Abba, Father

The Face

Paul names a specific contrast here, spirit of bondage producing fear, against Spirit of adoption producing the intimate cry, Abba, Father, a term of genuine childlike closeness, not formal, distant address. This second movement’s exploration of being known culminates in this specific, intimate relational term.

Notice the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, a genuine, internal confirmation, not merely intellectual assent to a doctrine about adoption, but actual, ongoing witness, the Spirit himself confirming, alongside your own spirit, that we are the children of God, both testifying together to this same reality.

This is worth examining against however much fear, rather than this intimate cry, has actually governed your own relationship with God, formal distance rather than genuine, childlike closeness, bondage rather than the freedom this verse describes as the actual, available alternative through the Spirit of adoption.

Whatever fear or distance has characterized your own approach to God, receive today this Spirit of adoption instead, crying Abba, Father, with the same intimate closeness this verse describes, trusting the Spirit’s own witness alongside your own that this closeness is genuinely, actually yours.