Romans 8:15

Rom_8:15

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage … but … the Spirit of adoption.

The spirit of bondage and of adoption

I. The spirit of bondage. Much of the bondage of our fallen nature is not the work of the Spirit of God at all. Bondage under sin, the flesh, worldly customs, the fear of man--this is the work of the devil.

1. But there is a sense of bondage which is of the Spirit of God. The bondage of--

(1) Conviction of sin.

(2) Assurance of punishment for sin from which there is no escape.

(3) The feeling of the inutility of the works of the law. By the deeds of the law there shaft no flesh be justified in His sight.

2. The result of this spirit of bondage in the soul is fear. There are five sorts of fears, and it is well to distinguish between them.

(1) The natural fear which the creature has of its Creator, because of its own insignificance and its Makers greatness. From that we shall never be altogether delivered.

(2) Carnal fear: i.e., the fear of man. From this Gods Spirit delivers believers.

(3) Servile fear--the fear of a slave towards his master, lest he should be beaten when he has offended. That is a fear which should rightly dwell in every unregenerate heart.

(4) If servile fear be not cast out it leads to a fourth fear, namely, a diabolical fear; that of devils who believe and tremble.

(5) Filial fear which is never cast out of the mind. This is the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. When the spirit of bondage is at work there is much of servile fear. The Spirit of truth brings this to us, because we are in a condition which demands it. Would you have the bondsman rejoice in a liberty which he does not possess? Is he not the more likely to be free if he loathes his slavery?

3. This bondage, which causes fear, breaks us off from self-righteousness, and puts an end to certain sins. Many a man, because he is afraid of the consequences, leaves off this and that which would have ruined him; and, so far, the fear is useful to him; and, in after life, will keep him nearer to his Lord.

4. In due time we outgrow this bondage, and never receive it again. Because we are made to be the children of God; and God forbid that Gods children should tremble like slaves.

II. The Spirit of adoption.

1. The apostle said, Ye have not received the spirit of bondage. If he had kept strictly to language he would have added, But ye have received the Spirit of liberty. That is the opposite of bondage. But our apostle is not to be hampered by the rigid rules of composition. He has inserted a far greater word--Ye have received the Spirit of adoption. If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

2. The apostle said, Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. Should he not have added but ye have received the Spirit of liberty by which ye have confidence? He says a great deal more, Whereby we cry, Abba, Father. This is the highest form of confidence.

3. The Spirit of adoption is a spirit of gratitude. Oh, that ever the Lord should put me among the children!

4. A spirit of child-likeness. It is pretty, though sometimes sad, to see how children imitate their parents.

III. The Spirit of prayer. Whenever the Spirit of adoption enters into a man it sets him praying. And this praying is--

1. Earnest, for it takes the form of crying.

2. Natural. For a child to say, Father, is according to the fitness of things.

3. Appealing. True prayer pleads the fatherhood of God.

4. Familiar. Slaves were never allowed to call their masters abba. That was a word for freeborn children only: no man can speak with God as Gods children may. Distance is the slaves place; only the child may draw near.

5. Delightful. Abba, Father--it is as much as to say--My heart knows that thou art my Father.

IV. The Spirit of witness. In the mouth of two witnesses this shall be established.

1. The mans own spirit. Gods own Word declares,To as many as received Christ to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name; now, I have received Christ, and I do believe on His name: therefore I have the right to be one of the sons of God. That is the witness of my spirit: I believe, and therefore I am a child.

2. The witness of the Holy Spirit, which works--

(1) Through the Word of which He is the Author.

(2) By His work in us. He works in us that which proves us to be the children of God; and what is that?

(a) Great love to God. None love God but those that are born of Him.

(b) Veneration for God. We fear before Him with a childlike reverence.

(c) A holy confidence. By His grace we feel in days of trouble that we can rest in God.

(d) Sanctification.

(e) Besides which, there is a voice unheard of the outward ear, which drops in silence on the spirit of man, and lets him know that he has, indeed, passed from death unto life. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Spirit of bondage and adoption

I. What is meant by the Spirit of bondage?

1. A distressing apprehension of danger, arising from the conviction of sin, which is one of the first effects of the law upon the conscience.

2. A sense of our lost and undone condition. A sense of sin is generally attended with a sight of wrath, and a conviction of the worth of the soul; and where the one is deeply felt, the other is greatly feared. Hence the anxious inquiries of the Philippian jailor, and of the multitudes under Peters sermon.

3. Apprehensions respecting present judgments. Unpardoned guilt fills the mind with continual terrors (Job_15:20-24).

4. An habitual fear of death.

5. The expectation of future punishment.

6. The conviction of utter inability to extricate himself out of his present situation.

II. Inquire in what respects believers are delivered from this, so as not to be again in fear. Though believers are not wholly exempt from a spirit of bondage--

1. They seldom feel it in the same degree, nor do they feel it for long.

2. It does not arise from the same source as before, and therefore is not of the same nature. The terror which a sinner feels is from God, but that which a believer often experiences is the work of Satan, taking advantage of a constitutional melancholy, or of some adverse dispensation.

3. They are relieved and sustained by the hopes and promises of the gospel.

4. This servile spirit--

(1) Is by no means adapted to the present dispensation, and therefore believers cannot be said to have received it, as forming any part of their real or proper character (2Ti_1:7).

(2) Is also highly injurious to the practical part of religion. The more we walk in the light of Gods countenance, the more readily shall we run in the way of His commandments.

III. What is that Spirit of adoption which believers have received.

1. The Spirit of adoption is distinct from adoption itself, and is not essential to its existence.

2. Of those who enjoy the Spirit of adoption, some have more of it, and others less.

3. The same saints do not at all times enjoy the same measure of this Spirit, but differ as much from themselves as they do from one another.

4. Wherever this Spirit is received, it must be considered as the fruit of sovereign grace.

5. It more especially consists in the Holy Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. The Spirit is not only a witness to Christ without us, but to Christ within us; and therefore when our conscience bears us witness in the Holy Ghost, it is to be acquiesced in as a faithful and unerring report; for if conscience itself be as good as a thousand witnesses, how much more when its decisions are made under the influences of the Spirit of God.

6. The Holy Spirit in becoming a Spirit of adoption, imparts to the adopted a temper suited to that relation.

IV. The blessed effect arising from our having received the Spirit of adoption: Hereby we cry, Abba, Father. Prayer is the very breath of a child of God; the first effort of Divine grace in the heart. The cry of Abba, Father, now proceeds from the fulness of his heart, and this includes in it the following particulars--

1. Familiarity and holy boldness at a throne of grace.

2. A comfortable persuasion of the love of God towards us.

3. Reverence and honour (Mal_1:6).

4. Trust and confidence in God, as our Father and our Friend,

5. Great earnestness and importunity (2Ki_2:12). (B. Beddome, M.A.)

The Spirit of bondage and the Spirit of adoption

I. What is the Spirit of bondage?

1. There are many of you who love money, pleasure, vanity, sin. And yet there are times when you tear yourselves away to say your prayers--to come to church; to read a chapter in the Bible; but whilst engaged in these exercises you long for them to be over. But why do them at all? Because it is our duty. We know these things must be attended to; if we neglect them we shall go to hell. Then, I need not describe to you the spirit of bondage--you feel it.

2. But perhaps the spirit of bondage is still more strikingly displayed in those who are just awakened to a sense of their sins. And what does the poor trembling sinner do to mend his case? Labours with all his might to make himself acceptable to God; multiplies his prayers and duties; resolves to mortify his sins. And yet, alas! he goes about feeling that he has undertaken a work which is far beyond his strength. And why has the Lord so ordered it? Evidently to teach the humbling lesson of mans utter inability to save or sanctify himself (see Gal_3:23-24).

II. What is the Spirit of adoption?

1. Adoption is an act whereby one person takes another into his family, calls him his son, and treats him as such. Thus Moses was the adopted son of Pharaohs daughter, and Esther was the adopted daughter of Mordecai. Adoption, then, in a spiritual sense, is that act of grace whereby God chooses into the dear relation of His children every true believer in His Son. The very term implies that they were by nature not His children. No; they were strangers and enemies when He took them in.

2. But a man who adopts a stranger for his child cannot bestow on him a spirit suitable to that relationship. He may give him a sons portion, but he cannot give him a sons feelings. Now this is what the Lord does. He gives them the Spirit of adoption. He puts into them, by His grace, a fitness for their glorious relationship. They not only are the Lords children, but they feel as such (verse 16). Their former terrors drop away, for they view God now as their reconciled Father in Christ, and the uneasiness they felt at their inability to satisfy His law is now changed into a delightful confidence in the satisfaction which His Son hath wrought for them. And in consequence of all His love to them they love Him. They are followers--imitators--of God as dear children. His commandments are not grievous to them, for they have now both the power and the will to follow them.

3. Father is the first word the infant lisps; and how continually it is running to its parent with that word upon its tongue. In beautiful allusion to this the child of God is represented as crying to his heavenly Parent, Abba! Father! (A. Roberts, M.A.)

The Spirit of adoption

I. The gift which God confers on His children. Ye have received the Spirit of adoption.

1. The Spirit of God seals the children of adoption. This serves to mark the particular property God has in believers; to distinguish them from others of the human family; and to preserve them for the end of their election and faith, even the salvation of their souls.

2. The Holy Spirit is to believers the witness of their adoption (verses 16). It is reasonable that professors of religion should be anxious to ascertain their own state in Gods sight.

