1 Griffith John, Uft, 457.
74 HOW TO PRAY AS WE OUGHT
heavenly virtues. He is one with Heaven." This is a lofty ideal ; but the Chinese do not look upon it as existing in fancy or imagination only. They believe that it has been realized in some instances at least ; and I am convinced that no Christian teacher can be a great spiritual power in China in whom this ideal is not embodied and manifested in an eminent degree.^
(3) Life is indeed full of mysteries of which we can give no interpretation, of griefs for which we can gain no present remedy. Nay, rather, we must feel them deeply if we are to know God ; and then the faith in the personal help of the Holy Spirit — the complement of the Incarnation — is sufficient for our needs. The prayer of the warrior of old time bewildered by the darkness was : " Give light and let me die." We can say : " Help us to live and the light will come," come through life itself.
^ The Holy Spirit is the source of all spiritual illumination. Knowledge, even religious knowledge, without spiritual illumina- tion is of the letter, and its possession brings no spiritual power. The things of God as facts and doctrines are fully revealed in this blessed Book. Still the Bible is not enough for us. The vital question is, how are we to know " the things that are freely given us of God " ? How are we to reach the sunlit summits of full assurance about them ? *
2. But now, more particularly, let us see what the intercession of the Spirit does for us. " The Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." We should observe three ways in which the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.
(1) TJie Holy Spirit intercedes for tis in union with our own spirit. — The verb translated "maketh intercession" is one of those beautiful words, or compounds, in which the Greek language is so rich. Literally, it means "to meet with some one in a place agreed upon " who is " for " us, i.e. who is on our side, in whose grace and favour we stand. The words have sometimes been explained as if Paul meant to say that the Holy Spirit is literally praying in heaven for men, and hence the idea has arisen that the Eternal Father waits the personal intercession of the Spirit before His gifts are given. That idea is opposed to the very words of the Apostle, for he has spoken of the men in whom are the first-fruits of the Spirit as " groaning within themselves," as waiting in hope for the redemption of the body ; and this groaning within ourselves 1 Griffith John, Life, 324. ^ jj^. 323.
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corresponds to the "groanings which cannot be uttered." He then passes on to say, " He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit," and all this points to the interpretation that the Holy Spirit, in the soul, pleads as the author of prayer. His idea seems, therefore, to be this — There is a spirit within you, possessing you, which gives rise to longings earnest and unutterable — that is the Holy Ghost within, interceding with God. The whole passage in which the text is found illustrates in even a startling manner the truth and reality of the " coming " of the Holy Ghost, the extent to which He has separated Himself — as Christ did at His Incarnation — from His eternal glory and blessedness, and entered into the life of man.
^ Have we understood that in the Holy Trinity all the Three Persons have a distinct place in prayer, and that the faith in the Holy Spirit of intercession as praying in us is as indispensable as the faith in the Father and the Son ? How clearly we have this in the words, "Through Him (Christ) we have access by one Spirit unto the Father." Just as prayer must be to the Father, and through the Son, it must be by the Spirit. And the Spirit can pray in no other way in us than as He lives in us. It is only as we give ourselves to the Spirit living and praying in us, that the glory of the prayer-hearing Father, and the ever-blessed and most effectual mediation of the Son, can be known by us in their power.^
(2) The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in union with Christ's intercession. — The "intercession of the Spirit" on our behalf (carried on, it is implied, "in the hearts" of the saints, which only God searches) is mentioned nowhere in the New Testament but here. But it is not to be separated from the intercession of Christ which is mentioned just below. Christ's intercession is " at the right hand of God," but also He has by the Spirit taken us up into His own life. He dwells in us by His Spirit. By His Spirit we are knit into one and made His body. Doubtless, then, dwelling thus by the Spirit in the body, Christ intercedes for us. This is the intercession of the Spirit, which is also the inter- cession of Christ — an intercession gathering up into one, and sustaining and connecting and perfecting, all the imperfect prayers of all the saints.