Abba, Father!

"And because ye are sons, GOD hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." -Galatians 4:6 [KJV]

It is the peculiar glory of gospel grace, that sinners are made sons of God. Here is the joyful knowledge of it, by the Spirit. Here is the precious boldness of children to God, my Father. The glory of the whole Trinity is in this verse, Lord help us to consider—the Spirit—His cry—and where He cries. 

(1st.) The Spirit. Mind, He is called the Spirit of Christ, the Son of God. For He comes to us from Christ, His office is to testify of Christ, to glorify Him; for He takes of the things of Christ, and shews them to us (John 16:14.) He convinces us of sin: our want of righteousness: gives us a right judgment of Christ, and His work for our salvation: leads us to Christ, begets us to a lively hope in Him, and becomes to our souls, a spirit of adoption, because we are the sons of God, by faith in Christ. 

Then, (2d.) He gives us a cry. He becomes a spirit of grace and supplication to us. When a child is born, it soon discovers that it is alive, by its cries. God has no still-born children. As soon as Paul was converted, he prayed to God Jesus. That soul that never prayed to Christ, was never converted by His Spirit. Do you believe in and pray to Christ as over all, blessed for evermore? That is a sure and blessed evidence, that you are converted by the Spirit of Christ. For it is His cry. 

(3d.) Where doth He put this cry? Where the sense of our misery is: where the graces of faith, hope, love, and all religion centre, “in our hearts.” Every one can say, Our Father—Christ have mercy on us, with their lips. But God’s elect cry day and night to him, from their hearts (Luke 18:7.) David says, “Thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto Thee” (II Samuel 7:27.) The lips will soon give over crying, if there be not a cry in the heart. 

(4th.) What a precious cry it is! Not an angel, nor archangel in glory, hath such a cry. They cannot cry, Abba, Father. Though God created them, He never regenerated them: Christ never died for them: the Spirit never cries in their hearts, Abba, Father, in the sense which He does in us miserable sinners. “In the midst of all the terrors of the law, the thunderings of sin, the assaults of death, and the roarings of Satan, the Holy Ghost crieth, Abba, Father. This cry surmounteth the horrible cries of the law; sin, death, and the devil; it pierceth the clouds and the heavens, and ascendeth up into the ears of God,” saith Luther. 

Thus when we take hold of Christ by faith, we cry, through Him, Abba, Father. O soul, rejoice in the love of Father, Son and Spirit, and walk worthy of the Lord, to all pleasing, Colossians 1:10. 

 

The Spirit of His Son He sends, 

Into our mournful heart. 

Whereby we Abba, Father, cry, 

And all our fears depart.

 

-preacher Wm. Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)

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