persons who read it will go through life without ever probing its depths. Read it and meditate upon it:
"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together (KJV).
The spiritual implications of a term are difficult to understand if one is not familiar with its natural relationships. In our culture, "the spirit of bondage" may be passed over lightly by a modern reader. We have never experienced the agony of physical slavery and cannot fully appreciate "the spirit of slavery as applied to sin. On the contrary, we may regard the life of sin as a pleasant time of indulgence that we are called upon to give up or "sacrifice" for Jesus Christ. Thus, the life in Christ is actually regarded as a bondage to which we surrender ourselves, more or less reluctantly, in order to secure a reward.
This was not the case with the citizens of Rome. One writer tells us that the period which witnessed the early growth of Christianity was one of horror and degradation unequalled in the history of mankind. Of the state of things in Rome at this time, Canon Farrar writes, "At the lowest extreme of the social scale were millions of slaves without family, without religion, without possessions, who had no recognized rights, and towards whom none had any recognized duties, passing normally from a childhood of degradation to a manhood of hardship, and an old age of unpitied neglect."[11]
The French historian Du Pape declares that it can be fairly well authenticated that there were sixty million slaves in the Roman Empire when the gospel was first proclaimed. We are indebted to Cornelius Tacitus, the Roman historian, born the year Paul began his third preaching tour, for the information that the slaves were so numerous they were divided and registered according to their nationalities. And Seneca, the philosopher, the brother of Gallio before whom Paul was brought (Acts 18:12), writes that every slave was under a constant cloud of suspicion as a potential enemy.
To illustrate the enduring fear associated with slavery, I need mention only one incident recorded by Tacitus. The Roman Senate was debating the murder of Pedanius Secundus by one of his slaves. C. Cassius Longinus arose and gravely argued for enforcement of the Silanian law, which made it mandatory to kill all of the slaves owned by a master who was murdered. One after another of the senators came to the rostrum to vote for this sanguinary law. Remembering that such masters often owned hundreds of slaves and that these were in constant jeopardy by the act of one hothead or brutal criminal one can see how cheaply life was regarded by the patricians or ruling classes.
The citizens of Rome could make an immediate application of Paul's statement to the fear of slavery and degradation of sin. The fact is that his letter was written just the year before the meeting of the Senate described by Tacitus. Nothing was glamorous about slavery. Slaves were sustained only by the faint hope of freedom, or by the certain hope of death.
While we are a long way from the conditions so described, we can still offer a few suggestions about "the spirit of slavery" to sin from which we have been set free by the grace of God.
(1) Slavery to sin destroys human dignity, reducing one to the animal level, making him a victim of passion and inordinate desire. Peter writes, "But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption" (2 Peter 2:12; KJV).
(2) Slavery to sin demands all of our powers and resources, and places every faculty under tribute. Sin reigning in our mortal bodies exacts obedience to the body's desires. It forces us to put all of our parts at its disposal as instruments for wrongdoing (Romans 6:12, 13). Sin is the most cruel taskmaster in the universe.
(3) Slavery to sin reduces us to servitude and then pays off with death. Sin promises everything and provides nothing. "When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death" (vv. 20, 21; KJV).
(4) Slavery to sin brings only misery and despair. "We know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (7:14, 24).
(5) Slavery to sin forces its captives to breathe the polluted and poisonous atmosphere of fear. All of their lifetime they are subject to bondage through fear of death (Hebrews 2:15), and fear brings the dread of approaching judgment (1 John 4:18).
Over against the frightful state conjured up in the mind at mention of this "spirit of slavery" is another term, "the spirit of adoption." No more significant expression could be used to indicate a complete transformation in the Roman mind. From slavery to adoption would be like a Horatio Alger book, From Rags to Riches. Only if we understand the legal adoptive process can we ever grasp what the apostle is saying. Fortunately, there has been preserved in Roman laws a mass of material related to the adoption process, a very serious business in Rome.
Notice the use of the expression, "very serious business" with reference to Roman adoptive procedures. It was made especially serious because of the law called patria potestas. This law gave a father absolute authority over his offspring as long as they lived. It conferred upon the father the right to punish a son regardless of the son's age. He could kill his son and no one could lift a finger against him.
In 450 B.C. a revolt developed among the common people against the patricians. They alleged that the patricians abused the unwritten law and took advantage of them, denying them their civil rights. The magistrates, in order to avoid a revolution, were commissioned to draw up a code, inscribing it upon ten tablets. These were accepted by the popular assembly. Later two more tablets were added to make the great body of laws known as Lex Duodecim Tabulariom, the "law of the twelve tablets." The laws became the supreme law of the land.