3. The Holy Spirit communicates to believers the comfort arising from their adoption into Gods family, i.e. He discovers to believers the path of light; qualifies them for their present rank; and supports them during their pilgrimage.

II. The Christian enjoys true liberty. Christian liberty is equally opposed to slavery and licentiousness. It is opposed to restraint and violence, but not to subordination and cheerful obedience.

1. They who are adopted into Gods family are delivered from the dominion of sin. They now walk at liberty. They feel that they are free to serve God without the fear of wrath. They delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man.

2. Christians are delivered from the power of Satan.

3. Christian liberty implies deliverance from undue human influence (Psa_119:45; Pro_29:25). Independence of mind, and courage in Christian behaviour, are desirable objects. He who attains to them, puts his trust in God, and does not fear what man can do unto him. In matters of right and wrong, the Christian claims to himself, and allows to others, the right of private judgment; but he neither claims to himself, nor guarantees to another, the liberty of contravening in a single instance, the commandment of his God.

III. Consider the expressions which we abe enabled by the Spirit of adoption to utter--Whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The repetition, Father, Father, also evidences the earnestness with which a Christian, feeling his deliverance from bondage, recognises his present delightful relation to God as an adopted son.

1. The believer approves of his relation to God in Jesus Christ. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

2. The religious man is soothed in all his afflictions when he contemplates the compassion of his Father who is in heaven.

3. Gods children consider Him as their instructor (Psa_71:17; Isa_54:13).

4. Gods children submit to such chastisement as He thinks proper to administer (Pro_3:11).

5. The children of adoption place themselves under the protection of their heavenly Father (Psa_31:5; Psa_31:15).

6. By the Spirit of adoption, we are enabled to approach with boldness the throne of grace, in prayer to God (Eph_2:18). (A. McLeod, D.D.)

The Spirit of bondage and the Spirit of adoption

I. The state of the natural man.

1. It is a state of sleep: the voice of God to him is, Awake, thou that sleepest.

2. For this reason he is in some sense at rest: because blind he is secure, he cannot tremble at the danger he does not know. He has no dread of God, because he thinks Him merciful, and that he can at any time repent.

3. From the same ignorance there may arise joy either in congratulating himself on his own wisdom and goodness, or in indulgence of pleasure of various kinds, and so long as he doeth well unto himself men will doubtless speak good of him.

4. It is not surprising if thus dosed with the opiates of flattery and sin, one should imagine among his other waking dreams that he walks in great liberty, being free from all vulgar errors, prejudices, enthusiasm, etc. But all this time he is the servant of sin. He commits it every day. Yet he is not troubled. He contents himself with Man is frail; every man has his infirmity.

II. The state of a man under the law.

1. By some awful providence, or by His Word applied by His Spirit God touches the heart of the slumbering stoner, who awakes into a consciousness of danger--perhaps in a moment, perhaps by degrees.

2. The inward spiritual meaning of the law now begins to glare upon him, and he sees himself stripped of all the fig leaves he had sewn together--of all his pretences to religion or excuses for sin. He now, too, feels that the wages of sin is death.

3. Here ends his pleasing dream, his delusive rest, his vain security, etc. The fumes of these opiates being dispelled, he feels the anguish of a wounded spirit--he fears, indeed--Gods wrath, death, etc., almost to the verge of despair.

4. Now truly he desires to break loose from sin and begins to struggle with it. But though he strive with all his might, sin is mightier than he. The more he strives the more he feels his chains. He toils on, sinning and repenting, repenting and sinning, until he cries, O wretched man that I am, etc. This whole state of bondage is described in chap. 7.

III. The state of a man under grace.

1. His cry is heard and heavenly healing light breaks in on his soul--the light of the glorious love of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Overpowered by the sight he cries out, My Lord and my God, for he sees all his iniquities laid on Christ and borne away; God in Christ reconciling him unto Himself.

2. Here end the guilt and power of sin. He can now say, I am crucified with Christ, etc. Here ends the bondage unto fear. He cannot fear the wrath of God, for it is turned away; the devil, because his power is ended; hell, for he is an heir of the kingdom; death, for that is now but the vestibule of heaven.

3. And Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, liberty not only from guilt and fear, but sin. Henceforth he does not serve sin; being made free from sin he is become the servant of righteousness.

4. Having peace with God, and rejoicing in hope, he has the Spirit of adoption who sheds abroad the love of God and man in the heart, and works in him to will and do of His good pleasure. Conclusion: The natural man neither fears nor loves God; one under the law fears: one under grace loves. The first has no light, the second painful light, the third joyous light, He that sleeps in death has a false peace; he that is awakened no peace; he that believes true peace. The heathen baptized or unbaptized has a fancied freedom, the Jew or legalist a grievous bondage, the Christian the glorious liberty of the children of God. An unawakened child of the devil sins willingly; one that is awakened sins unwillingly; a child of God sinneth not The natural man neither conquers nor fights; the man under the law fights but cannot conquer; the man under grace is more than conqueror. (John Wesley, M.A.)

The Spirit of adoption

1. In what sense are we to understand the word spirit? Our own spirit, inasmuch as it refers to that filial disposition which prompts us to cry, Abba, Father; yet also Gods Spirit, because it is only by His power and inspiration that this temper of mind is produced or sustained (chap. 5:5).

2. To what does again refer? No doubt to the former dispensation, Judaism (see the argument in Gal_4:1-31, especially verses 4-7 and 22-31, and again, Heb_12:18-24).

3. This Spirit of adoption is a spirit of--

I. Reverential admiration and love. Who so good or wise in the eyes of a son as his beloved parent? Yet our filial partiality may be grossly mistaken. Not thus is it with our regard for God. If His children, we learn to discern in Him every excellence, and each in its highest perfection and purest form.

II. Gratitude and praise. The son acknowledges his obligation to his father, is ever grateful to him, and learns to speak of him with becoming expressions of thankfulness and filial pride. So it is with us and God.

III. Dependence and trust. While we acknowledge His kindness in the past, we depend on Him at the present moment, and we commit to Him all our care for the future. How little anxiety for the morrow has the confiding child.

IV. Meek submission and cheerful obedience. A fathers will is law to a good son; and all that a father reposes or inflicts is submitted to without murmuring, from a persuasion of his wisdom and right to correct us when we do wrong, combined with a firm conviction that he seeks only our welfare and good. How much rather should we be in subjection to the Father of our spirits (Heb_12:5-10).

V. Communion and fellowship. It cries, Abba, Father. It is natural for a son to seek his fathers society, and to tell him all his wishes, all his wants. So do the sons of God come to Him in supplication and prayer (Mat_6:6.) Further, a good son is interested in his fathers pursuits, knowing that he himself will be enriched by his fathers successes and advanced by his fathers promotion. So do we know, as Gods children, that He conducts all the affairs of His empire for our honour and welfare, and we constantly pray, Father, Thy kingdom come, etc.

VI. Confidence and hope. A child who incidentally does wrong can come to his father in penitence and sorrow, assured of readily obtaining acceptance and forgiveness. So likewise we can come to God when we have sinned against Him, believing that He will quickly restore us to His favour, and not vindictively cast us off for ever. Therefore, we shall at length be brought home to our Fathers house above. A wealthy parent may send his child away for a season, and place him under tutors and governors, but it is to receive him back eventually with increased honour and joy. Thus will Jehovah act with regard to us. (T. G. Horton.)

Without fear

See yonder little bird. It floats fearlessly in the spray that arises out of the thunders of Niagara. It cleanses its plumage in that ever-ascending and radiant mist. It flies through the rainbow which spans that awful presence. It is not afraid. The colours of its wings are kindred to the tints in that rainbow. It sings its gayest songs as it darts back and forth in front of that terrible glory. It has no controversy with Niagara. It gains its living along its banks. It builds its nest and rears its nestlings in the tree that overhangs the cataract. The believer in revelation has ended his controversy with God, and is, like that flying, floating, singing bird, without fear.

The Spirit of adoption

The question has been raised whether this means the Holy Ghost, or a consciousness of being a child of God. It is both, and we cannot distinguish between the two. But we must not confound adoption and the Spirit of adoption, though they are never very far apart.

1. Adoption is that act whereby we are received into the family of God. And the way in which this is brought about is thus: Christ is the one Son of God. Into the Son, God elects and engrafts members. As soon as the union takes place, God sees the soul in the relationship in which He sees Christ. He gives it a partnership in the same privileges.

2. But this adoption, if it stood alone, would be no blessing. A rich man, well educated, adopts a poor illiterate child. The child moves in the social circle of his adopted father, and shares his wealth. Now, if his benefactor be a wise man, he will endeavour to give him a filial spirit, and the qualifications which are necessary for his elevation. But if not, the adoption will only issue in disappointment and unhappiness to all parties. 3 We cannot, therefore, sufficiently thank God that wherever He gives adoption, He follows by the Spirit of adoption. But, as in nature, as soon as ever a branch is grafted into a tree the sap begins to flow into that branch; and however dissimilar the graft to the parent stock, the passing of the graft into that stock gradually makes them one:--so in Christ, the Spirit of adoption following the adoption, seals the union by making the affinity close, happy, and eternal!

