The Spirit of a Son

For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.—Romans 8:15.

1. In a remarkable letter which appeared in the Times, written by Professor Harnack, in which he was dealing with the letter of the Emperor of Germany upon the controversies gathering round the Higher Criticism, great prominence was given to the fact that there is no subject of graver importance for a man than his relation to God, and that everything depends on this relation. We would all say a full “Amen” to that sentence. A true relation to God lies at the bottom of all right-shapen life. A wrong conception of God will issue in a wrong shaping of life.

2. But what is a true relation to God? It is beyond doubt a filial relationship. Our Lord has taught us that, in the first clause of the Lord’s Prayer. He who prays, “Our Father which art in heaven,” believes that the relation in which he stands to God is that of a child to his father; and he who thus prays—if his prayer be a reality—will find the primary shaping of his life in the fact that his relation to God in every aspect of life is that of a child to his father. Accordingly, St. Paul tells the Roman Christians that what the Holy Ghost does is to enable us with fulness of utterance to say this first clause of the Lord’s Prayer. No man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost. No man can really call upon God as Abba, Father, unless it be through the power of the witness of the Spirit. The Lord’s Prayer can be a reality only to those who are taught to utter it in the power of the Holy Ghost. But the characteristic feature in the life of the true Christian is this, that not having the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, he is enabled to look up into the face of the Eternal as He dwells in the light that no man can approach unto in the glory of the heavens, and with simplicity of utterance say, “Abba, Father.”

3. What says the example of Christ? For let us remember this truth—the model Christian is Christ Himself; and if we want to know what the ideal Christian life is, and the conditions under which we are to live it, we have simply to discover first of all what were the conditions under which Christ, in His humanity, lived that ideal human life. The most superficial study of St. John’s Gospel will teach us this, that the whole life of Christ was lived in a spirit of filial relation to His Father in heaven. When we turn to St. John’s Gospel and go through it with even the most cursory study, we find one expression in it again and again, with a repetition which seems almost to be unnecessary: “My Father, My Father.” We see Jesus living with His eyes always fixed upon the face of the Father which is in heaven, with a blessed consciousness of His filial relationship to the Father, not only essentially in His Divine nature, but also in His human nature. His mind is lit with the light of this relationship; His heart rejoices in its joy; His will is always fixed in its posture and action by this relation; and the life of the Christ is emphatically and pre-eminently the life of sonship.

4. And the example of St. Paul agrees. In the words of our text, taken from the supreme chapter of St. Paul’s classic formulation of the meaning of Christianity, we hear the note of real and vital personal experience. From the midst of the clouds and darkness of human existence, the great spirit of St. Paul rose high in faith, and with trust and deep yearning cast itself upon the heart of the unseen Father, and not without response.

Out of the thunder came a human voice,

Saying, O heart I made, a heart beats here.

By the grace of God in Christ, by the power of the Father manifested in the Son, the spirit of adoption, of filiation, the spirit which can make men sons of God, went forth and transformed the spirit of St. Paul into the likeness of itself, and even in the hour of darkness and anguish he could find rest in the centre of his being by the faith which cried, “Abba, Father!”

We have—

I. The spirit of Bondage, that is, the spirit of a slave, which is a spirit of fear.

II. The spirit of Adoption, that is, the spirit of a son, a spirit which expresses itself in the glad cry, “Father.”

I

The Spirit of Bondage

1. This is another subtle variation in the use of “spirit.” From meaning the human spirit under the influence of the Divine Spirit the word comes to mean a particular state, habit, or temper of the human spirit, sometimes in itself, but more often as due to supernatural influence, good or evil. So here it is such a spirit as accompanies a state of slavery, such a servile habit as the human spirit assumes among slaves.

2. The “bondage” or “slavery,” which throughout this Epistle is contrasted with the liberty of the sons of God, is the bondage of sin (Romans 6:6; Romans 6:16-17; Romans 6:20; Romans 7:25), and of corruption or death as the consequence of sin (Romans 5:21). The Apostle’s readers, both Jews and Gentiles, had all been once under this bondage (Romans 6:17) which tends “unto fear,” even the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).

