Likewise, ὡσαύτως, does not indicate comparison here, but connection: 'so also.' Saint Chrysostom also read the text in this way: 'so also the Spirit.' By infirmities, according to the flow of the discourse, one should understand not moral infirmities, but those by which patience is tested.
He has said that we received the pledge by receiving the Spirit, while we expect to receive the final and full payment in the future. We also groan for this. We groan because it is very bright, and especially because, though destined for such a most radiant state, we are now extremely constrained and humbled. Yet however burdensome such a condition is, we lean upon the pledge and wait with patience for the full payment. We do not doubt at all that we shall surely receive it. Thus hope, the expectation and awaiting of what is better and more perfect, is the distinguishing mark in the Christian disposition of spirit.
Having reached this point, the holy Apostle now fixes attention on this hope and inspires us toward it by setting forth its firmest foundations. The reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit is already a firm foundation of hope, and even the source of all other foundations. Yet in a certain way it is inferential. Basing ourselves on it, we wait with full assurance and endure every unpleasantness with good courage. But this is how we dispose ourselves. What, then, does the Spirit do? The Spirit also helps us in this work of enduring infirmities or the troubles surrounding us. He does so by comforting the heart and repelling the bitterness of outward troubles with spiritual sweetness. He also teaches us how to pray to God in a manner worthy of God.
'The Spirit helps us in our infirmities.' Having received the Spirit, we encourage ourselves to patience through good thoughts about God's ordering of things. Yet the Spirit Himself is in us not as an inactive deposit in the treasury of our nature. He is an all-enlivening power, producing not only thoughts of hope, but a hopeful and good disposition. 'Helps,' συναντιλαμβάνεται, means that He intercedes for us together with someone. With whom? With us. When by our good thoughts we try to encourage ourselves toward hopeful patience, then the Spirit of God comes to our help and places in the heart the very good courage of patience in hope.
'Strictly speaking, patience is your own work,' says Saint Chrysostom. 'Nevertheless, the Spirit is given to you in order to encourage you toward hope and, through it, to lighten your labors.' Let us add the words of Oecumenius: 'Do not think that you will be crushed by the weight of patience. The Spirit will not allow you to be crushed by it, but will be your helper in this matter. We ourselves are weak, and without the help of the Spirit we cannot manage even patience itself.'
But the Apostle says more than this. He does not speak of help from the Spirit that is to come, but of help already present. It is as though he said: See how the Spirit helps you, and do not lose heart. The very fact that you endure and have good courage in infirmities testifies that the Spirit is helping you. Blessed Theophylact writes: 'Having mentioned patience, he encourages the hearer and says that the Spirit also strengthens us. Therefore, without growing faint in hope and patience, you bring only hope and patience, while the Spirit helps you.' This is the first intercession from the Spirit: He pours consolation into the heart amid troubles and thereby gives strength and good courage to patience.
The second is that He teaches us how we ought to pray in such a case and places the very prayer in the heart. In troubles, sorrows, and afflictions we usually turn to God with prayer. Yet in doing so we rarely find God's path and pray mostly for what is desirable to us, without assurance that it is also saving for us. The Spirit of God, finding us in prayer and directing prayer, inspires us to pray precisely for what is most needful. This needful thing is either distinctly impressed by Him upon the thought, or is reduced to a general disposition of surrender to God. You know all things, O Lord. As You know, order what is needful for me. This is the true Spirit-moved prayer, which all the saints of prayer place at the highest step of prayerful ascent to God.
'For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.' One man asks for health, but it will not lead him to good. Another prays to be delivered from poverty, though poverty is useful for him. Another asks for intelligence, though it is ruin for him. Even among spiritual needs, not every satisfaction of them is saving in the sense in which we understand it and ask for it. Saint Chrysostom says: 'By these words the Apostle shows both the Spirit's great care for us and teaches the Romans not to regard as useful everything that appears so by human judgment. Since Christians of that time were beaten, driven out, and forced to endure countless afflictions, it was natural for them to desire rest. It was natural to consider it useful for themselves and to ask such grace from God. Therefore Paul says: Do not consider what seems useful to you to be truly useful for yourselves. We need God's help even in order to know what is useful for us. So weak and insignificant is man in himself. Therefore the Apostle said: For we do not know what to pray for as we ought. So that the disciple should not be ashamed of ignorance, he revealed that the teachers themselves are in ignorance. He did not say, You do not know, but, We do not know. That he did not say this out of modesty is shown by other circumstances. Although he continually asked God in his prayers to see the Romans, this was not fulfilled immediately according to his request. Likewise, concerning the thorn given him in the flesh, that is, his afflictions, he prayed repeatedly and did not receive what he asked. So too in the Old Testament, Moses did not receive what he desired when he asked to see Palestine. Jeremiah did not receive it when he prayed for the Jews. Abraham did not receive it when he interceded for the Sodomites.'