4. Of all words that which comprises most of wisdom, tenderness, and love, is Father. What a repose lies in that, My Father. And as soon as the Spirit begins to work in a sinners heart, the very first thing He plants there is, I will arise and go to my Father, etc. 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. Thousands acknowledge it is true; but few think of how much has passed in the deepest councils and sublimest operations of God, that we might use that paternal function. All heaven had to come down to earth that we might stand to God again in that lost relationship. The blood of Christ only could 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.

5. Now let me examine what a Spirit of adoption is. It is not a spirit of doubt and anxiety, in which I say, Does God really love me? Am I forgiven? How shall I overcome all my difficulties? That is not what a little child ever feels, if he has got an affectionate father. The Spirit of adoption is all hope. Hence, prayer becomes a very bold thing where there is the Spirit of adoption. A child does not ask a father as a stranger asks him. He goes as one who has a right. If he finds his fathers door for a moment closed, see how he knocks. He does not want wages; but he receives rewards. All creation is his Fathers house, and he can say, Everything in it is mine, on to death itself. The Spirit of adoption longs to go home. For, if the love of an unseen Father has been so sweet, what will it be to look in His face? (J. Vaughan, M.A.)

The Spirit of adoption

We are not merely criminals unwhipped of justice, but since Christ has met the demands of the law for us we are entirely acquitted; and then there is implanted in us, by the Holy Spirit, the sweet, glad consciousness of sonship.

I. Therefore the cowering fearfulness of sin is supplanted by a loving filialness. Very beautiful is that word, Abba just here. It is a little up-thrusting of the Apostles mother tongue. Though we be adepts in any other language, the speech we use to express overflowing feeling is always that which we learned at our mothers knee. And there is such a swell and throb of filialness in the apostles heart toward the heavenly Father, that even though he must immediately translate it, there is no word to tell his consciousness of his close, free sonship but the word that used to be prattle on his lips when he was a child. So swept away is the bad fear which comes from sin, so dear and deep is his sense of a holy familiarity with God, that the only word that can in the least even shadow it forth is the nursery word back there in Tarsus, Abba.

1. How easy prayer is to a God, who thus reinstating us in sonship, will allow from us such address.

2. How in everything (Php_4:6) may we make request of Him.

II. There is such a thing as an assurance of this sonship. The Spirit itself beareth witness.

III. Being thus adopted into sonship we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Then--

1. I have title to illimitable Divine possession.

2. I may dismiss fear that I shall fail to enter upon my unimaginable wealth.

IV. Such adoption does not preclude the necessity of discipline, It compels it rather. For so great a destiny and glory I must be prepared. But there is this infinite solace under chastisement--it is not punitive; it is educative. Its intention is to fit me for the splendid destiny God intends for me. It is thus quite possible to be glad and thankful for my pain. (Wayland Hoyt, D.D.)

Adoption

The spiritual connection of the true disciple with God is repeatedly represented to us in Pauls Epistles under the figure of sonship. The idea of simple sonship, indeed, is brought prominently forward by St. John; as 1Jn_3:1; 1Jn_4:6; 1Jn_5:9-10, etc. But whereas St. John always represents this idea in its simplest form, St. Paul, and St. Paul only, describes this sonship more artificially as adoptive. This illustration is not taken from any Jewish custom; the law of Moses contains no provision for such a practice. Adoption was essentially a Roman usage, and was closely connected with the Roman ideas of family. The son was declared to be the absolute property of his father from his birth to his fathers decease. In order to being adopted out of his own family into that of another man it was necessary that he should undergo a fictitious sale. But if a son had been thus sold by his father and had again recovered his liberty, he fell again under the paternal dominion, and it was not till he had been thus sold, emancipatus, three times, that he became finally free from this paramount authority. Accordingly, the adopter required that the fiction of sale should be three times repeated, before the son could be received into his new family, and fall under the dominion of his new father. When, however, these formalities had been complied with, the adopted son became incorporated into the family of his adopter, identified, as it were, with his person, made one with him; so that on the adopters decease he became not so much his representative as his second self, the perpetuator of his legal personality. He assumed, moreover, on adoption, the burdens or privileges incident to the performance of the rights of his new family. He relinquished his former rites, and attached himself to those of his new parent. All this appears to have been in the apostles mind when he addressed the Roman disciples in this passage. The Spirit of God, he says, bears witness with our spirit, or confers upon us an inward persuasion, that we are now by adoption the children of God Himself, whereas we were before the children of some other father--namely, the world or the Evil One. But henceforth we are relieved from the bondage of corruption, from the state of legal subjection to this evil parent, and admitted to the glorious liberty of the happy children of a good and gracious father, even God. And how was this escape from bondage to be effected? God paid a price for it. As the Roman adopter paid, or made as though he paid down a certain weight of copper, so God gave His Son as a precious sacrifice, as a ransom to the world, or the Evil One, from whom He redeemed His adopted children. Henceforth we became the elect, the chosen of God. The same illustration is indicated in Gal_4:3 : When we were children we were in bondage under the elements of the world, addicted to the rites of our original family; but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, etc. But now, after ye have known God … how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, such as the sacra of your original family, whereunto ye desire to be again in bondage (Eph_1:5). (Dean Merivale.)

Adoption, sacred and secular

Betwixt civil and sacred adoption there is a two-fold agreement and disagreement. They agree in this, that both flow from the pleasure and good will of the adoptant; and in this, that both confer a right to privileges which we have not by nature; but in this they differ: one is an act imitating nature, the other transcends nature: the one was found out for the comfort of them that had no children, the other for the comfort of them that had no Father. Divine adoption is in Scripture either taken properly for that act or sentence of God by which we are made sons, or for the privileges with which the adopted are invested. We lost our inheritance by the fall of Adam: we receive it by the death of Christ, which restores it again to us by a new and better title. (J. Flavel.)

A childlike spirit towards God

I. The contrast between the temper of a child of God and the temper of an unregenerate person.

1. Naturally fallen creatures have a spirit of bondage--the temper of a slave towards God.

(1) All the systems of heathenism are marked by this spirit. The love of God never enters into them, but either their self-love is addressed by certain hopes which appeal to their natural feelings, or else they are under the constraining influence of a dread of those misfortunes which the gods are supposed to have the power and will to inflict.

(2) Among Mohammedans we find the same spirit prevailing. They are sometimes told that, if they obey the admonitions of the Koran, they shall have a sensual paradise. They are more frequently told that, if they violate the same directions, they shall expose themselves to the anger of God.

(3) In the Roman Catholic Church, although there may be sometimes a reference to the promises of the gospel, how much more frequently and powerfully the fear of its votaries is addressed. They dread the church censures, the indignation of their priest, and their fancied purgatory. Nay, they dare not approach the merciful Mediator unless there be some other mediator.

(4) Nor is Protestantism by any means free from this unhappy spirit. For what is a fashionable religion but a compromise between mens passions and their fears? Anything of loving Him is often absolutely ridiculed.

2. Now, if we turn to this Book for the explanation of that universal feeling, we find that it is truly reasonable. The account which St. Paul gives of it in chap. 7 is applicable to all the world. It is obvious that, in proportion as this is comprehended, men must fear. A man may sometimes contrive, either by forgetfulness of God, or by forming to himself false notions respecting God, to escape from the influence of fear, but then his mind is sunk into a state of torpor and death-like slumber. When once the light is let in on the understanding, and the man sees anything of the attributes of God and what they demand, and finds that he has violated all, and that his own nature is opposed to that Holy God, he dies. In the language of the apostle, it is the law which shuts us up, allows us no hope,

3. But when a man finds the gospel, that spirit is changed. Then all the sources of dread are gone. How can he dread God any more? Do you think that the poor prodigal, when, all ragged and worn as he was, he came back to his fathers house, and felt his fathers arms around him, and his fathers kiss upon his pale and withered cheek--think you that he dreaded that father then?

4. And now the whole of the sinners future course is characterised by love; he is no longer a slave, but he is become a child. This is seen doubtless, and seen very mainly, in the character of the Christians obedience, which is now wholly changed. The child of God has the law written on his heart--loves every one of its requisitions, because he loves the wise and just Parent that enacted them--and would obey them all. His obedience is now unfettered, unrestricted, unreserved, cheerful, grateful, and generous.

5. The filial spirit prevails in the whole of the experience of every one of the children of God. If he receives any temporal blessings, he receives them from the hand of his Father; if he looks at the promises of the gospel, they come to him as the promise of his heavenly Father; if he receives any of the painful events of life, it is a wise and gracious Father who has sent them, and it is his inclination and his pleasure to submit. So, likewise, this same filial spirit pervades all the exercises of religion; if others pray because conscience compels them to pray, the child of God rejoices that he may come to his Father, who seeth in secret. If he looks forward to death, when no other being can go with him and sustain his faltering spirit, he feels his Father can; and when he looks to glory, it is with the same feelings; he is going to the house of his Father.

II. The origin of this Spirit. It is characterised in our text as a gift; it is not spoken of as an attainment. Ye have received. It is a gift received from God; therefore His favour and His blessing must have preceded it. If, then, we are told that the sinner must first love God, must first serve God, and then he may hope for the favour of God--this is just a sentence of despair to any man who knows himself. How can he love God? The source of that Spirit of adoption is in adoption itself, and the source of that adoption is the sovereign, unmerited, bounty and mercy of God.

1. Its meritorious cause is the Cross of Christ. There is no ether reason why a sinner deserves to be a child of God but this, that Jesus Christ has deserved it. When the fulness of the time was come, etc.

2. The instrumental cause is faith. Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

3. The Agent is the Spirit of God. He only it is who implants faith, and He it is who alone communicates the Spirit of adoption.

