BECAUSE YE ARE SONS . . . CRYING ABBA FATHER

DEAN FARRAR states that ‘Galatians is the rough sketch Romans is the finished picture’. What a rough sketch!¹

Today’s verses bring to our attention the contrasts and similarities between the servant under the law and the son under grace. Paul skilfully paints his picture, using the home background where a minor is no better off than the servant. He occupies a position of dependency and servility until the time decreed by his well intentioned father. Until that time the father cares for and provides his every need through the use of tutors and governors.

Such was God’s dealing with the Jew in particular. But there arrived an appointed time when the sent One came. Note the manner of His coming -‘made of a woman’, stressing His humanity; ‘made under the law’, stressing His morality; ‘God sent forth his Son’, stressing His eternality. Because we are now sons and have One to whom we can cry, we have also One from whom we can expect an answer.

The purpose of His coming was to effect His people’s redemption from the law which condemned, and for their adoption into God’s family. God gave us a place in His family - the position of sons - a position to which we really had no right.

Contemplate the outcome of this and the miracle of God’s dealings with us. When we became sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. Natural parents who adopt can give status but not their spirit to the chosen child. God adopts and gives His Spirit! In consequence, He can expect that first stammering word from His son - Abba, Father. What a thrill for natural parents when an infant first articulates the word ‘father’ or ‘mother’. This is just the beginning of a life-long relationship, cemented by dialogue between parent and off spring. This is what our Father is looking for.

He loves the first words of the newly adopted son in prayer, but He looks for development in thought, appreciation and vocabulary in an ongoing relationship with His heir. Are there long periods of silence or do I give the Father such daily pleasure? Pray today, even if only uttering a couple of words - He loves to hear, and to respond to our cries.

¹

F. W. FARRAR, The Life and Work of St. Paul, E. P. Dutton, 1889, pg. 423.