3. What then (to be more particular) is this “spirit of bondage” which St. Paul says the Roman Christians had not received? That they had received some kind of spirit was to the Christians of that age a fact of experience, which no one doubted. The entrance into the Church was marked, as a general rule, for every believer, by an access of new spiritual emotions prompting him to unwonted utterances. So a Christian defined himself no less as a partaker of a Spirit from above than as a believer in a risen Lord. St. Paul therefore takes the receiving of a spirit for granted; the question is what kind of a spirit it was. He tells his readers emphatically that it was not one suitable to slaves, generating a habit of fear; they had not simply exchanged a heathen or a Jewish spirit of bondage for a Christian spirit of bondage; the Spirit received by the Church was—he does not here use the formally opposite phrase, one of freedom, but an equivalent and more instructive term—one of sonship.

4. Bondage means slavery; and the spirit of bondage means the spirit which makes men look up to God as slaves do to their taskmaster. Now, a slave obeys his master from fear only; not from love or gratitude. He knows that his master is stronger than he is, and he dreads being beaten and punished by him; and therefore he obeys him only by compulsion, not of his own goodwill. This is the spirit of bondage: the slavish, superstitious spirit in religion, into which all men fall, in proportion as they are mean, and sinful, and carnal, fond of indulging themselves, and bear no love to God or right things. They know that God is stronger than they; they are afraid that God will take away comforts from them, or even cast them into endless torment, if they offend Him; and, therefore, they are afraid to do wrong. They love what is wrong, and would like to do it; but they dare not, for fear of God’s punishment. They do not really fear God; they only fear punishment, misfortune, death, and hell.

If you wish to see how much slavery there may be in religion, you have but to glance at some of the heathen religions. They have not been all equally oppressive; where nature has been bright and free from terrors, there religion has generally had its cheerful and joyous elements. But how frightfully have some races been tormented by their religions! Having experience of arbitrary rulers and cruel enemies in the visible world, they have peopled the invisible with principalities and powers far more cruel and capricious. Their worship has been devil-worship. Imagine how the fear of their false gods must have harassed the souls of a people, before they would make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, to propitiate them. This seems the last extremity to which the spirit of bondage could drive human beings; but, short of that, the lives of men have been filled with misery and darkness in various degrees by the malevolent powers which they have placed in their heaven.1 [Note: J. Ll. Davies.]

One in a vision saw a woman fair;

In her left hand a water jar she bare,

And in her right a burning torch she held

That shed around a fierce and ruddy glare.

Sternly she said, “With fire I will burn down

The halls of Heaven; with water I will drown

The fires of Hell,—that all men may be good

From love, not fear, nor hope of starry crown.

The fear of punishment, the lust of pay,

With Heaven and Hell shall also pass away,

And righteousness alone shall fill each heart

With the glad splendour of its shining ray.”

Such is the Hindoo legend quaintly told

In Bernard Picart’s famous folio old;

And ’neath this symbol ethnical, we may

A moral for the present time behold.

When fear of punishment and greed of pay

Shall faint and die in Love’s serener day,

Then shall the Kingdom of the Lord arrive

And earth become the Heaven for which we pray.1 [Note: W. E. A. Axon.]

5. The spirit of bondage is due to world-weariness, to the torment of conscience, or to the fear of death.

(1) It is due to weariness with this world. Are we mere people of the world, loving money, pleasure, vanity, sin, loving to live as our own evil hearts incline us? And yet there are times when we tear ourselves away from these beloved things to say our prayers—to come to Church—to attend the Holy Communion—to read the Bible. Do we love to pray? Have we a delight in the service we attend? Do we find refreshment in the Sacrament? Is the word of God sweet to us? No; but, on the contrary, we are ready to exclaim, whilst engaged in any of these exercises, “What a weariness it is! when will it be over?” It is, in short, all part of our weariness with the world itself. We attend to these things partly in hope of finding pleasure in them, but chiefly out of some sense of duty or some fear of the consequence of neglect.

Dear Saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear,

Nor suffering, which shuts up eye and ear

To all that has delighted them before,

And lets us be what we were once no more.

No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain

Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain,

By what of old pleased us, and will again.

No, ’tis the gradual furnace of the world,

In whose hot air our spirits are upcurled

Until they crumble, or else grow like steel—

Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring—

Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel,

But takes away the power—this can avail,

By drying up our joy in everything,

To make our former pleasures all seem stale.1 [Note: Matthew Arnold.]

