Intercession of the Spirit.
When the Spirit maketh intercession for us, it is not by any direct supplication from himself to God the Father, on behalf of any one individual; but it is by pouring on that individual the spirit of prayer and supplication. The man whom he prays for is, in fact, the organ of his prayer. The prayer passes, as it were, from the Spirit through him who is the object of it. These groanings of the Spirit of God, which cannot be uttered, are those unutterable desires wherewith the heart is charged, and which only can find vent in the ardent but unspeakable breathings of the one who first feels his need, and longs to be freed from it; who hath a strong and general appetency after righteousness, and yet can only sigh it forth in ejaculations of intense earnestness. These are called groanings of the Spirit of God, because it is in fact he who awakened them in the spirit of man. When he intercedes for a believer, the believer's own heart is the channel through which the intercession finds its way to the throne of grace.—Sel.