4. The means is that view of the love of God which none but an adopted child can have. We love Him because He first loved us. (Baptist Noel, M.A.)

The temper of gospel obedience

Consider this--

I. By way of contrast, as it is opposed to any form of obedience performed in a slavish and unready mind.

1. With the severe discipline of the law. On this point the apostle is the best exponent of his own views in that allegory of Agar and Sarah (Gal_4:22-26). To the same purport there is another illustration of the two dispensations, addressed to the same Church (Gal_4:3-7). These distinct tendencies of the two dispensations are discoverable in almost every circumstance. Contrast--

(1) The method of their introduction, the thunderings of Sinai with the stillness of Bethlehem; the voice of the trumpet with the melody of angels; the blackness and darkness and tempest with the mild halo of glory which played around the wondering shepherds as they kept watch over their flocks by night.

(2) The miracles of the two dispensations. Look at the earth opening her mouth to swallow up the rebellious, the fiery serpents, the pestilence, and compare with these the blind receiving their sight, the multitudes fed with bread, and the widow receiving from death her child.

(3) In their outward ordinances--those of the one multitudinous, obscure, oppressive; those of the other easy, refreshing, simple. Of course we do not mean that this servile temper extended to every individual worshipper. The Spirit is not bound. Enochs was no servants walk, nor could fear have wrought Abrahams faith. Neither do we speak disparagingly of that dispensation itself. The law is a system of progressive teaching (Gal_4:1-2). We must be disciplined to habits of reverence and subjection, The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.

2. With the service of the man who is trying to work out a righteousness for himself. This fault first discovered itself in the newly-converted Jews, who could but feel a rude shock to their ancient sympathies when they were required to pass from the pride-fostering works of the ancient ritual to the simple faith and self-abasing truths of the gospel. And many now feel the stirrings of an alarmed conscience, and are urged on by an unresting anxiety to feel that their souls are safe, and yet God is not satisfied with them, neither are they satisfied with themselves. Now what is the secret of such painful experience happening to men who are taking more pains to be miserable than it would cost them to be happy? They will be servants, and not sons; they will be labouring to obey, and not trying to believe. If, then, you are in earnest about your souls salvation, take Heavens simple answer, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, etc. Then the works will follow. But all attempts to get peace before or without this will be mere labour in vain. This one thing done, the whole character of our obedience becomes changed. It is not the spirit of bondage again to fear; it is the filial obedience of those who, having received the Spirit of adoption, are enabled to cry, Abba, Father.

II. By way of comparison. Four marks of Roman civil adoption you will find exactly paralleled in the spiritual adoption. Did the child among the Romans share in the privileges of the natural children? It is affirmed of the believer that if children then heirs, heirs with God and joint heirs with Christ. Did the Roman bestow his own name on the child he adopted? Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by Thy name. Did the civil law exact from the adopted all honour and reverence to the parent? If I be a Father, where is Mine honour? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, etc. Did the new father engage to treat the stranger with parental care and kindness? I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. From this view of the condition of the believer we may infer three characteristics of evangelical service.

1. Reverence.

2. Cheerfulness. No labour in the Lord can be in vain; no commandment of God can be grievous.

3. Confidence. (D. Moore, M.A.)

Whereby we cry, Abba, Father.--

Abba, Father

I. The fact. We cry, Abba, Father.

1. In one aspect this seems little. It is only a cry, a name named, and that a childs lisp of the first two sounds of the alphabet. True, but I am not anxious to get from you more than what all Christians confess. We cry, Abba, Father. Visions and revelations are exceptional, but we all cry, Abba, Father.

2. This is not a small thing. It means carrying the clear proof of our being Gods children. True, we are infants, but no infant would ever cry Abba unless it were a child. Here are weakness and strength, but the one is linked to the other by a bond that cannot be broken. And what a distance between us in our helplessness and God in His glory, but Father reaches all the way. Only a cry! God hears nothing else. Observe the refrain of Psa_107:1-43. Mark the reason why universal power is given to the Mediator (Psa_72:11-12).

3. This cry is the product of the Holy Spirit (see also Gal_4:6). This is the Divine side of the matter, of which we have both the human and Divine sides in Joh_1:12-13).

II. The consequences.

1. You have the witness of the Spirit. The cry and the groaning (verse 26) are His work; the natural man knows nothing of them.

2. You are heirs of God (verse 19; Mat_13:43).

3. You are joint heirs with Christ.

(1) An interest in all His glory.

(2) He has entered on the inheritance as our Forerunner (Heb_6:20).

III. But what of the present? If we suffer with Him. Suffer we must; but--

1. These pangs are hopeful; they are of birth, not death, and prove a heaven-sent longing after home and God.

2. The Saviour is with us in them. His Spirit causes them. Christ sympathises and succours (Heb_2:17-18). (A. M. Symington, D.D.)

The Abba, Father

The expression is used once by Christ, twice by Paul. Why should the Saviour in Gethsemane employ two languages, and Paul when speaking of the free Spirit which animates believers? Is it conformity to the custom of giving to persons a variety of names? Or is the one name an interpretation of the other? Augustine and Calvin think that it is to show that both Jews and Greeks each in their own respective language would call on God as a Father. Dr. Morison says that the dual form is delightfully fitted to suggest that in His great work Christ personated in His single self not Jews only, but Gentiles. And not only fitted, but designed. And so Paul may have caught the spirit and aim of the Masters words. And thus we have a speaking testimony to the fusion of Jew and Greek which prepared the way for the preaching of the gospel to the heathen. The idea of Father clasps not only the languages, but the people. What other word so fitted as a basis for all the nations to meet on and be made one! Grandly prophetic of the time, to bring about which the Saviour died and the apostle laboured, is Abba, Father. The term illustrates how the idea of Fatherhood--

I. Evokes the deepest filial feeling. In the only instances in which we have the words there is everything to justify this. It is the child-cry coming not from the surface, but from the depths. How much larger and more tender the word than master, magistrate king, etc.

II. Begets the most childlike familiarity. Only in the home circle can such feelings play. It is the child, not the subject or servant, that cries Abba, Father. Refinement of feeling and manner is always beautiful in a child, but it is not natural that it should express itself in courtly language. The charm of the family is in the freedom which love imparts. The parental heart, shining like a warm sun in the centre of the home, draws young affection to it as the flowers turn to the heat and light.

III. Stirs the intensest earnestness. So it did in Christ and Paul. There are moments in Christian experience when the language of familiarity rises into the language of anguish. Though in the Divine family, men are still on earth--not the most congenial place, and even Jesus seems to have had quite enough of it when He said, And now I come to Thee, The definition suggests emphasis or urgency. As a childs whisper will sometimes wake the family, even the gentlest ruffle on the heart will not pass the heavenly Fathers notice. How much more shall a cry of anguish reach Him and bring Him to our relief. (R. Mitchell.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Rom_8:15.—The Chaldee and Greek words for “father” are used so as to affect both Jews and Gentiles. “Abba,” like “papa,” can be spoken with the mouth, and properly, therefore, characterises genuine childlike disposition and manner (Olshausen).

Rom_8:18. For I reckon.—As the result of deliberate calculation. On the one side suffering, on the other grace and glory. Season sets forth the transitory character. The glory which is about to be revealed in us, towards us, with regard to us, as Alford puts it.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_8:15-18

Rom_8:16-18. The inheritance of sonship.—The sin of the world is a false confidence; the fault and sorrow and weakness of the Church is a false diffidence. The true confidence, which is faith in Christ, and the true diffidence, which is utter distrust of myself, are identical. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit.” It is that there is one testimony which has a conjoint origin—the origin of the Spirit of God as true source, and the origin of my own soul as recipient and co-operant in that testimony. The substance, then, of the evidence on which a Christian has a right to conclude that he is a child of God does not bear directly on his own state or condition at all, but upon God’s feelings to him and God’s relation to him. Our own souls possess these emotions of love and tender desire going out unto God; our own spirits possess them, but our own spirits did not originate them. Your sense of fatherhood—that sense of fatherhood which is in the Christian’s heart, and becomes his cry—comes from God’s Spirit. This passage, and that in Galatians which is almost parallel, put this truth very forcibly, when taken in connection: “Ye have received,” says the text before us, “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” The heart with its love, the head with its understanding, the conscience with its quick response to the law of duty, the will with its resolutions—these are all, as sanctified by Him, the witness of His Spirit.

This divine witness in our spirits is subject to the ordinary influences which affect our spirits.—The Spirit’s witness comes from God—therefore it is veracious; but the Spirit’s witness from God is in man—therefore it may be wrongly read.

No inheritance without sonship.—In general terms, spiritual things can only be given to men who are in a certain spiritual condition. Even God cannot bestow certain blessings and gifts until there be in me a capacity or organ to receive them. No inheritance of heaven without sonship; just because all the blessings of that future life at last come down to this, they are of a spiritual character.

No sonship without a spiritual birth.—Fatherhood involves the communication of a life and the reciprocity of love; it involves a divine act and a human emotion; it involves that the Father and the child shall have kindred life. Drop that figure, and simply rest on this—the children of God, or the children of sin; sons because born again, or slaves and “enemies by wicked works.”

No spiritual birth without Christ.—He has carried in the golden urn of His humanity a new spirit and a new life which He has set down in the midst of the race; and the urn was broken on the cross of Calvary, and the water flowed out; and whithersover that water comes there is life, and whithersoever it comes not there is death.

