Romans 8:27

28. There is therefore in us a certain learned ignorance, so to speak, an ignorance which we learn from that Spirit of God who helps our infirmities. For after the apostle said, “If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it,” he added in the same passage, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered. …

Do you perhaps also think me ridiculous and like the irrational beasts, because I said, “We know not what we should pray for as we ought”? Perhaps this is not quite so intolerable. For since, in the dictates of a sound and righteous judgment, we prefer our future to our past; and since our prayer must have reference not to what we have been, but what we shall be, it is of course much more injurious not to know what we should pray for, than to be ignorant of the manner of our origin. But recollect whose words I repeated, or read them again for yourself, and reflect whence they come; and do not pelt me with your reproaches, lest the stone you throw should alight on a head you would not wish. …

8. Agreeably with this, we ought to understand that God, though He give not to our will, doth give for our salvation. For sup pose the thing thou have asked be to thine hurt, and the Physician knows that it is to thine hurt; what then? It is not to be said that the physician does not give ear to thee, when, perhaps, thou askest for cold water, and if it is good for thee, he gives it immediately, if not good, he gives it not. Had he no ears for thy request, or rather, did he give ear for thy weal, even when he gainsaid thy will? Then let there be in you charity, my brethren; let it be in you, and then set your minds at rest: even when the thing ye ask for is not given you, your prayer is granted, only, ye know it not. …

6. Paul also demonstrated this: for when he was reproaching the Corinthians with a certain sin he said, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you.” Therefore also Christ first removes the cause of the evil, and having said “Son! be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,” He uplifts the spirit and rouses the downcast soul: for the speech became an efficient cause and having entered into the conscience it laid hold of the soul itself and cast out of it all distress. For nothing creates pleasure and affords confidence so much as freedom from self-reproach. For where remission of sins is there is sonship. Even so at least we are not able to call God Father until we have washed away our sins in the pool of the sacred water. …

Ver. 6 . “For to be carnally minded is death.” He does not speak of the nature of the flesh, or the essence of the body, but of being carnally “minded,” which may be set right again, and abolished. And in saying thus, he does not ascribe to the flesh any reasoning power of its own. Far from it. But to set forth the grosser motion of the mind, and giving this a name from the inferior part, and in the same way as he often is in the habit of calling man in his entireness, and viewed as possessed of a soul, flesh. “But to be spiritually minded.” Here again he speaks of the spiritual mind, in the same way as he says further on, “But He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit” ( ver. 27 ); and he points out many blessings resulting from this, both in the present life, and in that which is to come. …

Ver. 27 . “But He that searcheth the hearts.” You see that it is not about the Comforter that he is speaking, but about the spiritual heart. Since if this were not so, he ought to have said, “He that searcheth” the Spirit. But that thou mayest learn that the language is meant of a spiritual man, who has the gift of prayer, he proceeds, “And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,” that is, of the spiritual man. “Because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

[7.] Then to show its greatness, he saith, If the Spirit which knoweth the secret things of God had not revealed them, we should not have learned them. Such an object of care was this whole subject to God, as to be among His secrets. Wherefore we needed also that Teacher who knoweth these things perfectly; for “the Spirit,” ( v. 10, 11, 12 .) saith he, “searcheth all things, even the deep things of God.” For the word “to search” is here indicative not of ignorance, but of accurate knowledge: it is the very same mode of speaking which he used even of God, saying, “He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit.” ( Rom. viii. …

Again, a man rebukes oftentimes not so much to reprove and admonish, as publicly to ( ἐκπομπεῦσαι καὶ ἐκτραγωδῆσαι ) display and exaggerate his neighbor’s sin. Our counsels however themselves men do not know; but, ( Rom. viii. 27 .) “He that searcheth the hearts,” knows them perfectly; and He will bring all such things into view at that time. Wherefore he saith, “Who will bring to light the secret things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”

50. But, it is said that “He maketh intercession for us.” It follows then that, as the suppliant is inferior to the benefactor, so far is the Spirit inferior in dignity to God. But have you never heard concerning the Only-begotten that He “is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us”? Do not, then, because the Spirit is in you, if indeed He is at all in you, nor yet because He teaches us who were blinded, and guides us to the choice of what profits us, do not for this reason allow yourself to be deprived of the right and holy opinion concerning Him. For to make the loving kindness of your benefactor a ground of ingratitude were indeed a very extravagance of unfairness. …

Finally so highly is the virtue of love extolled that the blessed Apostle John declares that it not only belongs to God but that it is God, saying: “God is love: he therefore that abideth in love, abideth in God, and God in him.” For so far do we see that it is divine, that we find that what the Apostle says is plainly a living truth in us: “For the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who dwelleth in us.” For it is the same thing as if he said that God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who dwelleth in us: who also, when we know not what we should pray for, “makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered: But He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what the Spirit desireth, for He asketh for the saints according to God.”