(2) It is due to the torment of a guilty conscience. The spirit of bondage is strikingly seen in the case of those who are just awakened to a sense and feeling of their sins. Observe a man in this condition who has not yet discovered the fulness and the freeness of the gospel offer of salvation. He sees himself a lost and ruined sinner. God’s holy and spiritual commandments are written up, as it were, before his eyes, and he looks at them as Belshazzar did at the handwriting on the wall—looks and trembles. And what does this poor trembling sinner do to mend his case? He labours with all his might to make himself acceptable to God; multiplies his prayers and duties; tries to keep the whole law; resolves to mortify his flesh, to forsake every evil habit, to practise every grace which his Bible recommends. As for the salvation of Christ Jesus, he has no other idea of what it means than to hope that he may render himself worthy of it by a strict obedience to the law. And yet he finds that his duties and observances lie heavy on him. They are but vain attempts to satisfy an accusing conscience and to heal a wounded spirit. He goes about them in a melancholy frame of mind, feeling all the time he is engaged in them that he has undertaken a work which is far beyond his strength. He feels just as Israel did at Sinai, when they saw God as “a consuming fire” and trembled under the voice of His commandments.

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts

And keep out sorrow from this room within,

Or memory could cancel all the notes

Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:

How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,

Discharged of such a loathsome company!

Or were there other rooms without my heart

That did not to my conscience join so near,

Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart

That I might not their clamorous crying hear,

What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,

Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress!

But, O my Saviour, who my refuge art,

Let Thy dear mercies stand ’twixt them and me,

And be the wall to separate my heart

So that I may at length repose me free;

That peace, and joy, and rest may be within,

And I remain divided from my sin.

(3) The fear of death, and of the terrible possibilities (at least) which must be faced just beyond death, is, no doubt, the chief cause of that spirit of bondage which oppresses man in life. The feeling that we are in another’s hands, powerless alike over the duration and to a great extent over the circumstances of our own being, is a very formidable thing in itself. If we add to this, that the Power in whose hands we thus are is either unknown to us or supposed to be unfriendly, we have suggested a consideration which has exercised more influence than any other upon the religion, and through it upon the history, of the world. Hence all manner of superstitions: a powerful Being, absolute over our destiny, yet unknown to us in character, in will, and in intention, must be propitiated by such offerings as we possess or can discover, that He may be induced to use His power for protection and not for destruction. Thus the spirit of bondage is the very religion of the heathen.

Why am I loath to leave this earthly scene?

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?

Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:

Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms:

Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?

Or death’s unlovely, dreary, dark abode?

For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;

I tremble to approach an angry God,

And justly smart beneath His sin-avenging rod.

Fain would I say, “Forgive my foul offence!”

Fain promise never more to disobey;

But, should my Author health again dispense,

Again I might desert fair virtue’s way;

Again in folly’s path might go astray;

Again exalt the brute and sink the man;

Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,

Who act so counter heavenly mercy’s plan?

Who sin so oft have mourned, yet to temptation ran.

O Thou, great Governor of all below!

If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,

Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,

Or still the tumult of the raging sea:

With that controlling power assist even me,

Those headlong furious passions to confine;

For all unfit I feel my powers to be,

To rule their torrent in the allowed line;

O! aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine.1 [Note: Robert Burns.]

II

The Spirit of Adoption

i. The Adoption

1. Adoption is that act whereby we are received into the family of God. We are none of us in God’s family by nature. It is not a matter, properly speaking, of birth; we are brought into it from without; literally, we are “adopted.” And the way in which it is brought about is this;—God has one only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ; we are never God’s sons in exactly the same sense in which Christ is His Son: indeed, there is a word which is always confined in the Bible to Christ. That word conveys the idea of right, the right which Christ has really in Himself to be a Son. For instance, in the passage in St. John’s first epistle in which he says, “Now are we the sons of God,” the word is not the same, though it has been translated the same, as when Christ is called the Son of God. The word used concerning us is children. It is a close, dear, affectionate, blessed word; but it is not quite the same word as is used about Christ the Son. Christ, then, is the one Son of God. Into the Son, God elects and engrafts members. He elects them everywhere, and He engrafts them just as He pleases; but they are all chosen from without, and brought in. As soon as the union takes place between a soul and Christ, God sees that soul in the relationship in which He sees Christ. He gives it a partnership in the same privileges; He treats it as if it were His own child; He gives it a place and name “better than of sons and daughters.” In fact, He has “adopted” it.