The patria potestas stemmed from the second stipulation of the fourth tablet. It provided for the control of a father over his children. His right existed during their whole life to imprison, scourge, keep to rustic labor in chains, to sell or slay, even though they may have been high state officials. A son could not own land in his own name as long as his father lived.
We must try to catch the atmosphere in Rome when Paul wrote to the Romans about slavery and adoptions. In order to do this I shall insert a quotation from Dionysius of Halicarnassus. His testimony is especially valuable because he was a Greek historian living in Rome at the time Augustus issued his decree for the whole Roman Empire to enroll for taxation purposes. Dionysius wrote Roman Antiquities, a twenty-volume history of his adopted city. Nine of these have been preserved in their entirety, and in one of them is this description of the patria potestas:
"The law-giver of the Romans gave virtually full power to the father over his son, whether he thought proper to imprison him, to scourge him, to put him in chains, and keep him at work in the fields or to put him to death; and this even though the son was already engaged in public affairs, though he were numbered among the highest magistrates, and though he were celebrated for his zeal for the commonwealth. Indeed in virtue of this law men of distinction while delivering speeches from the rostra hostile to the senate and pleasing to the people, and enjoying great popularity on that account, have been dragged down from thence, and carried away by their fathers, to undergo such punishment as these thought fit; and while they were being led away through the forum, none present, neither counsul tribune, nor the very populace which was flattering them, and thought all power inferior to its own, could rescue them.[12]
Adoption involved the transfer of a person from the absolute control of his whole life by one man to the absolute control of his life by another. There had to be a complete surrender of the power of life and death by one and a complete assumption of that power by another. So drastic was this change that the one who was transferred to another patria potestas was looked upon as a wholly new creature. He was said to be born again, or born anew. A whole new existence began for him on the day the transfer of allegiance was ratified. Never again would he be subject in any sense to his former relationship. It was as if he had literally died to his past.
The ceremony of adoption was always public, requiring at least five witnesses. There were two parts to it. The first was called mancipatio. From this we get our word emancipate, which means to transfer ownership. It derives from manus, hand; and capero, to take. In a sale, an article was taken in hand by the new owner. In mancipatio the father, the child, and the prospective father took their places with five witnesses upon the dais in the Forum. One of these, called the librapens (bearer of the scales) held a pair of balances in one hand and a short brass rod in the other.
The prospective father said, "This day I purchase your son for my own." He then placed a coin in one pan of the balance. The father placed the son's hand in the other pan, but before the sale could be completed he removed the boy's hand, and the other removed his coin. This identical procedure was again enacted. But the third time the father did not remove the hand of the son. The scales were struck with the brass rod as a sign that the sale was completed. The coin was given to the boy as a sign that he would inherit from the new father. It was a seal of his relationship. Even to this day, we say, "The third time is the charm."
There remained one more step called vindicatio. In Roman law this meant to affirm and assert one's legal right to a thing. The new father took the adopted son to a magistrate and had his new name properly inscribed in the census tables and the right of patria potestas, of life and death, passed into his hands. All of this is most interesting to me, but it is secondary to the purpose of the apostle Paul. His primary desire is to impress upon the Romans the great blessings that accrue to us in Christ. The privileges that were bestowed by adoption in Rome included:
(1) The one adopted was ushered into a whole new family relationship, with a new father and new brothers and sisters, and this was the direct result of the father's choice. He was a chosen one, an elected person. The word "adoption" means to choose, as our word option indicates.
(2) The one adopted was given a new name, clearly indicative of his new relationship.
(3) The adopted one was permitted to eat at the father's table, a privilege never accorded slaves. In the Greek world such eating together was an expression of koinonia, fellowship, the sharing of the common life of the father and his family.
(4) He became heir of the estate of the father. If there was an elder brother he became a joint heir with him. He shared in both the hardships and rewards of the family, for this was part of their common life, the fellowship.
(5) When one was adopted by Roman law, his past life was literally blotted out. His former name was removed from the roster of citizenship. All debts were canceled, all obligations deleted. The adopted person began a new life with the slate wiped clean. Even his education began anew. Cicero said the aim of this education was to produce "self-control, combined with dutiful affection to parents and kindliness to kindred."
Paul speaks of the Spirit in connection with the cry "Abba, Father." He says that we did not receive the spirit of slavery to promote fear, but the Spirit of adoption to enable us to utter these lovely words. Two passages contain the expression "Abba Father." According to Romans 8:15 the Spirit enables us to say these words. Galatians 4:6 records that the Spirit thus cries out. In both cases our divine sonship is under consideration. We are adopted, that is, given the place of a son. Adoption is from huiothesis, to place as a son. Because we are inducted into the glorious family we are able to cry, "Abba, Father." That is, we are able, through the Spirit, to recognize our real relationship to Christ.
