Is it the believer or the Holy Spirit praying to God?

Explanation:

We read in Romans 8:26 that the Spirit intercedes στεναγμοῖς, which is the dative plural form of the noun στεναγμός. We might translate the dative with, so that Paul is saying that the Spirit intercedes with groans. What Paul seems to be saying is that believers sometimes pray with groans, not knowing how to articulate themselves before God. The Spirit then takes these groans and makes them into articulate intercession.³ So the groans belong to the believer, and the Spirit intercedes with them, or by means of them.

Counterargument:

That Paul uses the dative form is not enough to show that the Spirit intercedes through the prayers of believers. Rather, the dative could be used here to denote that the Spirit intercedes through his own groans. That is, the Spirit intercedes by his own inexpressible groans, which we might take as a metaphor for the Spirit’s own language of prayer.⁴ In any case, the dative on its own is not enough to decide between the groans belonging to the believer rather than the Spirit.

Response to counterargument:

Even if the dative alone is not enough to show that the groans belong to believers, there are two important factors that move us in this direction. First, we know that the Spirit does not groan because the Spirit is an immaterial being who does not make sounds like a human. Thus, if Paul wanted his audience to take it that the Spirit intercedes, he would not have included the notion of groans but would have simply said that the Spirit intercedes. Second, we can detect from the first part of Romans 8:26 that Paul has the believer’s own groans in mind. For he opens by saying that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. In other words, since we are weak and do not know what to pray for, we sometimes approach God in inexpressible groans, and the Spirit uses those groans to intercede for us. Given that Paul is explaining that we are weak and do not know what to pray, and it makes sense that the groans belong to the believers and not the Spirit, who does not groan in weakness like a human.

Explanation:

When Paul says that the Spirit intercedes for us with inexpressible groans, we want to know if those groans belong to believers or the Spirit. Romans 8:27 reveals that the groans likely belong to believers. We can detect this because Paul writes that God searches the heart and knows the mind of the Spirit who intercedes for us.⁵ In other words, Paul is clarifying that when we groan in our hearts, God knows our groans because he searches the heart, where he finds our groaning, and while he does so, he encounters the mind of the Spirit interceding for us. So Paul is explaining from Romans 8:26–27 that believers do not always know what to pray, and therefore groan to God. God searches our hearts, noticing our groans, but because the Spirit intercedes for us in our groans, and God knows the mind of the Spirit, God takes our groans as a commitment to do God’s will.⁶

Counterargument:

That God searches the heart does not immediately imply that the groans belong to believers. Rather, it may only mean that the location of the intercession takes place in the believer’s heart. That is, believers are not sure what to pray, so the Holy Spirit offers intercession through inexpressible groans, and God detects these groans in the believer’s heart.⁷ Since the groans are detected in the believer’s heart, God registers the intercession of the Holy Spirit conducted through inexpressive groans with the believer in whom the Holy Spirit operates.

Response to counterargument:

It is unlikely that Paul would characterize the intercession of the Spirit as inexpressible groans. For Paul writes in Romans 8:27 not only that God searches the heart but that the one who searches the heart knows the mind of the Spirit. In other words, God knows precisely what is on the Spirit’s mind by direct intuition, because the Hoy Spirit and the Father are in a trinitarian relationship. On the other hand, believers do not always know what to pray, and are weak, so we sometimes groan to God rather than articulate our thoughts to him. Since God directly knows the mind of the Spirit, and the Spirit intercedes for us, God perceives our inexpressible groans as thoughtful articulations because of the Holy Spirit. So, given that believers are weak and do not know what to pray (Romans 8:26), while God knows the mind of the Spirit directly (Romans 8:27), it is likely that the inexpressible groans belong to the believers, not the Spirit.

The one weakness here is that the grammar of Romans 8:26 suggests that the groans belong to the Spirit. That is, the dative seems to suggest that the Holy Spirit uses inexpressible groans to intercede.

Explanation:

Paul explains in Romans 8:26 that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with inexpressible groans. At first it is not clear if Paul is saying the Holy Spirit intercedes through our own inexpressible groans or the Holy Spirit’s inexpressible groans. Likely, Paul has in mind that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us by his own inexpressible groans.¹⁰ We can detect this because of what Paul writes in Romans 8:27. There Paul says that he who searches hearts, referring to God, knows the mind of the Spirit who intercedes for the saints. In other words, the Holy Spirit intercedes for the saints by his inexpressible groans.

Counterargument:

The problem here is that the Holy Spirit is God, which means the Holy Spirit is immaterial. As an immaterial being, he does not have a mouth or vocal cords, so there is no sense in saying that the Holy Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groans, because the Holy Spirit does not groan or make noises at all. Rather, the Holy Spirit has direct intuitive access to the Father, and likewise the Father to the Spirit.

Response to Counterargument:

When Paul writes that the Holy Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groans, he uses the phrase inexpressible groans metaphorically. The idea Paul means to convey is that the Holy Spirit has his own language of prayer, whether direct intuition with the Father or otherwise, through which he intercedes for believers. That the intercession is conducted by inexpressible groans simply highlights the inaccessible nature of the Spirit’s communication with the Father. That Paul might refer to the Spirit’s prayer metaphorically is no surprise, for he already used metaphor in this same section when he said that the sub-personal creation groans in Romans 8:22.¹¹ What is important is not the metaphor of groaning, but the fact that the Holy Spirit prays to the Father for us when we do not know how to pray.

Explanation:

When Paul says that the Holy Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groans, he likely has in mind the intertrinitarian communication between the Holy Spirit and the Father. In other words, he has in mind that the Holy Spirit prays to God on our behalf as he communes with the Father in their trinitarian relationship.¹² We can deduce this because we know from elsewhere that the Holy Spirit and the Father commune with one another. In particular, we read in 1 Corinthians 2:11 that no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. In other words, there is a unique and important communication between the Father and the Holy Spirit, so when Paul refers to the Spirit interceding with inexpressible groaning, he likely has this trinitarian communication in mind.¹³

Counterargument:

The problem here is that 1 Corinthians 2:11 has to do with the Spirit communicating to us, while Romans 8:26 has to do with the Spirit interceding for us to the Father. That is, in 1 Corinthians 2:10–12 we read that the Spirit searches the deep things of God, that the Spirit knows the mind of God, and that the Spirit imparts spiritual truths to us from God. In other words, the communication is from God to us through the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, Romans 8:26 has to do with communication from us to the Father. That is, though inexpressible groans the Holy Spirit intercedes for believers. The believer groans inexpressibly, and the Holy Spirit articulates these groans to the Father. Given that 1 Corinthians 2:11 has to do with the Spirit communicating to us, and Romans 8:26 has to do with us communicating to God through the Spirit, this argument is not relevant to understand Romans 8:26.

Response to counterargument:

The argument here is not that what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 2:11 is exactly the same process as what he refers to in Romans 8:26. Rather, the point is that there is intimate and inexpressible communication between the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is identified in 1 Corinthians 2:11 when Paul writes that no one knows the mind of God except the Spirit of God. In other words, the Father and the Spirit (along with the Son), have a special and unique trinitarian relationship in which they share thoughts that are only known to God. And this intimate and inexpressible communication between the Spirit and the Father is what Paul refers to in Romans 8:26. That is, when we do not know what to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us through direct communication with the Father, which Paul refers to as the Spirit’s inexpressible groans.

The weakness of this view is that groans, or sighs, are generally used to denote something inarticulate. That is, we groan because of weakness, so we no longer have the strength to articulate ourselves. Given that the Holy Spirit is God, full of might and stature, it is hard to see that Paul would characterize him as groaning.