2. We must not, however, confound “adoption” and the “spirit of adoption”—as though they were the same thing. They are never, indeed, very far apart; but still they are not the same thing. For adoption, if it stood alone, would be no blessing. Suppose a man’s relationships were changed, but his own actual state or moral condition remained unaltered—where would be the benefit? Would it not be an evil and an injury to him? Conceive a man to be placed as a son of God, and yet, all the while, to dislike and hate God; or conceive that a man were called to take his place in spiritual societies, and heavenly fellowships, for which he had, and felt that he had, no taste or fitness whatever; if to that new relationship there were attached particular duties, and the man had no power or adaptation to fulfil those duties—is it not evident that the man, though his position would be really a better one, would be no gainer, but rather a loser, by that change?

A rich man, well educated, “adopts” a poor illiterate child. The child moves in the circle of the society of his adopted father, and shares with him in the indulgences of his wealth. But because that child has no sense of affection towards his adopted father, or because he has no previous training to qualify him for his elevation, or because he has no habit of life to fit and prepare him for his position, the connection is absolutely irksome and injurious to that child; it were better that he never should be “adopted.” If the benefactor of that child be indeed a wise man, he will endeavour by kindness and education to give him a filial spirit, and the qualifications which are necessary for his elevation. But, if not, the “adoption,” however well intended, and however actually in itself a good thing, will only issue in disappointment and unhappiness.

3. How, then, will the spirit of adoption reveal itself?

(1) The spirit of adoption is a spirit of reverence. Not of slavish fear, but of filial reverence. No man can be happy without having some one to revere; some one whom, the more he knows of him, the more he reveres; some one towards whom that process of discovery which is inseparable from prolonged intercourse is a process wholly of increasing reverence, insomuch that they who stand nearest to His throne in heaven veil their faces as they worship (Isaiah 6:2), and they who live nearest to Him on earth are ever found the most humble, the most self-abased, the most full of reverence and awe and godly fear.

David says, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice before him with trembling.” Let some one make this rhyme for me;—to be joyful and to fear. My little son Hans can do it to me; but I cannot do it with God. For when I sit and write, or do anything, he sings a little song to me the while; and if he makes it too loud, and I tell him so, then he still sings on, but makes it softer, crooning on with a sweet, little, subdued voice, shyly watching me all the time. So would God have it with us; that we should be always rejoicing, yet with fear and reverence towards Him.1 [Note: Luther.]

(2) The spirit of adoption is a spirit of submission. The cry, Abba, Father, is the expression of an entirely resigned will. It was so used on earth by Him who, though He was a Son, yet condescended to learn obedience by the things which He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). “If this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42). God grant us all betimes that spirit of adoption from which alone that prayer can rise heartily or be heard with acceptance! Well may he who knows that he has indeed a Father in heaven submit himself in all respects to His wise and fatherly will.

The son cannot be true to his sonship unless he is obedient to his father’s will; and whenever the Spirit of God is bearing witness to the Divine adoption, whenever the Christian is really living responsive to this witness, there always must be, not constraint, but a glad, free delight in obedience. How practical, how beautiful, is life thus lived under the sweet power of the witnessing Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, in the light of the Fatherhood of God, whom I may call Father. Aye, when memory grieves me for the past, here is my rest: “Like as a father pitieth his children, even so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” To be living thus in relation with the Lord God as my own Father, is to be living in peace and security, like a child shielded in its home amidst all the sorrows and perils of life. Then the joy of dying may be mine—I may fall asleep in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, with this last utterance issuing from my failing spirit, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”1 [Note: Canon G. Body.]

There are few finer stories of obedience than that of Fénelon, the Prince-Archbishop of Cambrai. When his book was condemned by the Pope and cardinals, a book his own judgment told him to be orthodox and helpful, he accepted the public rebuke without a sign of protest. He received the news that the book was proscribed just as he was about to preach to his people in the cathedral. He at once laid aside his sermon, preached on obedience, and showed that he could practise what he preached by the following letter, which he sent to all the clergy:—“Our holy Father, the Pope, has condemned the book entitled Explication des Maximes des Saints, in a brief which is spread abroad everywhere, and which you have already seen. We give our adhesion to this brief, dear brethren, as regards the text of the book and the twenty-three points simply, absolutely, and without a shadow of doubt; and we forbid the faithful of the diocese to read or retain the book. God grant that we may never be spoken of save as a pastor who strove to be more docile than the least sheep of the flock, and whose submission knew no limit. Dear Brethren, may the grace of God be with you all. Amen.