There is more to it than this. The word abba could not have been translated "father." It is an Aramaic word, and was the first expression of a little child in the East. In our country little children say "Da-da" or "Pa-pa" and we must transliterate with "Daddy" and "Papa" to indicate that these are the simple, unaffected, and spontaneous expressions of love in early life. We could not capture this meaning to translate by supplying the word "father."
Paul knew well that the Jews had a strict law forbidding a slave to use the word "abba" in addressing a master or the head of a household. So when he wants to show that we are sons, and not slaves, he makes it clear that the indwelling Spirit identifies us as children of God and makes it possible for us to speak to the Father in a fashion that slaves were not allowed to use. And so close is the union between the Holy Spirit and my own spirit that only the Father can discern which one is calling out to Him.
But the Spirit not only makes it possible for me to cry Abba, but also Father. The first is the cry of emotion and feeling, the tender call of a little child. The second is the form of address of a mature person. W. E. Vine points out that the last word is a wholly different form of address, and that it indicates an intelligent recognition of the relationship sustained with the one so addressed. The word "father" involves confidence and obedience, and when taken with the other word shows a relationship of love and intelligent trust.
But we are told that "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16, 17; KJV). What does this tremendous statement mean? Remember that Paul is contrasting the state of slavery with the superb experience of sonship. I have described for you the public ceremony of adoption. The sale of a slave, having many of the same aspects, also took place in the presence of witnesses and involved a pair of balances and a deposit of money in one of the pans of the balance.
Suppose the father of an adopted child died, and the natural sons hated the one who was adopted and wanted to debar him from his inheritance. They could claim that he was never adopted at all, but was simply purchased as a slave. The adopted son would have to bring a witness to corroborate his own testimony. If he could find the librapens, the scales bearer, that one could say, "I was present, and I know he is a son because I struck the brass ingot and sealed the transaction."
The Holy Spirit exists in us for that very purpose. He is a seal of my redemption. "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" (2 Corinthians 12:1, 22; KJV).
The indwelling Spirit is God's guarantee that I am going to inherit every provision of grace. I am not a slave. I am a son. My spirit testifies of this. The Holy Spirit testifies the same. I am even a joint heir with Christ. This establishes the quality of our sonship. Whatever is the lot of Jesus is to be my lot. We are "sharers together" with everything that sonship involves. This is the matter to which the Spirit witnesses.
When Paul affirms that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, he assures us that the testimony of our spirit and the Holy Spirit is that we are not sold into slavery. We have been adopted in the majestic family of our Father in Heaven. The promise of Jesus that He would not leave us orphans has come true. Two witnesses within proclaim this fact: the spirit of man and the Spirit of God.
The difference between one's being in Christ Jesus and being on the outside is hope. It is not that those on the outside do not have hope, for all men do. The difference lies in the varying degree of intensity. Those who know the Lord find their hope increasing as they grow older. Those who do not know Him find their hope waning, and frequently being supplanted by two malign evils to personality--dread and despair.
Every rational person realizes that he is not going to get out of the human predicament alive. All of his plans for postponing the inevitable are doomed. His string is going to run out. The thread is going to be snipped. The Christian "sustained by an unfaltering trust" is able to "wrap the drapery of his couch about him and lie down to pleasant dreams." Not so the one who sins away his day of grace and suddenly faces the blackness of hopelessness. Without hope we are of all men most miserable.
What is hope? The simplest definition is "a joyous anticipation of the future." Although hope is related to expectation they are not the same. One may expect bad as well as good, storm as well as sunshine. Only when expectation is accompanied by desire is the ingredient of hope included. We desire some things we do not expect, and expect some things we do not desire, but when we have desire and expectation in equal proportion, we possess hope.
Hope is not a retreat for the cowardly or inadequate. Instead, it is a resilient and powerful quality of the soul, lingering on even when the rationalization argues that it is futile. Long after others have given up the search for one who is lost, a mother keeps the light burning in her heart, reacting to every step on the porch, and every knock on the door. We are Abrahams, hoping "when hope seems hopeless" (Romans 4:18).
My faith and my hope are grounded on the same foundation as was Abraham's. Faith and hope are a firm conviction of the validity of every promise of God, because God makes the visible things out of invisible things. The first is the ultimate in power, the second the ultimate in knowledge. God raised Jesus from the dead. So God can raise men from the dead. And He has promised me I will share in eternal life on a more magnificent scale than I can imagine now.
The fact is that Jesus made sense out of death by making sense out of life. By showing me how to live He taught me how to die. The last gasp of oxygen into my collapsing lungs is of no real consequence. Lifting the latch is not the important matter, but what lies beyond the door. I am convinced that ineffable joy awaits in the other room. Jesus has begotten in me a living hope. "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (1 Peter 5:10, 11; KJV).
