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.
And - rather, 'But' (all inarticulate though these groanings be) he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he-that is, the Spirit. Here our translators have properly departed from the neuter sense of the word "Spirit," when meant of the Holy Spirit; rendering it "He." The pity is that they did not carry out the same principle in the preceding verse, and in Romans 8:16.
Maketh intercession for the saints according to [the will of] God. It had been as well, perhaps, that the words had been allowed to stand without any supplement - "according to God." But if a supplement was to be introduced, 'according to [the mind of] God' would have been better, as corresponding to "the mind of the Spirit" in the preceding clause. As the Searcher of hearts, He watches the surging emotions of them in prayer, and knows perfectly what the Spirit means by the groanings which He draws forth within us, because that blessed Intercessor pleads by them only for what God Himself designs to bestow. 'The assurance which we have (says Alford well) that God the Heart-Searcher interprets the inarticulate sighings of the Spirit in us is not, strictly speaking, His Omniscience, but the fact that the very Spirit who thus pleads does it in pursuance of the divine purposes, and in conformity with God's good pleasure.' Some render the words thus: 'knoweth the mind of the Spirit, that He maketh intercession,' etc. (So Calvin, Meyer, etc.) But though the Greek will admit of this, the other sense suits the apostle's strain of thought better, as well as brings out a better sense. It is accordingly that which most adopt.
Remarks:
(1) Are believers "led by the Spirit of God"? (Romans 8:14.) How careful, then, should they be not to "grieve the Holy Spirit of God"! (Ephesians 4:30.) Compare Psalms 32:8-9, "I will ... guide thee with mine eye. Be not (then) as the horse, or as the mule," etc. (2) "The spirit of bondage" to which many Protestants are "all their lifetime subject," and the 'doubtsome faith' which the Popish Church systematically inculcates, are both rebuked here, being in direct and painful contrast to that "spirit of adoption," and that witness of the Spirit, along with our own spirit, to the fact of our sonship, which it is here said the children of God, as such, enjoy (Romans 8:15-16). Philippi, noticing this, refers to the great Protestant divines who noticed it also. And Olshausen only echoes the statements of the 'Westminster Confession,' John Owen, Halyburton, etc., when he says that 'On the foundation of this immediate testimony of the Holy Spirit, all the regenerate man's conviction finally rests. For the faith in the Scripture itself [in the supreme sense of the word "faith"] has its basis in this experience of the principle which it promises, and which flows into the believer while he is occupied with it.' The same profound writer notices also the important testimony borne by this verse against the pantheistic confusion of the divine and the human spirit.
(3) As suffering with Christ is the ordained preparation for participating in this glory, so the insignificance of the one, as compared with the other, cannot fail to lighten the sense of it, however bitter and protracted (Romans 8:17-18).
(4) It cannot but swell the heart of every intelligent Christian to think that if external nature has been mysteriously affected for evil by the fall of man, it only awaits his completed recovery, at the resurrection, to experience a corresponding emancipation from its blighted condition into undecaying life and unfading beauty (Romans 8:19-23).
(5) It is not when believers, through sinful 'quenching of the Spirit,' have the fewest and fain test glimpses of heaven that they sigh most fervently to be there; but, on the contrary, when, through the unobstructed working of the Spirit in their hearts, "the first-fruits" of the glory to be revealed are most largely and frequently tasted, then, and just for that reason, is it that they "groan within themselves" for full redemption (Romans 8:23). For thus they reason: If such be the drops, what will the ocean be? If thus "to see through a glass darkly" be so very sweet, what will it be to "see face to face"? If when "my Beloved stands behind our wall looking forth at the windows, showing Himself through the lattice" (Song of Solomon 2:9) - that thin, transparent veil which hides the unseen from mortal view-if, even thus, He is to me "Fairer than the children of men," what shall He be when He stands confessed before my undazzled vision the Only-begotten of the Father in my own nature, and I shall be like Him, seeing Him as He is?
(6) "The patience of hope" (1 Thessalonians 1:3) is the fitting attitude for those who with the joyful consciousness that they are already "saved" (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5), have yet the painful consciousness that they are saved but in part; or, that, "being justified by His grace, they are made (in the present state) heirs according to the hope (only) of eternal life" (Titus 3:7).
(7) As prayer is the breath of the spiritual life, and the believer's only effectual relief under the "infirmity" which attaches to his whole condition here below, how cheering is it to be assured that the blessed Spirit, cognizant of it all, comes in aid of it all; and in particular, that when believers-unable to articulate their case before God-can at times do nothing but lie "groaning" before the Lord, these inarticulate groanings are the Spirit's own vehicle for conveying into "the ears of the Lord of Saboath" their whole case; that they come up before the Hearer of prayer as the Spirit's own intercession in their behalf; and that they are recognized by Him that sitteth on the Throne as embodying only what, in His own 'mind,' He had determined before to bestow upon them! 8. What a view do those two Romans 8:1-39:(26,27) give of the relations subsisting between the Divine Persons in the economy of redemption and the harmony of their respective operations in the case of each of the redeemed!
In this incomparable section the apostle expatiates over the whole field of his preceding argument, his spirit swelling and soaring with his vast and lofty theme, and carrying his readers along with him, out of all the trials and tears and uncertainties of things present, into the region of cloudless and eternal day. To subdivide this section would be intolerable; for after the first verse or two the thoughts rush along like a cataract, and refuse to be arrested by any artificial breaks.