François, Archbishop and Duke of Cambrai.”

It must have caused him much suffering to feel that he was looked upon as a heretic, that his enemies were triumphing over his submission; but he felt, and no doubt he was right, that obedience would bring a greater blessing to the Church than any protest.2 [Note: G. H. S. Walpole, Personality and Power, 88.]

When our commissioners went a few years ago to Paris to treat with the Spaniards, the latter are said to have desired certain changes in the language of the protocol. With the polished suavity for which they are noted, the Spaniards urged that there be made slight changes in the words: no real change in the meaning, they said, simply in the verbiage. And our Judge Day, at the head of the American Commissioners, listened politely and patiently until the plea was presented. And then he quietly said, “The article will be signed as it reads.” And the Spaniards protested, with much courtesy. The change asked for was trivial, merely in the language, not in the force of the words. And our men listened patiently and courteously. Then Mr. Day is said to have locked his little square jaw and replied very quietly, “The article will be signed as it reads.” And the article was so signed. That is military usage. The surrender was forced. The strength of the American fleets, the prestige of great victory, were behind the quiet man’s demand. But that is not the law here. Jesus asks only for what we give freely and spontaneously. He does not want anything except what is given with a free, glad heart. This is to be a voluntary surrender. Jesus is a voluntary Saviour. He wants only voluntary followers. He would have us be as Himself. The oneness of spirit leads the way into the intimacy of closest friendship. And that is His thought for us.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]

(3) The spirit of adoption is a spirit of trust. Submission runs on into confidence. The one is a readiness to bear even though the stroke were in anger; the other is the assurance that the stroke will not be in anger, or that, beneath the anger, even if anger should be needful, will lie a deep purpose of eventual mercy. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15): for even from the very depths of the grave I know that He can and that He will at last raise me up (Hebrews 11:19).

A child’s experience is marked above all things by this—freedom from anxiety. The father or mother may look round upon their children with anxious eyes. The demands are many, the resources are limited, the prospects are gloomy. They may have weary days and sleepless nights. But the child in the home has no anxiety; it goes on its way in a position of absolute dependence. The father never has failed, and never will fail; and it sleeps in absolute calmness. So it is when we go out into life. If there is one thing that mars the development of the Christian character within us it is that we should be consumed with corroding cares. Be not anxious. The cares of this world choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful; cares for those we love, cares for ourselves, cares and bitter anxieties over God’s own dear Church; cares at times for the tendencies of the life of the nation—multitudes of cares come in. How are we to be able to rise above them? It is all very well to say, Be not anxious—how can we fail to be anxious? God would not ask us to live in a fool’s paradise, and not face the actual facts under which we have to live. “Abba, Father,” all is in His hands.1 [Note: Canon Body.]

I will not doubt, though all my prayers return

Unanswered from the still, white Realm above;

I shall believe it as an all-wise Love

Which has refused those things for which I yearn;

And though at times I cannot keep from grieving,

Yet the pure ardour of my fixed believing

Undimmed shall burn.

I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain,

And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;

I shall believe the heights for which I strive

Are only reached by anguish and by pain;

And though I groan and tremble with my crosses,

I yet shall see, through my severest losses,

The greater gain.

I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea

Come drifting home with broken masts and sails;

I shall believe the hand that never fails

From seeming evil worketh good for me;

And though I weep because those sails are battered

Still will I cry, while my best hopes be shattered,

I trust in Thee.2 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Love and Life, 13.]

(4) The spirit of adoption is, in the last place, and throughout, a spirit of love. It seems very wonderful that God should care for our love. But it is so. Not in awe, not in fear, not in dread is God glorified, but in that going forth of the human spirit to Him, as to One in whom alone it can rest and be satisfied; that return of love for love; that same yearning of the heart, after an affection unchangeable and inexhaustible, which upon earth, as directed towards a human object, is the source of all our deepest joys and of all our keenest sorrows; this it is which God would have turned towards Himself, and which, when once so turned, is as certain to be satisfied as it is in itself elevating and glorious. Herein is the spirit of adoption fulfilled. Reverence for God, submission to God, confidence in God, all meet and are consummated in the love of God. May He who has prepared for them that love Him such good things as pass man’s understanding, pour into our hearts such love towards Him, that we, loving Him above all things, may obtain His promises, which exceed all that we can desire, and “be filled with all the fulness of God.”