Let us continue this with the words of blessed Theodoret. 'Do not ask,' says the Apostle, 'for deliverance from sorrows, for you do not know what is useful as God the Ruler knows it. Entrust yourselves to Him who holds the rudder of the universe. Even if you do not ask, but only groan through the action of the grace dwelling in you, He will wisely order what concerns you and provide what will be useful for you.'
'But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.' Intercedes, ὑπερεντυγχάνει, means to speak for someone before the powerful, and to speak with an exceedingly strong speech that does not cease until it obtains what is asked. Thus, he says, the Holy Spirit given to us intercedes for us before God. When he says 'intercedes,' he clearly points to something common to all and known to all. How blessed that time was.
But what does this intercession mean? We ourselves, he says, do not know how to pray, but the Spirit prays for us, the Spirit who is in us. How does this happen? Does the Spirit pray while we do not know it? Or does the Spirit pray by conducting His prayer through our consciousness and feeling? It cannot be that a man does not know his own prayer. He only knows that it is not his, though it is in him. It has been formed apart from him, but he knows it and knows whence it is. The Spirit of God places true prayer in the heart. The man who has received it lifts it up to God in the same meaning and power in which it was placed within him. In this he is the one acted upon, not the one acting.
In the following verse it is said that He who searches the hearts knows this prayer. He knows it because He sees it in the heart, or as it proceeds from the heart. The Spirit clearly places it in the heart. This means that He does not act apart from consciousness and feeling. In the early Church, during assemblies, the spirit of prayer would come upon someone. He would stand and ask permission to utter this prayer. Having received permission, he would utter it. This means that he was conscious of it. He felt it formed in the heart, and in using it he had his own share of freedom.
This will be more intelligible if we apply it to something that happens in our time. In our time the same thing occurs in prayer that comes upon a person. Usually we pray by prayer books or in our own words. There may also be feelings of prayer and groanings, but we stir them up in ourselves by our own activity. This too is prayer. But sometimes the attraction to prayer comes of itself, compels one to pray, and gives no rest until the whole prayer pours itself out. This is either the very thing of which the Apostle speaks, or something like it. The content of such prayers is rarely determined by any particular object. Almost always it breathes surrender of oneself to the will of God. It entrusts oneself to God's guidance, for He knows better than we what is needful for us, inwardly and outwardly. He desires it for us more strongly than we do and is ready to give and arrange it all for us, if only we do not stubbornly resist. All the prayers handed down to us by the holy Fathers have the same origin. They are Spirit-moved and therefore remain so powerful to this day.
Saint Chrysostom says: 'These words, The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, are not clear, because the miracles that were then numerous have now ceased. Therefore it is necessary to tell you about the state of things then. Through this, what the Apostle said will also be explained. What was the state of things then? To everyone who then received baptism, God imparted some gift, which in general was called spirit. One had the gift of prophecy and foretold the future. Another had the gift of wisdom and taught the people. Another had the gift of healing and cured the sick. Another had the gift of power and raised the dead. Another had the gift of tongues and spoke in different languages. Besides all these gifts there was also the gift of prayer, which must be supposed to have been common to all. Whoever had this gift, when it came into motion, prayed for the whole people. Since we do not know many things useful for us and ask for useless things, in the early Church the gift of prayer would come upon one person. He alone asked, on behalf of all, what was commonly useful for the whole Church and taught others to pray. Therefore the Apostle here calls both the gift itself and the soul that receives it spirit, as it intercedes before God and groans. For the one counted worthy of such grace would stand in the assembly. With great compunction and with the deepest inward groanings he would fall down before God and ask for what was useful for all. Understanding this, Paul says: The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.'
Why are such groanings called too deep for words? Either because of their special power, unusual in simple prayer words, or because they arise in an unknown way. Or it is because a prayer is uttered that a man by himself would never have uttered. Ambrosiaster writes: 'Here it is said that the Spirit of the Lord intercedes for us not by the usual human expressions, but according to the property of His nature. For when That which is from God speaks to God, it must speak as He speaks from whom It is. So it is also customary among us that no one speaks to his fellow citizen in a foreign tongue. The Spirit given to us overflows Himself in our prayers, so as to cover our inexperience and lack of foresight by His movement and ask from God what is useful for us.'
THEOSIS