Romans 8:15 For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba… The expression is used once by Christ, twice by Paul. Why should the Saviour in Gethsemane employ two languages, and Paul when speaking of the free Spirit which animates believers? Is it conformity to the custom of giving to persons a variety of names? Or is the one name an interpretation of the other? and Calvin think that it is to show that both Jews and Greeks each in their own respective language would call on God as a Father. Dr. Morison says that "the dual form is delightfully fitted to suggest that in His great work Christ personated in His single self not Jews only, but Gentiles." And not only fitted, but designed. And so Paul may have caught the spirit and aim of the Master's words. And thus we have a speaking testimony to the fusion of Jew and Greek which prepared the way for the preaching of the gospel to the heathen. The idea of Father clasps not only the languages, but the people. What other word so fitted as a basis for all the nations to meet on and be made one! Grandly prophetic of the time, to bring about which the Saviour died and the apostle laboured, is "Abba, Father." The term illustrates how the idea of Fatherhood — I. EVOKES THE DEEPEST FILIAL FEELING. In the only instances in which we have the words there is every. thing to justify this. It is the child-cry coming not from the surface, but from the depths. How much larger and more tender the word than master, magistrate. king, etc. II. Begets THE MOST CHILDLIKE FAMILIARITY. Only in the home circle can such feelings play. It is the child, not the subject or servant, that cries "Abba, Father." Refinement of feeling and manner is always beautiful in a child, but it is not natural that it should express itself in courtly language. The charm of the family is in the freedom which love imparts. The parental heart, shining like a warm sun in the centre of the home, draws young affection to it as the flowers turn to the heat and light. III. Stirs THE INTENSEST EARNESTNESS. So it did in Christ and Paul. There are moments in Christian experience when the language of familiarity rises into the language of anguish. Though in the Divine family, men are still on earth — not the most congenial place, and even Jesus seems to have had quite enough of it when He said, "And now I come to Thee," The definition suggests emphasis or urgency. As a child's whisper will sometimes wake the family, even the gentlest ruffle on the heart will not pass the heavenly Father's notice. How much more shall a cry of anguish reach Him and bring Him to our relief. (R. Mitchell.) Parallel Verses KJV: For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. |
    |