What does it mean that God is our Abba Father?

The seventh point is the response now, “Abba, Father.”This is why I said earlier that the Lord’s Sonship is connected with intimacy, because under the law we never find in Scripture that a Jew said “Abba”to God. Israel was connected with God as Father in a national way only. God had called Israel a son, but it was collective, it was national. No one then could ever say “Abba, Father”to God, but now, because of the accomplished work of Christ, we have this liberty, liberty that gives free access to the immediate presence of God (which liberty is developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews). This liberty is connected with the dignity and intimacy of sonship, “Abba”simply means “Daddy.”Only once did the Lord say it, and it was when He was in a time of distress in the garden of Gethsemane. He cried “Abba, Father”because perhaps the emphasis was then on the emotion, it was a response. The emotions are controlled, of course, by the Holy Spirit here not by the flesh and so there is a response to God in the context of this intimacy. As to the believers, this is also seen in Romans 8:25-26.

These are the wonderful results of the work of the Lord Jesus and the nearness we have now, the enjoyment of fellowship with the Father and this wonderful relationship. This goes together with worship, the Holy Spirit crying now in our hearts, “Abba, Father.”The Spirit produces this worship as we find in Philippians 3:3, we “worship God in the spirit.”Every individual Christian has this position now and may function accordingly, but the question is: Do we enjoy this position? Do we function according to this position? The enemy does not like it if we do. The enemy would like to deter us from this enjoyment. He would like to bring in hindrances, and that is exactly what he did with the Galatians. The enemy hates it when God receives His portion in worship, when we say “Abba, Father.”I am not just repeating vain words. These are not vain words. It is also a matter of the emotions, the thoughts and the affections that are connected with the expression “Abba, Father.”That counts for God, and this is what the enemy hates. He does not want God to receive anything from creatures here on this earth and so we will see from verse 8 on how the enemy works.

It is Mark that tells us that He said, "Abba Father." Mark who writes of Him as the perfect Servant. His path of service had brought Him to this dark hour when He had to say, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful to death." To whom could He turn? Only to Him whom He served with that holy and perfect devotion and in whom was all His trust, He put the whole matter into His hands saying "Nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt." Again we say, what blessed submission, what confidence, what trust, and what intimacy! And what heart can conceive the affection with which the Father viewed Him then. He had said, "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life … this commandment have I received of My Father." Did not that love flow forth upon Him in the garden? and was He not conscious of it? It surely did, and He surely was, and it seems to us that in the presence of that upflow of confidence and holy submission to the Father's will, and that downflow of unspeakable affection we learn something of what the Name, Abba implies. It describes a relationship in which the knowledge of a perfect love finds a response in perfect trust. It is thus we see it revealed. It was perfectly revealed in and by Him.

But we have been brought, according to inconceivable grace, into this relationship, and the Name, Abba, may be upon our lips as we address our prayers to God. The Name describes for us the character of the relationship. It is not one of bondage or of fear. We do not stand at a distance but we draw near. It implies a holy intimacy coupled with deepest reverence. It describes a love towards us and care for us that attracts us and attaches us with unbreakable bonds to Him who bears that Name, a love and care that creates within us an ever increasing trust and true submission. In view of the sufferings of this present time of which Romans 8 speaks, and which many of God's children are feeling keenly, this Name is most sweet, most blessed. It is in the sense of it that we can say "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose."

"For ye received not a spirit of bondage again to [or for] fear; but ye received a spirit of sonship, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Ver. 15.) Gentiles though they were (for there is no allusion here as in Romans 7 to such as know the law), they were not brought into the spiritual condition of the saints in Old Testament times, especially indeed of those under law, who through fear of death were subject to bondage during the whole of their life. Out of this the Jewish saints were brought by the gospel, which equally met the Gentile who had never experienced the legal discipline, but had lain here and there, seemingly overlooked in their wild course of lawlessness and idolatry. The one as much as the other received a spirit of adoption or sonship, as indeed it is said elsewhere: "because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." The Holy Ghost could not but act in unison with the Son who had revealed the Father, and would give the sense of no relationship short of sons. The slaves had morally closed their history, not only by persistent rebellion, but by war to the death of the Son of God. From a lost world grace was saving, and placing those who believed in the Lord Jesus in the position of sons; and the Holy Ghost personally deigned to lead them, beside imparting a nature conformable to God and distinct from man though made good in man. It is in contrast then not merely with Gentile license and boldness, but with Jewish bondage and fear; and the Spirit gives us to cry, Abba, Father. So cried Jesus in Gethsemane, not on the cross. If we cry thus, it is the expression of dependence on and confidence in our Father, not of a suffering such as His, where His utter abandonment draws forth the still deeper and essentially distinct "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

The Greek form is ἀββᾶ father: it is the same as Ab in Hebrew, but was pronounced Abba in the time of our Saviour. It occurs three times in the New Testament, and is always followed by 'father,' and translated Abba Father; that is, the 'abba' is transcribed and not translated: if it were translated it would be 'Father Father.' In the Greek it stands thus: ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ the 'Abba' being Aramaic, and the 'Father' Greek. In the, Old Testament Ab was not restricted in its use to children. Elisha used it toward Elijah; servants applied it to their masters, etc.: see 2 Kings 2:12 ; 2 Kings 5:13; 2 Kings 6:21, etc. Jehovah asked, "Hath the rain a father?" Job 38:28. In the N.T. it appears to be used in a stricter sense of relationship: "Ye have received the Spirit of adoption [or sonship] , whereby we cry, Abba Father," Rom. 8:15; and "because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father." Gal. 4:6. The only other instance is when the Lord thus addresses His Father, Mark 14:36; and the Spirit in the hearts of believers puts the very words He used into their lips. It has been suggested that in the two words the Jew and the Gentile each say 'Father' in his own language — the Aramaic being then spoken by the Jews, and Greek the language of the Gentiles in Palestine and many other places. God had been revealed in the Old Testament as Jehovah, the Almighty, etc., but it was reserved for New Testament times for Him to be made known to believers in the relationship of Father: cf. John 20:17.