No Christ without faith.—Unless we are wedded to Jesus Christ by the simple act of trust in His mercy and His power, Christ is nothing to us. Christ is everything to a man that trusts Him; Christ is nothing but a judge and a condemnation to a man that trusts Him not.

Then sonship with Christ necessarily involves suffering with Him.—We “suffer with Him”; not, He suffers with us. The death of Christ is a type of the Christian’s life. It is a dying to sin; it is a dying to self; it is a dying to an old world. That crucifying of the old manhood is to be repeated by the power of faith.

“Our sufferings are His.” “His sufferings are ours.” Oneness with Christ involves a fellowship and community on both sides, of suffering. This community of suffering is a preparation for the community of glory. It is not the discipline that fits; the thing that fits goes before the discipline, and the discipline only develops the fitness.

That inheritance is the necessary result of all suffering that has gone before.—The suffering results from our union with Christ. That union must needs culminate in glory. Trials have no meaning, unless they are means to an end. The end is the inheritance. What must be the end of that blessedness which is the counterpoise and consequence to the sorrow and pain of this lower world!—Maclaren.

Rom_8:16. The witness of the Spirit.—Take these words in whatever sense we may, they contain a truth of unspeakable importance. The moment we hear them we feel that we are dealing with a matter which concerns our soul’s life. And the two points requiring our attention are—first, who are the witnesses to be inquired of? and, secondly, what is the testimony to be elicited?

I. And first, in reference to this question of our spiritual sonship, let us see who are the witnesses who are to decide upon the matter.—There is evidently nothing in the text to favour a notion entertained by some, who would resolve the witness of the Spirit into some supernatural intimation from above—some mysterious whisper to the ear of the inner man, speaking to us, and addressing us as those who belong to the family of God. The text rather suggests to us that we are entering upon a calm, judicial process, in which the hoped-for verdict can be obtained only by the testimony of two distinct and agreeing witnesses—witnesses of tried competency to speak, and of proved faithfulness to be heard—namely, the witness of the Holy Spirit, and the consenting testimony of our own hearts. Chiefly, however, must our confidence stand in the first of these witnesses, the testimony of our own hearts being only derived and secondary, subscribing to that which has been given by the Spirit of God. And the importance of having this Holy Spirit as the chief witness will appear from the nature of the facts to be witnessed to—namely, that we are the children of God, are received into a state of adoption and grace, are at this moment reconciled to God, and know that He is reconciled to us. Our adoption is one of the things of God, and He must be of God, and in God, who shall bear witness of it to us. He must know when the act of grace went forth, and when the wandering spirit turned, and when the weak and subjugated heart surrendered, and when the signet ring was fixed to that covenant of mercy and forgiveness which made of the outcast rejoicing, and of the slave a friend and child. And these are things which must be known to the Holy Spirit, because of Him, and through Him, and by Him, are all these effects wrought.

II. How this important testimony is to be elicited—in what language does the Spirit speak, and in what signs does the heart make answer?—And in the general elucidation of this point the first ground to be taken is that the joint witness of the text, and consequently the scriptural evidence of sonship, is to be looked for in this—namely, an impression of inward peace arising from the discovery of certain tendencies and dispositions answerable to the state of sonship, and referred in Scripture to the agency of the Holy Spirit of God. And it is properly called a joint witness, because the same Spirit who forms these tendencies in us also manifests their existence to us. We can only know that we are adopted children when the Spirit of God reveals to our minds, with growing light and distinctness, the existence of those moral dispositions which prompt us to act as children act, and to feel as children feel. Do we inquire further, “How do the children of God act and feel?” the answer is, “We find these only in the written word.” But this still makes the Spirit of God the chief witness to us, because, until the Spirit shines upon the word, it is a sealed book to us, a dark and meaningless record, telling us nothing of our spiritual state, because the eyes of our understanding are not opened. But let the Spirit open our understanding, and we find that the entrance of God’s word giveth light—light to the promises, light to the threatenings, light to the rules of duty, light to the evidences of our hope. We understand better both the rule and that to which we are to apply the rule; and it is just the agreement between these two—the Scripture calling and the heart answering, the Spirit insisting on certain commanded feelings and our own spirits testifying that we have such feelings—that constitutes our double witness, that meets the judicial demands of a twofold testimony, that enables us to say, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”—P. Moore.

Rom_8:16. Concerning the witness of the Spirit.—This passage is something difficult, and commonly not rightly understood; for the clearing of which there are four things to be done:—

I. To show what is meant by the Spirit.

II. What is meant by the children of God.

III. What is meant by the Spirit’s bearing witness with our spirit.

IV. How, or in what sense, the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

By the Spirit here is undoubtedly meant that Holy Spirit which our Lord promised He would send upon His disciples after He was ascended into heaven, and which accordingly came upon them on the day of Pentecost, and which from thenceforth was to continue with the Church to the end of the world. This Spirit is here in the text called the Spirit itself, to represent Him as a person, because in the verse before the apostle had used this word “spirit” in another sense—viz., for a state and dispensation.

But, secondly, What is meant by being the children of God? To this I answer, that to be a child of God, in the Scripture phrase, is to be an heir of immortality, or to be an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven—that is to say, either in actual possession of it, or in a right title to it.

But, thirdly, What is meant by this expression of the Spirit’s bearing witness with our spirit? I conceive that which the apostle here meant is this: that the Holy Spirit by the visible, sensible operations which He wrought in and amongst Christians, that God owned them for His people, and as such would glorify them with His Son Jesus at the last day. First of all, I say, the Spirit gave an undeniable proof to Christians that they were the children of God in descending upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost. The fulness of the evidence we have for the truth of the matters of fact wrought by the Spirit in the ancient times for the confirmation of Christ’s doctrine, and the new arguments that the same Spirit hath given us since; we, at this day, have as much reason to say with St. Paul, as any in those days had, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”—that we are Christians, in contradistinction to men of all other religions, are the very people of God, and heirs of eternal life, if we do not forfeit our title to it by a loose and wicked life. It ought to be a matter of unspeakable comfort and rejoicing to us that we have such an infallible witness as the Spirit of God to bear testimony to our minds that we are in a right and sure way to eternal happiness. The Spirit’s bearing witness to our minds thus effectually that we are the children of God should be an argument to us above all others that we should never depart from our Christian profession, but that we should hold it to our lives’ end without wavering—nay, and be zealous for it. For where can we have eternal life but in the faith of Jesus Christ? We are always to remember that, when the Spirit gave His witness to the Christians that they were the children of God, it was to the Christians as professing the true faith of Christ. Though it be here said of all Christians in general that the Spirit bears witness to them that they are the children of God, yet it is to be remembered that no benefit will hereby accrue to any particular person that professeth Christianity if he does not lead his life according to the precepts of it. Secondly, if it be asked what this private witness of the Spirit is to the minds of particular persons, that they are the children of God, or wherein it doth consist, I answer very briefly, as far as we can gather from the apostle’s discourse, both in this place and in others of his epistles, it consists in this—viz., in the Holy Ghost’s dwelling in the hearts of particular Christians, and enabling them to mortify their lusts, and to lead a holy life, in all sobriety, righteousness, and godliness. Now this indwelling of the Spirit, and these fruits therefore, wherever they are found, are to those that have them a seal of the Spirit of God upon their souls, “whereby they are sealed to the day of redemption,” as the apostle expresses it (Eph_4:30). They are an earnest or a pledge of their future happiness, as the same apostle in other places calls them (2Co_1:22; 2Co_5:5; Eph_1:13-14). Lastly, they are a testimony or evidence to their spirits that they are the true sons of God, and shall be glorified with Jesus Christ in another world, which is the tenor of his expression in my text. Now that this is the true meaning of the Spirit’s witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God, so far as that witness concerns particular persons, will appear evidently from what goes before in this chapter. The main design that the apostle is pursuing is to encourage and animate the Christians of his time against the sufferings and persecutions they were likely to meet with in this world upon account of their religion; and this he doth chiefly from the consideration of the great rewards that were laid up for them in the other world. And to this purpose he tells them in the tenth verse, “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom_8:10)—that is, your body is indeed obnoxious to all sorts of outward calamities, and even to death itself, which is entailed upon the sons of Adam, upon account of sin; but yet the Spirit of Christ, which He hath given to dwell in you, will procure you a glorious life in another world, upon account of that inward spiritual righteousness which He worketh in you.

And, first of all, from this account that has been given, we learn what the true marks are of a child of God, or upon what grounds any person can rationally assure himself that he is in God’s favour and shall go to heaven. For as the miraculous operations of the Spirit in the days of the apostles were the public testimony of the Holy Ghost that the Christian Church in general was the people of God and designed to everlasting happiness, so the Spirit’s dwelling in the souls of particular Christians is His private testimony to particular persons that they are effectually the children of God and shall be actually raised up to everlasting happiness. Since all the evidence we can give to ourselves that we in particular are the children of God is that the Holy Spirit dwelleth within us, how infinitely doth it concern us, both to endeavour that the Holy Ghost should take up His habitation in our hearts, and also, after He hath so done, to be careful that we do not by our ill treatment of Him give Him cause to depart from us! Would we invite and prevail with the Holy Spirit to come and dwell within us? The way is to forsake our sins and to devote ourselves entirely to God’s service, and to solicit Him most earnestly with our daily prayers that He would purify our hearts, that they may become a temple fit for Him to dwell in, and withal to encourage and improve every good motion and every opportunity that He puts into our hands of growing in virtue and goodness. By this means we shall allure the good Spirit of God to take up His lodging in our hearts. And when once it is our happiness to have received so illustrious a guest, oh, with what zeal should we endeavour to preserve Him!—Archbishop Sharpe.

