Q: Is the groaning in Rom 8:26 the same thing as tongues?

A: My argument is simple and based on two facts: (1) The Spirit is the subject of the sentence in Romans 8:26. Clearly he is the one doing the action of groaning. (2) The location of his groaning is before the throne of God. Now obviously the spirit could groan through us and obviously God could hear groanings on earth from his throne in heaven. But the imagery, read naturally, is of a defense attorney that approaches the bench and speaks (or in this case groans) on our behalf. To read tongues into this is therefore importing our preconceived ideas into the text. What’s worse is that tongues, by their very nature are intended to be verbal. Paul says these groans are clearly ineffable, non-verbal communication. So, tongues in this text does not match the subject to the speaker, the correct location of the imagery, nor the real nature of tongues. It is simply a bad reading based on a preconceived notion artificially imported into the passage. (Furthermore, nowhere else in Romans does Paul speak of tongues. It would be odd for him to pop it in here).

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