Abba Father
The Holy Spirit is referenced in many ways in the New Testament, both by Jesus and the other New Testament writers, especially, of course, Paul. Jesus called Him The Helper, or The Spirit of Truth, and He also calls Him the Promise of the Father. Paul refers to the Holy Spirit over 100 times in is letters, using terms such as The Spirit of Life (Romans 8:2), The Spirit of Holiness (Romans 1:4), The Spirit of Promise (Ephesians 1:15) The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation (Ephesians 1:17), the Spirit of His Son (Galatians 4:6) The Spirit of Christ (Philippians 1:19), the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:17), the Spirit of God (Romans 8:9), and of course just The Spirit (Galatians 5:16). All of these terms emphasis one truth, or different aspects of it: that the inheritance that God covenanted to us is nothing less than God Himself: the creator of all things giving Himself to us, His creation. This truth is encapsulated in Paul’s letter to the Romans, where we read that “you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:15). Above all else, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Adoption. Paul told the Galatians, he told the Romans, and he has told the church down the centuries that the Holy Spirit within us testifies to our sonship. Jesus said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13), and Paul wrote: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

The earnest expectation of the creation
All things are His, and He is ours: His Spirit within us says so: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8:16) But if this is the case, why does our heavenly Father so often seem to not give us “all things” that we ask for? If He has given us the Holy Spirit, why is it that sometimes we seem to keep getting the scorpion instead of the egg? We do know from the rest of Romans 8 that it’s a “now and not yet” issue. In verses 18-19 Paul considers “that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” When we look at the mess we have made of God’s creation, we can take comfort in our fact that “the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21) Yet – and I wrote this in August 2026, when the effects of global warming were causing wildfires all over the world  – that “not yet” doesn’t take away the scorpion we are getting now.

The firstfruits of the Spirit
Paul goes on to say that “we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body,” which accords with Ephesians 1: 13-14: “having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” However, to just believe that we have a bit of the Spirit now (the deposit, the firstfruits) and all of Him later doesn’t seem to fit with Paul’s prayer that we should be “filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19). None of us can understand heavenly mathematics, but we can be sure that God hasn’t divided up His Spirit so that we all have just a bit of Him – the Spirit that’s in me is the same Spirit that’s in you, and it’s “the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead” who “will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” Whatever this “deposit” of the Spirit actually means, it isn’t a diminished God.

I think Paul gives us the answer to the conundrum of the egg and the scorpion in verses 24-27:

“For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

We trust that our Father has the egg, and we eagerly (also translated as “assiduously”) wait for it with perseverance. We learn the lessons of the importunate friend (Luke 11: 5-8) and the persistent widow (Luke 18: 1-8), and we do what Paul tells the Thessalonians, which is to “pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess 5:17). This doesn’t mean that if we persevere enough in praying that God will give us our neighbour’s goods He will do so: God will only give us what is in His will and His nature to give. We don’t know how to pray, but the Holy Spirit knows what God’s will is. Romans 8:27 says that it’s the Holy Spirit who makes intercession for us. Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25 both say that Jesus is interceding for us. I believe that these are one and the same reality: the Spirit if Christ within us is equally at the Father’s right hand and has His ear.

Interceding for Us
As I understand it, “Interceding for us” is generally read as pleading with the Father for us to be acceptable to Him, but this conflicts with the basics of New Testament teaching that Christ has already made us acceptable, because we have already been raised up into heavenly places. So I would say that Christ, in us and at the same time at the Father’s right hand, is interceding on our behalf for what is on our hearts; He is not interceding for our souls. If the “egg” that is on our hearts lines up with what is in the mind of the Spirit, then the parables of the importunate friend and the persistent widow – along with Christ’s direct teaching to “ask, seek and knock,” plus the teachings of the epistles – all make it clear that “the One who searches the hearts” will release the answers to prayer that are in our inheritance at the right time. They are given to us, like presents under the Christmas tree, but we sometimes need to wait before we open them.