In May 2024, my blog article related how speaking in tongues can improve your health. There is scientific proof that speaking in tongues can boost your immune system and also affects the health of the brain. In this article, I examine through scripture, as well as personal experience, how speaking in tongues edifies the speaker and enables the Holy Spirit to go to war with us against spiritual foes.
“Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom.8:26-28).
Our intercessor, the Holy Spirit Himself, helps our infirmities. In Greek, this is a compound phrase made up of three words: sun-anti-lambanomai which we will examine separately. The prefix sun is syn in English and simply means with, or in conjunction with something or someone. It denotes partnership. Referring to the Holy Spirit, it shows there is a joint operation going on. In other words, He is with us to help us. The word anti means to be on the opposite end. Usually we think of it in the negative sense, but here it means He is on the opposite end to help us. The word lambano means to lay hold of something such as a load or burden. These three in combination describe someone who comes to the aid of another who is struggling to carry a heavy burden, by getting on the other end, and laying hold of it, so together they can carry it.
When we replaced our church roof, the volunteer helpers found out how difficult it is to carry a bundle of shingles alone. One was trying to pick up a bundle and was having a hard time. Then another brother came along side of him, got on the other end, laid hold on that burden and helped him carry it. This is how the Holy Spirit comes along side to help us in prayer. He doesn’t take the load away and carry it all by Himself, but He helps us to carry it. He helps our weaknesses—infirmities—astheneia is better translated weaknesses.
In John 11 when Jesus was told that Lazarus was sick, He said, “This sickness is not unto death.” It is the same Greek word. It can be a physical weakness or sickness. It can also be an emotional, mental, or even a spiritual weakness, and the context governs which one. You can’t always insert sickness for infirmity. Nor can you always make it a spiritual problem. You have to look at the context, and in this case the Holy Spirit comes along and literally gets on the other end of our burden that we’re having a hard time carrying on our own, and He jointly assists us in our struggle.
This word is only used one other time in the NT, in Luke 10:40. Jesus was teaching at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Mary sat at His feet drinking in all of His words while Martha was in the kitchen preparing dinner. Martha, frustrated, came to Jesus and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Tell her to come and help me.” She didn’t ask to trade places with Mary. She didn’t ask if she could come and sit at Jesus’ feet and let Mary do the work for a change. No, she said, “Make her come and help me.” She wanted Mary’s assistance, and this demonstrates how the Holy Ghost comes to help us.
Praying What We Ought
“…For we know not what we should pray for as we ought.” This means to pray for what is necessary, and truthfully, we do not always pray for what is needed, especially in spiritual matters. It could be we really don’t have a handle on the situation, or we don’t know how to articulate what we need. Sometimes you are in a warfare, and you haven’t figured out the wile or device Satan is employing against you. This is when the Spirit is able to help you to articulate how you ought to pray. We may not know how to pray as we ought, because we allowed our flesh to get the upper hand. I always say, “When the flesh is in ascendancy, the spirit is in descendency.” Our flesh is fighting us. Galatians 5:17: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.” Don’t be surprised when your flesh doesn’t want you to pray about its weaknesses. You need divine help, and this is when the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us.
With Us v. For Us
In verse 26 Paul said that the Spirit makes intercession for us, and in verse 27 it is repeated: “The Spirit makes intercession for the saints.” In the original Greek, they are not the same exact word; although they come from the same root: entugchano which means to intercede. But v.26 has the prefix huper and v.27 doesn’t. The significance? First, this word did not exist in the literature of the first century. It was introduced in the NT by Paul, so we can say that it is a Christian term. The prefix huper (hyper in English) intensifies the action into an emergency situation, to a crisis level where the outcome could go either way. It requires a rescue mission. Suppose you are walking down the street and come upon someone lying on the sidewalk in distress. You may not know if he was robbed, hit on the head, had a heart attack, but you would not just say, “Poor guy” and keep walking. You would do something to rescue him. That is the type of hyper-intercession the Holy Spirit brings when we are in an emergency.
The idea of intercession in v.26 is for us when we are not in a position or condition to affect a deliverance for ourselves. In a critical moment, He steps in and helps us! He even does so with groanings that cannot be uttered. This means to sigh in distress from deep down in the belly, sighs that are too deep for words. When we are being oppressed by the evil one, He intercedes with groanings that cannot be articulated, but it doesn’t mean they’re soundless. It just means you can’t put them into language. This is travailing prayer, and you may no longer speak in English, but in other tongues.
Praying the Will of God
“And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (v.27). God searches our hearts. He knows our thoughts, and He knows what is the mind of the Spirit. I prefer the mindset of the Spirit. When a person has a mindset or viewpoint on something, they are settled on it. It could be good or bad. When people have a negative mindset, they can become unteachable, unreasonable, and therefore, “un-helpable.” But God knows the mindset and purpose of the Spirit, and He generates the groans with which He supplicates on our behalf according to the will of God, because we are prone to pray our own will, often, under the wrong influence; misguided by the flesh, the carnal mind, especially when we are in a critical place and don’t have enough sense to know that we are at cross purposes with God.
Now let’s look at intercession in v.27, which is slightly different: Without the prefix huper, instead of meaning He is making intercession for us, it means He is making intercession with us. It means to come alongside a person in joint operation, in team work, to accomplish something. Together, the Spirit makes intercession with us. Before we were in such a precarious state, ready to perish, we needed rescue, but now He is able to intercede with us, and He enables us to pray effectively so we can fulfill James 5:16: “The fervent, effectual, energized prayer of a righteous man prevails.”
At age 7, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues, slain in the sawdust under the power of God, in an old-fashioned tent meeting. I love when the Spirit helps me to kick into my prayer language, as Paul said, “He that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks unto God, and edifies [builds up] himself” (1Cor.14:2-4). Jude wrote: “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost” (v.20). And at times, like Paul, I even sing with the spirit. My brain does not know what I’m singing, but it is music to my soul!
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