But not only are we redeemed by the death of Christ and brought into Sonship as knowing the Father, but God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. The Holy Spirit is here spoken of as "the Spirit of His Son" because just as the Lord Jesus took up His place as God's Son, even as Man in this world (see Luke 1:35), in the energy of the Spirit, so is that same Spirit the source and energy of the life and thoughts and feelings of a son of God in each believer whom He indwells. By Him we cry "Abba, Father." He gives us the consciousness of the relationship and a suitable response to the Father's love. A wealthy philanthropist might lift a poor child out of some charitable institution and legally adopt him as his son. He could not, however, beget within him the proper feelings of a son of his, nor create a suitable response on the child's part. That might be forthcoming in some degree from the child, or it might be almost totally lacking to the distress of the benefactor. What man cannot do, God has done.

It shows the nature and freedom of our relationship and approach to God. We are not at a distance from Him, nor are the great names by which He was known in Old Testament days the names by which we specially know Him, though they abide. To us He is Father. He has adopted us into His family, making us His sons, but if He had done that and no more, we might have felt utterly strange in such a relationship, but now having the Spirit of His Son, we are not strangers in it. We know the Father, we can enter into His thoughts and enjoy His love. The Spirit of His Son is our capacity for this, and we say, "Abba, Father," to Him. The very way in which Jesus confidingly addressed Him is the way we address Him now, and the way we address Him shows the freedom we have in His presence. We are not servants to God but sons.

Not so with us. God has not only given us the rank and relationship of children, but he has put the spirit of sonship within us, to make us at home in the relationship by producing within us the suitable affections and feelings. In this way we are enabled to enjoy the place into which divine love has brought us, and to draw near to God with the endearing name, "Abba, Father," upon our lips. It is not merely that we have assurance. We have holy "boldness" to enter His presence.

The cry which the Spirit produces, the Spirit of adoption, when sent forth into our hearts, being "Abba, Father," opens up to us at once His tender love, as well as His fatherly care and resources. It is this knowledge of the Father that gives such confidence and perseverance in prayer, as well as comfort in thanksgiving, and worship. "The Father Himself loveth you," said Jesus, "because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God." The Spirit thus reveals the Father, and makes us know that He delights to give His children good things. "If ye, being evil, know how to give good things unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him." The sense on our hearts of the reality of this relationship, which, according to the Father's eternal purpose and grace in Christ Jesus, we are now brought into, makes it natural, if I may so speak, for Christians to be emphatically men of prayer, both for themselves and others and especially when challenged with such a gracious declaration as "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

"Father!" — word, encircling untold treasures of divine love, divine mercy and pity, divine tender and ever watchful care, divine unerring wisdom in rule and discipline towards the objects of such love! It expresses the nearest and dearest relationship to Him, in which the redeeming love of God could bring us, through the ineffable gift of His own dear Son … "FATHER!" — next to the ever blessed name of "JESUS," His well beloved Son, there is no name, the sound of which is so sweet to the divine ear as is the name of "Abba, Father," when first uttered by the stammering lips of the saved child of rebellion and wrath, who has learnt, through grace, to call on that precious name of "JESUS," as his only passport, and to trust in His precious blood, as his only title to glory, and for access to the full favour of Him, Whom he now addresses as "Abba, Father," though as a stammering babe, yet with all the liberty of the Spirit of adoption, by Whom the love of God has been shed abroad in his heart. "Abba," Father — Lord! we call Thee, (Hallowed name!) from day to day; — 'Tis Thy children's right to know Thee, None but children, "Abba," say. This high honour we inherit, Thy free gift, through Jesu's blood; God, the Spirit, with our spirit Witnesseth we're sons of God."

The spirit of bondage unto fear, then, had had its sphere of operation, and had wrought its work. And now, as made free by the Son, they had received another Spirit. Reception into the house, with the abiding title of sonship, is now the effect of grace received. The Spirit of the Son of God is sent into the heart of the believer, not to make him a son, but because he is already such (Gal 4:6). As thus sent forth He is received by us; unawares it may be at first, until His blessed presence is disclosed by the utterance which He alone can truly bring forth from the heart. The cry, Abba, Father, is our own; but it is by the Spirit of the Son that it is produced. We cry Abba, because we know Him thus; but the power of that knowledge is the indwelling presence of the Son. "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." There is a concurrent testimony of the Spirit of the Son, and of the quickened spirit of the new-born child of God, whose heart that Spirit fills, Both speak, and speak to God. The Spirit cries Abba, because it is the Spirit of the Son — our hearts repeat that cry because we know, by the same Spirit, that the living Christ is our life to God.