(3) For the Christian conquest over grief see art. Comfort.
(4) The grief of God over human perversity is recognized in He 3^"-" {irpocroxdi^cn}, and in Eph 4^" the Cliristian is warned against grieving the Holy Spirit.
(5) The grief of Jesus is cited in He S'"^" as an indication that, so far from taking the priesthood to Himself, He shrank from the sacrificial function and ' accepted it only in filial submission to the will of God,' or ' that the ottering of jjrayers and supplications witli strong crying and tears corre- sponded to the high priest's ottering for himself on the Day of Atonement (Hofmann, Gess). . . . An interesting parallel (also noted by Davidson) is Hosea's reference to Jacob's wrestling( 12^), in which he speaks of him as weeping and making suppli- cation to the angel, of which we read nothing in Genesis ' (A. S. Peake, Hebrews [Century Bible, 1902], p. 134).
LiTERATDRB. — A. Maclarcii, Expositions : ' 2 Cor. ch. vii. to end,' 1909, p. 8 ; J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, 1876, p. 44: 'Sorrow no Sin'; A. W. Momerie, The Origin of Evil, 1885, p. 12 ff.: 'The Mystery of Siifferinrr ' ; H. B-ashneW, Moral Uses of Dark Thin<js,lS77 ; B. H. Streeter, 'The Suffering of God,' in HJ xii. [April, 1914] ; D. W. Simon, The Redemption of Man, 1889, ch. vii. fl. BULCOCK.
GROANING. — The verb ffTevd^u occurs three times in Ro 8 (vv.^^. 23. 26j g^^j twice in 2 Co 5 (vv.2- *), denoting the distress caused apparently not so much by physical sutt'ering and material decay as by the conflict in the present order between matter and spirit. The whole creation is conceived as involved in this painful struggle — it 'groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now ' (Ro 8-^).
St. Paul's Hgure may have been suggested by the Jewish tradition of the ' birth-pangs of the Messiah': n^cn '■hzn (F. Weber, Altsyn. TheoL, Leipzig, 1880, p. 350 f. ; cf. Mt 24^-8 : ' Nation shall rise up against nation, and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places. These things are the beginning of travail'), although the Apostle's thought is more psychological. For the sympathy of Nature with man's fall and restoration see Weber, pp. 222 f., 380 f., 398.
The larger life of the Spirit presses painfully againstthelimitationsof the present material world. Notcreation's physical sufl'erings under the bondage of corruption, but her ' earnest expectation ' of deliverance from it, creates the sense of almost in- tolerable strain ; the ' hrstfruits of the Spirit' for the moment intensify the burden of the ttesh ; the deepest groanings of the saint arise from his sense of exile, from his ' longing to be clothed upon with his habitation from heaven' (2 Co 5'). The soul in its lioliest moods groans in its impotence. Its highest yearnings, though known to the Searcher of hearts, have no language but a painful cry.
'The groanings which cannot be uttered' with which 'the Spirit' maketh intercession for us (Ro 8^*) seem to be those of the saint's spiritual nature. In St. Paul, man's higher faculties take highly per- sonified forms — the indwelling Divine is the Spirit of Christ (cf. Philo's Logos, identified with the archangel, etc., or the Logoi, identified with Jewish
angels and Greek daimons. See J. Drummond, Philo J%idceus, 1888, ii. 235 f., for a discussion of ' the suppliant Logos,' rhv iKirrju X6yov). The ' Spirit ' of Ro 8 is distinguished from God ; the ' heart ' of man and the ' mind of the Spirit ' seem synonymous, and the ' unutterable groanings ' suit better a limited human soul than a heavenly power. But the stirrings of the Spirit which make the soul conscious of earth's ' broken arcs ' give the promise of heaven's ' perfect round ' — of ' the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward ' (cf. St. Augustine's Confessions, bk. xiii. ; also Browning's Alit Vogler). H. BULCOCK.
GROWTH, INCREASE (Gr. aii^-r)ais).—ln most of the passages in which the idea of growth, growing, increase, occurs in the NT the words in use in the Greek are either parts or compounds of the verb ai;^d>'w. The abstract noun 'increase' (af/'^ijo-is) is found in only two passages — Eph 4^^, Col 2^* — but the root of the word and the idea underlying occur frequently all through the apostolic writings. We also find TrepLacrevu}, ' abound,' 7rpo/c<57rTw, 'advance,' TrXeovdj'w and ivSwa/ndw, ' strengthen,' translated by tiie word 'increase.' Originally and in classical Greek the word av^dvw signified 'increase by addition from the outside,' used e.g. of a State increasing by adding to its territory, but in the NT the Avord is mainly used of seminal growth from within, such as the growth of a plant, animal, or person. The Hebrew writers were fond of com- paring things natural with things spiritual, and found frequent analogy between natural and spiritual processes. They had a great wealth of words to express the idea of growth, and most of them signify the organic growth of living objects. According to Hebrew ideas, the natural laws of physical growth are made to apply to the spiritual realm. God is supreme in the world of Nature and the world of spirit alike. In both there is growth, and that is represented as the gift and working of God. He causes grass to grow (Ps 104'^ 147^), while the growth of restored and penitent Israel (Hos 14^- '') is regarded as the result of the gracious operations of the forgiving God who is ' as the dew unto Israel.'