My God, I love Thee; not because

I look for Heaven thereby,

Nor yet because who love Thee not

Are lost eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me

Upon the Cross embrace,

For me didst bear the nails and spear,

And manifold disgrace.

Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ,

Should I not love Thee well,

Not for the sake of winning Heaven,

Or of escaping Hell,

Not with the hope of gaining aught,

Not seeking a reward;

But as Thyself hast loved me,

O ever-loving Lord?

Even so I love Thee, and will love,

And in Thy praise will sing,

Solely because Thou art my God,

And my eternal King.

ii. The Cry

We have already seen that the word adoption distinguishes those who are made sons by an act of grace from the only-begotten Son. But we have also seen that the act of grace gives not only the status but the heart of sons. It is accordingly in this, the true and full, spirit of adoption that we are able to cry, Abba, Father.

1. “Abba, Father.” Our Lord, speaking in Aramaic, the vernacular of Palestine, is recorded by St. Mark to have said in His hour of agony “Abba.” And even in the Greek-speaking churches of St. Paul’s day, that sacred word was still used side by side with its Greek equivalent, according to the witness of this and the parallel passage, Galatians 4:6. St. Paul appears to be referring to some occasion on which the Church was in the habit of calling on God with the Aramaic and Greek words side by side, and it is more than likely that he is making a definite reference to the Lord’s Prayer, as recited by the Roman and Galatian Christians in the form prescribed for us in St. Luke’s version, beginning, “Father.” The retention by Greek Christians of an Aramaic word in a familiar religious formula is like the later retention by the Latins of the Greek prayer, Kyrie eleison, or the retention by us of the names Te Deum, Magnificat, etc. St. Paul’s meaning would come home to us better if we were to read—“whereby we cry Our Father.”

The repetition of this word, first in Aramaic and then in Greek, is remarkable, and brings home to us the fact that Christianity had its birth in a bilingual people. The same repetition occurs in Mark 14:36 (“Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee”) and in Galatians 4:6 : it gives a greater intensity of expression, but would only be natural where the Speaker was using in both cases his familiar tongue. Lightfoot (Hor. Heb. on Mark 14:36) thinks that in the Gospel the word “Abba” only was used by our Lord, and Father added as an interpretation by St. Mark, and that in like manner St. Paul is interpreting for the benefit of his readers. The three passages are, however, all too emotional for this explanation: interpretation is out of place in a prayer. It seems better to suppose that our Lord Himself, using familiarly both languages, and concentrating into this word of all words such a depth of meaning, found Himself impelled spontaneously to repeat the word, and that some among His disciples caught and transmitted the same habit. It is significant, however, of the limited extent of strictly Jewish Christianity that we find no other original examples of the use than these three.1 [Note: Sanday-Headlam, Romans.]

From my recollections as a student in the New College, Edinburgh, I am able to supply an interesting instance of the influence of strong, deep feeling towards a polyglot expression. One morning in the course of his opening prayer in the Senior Hebrew Class, the late Rabbi Duncan was led to use the expression in Psalm 68:35, “O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places,” adding in the same breath, “Thou art Nôra” “venerandus.” Indeed the Rabbi had something of a habit of “polyglotting” (if I may coin a word) his ideas.1 [Note: A. Thom, in The Expository Times, xx. 527.]

2. “We cry,” says the Apostle; and he uses a strong word (often followed by “with a great voice”). It denotes the loud irrepressible cry with which the consciousness of sonship breaks from the Christian heart in prayer.