Rom_8:17. Sons and heirs.—Law and gospel. There was a law: “This do, and ye shall live.” It tended to keep us in fear.

There is a covenant. In Christ we become adopted sons. It tends to keep us in peace. God is our Father. “Abba” term of affection = “dear Father.”

Sequence of thought. Sons? Sons are generally heirs. Are we heirs? To what? With whom?

We find that we are heirs of salvation (Heb_1:14); righteousness (Heb_11:7); a kingdom (Jas_2:5); everlasting life (Mat_19:29); a blessing (1Pe_3:9); all things (Rev_21:7).

Roman law allowed equal division among sons. We are heirs equally with each other, and all with Christ. God is impartial; He loves and gives to all alike.

The Lord’s supper. When we meet as children at our Father’s table, with His Son presiding, most striking reminder of our sonship, our fellowship, and our heirship.—Dr. Springett.

Rom_8:15-16. The Spirit of adoption.—Let us consider first the respective offices of the two witnesses here mentioned—that is, the Spirit of God and our own spirit. Let us notice, then, the subject of their testimony. It is “that we are the children of God.” The Holy Spirit gives some witness to the great fact that our sins are forgiven, and that we, being reconciled to God, are now adopted into His family. The Spirit is the only witness who can give direct evidence of this. He is not only a competent witness, but the only competent witness. To this fact of our reconciliation to God, considered as a fact, our own spirits neither do nor can give testimony. Our own spirits have nothing to do with it. He alone can do this to whom it is perfectly known, and that is the Spirit of God. There are various ways, no doubt, by which the knowledge of this testimony is communicated to the soul, answering to the different modes of speech which we find in Scripture on the subject. There is the lifting up the light of the divine countenance upon the soul; the shedding the love of God abroad in our hearts; the crying, “Abba, Father”; the giving testimony to our spirits that we are the children of God; but all come from the Spirit and produce some persuasion and assurance that I am now a child of God, through His mercy in Christ. Next, we have the witness of our own spirits. Why is the testimony of our own spirit introduced and conjoined with that of the divine Spirit? Though there can be no delusion where the Spirit of God dwells and shines, yet there may be impressions not from Him, and which we may mistake for the sacred testimony which He bears. Against a delusion of this sort you must be most carefully guarded. Where the Spirit of God dwells as the Spirit of adoption, He dwells as the great Author of regeneration, as the source of all holy principles and feelings. Our justification and our sanctification are thus inseparable.

There are a few errors connected with this doctrine which ought to be noticed. The first is that there can be no certainty of our being now in a state of salvation; that, in fact, it is an unattainable blessing. If it be not attainable, the state of good men under the New Testament dispensation is far inferior to the state of good men under the Old. The first man of whom we have any record that he offered a sacrifice in faith obtained the testimony, the witness of his acceptance. And if ours be a dispensation much more glorious, and if we know that the Spirit of God has this particular office, we are not to conclude that we are placed in circumstances inferior, but superior to those of the saints of the Old Testament dispensation, with respect to the assurance of acceptance with God. This notion is contrary to all the words of Christ and the apostles. Here is the promise of Christ Himself, “I will give you rest”; and that rest is vouchsafed by the Holy Ghost, the Comforter who reveals to us the mercy of God in Christ, removes from our conscience the burden of guilt, and witnesses to us that we are no longer strangers but children and heirs. We notice another error, that this assurance and persuasion of our adoption is the privilege only of some eminent Christians. This blessing is as common as pardon; and the whole of this objection is grounded upon some secret idea of moral worth. None of these gifts are bestowed under any other character than as the purchase of the blood of Christ, and they are all parts of the great salvation held out to you, however unworthy, without money and without price. Some persons confound this assurance of present acceptance with an assurance of final salvation. The one is distinct from the other. I find no authority for the last in the Book of God. We are called upon to live in the assurance of this divine favour, and to rejoice in hope of the glory of God; but this conveys to us no certain assurance of final salvation. We are still to walk by the same rule and to mind the same things. The faith which brings us into this state must maintain us in it. We must still watch and pray, still lay aside every weight and easily besetting sin, still fight the good fight of faith, ever feeling that only to those who are faithful unto death shall the crown of life be given.—R. Watson.

Rom_8:12-17. From present life to future glory.

I. The argument starts from that practical influence of the Spirit of God upon daily conduct with which St. Paul has lately been dealing. This he describes as being “led” by the Spirit. The phrase is a short and easy one. It accurately describes, not simply the ideal of Christian life, but even in a fair degree its actual condition. For the word “led” must be admitted to suggest something more than spiritual direction as of a guide to duty who may or may not be followed. It is true enough that the Paraclete is given to shed light on the path of right conduct across the perplexing situations of life. But so outward and formal a conception fails to exhaust the functions of the indwelling Spirit. The word “led” implies that our Leader moves us along whither He would have us go, so that we yield ourselves to His reasonable and righteous impulses (ἄγονται, Rom_8:14). For this is His manner of leading. He is the inspirer as well as the suggester of conduct. He persuades and enables us to walk in the way, as well as points out where it lies. If we are “led” by the Spirit, that means that to some extent we are day by day amending our ways, exerting ourselves successfully to do right, and making substantial progress in virtue. Nor is it foreign even to the word itself, far less to the nature of the case, that I should speak thus of a Christian’s own exertion and active progress in spiritual life. Unquestionably the word “led” describes the attitude of the believer as in some sense or to some extent a passive one. It means that he lets himself be acted upon. He submits to the operation of a superhuman force. That is true; and without some such force from above, it is impossible to see how human beings are to be led aright. All the same the phrase hints that a man is not merely passive under the action of the Spirit. To be “led” is a state proper to a rational and self-determining creature. It is not to be pushed like a machine or driven like dumb cattle. God acts upon us as one moral agent who is mighty and the source of influence can act upon another moral agent who is feeble and open to influence—that is to say, by secretly instigating or persuading the will to choose freely what is good. No doubt, this cannot be said to exhaust the mysterious operations of the Spirit of life; since being our Maker and Re-Maker, He has His peculiar divine sphere of action behind conscious choice, among those hidden tendencies, powers, and aptitudes which constitute human nature itself. Of this we can say little to purpose. But, so soon as the life reveals itself in consciousness, it is obvious that the Spirit’s leading is so far from shutting out the man’s own activity or freedom that on the contrary it implies it. That the apostle recognised this active side of Christian experience is clear enough from the hortatory cast into which this first paragraph is thrown at its opening. He tells the Romans how they owed it to the blessed One who stooped to be their leader that they should “mortify the deeds of the body.” They were to this extent His “debtors,” as he puts it. Since God has in His grace approached and entered into man to be his guide to everlasting life, it is, so to say, the least thing man can do to give himself heartily up to such celestial guidance. The practical issue in every real Christian must be, as a matter of fact, open to observation, that his conduct does move on the whole along lines which are laid down by God in His word. Explain the mechanism how you please, here at least is the ascertainable result.

II. On the basis of this simple matter of fact, St. Paul moves forward to the second point in developing his transition from “life” to “glory.” It is this: wherever you find submission to divine guidance you have evidence of a divine birth. We have, in fact, no other mark of that sacred and lofty relationship, the noblest belonging to our nature, save character. With such sober, homely, and solemn teaching as this it is easy to see how the gospel erects a barrier against devout delusions such as may readily spring out of religious enthusiasm. It frequently occurs that persons persuade themselves they are the favourites or the children of God on the ground of some vivid experience they have undergone which they take to be “conversion,” or because they have been the subject of a surprising vision, a bright light beheld in prayer, or a sudden calm of mind which they feel certain could only have had a heavenly origin. Nothing can well prove more perilous to character than the security which arises from such a source. For a man to turn away from the severe moral test of obedience in duty in order to build his confidence on emotions, dreams, mental impressions, or any other non-ethical evidence of piety, is to desert the safe guidance of truth and run grievous risk of spiritual shipwreck. The shores of religious experience are strewn thick with the shattered reputations of men who perished on this sunken rock. On the other hand, when a devout person is actually walking closely in the steps of Christ, being led by His Spirit to maintain a godly and watchful temper in daily behaviour, there is a certain internal witness to his divine birth from which he may legitimately take comfort. Wherever such a persuasion as this is found within the breast it is a secret possession for him who has it. No stranger may intermeddle with it. No outsider can ever be made aware of it. It justifies itself only to the soul in which it dwells. It is the witness of God within the man; not the same thing as an inference of the judgment based on the evidence of conduct. True, it needs, as I said, to be sustained or corroborated by a most scrupulous behaviour, else what is called the “witness of the Spirit” may be nothing but a self-imposition. Still, where it is genuine, it is simply a matter of immediate personal consciousness. It is the heart of the son becoming conscious of itself and of its Father as united in one act of mutual trust and love. From a heart so near to God, so open to Him, so humbly bold in its access to Him, so reverently affectionate in its embrace of Him, why may not words of childlike familiarity well out with a happy unconsciousness of their own daring? To its lips may there not come without blame a spontaneous cry like the “Abba!” of Jesus Himself?

