Then all the time you would cry either, “Lord Jesus!” or “Abba Father!” It would be a kind of spontaneous thing. Then you would witness. Whenever you would open your mouth to say something about the Spirit, the Spirit would witness with you. Whenever you witness, He cooperates with you and confirms your witnessing.
After experiencing all these six items, we would realize what a poor situation there is among today’s Christians. Then we would come to the seventh item, groaning. We would not praise, but groan. In a sense, the praising time is not today. We are expecting that day. Today is the groaning time. We don’t know what to say, but we have a certain kind of sensation within us concerning God’s interest on the earth today. Oh, the kingdom of God! Oh, God’s interest! God’s testimony! The Lord’s recovery! You don’t know what to say concerning these matters. So you groan. Your groaning then is exactly the indwelling Spirit’s interceding. It is not by a human word or a clear utterance. It is just a kind of unutterable groaning. Yet this unutterable groaning is the excellent interceding of the Spirit. This is the best intercession. This is the best prayer to carry out God’s economy on the earth today. If we are such persons experiencing all these seven items, surely the law of the Spirit of life is setting us free. If we practice all these seven items, the law of the Spirit of life truly works in us.
Now we need to consider Romans 8:15. There is a big problem here. “For you have not received a spirit of slavery to fear again, but you have received a spirit of sonship in which we cry, Abba, Father.” Now let us read the parallel verse in Galatians 4:6: “And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!” In Galatians 4:6 no doubt it is the Spirit who cries. This is a big problem. How could the Spirit of God cry to God, “Abba, Father”? Most of the expositors consider that these two verses are parallel verses. But one of these verses says that we cry Abba, Father, and the other says the Spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit, cries Abba, Father. Who cries? We or He? Because of the matter of mingling, we have to say both. These two verses strongly indicate that when we cry, the Holy Spirit cries. When the Holy Spirit cries, we have begun to cry already. The Spirit of the Son of God cries in our crying. Actually, these two cries are just one. Some Christians don’t believe in the matter of mingling. But there is no other way to answer this question but by the matter of mingling.
You can never systematize such a spiritual reality. Some say that the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Spirit is the Spirit. Yet Galatians 4:6 tells us that the Spirit of God, the Third of the Godhead, becomes the Spirit of the Second of the Godhead. Furthermore, this Third of the Godhead cries to the First of the Godhead, “Abba, Father.” This testifies two things: first, that the Spirit of God today is one Spirit with our spirit. Otherwise, how could it be that when we cry, He cries? It also testifies that the Three of the Godhead can never be systematized into three distinct units.
The problem today with the traditional theology is that they don’t care for the experience. Their theological teachings are altogether doctrinal. But the Bible doesn’t care for mere doctrinal teachings; the Bible cares for the experiential revelation. The Bible reveals to us the experience. All of the good writers, whenever they come to the matter of Christian experience, say the same thing: in Christian experience Christ is identical with the Spirit. You can never divide these two in your experience.