Romans 8:26

Third testimony to the glorious future: the sighing of creation, our own sighing, and this action of the Spirit, point consistently to one conclusion. συναντιλαμβάνεται, cf. Luke 10:40. The weakness which the Spirit helps is that due to our ignorance: τὸ γὰρ τί προσευξώμεθα καθὸ δεῖ οὐκ οἴδαμαν. The article makes the whole clause object of οἴδαμεν : Winer, p. 644. Broadly speaking, we do know what we are to pray for the perfecting of salvation; but we do not know what we are to pray for καθὸ δεῖ according as the need is at the moment; we know the end, which is common to all prayers, but not what is necessary at each crisis of need in order to enable us to attain this end. ἀλλὰ αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα ὑπερεντυγχάνει στεναγμοῖς ἀλαλήτοις. ὑπερεντυγχάνει is found here only in N.T., but ἐντυγχάνειν in this sense in Romans 8:27; Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25. In Romans 11:2 with κατὰ = to make intercession against. ἀλαλήτοις does not mean “unspoken” but “unutterable”. The στεναγμοὶ of believers find expression, adequate or inadequate, in their prayers, and in such utterances as this very passage of Romans, but there is a testimony to the glory awaiting them more profound and passionate than even this. It is the intercession of the Spirit with στεναγμοὶ ἀλάλητοι groanings (or sighs) that baffle words. αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα is undoubtedly God's Spirit as distinguished from ours, yet what is here affirmed must fall within Christian experience, for Paul says in the next verse that He Who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit in this unutterable intercession. It is in the heart, therefore, that it takes place. “The whole passage illustrates in even a startling manner the truth and reality of the ‘coming' of the Holy Ghost the extent to which, if I may venture to say it, He has separated Himself as Christ did at His Incarnation from His eternal glory and blessedness, and entered into the life of man.… His intercession for us so intimately does He share all the evils of our condition is a kind of agony ” (R. W. Dale, Christian Doctrine, p. 140 f.).