Introduction

Rom 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

A recent post on social media mentioned an interview with NT Wright (A Deep-Dive into the Book of Romans: Dr. N.T. Wright – Theology in the Raw) in which he makes a point regarding the above (and other Romans’) passages of Paul that for me was both startling and eye-opening.  Let’s look at Wright’s narrative of the Romans story, and unpack his startling point.

The Grand Narrative

Wright, perhaps more than any other biblical scholar I am aware of, depends on his understanding of the Bible’s “grand narrative” as the foundation of his exegesis of individual New Testament (NT) passages.  This “grand narrative”, in a nutshell, goes something like this:

• God’s intention for His Creation was (and is) that humanity would serve as images of Him on earth in their families and societies. (I’ve written a bit about this topic here.)  As God’s images, humans, like God, would deal with each other rightly, justly, and lovingly.
• As both the Hebrew Bible and our own experience graphically attest, this is not and never has been how humans interact with each other. The Bible calls our problem “sin”.
• Recognizing this to be humanity’s nature, God sends Jesus of Nazareth to both redeem them (from their sin) and to provide the mechanism by which they will be enabled to live as images of God – His Holy Spirit. Of course, it is only those who acknowledge Jesus as their Lord, and live as though He is their Lord, that receive this animating power of the Spirit that allows them to live a life pleasing to, and reflecting, God.
• The end game for God’s Creation is for Jesus the Christ to return finally to remake “the heavens and the earth”, and to transform those who followed Him as Lord so that they can live eternally with Him/God on this remade earth. In the end, heaven (God’s domain) joins with Earth (humanity’s domain) as a perfected whole. (Wright characterizes this culmination as “making things right”.)

Of course in Romans, Paul has a much more focused message than this grand narrative.  One of the more significant problems he deals with throughout the letter (and also in Galatians and elsewhere) is the issue of whether or not gentile followers of Jesus must adopt the cultural practices of the Jewish followers of Jesus.  Paul spends a lot of time explaining to his Jewish brethren why it is that after the advent of their Messiah, the Christ, everything is different for them regarding their relationship with their God.

Nevertheless, this grand narrative is never far from Paul’s mind in addressing the issues of the newly-formed church in Rome.

• Chapter 1-4 – Everybody is a sinner; both Jew and Gentile
• Chapter 5-8 – Jesus was sent to redeem our sins; faith in Him as Lord enables the Holy Spirit to take up residence in the believer; both Jew and Gentile
• Chapter 9-12 – The Jews’ heart is resistant to God (and Christ); their covenant with God through Abraham and Moses is no longer sufficient to justify them before God. Only their faith in God’s Son can now do that.
• Chapter 13-16 – How the transformed Christian is to live, as an image of God.

This is the contextual background of Wright’s comments.

God’s Images Groaning With God

At around the 16-minute mark in Wright’s interview he zeros in on the state of things today.  There are those today who are Christ-followers and who, as a result, have God’s Spirit living within them.  To the extent that the Spirit is in control of the believer that believer is an image of God on earth.

However, there simply aren’t enough Christ-followers to transform civilization into a reflection of heaven on earth.  Things are bad “out there”, and rapidly getting worse.

It is at this point that, in explaining Rom 8:26 (above), he makes a set of statements arguing that the thing the Spirit is groaning about is the as-yet-still-sinful nature of God’s Creation.  He says:

“This is God using His people where He can groan at the heart of His creation.”

I was startled by this statement simply because I had never thought of the decadence of civilization causing God to groan in a kind of pain, or at least upset.

But then it also occurred to me that this is precisely what I’ve been increasingly feeling over the past many years.  Frankly, in my case, it is more of a depression than a response of groaning.  But I can see how Paul could easily characterize it as groaning.

Seen from this vantage point, the verse suddenly makes a new sense to me that I had never understood before.  The word translated as “weakness” is:

1. 769. ἀσθένεια asthéneia; gen. astheneías, fem. noun from asthenḗs (772), weak, sick. Weakness, sickness

The weakness I think Paul is talking about is the one I feel.  It is the realization that one person, or even one billion people, isn’t “strong” enough (either in numbers or in Godly virtue) to reform our civilization back to what it is meant to be, even if we could somehow perfectly reflect God as His images (which we never do).  So this realization is demoralizing causing not only we as Christ-followers to groan for relief from God, but amazingly His Spirit in us as well.  God Himself is groaning.

If we think for a moment about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we see that this groaning, longing, or lamentation is a signal to us of our blessedness to Him.  Mt 5:6:

[6] “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

We’re groaning because we’re hungering and thirsting for a righteous society, as God intended from the beginning, but for which, sadly, there is precious little to be found today.

Conclusion

I never imagined God being in distress over the state of humanity’s godlessness.  Nor did I associate my depression with looking at that same decadence.  But I can surely identify with Paul’s appeal to pray even when we don’t know for what or how to when confronted with a world gone mad.

Of course, we feel weak in the face of the situation.  Perhaps even helpless (that contributes to depression).  Who among us hasn’t seen himself as being spoken of by Jesus in Lk 17:22?

[22] And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

Who among us doesn’t long for just one day of the Son of Man, clothed as it will be in righteousness?

This is what N.T. Wright has picked up on so perceptively, going on to point out that God joins with us in lamenting the situation.  And, as Jesus told us, this condition of distraught anguish at being surrounded by unrighteousness signifies that we are indeed blessed by God.  He understands it’s not the easiest thing in the world to seek God and His righteousness in a societal cesspool.  So He doesn’t just comfort us but joins with us in our lamentation.

I admit I have a newfound comfort in that thought.