Beginning with Romans 8:18, Paul places suffering and splendor in proper perspective. Suffering is for a while; splendor is after a while. The whole created universe, now writhing in agony, is standing on tiptoe, as the original Greek means. It is looking down the long road, waiting for the spectacle of triumph when the sons of God come into their own. The people of God give meaning to the whole creation. Man was at the peak of God's creation. His fall subjected the whole domain to despair. His final victory will bring rejoicing to all. Hope is written in shining letters of gold across the face of the whole created order of things.
"For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" (Romans 8:24; KJV). This does not mean that hope is an agent or cause of our salvation. We are not saved by hope as an operating principle. The point at issue here is that we have been saved, but there is more to come. In our flesh and blood we are not adapted for existence in a celestial realm. We have not yet shared in all to which our salvation makes us heirs. There is something for which our universe is expectant, joyfully and triumphantly expectant.
When hope becomes reality it ceases to function. The sight of the goal renders hope unnecessary. The endurance test is over. The waiting period is ended. Expectancy gives way to experience; anticipation becomes enjoyment. This is the essence of the Christian life. Tears and trials today; smiles and splendor tomorrow.
After pointing out how patient waiting for something develops within us a real sense of endurance, Paul makes a statement to strengthen the weary heart and invigorate once more those who feel they no longer are getting through to Heaven. Every day of our lives we need to meditate and ponder upon this declaration of divine grace:
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which 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, 27; KJV).
Hope comes to our aid in counteracting despair and helps us to endure in spite of suffering. But we have another helper, for the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. He does so in many departments of life, including prayer.
We are ignorant of many things with regard to prayer. It is far easier to theorize about prayer than it is to practice praying. Often we develop stereotyped words and phrases we repeat monotonously and with little consciousness or real concern. Sometimes we cannot express the real concern. Sometimes we cannot articulate the real burdens or find words in which to couch our deepest longings. All of us have found occasions when we wanted to pray and could not really do so.
For just such emergencies God has given us the indwelling Spirit as an intercessor. We have only one Mediator, one bridge builder, the man Christ Jesus. But we can have many intercessors. Indeed, we are all to make intercession for one another (1 Timothy 2:1). And we have two divine intercessors, one dwelling in us and the other in Heaven. The Holy Spirit intercedes from within (Romans 8:26), and Jesus intercedes at God's right hand (Romans 8:34).
The Spirit translates our inward inexpressible desires into prayer, taking the intangible and inarticulate groanings of the inner man and putting them in the words of heavenly language. Thus we can be sure that we are on a direct line to the throne room in glory if we are in Christ Jesus.
I have often found relief in prayer, especially when I was in deep need of forgiveness and divine understanding. The greatest consolation comes when I realize that all does not depend upon human vocabulary. The Spirit decodes my impulses and desires and transmits them in rational language. God hears and grace takes over. I do not so much need to learn how to pray, although that is important, as I need to learn how to trust.
God searches and penetrates the recesses of my being. He knows my every thought and intent. He also knows the mind of the Spirit. The communion between God and the Spirit is absolute. It is perfect. There is no faulty connection. The line is never shorted out. The Spirit makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. He pleads for God's own people in God's own way. If nothing else prompted me to be one of the people of God, this alone would be sufficient motivation. I need to be one of the saints because I desperately need the Spirit as an intercessor.
I hold that Jesus is Lord over life. That means the whole life, all of it. I do not accept the fragmented personality that "saves Sunday out" to serve God. One does not turn the grace of God off and on like the faucet on a kitchen sink. God is interested in everything that I do. He watches me mow the lawn, trim the shrubs, and roast wieners. I can do all these to His praise and glory. Certainly He wants me to sit down with the saints at the Lord's Table, but He also wants our kitchen table to be His when my wife and I sit down together and join in thanking Him for His blessings.
The Holy Spirit is a constant companion. He does not remain at home when you go to work. He does not stay behind when you go to the stadium to watch a football game. The beautiful thing about God's whole arrangement is that He can order and arrange everything to work out for our ultimate good. Even our foolish mistakes and blunders can be made to fit into a pattern of life. Sorrow and suffering can be woven into life until they actually enhance the design instead of wrecking it.
I do not think it is by sheer chance that Paul includes in this wonderful chapter on the indwelling Spirit that thrilling statement, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28; KJV). Praise His wonderful name! Let us all rejoice in God, through the Spirit who fills us and thrills us and gives us the peace that passes human understanding.
11. Frederic W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., The Early Days of Christianity (London: Cassell and Co., 1884), p. 2. [back]