3. What do we cry? Of all words which can ever express man’s thought, the word which comprises most of wisdom, tenderness, and love, is the name of “Father.” What a repose lies in that “My Father.” And if we were not so familiar with it, the wonder would never cease to awaken the deepest feeling of admiration that we are ever permitted to say of the great, the holy, the awful, the unseen, the unutterable Jehovah, “My Father.” And yet, as soon as the Spirit begins to work in a sinner’s heart, what is the very first thing that the Spirit plants there? “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say unto him, my father.” And if only we could take in the simple conception that God is a “Father,” well-nigh the whole work of our religion would be done. It is just what we want, for peace, for holiness, for heaven, to be able to say “My Father.” Thousands, indeed tens of thousands, acknowledge it as true; but few, very few think of how much has passed in the deepest counsels and in the sublimest operations of Almighty God, that we might use that paternal name. All heaven had to come down to earth that we might stand to God again in that lost relationship. All the blood of Christ could only purchase it; and no man could ever frame his heart to conceive or his lips to utter it, but by the power of the Holy Ghost; for none can cry, “Abba, Father,” but by the “spirit of adoption.” It will be a marvel, one day, to find what stupendous processes were necessary before we could really say the two first words of that prayer, which some people call, and most beautifully call, “Our Father.”

4. Now some of the signs of this filial spirit which cries “Father,” are these—

(1) Boldness in Prayer. A child does not ask a father as a stranger asks him. He goes as one who has a right,—as one who has never been refused all his life, and never can be refused to all eternity. If a son finds his father’s door for a moment closed, see how he knocks. “That door must open to me.” And life grows very earnest in that spirit; and that spirit is all real.

Boldness in prayer was a new ingredient put into the religious consciousness by Christianity, and is a distinctive feature of the Christian faith. To come boldly to the throne of grace is a new and living way (Hebrews 10:19). This can be seen by a comparison between the way in which man approaches God under the OT dispensation, and the way in which the Christian approaches Him under the new covenant. In the OT man approaches God with fear and trembling; he stands afar off “at the nether part of the mount” (Exodus 19:17); even “Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake” (Hebrews 12:21). In the NT man approaches with boldness “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,” “God the judge of all,” and “Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling” (Hebrews 12:22-24). It will be found, too, that in this matter of boldness the Christian religion is distinct, not only from the Hebrew, but from all other religions. Fear and shrinking rather than boldness and confidence are, universally, the concomitants of the natural man’s approach to the Unseen and Eternal. The Christian alone has boldness of access to the throne of God.1 [Note: D. Russell Scott, in Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 786.]

Of what an easie quick accesse,

My blessed Lord, art Thou! how suddenly

May our requests Thine ears invade!

To show that State dislikes not easinesse,

If I but lift mine eyes my suit is made;

Thou canst no more not heare then Thou canst die.

Of what supreme almightie power

Is Thy great arm, which spans the east and west

And tacks the centre to the sphere!

By it do all things live their measur’d houre;

We cannot ask the thing which is not there,

Blaming the shallownesse of our request.

Of what unmeasurable love

Art Thou possest, Who, when Thou couldst not die,

Wert fain to take our flesh and curse,

And for our sakes in person sinne reprove;

That by destroying that which ty’d Thy purse,

Thou mightst make way for liberalitie!

Since, then, these three wait on Thy throne,

Ease, Power, and Love, I value Prayer so,

That were I to leave all but one,

Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go;

I and deare Prayer would together dwell,

And quickly gain for each inch lost an ell.1 [Note: George Herbert.]

(2) Service for Love. He does not want wages; but he receives rewards. He does not want them; he works for another motive; and yet he does not know that he has another motive, for he never stops to ask what his motive is. “Of course I love.”

It is just the old story of the way the birds got their wings. At first God gave the birds their wings as burdens, and bade them carry the burdens. They obeyed, and laid their burdens on their shoulders and wrapped them about their hearts, when lo! their burdens became their wings, and carried them. So it is with every life that in unselfish service takes up the tasks and duties God appoints. As we carry them on our shoulders and wrap them about our hearts, instead of weighing us down they carry us. Our burdens become our pinions, our duties our privileges, our Service becomes our reward, our sacrifice our song. Glory is a flame lit in the altar fires of service. Heaven is the homeland of all who travel a thorn-path of duty to the cross-crowned hill where life is laid down for the sake of others.

When God first made a little bird

For sheer delight,

He gifted it with power of song

But not of flight.

Then by its side He gently laid

Those untried things

That we, in human parlance, call

A pair of wings.

And said, “My little one, this load

Uplift and see,

Beneath this strange disguise, my love’s

Sweet thought for thee.”

The feathered darling serious grew;

A sudden sob

Choked all the music in its throat

And seemed to rob

The air of sunshine; yet it gave

A patient nod,

And said, “I’ll bear it for your sake,

Dear Father God.”

