υπερ ηµων CKLP; but om,
2 After σννεργει, o Geos is found in AB. W. and H. bracket it, but Lachm, and Weiss regard it as the true text. It was omitted as cumbrous and unnecessary. Cf. i. 28, where ο θεος is omitted in $A in much the same way; here it is wanting in
and sure as the love of God which in Christ Jesus reconciled us to Himself and gave us the spirit of adoption, and therefore we wait for it in patience. For διὰ cf. ii. 27. ὑπομονὴ: in 1 Thess. i. 3 we have 4 ὑπομονὴ τῆς ἐλπίδος ὑμῶν used of a suffering but steadfast Church: ὑπομονὴ is the constancy which belongs to and characterises hope in dark days. In the pastoral epistles (1 Tim. vi. το; Tit. il. 2) instead of the πίστις, ἀγάπη, ἐλπίς, of earlier letters, Paul writes πίστις, ἀγάπη, ὑπομονή, as if he had discovered by experience that in this life “hope” has mainly to be shown in the form of ‘*patience”.
Ver. 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 x. 4ο. The weakness which the Spirit helps is that due to our ignorance: τὸ yap τί προσ- ευξώμεθα καθὸ δεῖ οὐκ οἴδαμεν The article makes the whole clause object of οἵδαμεν: 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 Set—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 στεν- αγμοῖς ἀλαλήτοις. ὑπερεντυγχάνει is found here only in Ν.Τ., but ἐντυγχάνειν in this sense in vers. 27, 34, Heb. vii. 25. In Rom. xi. 2 with κατὰ =to make intercession against. ἀλαλήτοις does not mean “unspoken” but ‘“ unutter- able”. 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- -στοαπίηρς (or sighs) that baffle words. αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα. is undoubtedly God’s Spirit as dis- tinguished from ours, yet what is here affirmed must fall within Christian ex- perience, 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 im 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 ofman. . . . Hisintercession 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.).
Ver.27. This intercession, with which our heart goes, though it is deeper than words, the Heart Searcher understands. τί τὸ φρόν. τοῦ πνεύματος: what the Spirit is set upon, the whole object of its. thought and endeavour. ὅτι, viz., that. He intercedes κατὰ θεόν in agreement with God’s will, see 2 Cor. vii. 9-11. ὑπὲρ ἁγίων on behalf of those who are God’s. Both the intercession of Christ and the intercession of the Spirit are- represented in the N.T. as made on be- half of those who are in Christ—saints,. the Church, not mankind in general. *
Vers. 28-39. Conclusion of the argu- ment : the Apostle glories in the assurance of God’s eternal and un- changeable love in Jesus Christ.