III. If on solid grounds a believer has made sure Paul’s second arch in this brief bridge which spiritual logic builds from earth to heaven, then he is prepared to go on to the third and last: “If sons, then heirs.” There is no need to institute any curious inquiry here about either the Hebrew or the Roman law of inheritance, as if the apostle’s argument turned upon such niceties. A lawful and beloved son shares his father’s estate all the world over. He who belongs to God’s family may with safety leave the question of his future inheritance in the hands of a parent who is too generous and too opulent to leave any child without a portion.—Dr. Dykes.

Heirs.

I. Then the Christian is going to a rich home and a glorious future.—Therefore he ought not to be too much elated or depressed by the pleasures or privations of the journey. An eye to the rest and glory at the end should keep him from getting weary of the way.

II. Then the Christian should not debase himself by an undue attachment to the things of time.—How unreasonable to see an “heir of God” so swallowed up in the world that he has neither taste nor time to pray, or make suitable efforts to get ready for his heavenly inheritance!

III. Then no man should speak of having made sacrifices in becoming a Christian.—Any person making such a declaration should blush to the roots of his hair, and ask God to forgive him for an utterance so untrue.

IV. Then an heir of God should be made “meet for his inheritance.”—Without a meetness for it, the inheritance would be a burden rather than a blessing. Our business here is to cultivate the manners, to learn the language, and acquire the tempers of our future abode. May we not forget our errand!

V. Then, in securing this meetness, the Christian may confidently expect divine aid.—As soon doubt the rising of the sun as that God would fail to aid and bless the man who is struggling to be pure and Christlike.—T. Kelly, D.D.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_8:15-17

All may be heard.—This is much for their comfort, that from whomsoever and whatsoever corner of the world prayers come up to Him, they cannot want acceptance. All languages, all countries, all places, are sanctified by Jesus Christ, that whosoever calls on the name of the Lord from the ends of the earth shall be saved. And truly it is a sweet meditation to think that from the ends of the earth the cries of souls are heard, and that the end is as near heaven as the middle, and the wilderness as a paradise, and that they who understand not one another have one living and loving Father that understands all their meanings. And as the different dialects of this body make no confusion, no Babel, but meet together, the crysent up by the Catholic Church, which is here scattered on the earth, ascends as one perfume or incense.—Binning.

Proof of sonship is holiness.—From these verses we may remark that the only infallible test of our being genuine disciples of Christ is our having that mind in us which was also in Him, and that the proof of our being “sons of God” consists in our living habitually under the influence of the Holy Spirit, in studying to discharge conscientiously all the duties to which we are called, and to avoid every sin against which we are warned in the Holy Scriptures. This we are enabled to accomplish by means of the aids of the Holy Ghost; for “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” It may be observed further that the dispositions with which the gospel calls us to worship God do not imply a slavish dread of His displeasure, but that filial reverence and confiding thankfulness with which the unspeakable mercy of the great Father of the universe ought to inspire all who are permitted to draw near to Him through the one Mediator between God and man.—Ritchie.

Concurrence of two witnesses.—How do the Spirit of God and your conscience bear witness together that you are the children of God? I reply, first, by the harmony of the dictates of conscience in the soul with the dictates of the Spirit in the Bible. It was enacted in the law of Moses that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word should be established. It is evident that in the case before us a single witness would be insufficient to prove you the children of God, and that a concurrence of the two is indispensably necessary. The concurrence of those two witnesses appears in the harmony of the dictates of conscience with the fruits or work of the Spirit in the soul. Now as the fruits of the Spirit are His witnesses—for by His fruits ye know Him—so conscience, discerning these fruits in itself and in all the faculties and affections of the soul, bears witness with the Spirit that you “in whom these fruits appear” are the children of God. The concurrence of these two witnesses appears in the harmony of the dictates of conscience with the dictates of the Spirit as living witnesses. The language of the text conveys the idea of living personality in the Spirit of God as well as in our own spirit. It is not a mere indirect or passive testimony that is given by conscience, as of Abel’s faith or sacrifice, “by which he being dead yet speaketh,” but the direct testimony of a living witness.—Parlane.

Miraculous interceptions not now to be expected.—But it may be asked, Was the witness of the Spirit limited to that age? and have Christians in the present period no reason to look for it? To these questions we cannot hesitate in replying that the witness of the Spirit is common to all ages. But it must appear somewhat presumptuous to expect, in the present state of the world, those visible and miraculous communications of the gifts of the Holy Spirit which were necessary for promoting the first establishment of the Christian religion. The witness which we are now entitled to look for is therefore so far different from what it then was, that, generally speaking, it does not consist in a special revelation to individuals, intimating their adoption into the family of Christ; nor in Such sensible communications as were common in the apostolic age, and which were perfectly intelligible and obvious to others, as well as to the persons receiving them. But it consists in the inward and unseen co-operation of the divine Spirit, which manifests itself by its effects, producing the filial temper, or what, in the preceding verse, the apostle calls “the Spirit of adoption.” We presume not indeed to limit the operation of the Spirit, or to maintain that this is now the only method in which His influence is imparted; but we are entitled to think that miraculous interpositions for satisfying the minds of individuals do not constitute the usual way in which God deals with mankind, and that those silent and unostentatious influences which promote the sanctification of our nature, without abridging our free agency, are the common methods by which “the Spirit now beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”—Ritchie.

God’s sons have emanations of God’s love.—The communication of God Himself, not that we shall ever acquire God’s infinite attributes, or that He will cease to be God alone, but such emanations of His love and wisdom and glory will flow into our souls as to fill us with the fulness of God, or with Godlike wisdom, holiness, love, and blessedness. “What comes nearer to a communication of Himself into us or to our having a portion in the divinity than our being made like unto Him? It would look as if the circumstances of our seeing Him led, by a sort of causal or influential energy, to the circumstance of our being assimilated to Him—as if we gathered, by a sort of radiation from His glory, the reflection of a kindred glory upon our own persons—as if His excellences passed unto us when ushered into His visible presence, and became ours by sympathy, or ours by transmission. He does not part with His character; but He multiplies His character by the diffusion of it through all the members of the blest household that is above; and they may be most significantly called heirs of God—may be most significantly said to have God for their portion, God for their inheritance, when not only admitted to the full and immediate sight of Him, but when the efficacy of that sight is to actuate and inspire them with His very affections, to cover and adorn them with His very spiritual glories.”—John Howe.

“For the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”—Here the apostle shows the ground of our union and communion with Christ, because, having His Spirit, we are of necessity His. What ties and makes one things far asunder but the same Spirit of life in both? So that Spirit which is in Him, a full, running-over fountain, dropping down, and being also infused, unites us unto Him; yea, that Spirit doth tie me as fast unto Christ as any joint ties member to member, and so makes Christ dwell in mine heart. So that now by this means we are inseparably united unto Him. For, I pray you, what is it that makes a member to be a member to another? Not the nearness of joining, but the same quickening spirit and life which is in both and which causeth a like motion. By the same Spirit I know I am conveyed into Christ and united unto Him. “The testimony of our spirit” I conceive to be when a man hath taken a survey of those excellent things belonging unto justification and sanctification, when according to the substantial truths which I know in the word belonging thereunto I observe and follow as fast as I may what is there commanded. This is the groundwork of the witness of our spirit. If a man be in the faith, and do believe the word, and if in this case the Spirit come and fill the heart with joy, then all is sure and well.—Sibbes.

A real participation.—It is a real participation. It is not a picture, but a nature: it is divine. God doth not busy Himself about apparitions. It is a likeness, not only in actions, but in nature. God communicates to the creature a singular participation of the divine vision and divine love: why may He not also give some excellent participation of His nature? There is a nature, for there is something whereby we are constituted the children of God. A bare affection to God doth not seem to do this. Love constitutes a man a friend, not a son and heir by generation. The apostle argues, “If children, then heirs.” He could not argue in a natural way, If friends, then heirs. And the Scripture speaks of believers being the children of God by a spiritual generation as well as by adoption. So that grace, which doth constitute one a child of God, is another form whereby a divine nature is communicated. Generation is the production of one living thing by another in the likeness of its nature, not only in the likeness of love; so is regeneration. Were not a real likeness attainable, why should those exhortations be, of being holy as God is holy, pure as He is pure? The new creature receives the image of God: not as a glass receives the image of a man, which is only an appearance, no real existence, and though it be like the person, yet hath no communion with its nature; but as wax receives the image of the seal, which though it receive nothing of the substance, yet receives exactly the stamp, and answers it in every part. So the Scripture represents it: “Ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Eph_1:13). Something of God’s perfections are in the new creature by way of quality which are in God by way of essence. In a word, it is as real a likeness to God as the creature is capable of—laid in the first draughts of it in regeneration, and completed in the highest measures in glory.—Charnock.