Then on reluctant shoulders, firm

The burden laid;

And lo, the merry winds of heaven

About it played,

Until in very ecstasy

It spurned the ground,

And, borne upon its lifted load,

Glad freedom found.

(3) Fulness of Possession. He has a present possession in the whole universe. All creation is his Father’s house, and he can say, “Everything in it,—everything that is great, and everything that is little,—everything that is happy, and everything that is unhappy,—every cloud and every sun-ray,—it is mine, on to death itself.”

John Kendrick Bangs tells about a little boy who one night cried for the moon. So his father, who was a kind and generous as well as a wise man, gave it to him. “You may have the moon,” said the father, “only you must not be selfish about it. The very best place to keep the moon is up there in the heaven, where it will give you light by night; and of course you want it to give light to me and your mother and other people also. You may have the moon just as long as you are unselfish, but when you grow greedy then the moon will belong to some one else who will make better use of it.” And one day when the lad wanted the ocean his father gave him that also on a similar condition. “You must not carry it away and bottle it up,” he said. “It is yours, but you must not be selfish. Let other people bathe in your ocean and sail boats on your ocean. Indeed, it is very much better for you to have others using your ocean, for it would not be nearly so interesting without ships sailing up and down to all parts of the world to bring you and me and your mother tea and coffee and bananas, and other fishing boats going out to catch our fish for us.” So when the lad wanted a great forest the father gave it to him, and when he asked for the mountains the father gave him the mountains also, until by and by he owned the whole universe, but always on condition that he would not be selfish but would let other people enjoy his moon and his ocean and his forest and his mountains with him.

It is not always easy to distinguish between the serious and the quizzical mood of Mr. Bangs, but I think in this instance he meant to read us a parable. All things are ours. The Great Father gave them to us, at the same time bestowing upon us the capacity to use and enjoy them. The forest belongs to the man who loves it, the mountain belongs to the man who loves it, and the crisp winter landscape belongs to the man who, to use Job’s phrase, has “entered into the treasures of the snow.”1 [Note: F. O. Hall, Soul and Body, 139.]

(4) Readiness to Depart. For he knows very well what those ever-present words mean, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” And, if the love of an unseen Father has been so sweet, what will it be to look in His face?

Death is to Francis, the lover of all life, a dear and tender sister; to others of like mind, the mother of life, or a strong brother, angel of pity; and for St. Paul, to whom to live was Christ, to die was gain of Christ. Now, even I in my low measure begin to see my deep door as a gateway of fulfilment; and I must turn my eyes away to my place in God on this side of the door, lest even I desire death too much.

I have no tormenting fear; my door is mine alone, and beyond is my own place again. I know I have to dread no gloom which is not already mine; but while I am still on earth I would learn more of the life of Paradise foreshadowed here, that in the greater light I may see the beauty which is of Avalon.

Therefore, for all this cause, although I share the optimism of the saints, I dare not long for death as they have longed; in me nature groans and travails still. I look towards it only as a step in life which I hope that I shall gladly take when it comes before my waiting feet. I will call it a transfiguration towards my truth, and I will dread it only as I dread a truer vision of my truth.2 [Note: “A Modern Mystic’s Way.”]

What if some morning when the stars were paling,

And the dawn whitened, and the East was clear,

Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence

Of a benignant Spirit standing near;

And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,

“This is our Earth—most friendly Earth, and fair;

Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow

Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air:

There is blest living here, loving and serving,

And quest of truth and serene friendships dear:

But stay not, Spirit! Earth has one destroyer—

His name is Death: flee, lest he find thee here!”

And what if then, while still the morning brightened,

And freshened in the elm the summer’s breath,

Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,

And take my hand, and say, “My name is Death.”1 [Note: E. Rowland Sill.]

The Spirit of a Son

Literature

Davies (J. LI.), The Christian Calling, 29.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, i. 265.

Kingsley (C.), National Sermons, 403.

Neale (J. M.), Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, ii. 117.

Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, v. 313.

Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, i. 486.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxx. No. 1759.

Vaughan (C. J.), Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, 441.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iv. No. 486.

Christian World Pulpit, lx. 65 (Strong); lxiii. 150 (Body); 369 (Newsom).

Churchman’s Pulpit, xxviii. 37 (Roberts), 44 (Tait), 47 (Cotton), 49 (Newsom).