Spirit of adoption.—The Spirit received is more than the spirit of mere freedom: it is the spirit of “adoption”—the dearest, the most intimate, the most delightful of all kinds of freedom, that of a child under a kindly indulgent, a loved and loving father. This the Spirit imparts by means of the truth—making known to our minds the character of God as it appears in the gospel, as the God of love, “in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself,” “delighting in mercy.” It is by leading the mind into this view of the divine character and relation to the guilty that the Spirit overcomes the enmity of the carnal mind, and fills the soul with love to God, with desire after, with joy and confidence in Him. It is thus that “by the Spirit we cry, Abba, Father”—not merely using the words, but being inspired with the dispositions and tempers of mind that belong to the endearing relation. It is the language of affection, of liberty of conscience, of confident expectation, of filial intimacy, of happiness unfelt before. The words are nothing. Alas! how many have hundreds of times used the form of address whose hearts have been strangers to the spirit which the use of it implies! How often has the invocation of the Lord’s prayer been used, “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” while there has been nothing but the moving of the lips from the power of habit and of association with time and place—nothing of the heart of a loving, confiding, expecting child! In using both the Syro-Chaldaic word and the Greek for the same relation the apostle probably meant to convey the idea of the union of Jew-and Gentile under the gospel, in addressing the same God by the same endearing appellation. Or else he uses the Syriac, and simply explains it by the Greek—“We cry Abba[which is] Father.”—Dr. Wardlaw.

Gratitude to the divine Spirit.—We owe much, in one sense we owe everything, to the Spirit’s influences. To Him we owe our regeneration. To Him we owe our perseverance in faith and holiness. To Him we owe all the present joys and all the future hopes, as they exist and are experienced in our hearts, of God’s salvation. The spiritual life in its first elements, and in all its variety of subsequent exercises and enjoyments, is His work. He commences it. He maintains, and forwards, and perfects it. We are too apt to confine our gratitude to the Father and the Son, probably from two causes:—The work of Christ in assuming our nature, and suffering and dying for us, and as commissioned by the Father so to do, has in it something more external and palpable, something on which the mind can more readily realise to its conceptions, than the work of the Spirit, which, in as far as regards the personal application of that work, is inward and spiritual; imperceptible except in its effects, and frequently undistinguishable in our consciousness from the ordinary operations of mind. This is the case with the manner in which He helps our infirmities in prayer, and with all His other operations in the soul. We see it not, we hear it not. It does not even in imagination embody itself to any of our senses; and even when most conscious of the effect we are not sensible of the influence which produces it. And, moreover, we justly regard the Spirit as the gift of the Father and the Son, and are in danger of forgetting the personality and the perfect voluntariness of the Spirit Himself in the whole of His part in the work of our redemption. It is to the work of Christ we are instructed to look for a sense of pardon, for peace and hope and joy and all spiritual excitement; and while that is the object of our contemplation, we are in danger of forgetting the necessity of the Spirit’s influence to our deriving from it any saving benefit. The Father sent and gave the Son; the Son came and gave Himself; the Spirit, though sent by the Father and the Son, performs His part, as regenerator and sanctifier, with the same personal delight and satisfaction. Let us cherish gratitude to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—ONE GOD.—Dr. Wardlaw.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8

Rom_8:16. Confidence.—The celebrated Philip de Morney, prime minister of Henry IV. of France, one of the greatest statesmen and the most exemplary Christian of his age, being asked, a little before his death, if he still retained the same assured hope of future bliss which he had so comfortably enjoyed during his illness, he made this memorable reply: “I am as confident of it, from the incontestable evidence of the Spirit of God, as I ever was of any mathematical truth from all the demonstrations of Euclid.”

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

8:15 you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children: According to Greco-Roman customs of adoption, a man had the right to adopt a son and to confer on that child all the legal rights and privileges that would be given to a natural child. This practice extended even to the imperial family. The Roman emperor Julius Caesar adopted Octavian as his heir; Octavian, using the name Augustus, later ruled the Roman Empire. Paul’s concept of adoption is also rooted in the Old Testament and Judaism (Exod 4:22; Deut 1:31; Hos 11:1; see also Rom 9:4; Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5). • Abba: This word was used in an intimate family context (“Daddy”). Jesus used this word to address God (Mark 14:36); all those who become children of God through Jesus have the privilege of addressing God in the same way.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rom 8:15. Γὰρ, for) This word has reference to sons in the preceding verse.—πνεῦμα δουλείας, the spirit of bondage) The Holy Spirit was not even in the Old Testament a Spirit of bondage; but He so unfolded His power in the case of those believers, in whom He then dwelt, that there however was lurking, beneath, a feeling and sense, which carried with it something of bondage, inasmuch as being in the case of those who [under the law] were still but children, Gal 4:1.—πάλιν, again) as formerly [under the law]. The Romans in their state as Gentiles had had groundless [vain] fear; but not the spirit of fear, as those had had, into whose place the Gentiles had come. The Church of all ages is, as it were, one individual, moral person; so the word, again, Gal 4:9; Gal 5:1.—εἰς φόβον, to fear) See Heb 2:15, note.—υἱοθεσίας, of adoption) See Gal 4:1, etc.—κράζομεν, we cry) one and all. Cry is a word implying vehemence, accompanied with desire, confidence, a just claim, perseverance. And the Holy Spirit himself cries: Abba, Father, Gal 4:6, note. [If, while you are alive, you have not attained to this experience, it ought to be the subject of lamentation to you, and you ought eagerly to seek it; but if you have attained it, see that you joyfully continue in it.—V. g.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_8:15 assigns the ground for Rom_8:14 in application to the readers. For ye received not, when the Holy Spirit was communicated to you, a spirit of bondage, that is, a spirit such as is the regulating power in the state of slavery. This view of the genitive (Fritzsche, de Wette, Philippi) is required by the contrast; because the υἱοθεσία, when the Spirit is given, is already present, having entered, namely, through faith and justification (Gal_4:6). Hence it cannot, with others (Köllner, Rückert, Baumgarten-Crusius, Hofmann, Reithmayr, following Theodore of Mopsuestia and others), be taken as the genitive of the effect (who works bondage). This also holds against Lipsius, Rechtfertigungslehre, p. 170.

πάλιν εἰς φόβον] again to fear, conveys the aim of the (denied) ἐλάβ. πν. δουλ., so that πάλιν, as its very position shows, gives a qualification, not of ἐλάβ., but of εἰς φόβ.: in order that ye should once more (as under the law working wrath) be afraid.

πνεῦμα υἱοθες.] i.e. a spirit which, in the state of adoption, is the ruling principle. Υἱοθεσία is the proper term for adoption (θέσθαι υἱόν, Plat. Legg. xi. p. 929 C; Arr. An. i. 23. 11); see Grotius and Fritzsche, in loc.; Hermann, Privatalterth. § 64. 15; comp. on Gal_4:5; also Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 340. Therefore not sonship in general (the Patristic υἱότης), as is the view of the majority; it is rightly rendered in the Vulgate: adoptionis filiorum; it does not represent believers as children of God by birth, but as those who by Gods grace (Eph_1:5-8) have been assumed into the place of children, and as brethren of Christ (Rom_8:29). Those thus adopted receive the Spirit from God, but are not begotten to sonship through the Spirit (Hofmann); comp. Weiss, l.c.

The repetition of ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα has a certain solemnity. Comp. on 1Co_2:7; Php_4:17.

ἐν ᾧ] in whom, as in the element that moves our inner life. Comp. on 1Co_12:3; Eph_2:18.

κράζομεν] we cry, the outburst of fervid emotion in prayer. Comp. on Gal_4:6. The transition to the first person takes place without special intention, under the involuntary pressure of the sense of fellowship.

Ἀββᾶ] See on Mar_14:36, and Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 20. From the three passages, Mark, l.c., Gal_4:6, and our present one, it may be assumed that the address אַבָּא (ܐܟܳܐ) was transferred from the Jewish into the Christian prayers, and in the latter received the consecration of special sanctity through Christ Himself, who as Son thus addressed the Father. This ἈΒΒᾶ gradually assumed the nature of a proper name; and thus it came that the Greek-praying Christians retained the Chaldee word in a vocative sense as a proper name, and further, in the fervour of the feeling of sonship, added along with it the specifically Christian address to the Father, using the appellative ὁ πατήρ in the appositional nominative (Kühner, II. 1, p. 42); so that the Abba, Father, now became fixed. It has been frequently supposed (and is still by Rückert, Reiche, and Köllner) that Paul added Ὁ ΠΑΤΉΡ by way of explanation. But against this view it may be urged, that in passages so full of feeling as Rom_8:15 and Gal_4:6, an interpretationand that too of a word which, considering the familiarity with Jewish modes of expression in the churches of Rome and Galatia, undoubtedly needed no explanation, and was certainly well known also through the evangelistic tradition as the form of address in prayer that had flowed from the mouth of Jesusseems unnatural and out of place. Besides, in all three instances, in Mark and Paul, uniformly the mere Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ is given without any formula of interpretation (τοῦτʼ ἔστι or the like) being added. Other viewsdestitute, however, of all proofare: that the custom which insinuating children have of repeating the fathers name is here imitated (Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Grotius); or that the emphasis affectus (Erasmus) is here expressed (either view would be possible only in the event of the passage standing as Ἀββᾶ, Ἀββᾶ); or even that it is meant to signify the Fatherhood of God for Jews and Gentiles (Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Estius, and others). With our view Philippi is substantially agreed. Against the objections of Fritzsche, who regards ὁ πατήρ as an explanatory addition grown into a habit, see on Gal_4:6.

The Father-name of God in the Old Covenant (Exo_20:2; Isa_63:16; Hos_11:1; Jer_3:19; Jer_31:9) only received the loftiest fulfilment of its meaning in the New Covenant through the υἱοθεσία accomplished in Christ. Comp. Umbreit, p. 287 f.; Schultz, alttest. Theol. II. p. 98.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 8:15 . Sons, οὐ γὰρ ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα δουλείας . The aorist refers to the time of their baptism, when they received the Spirit. It was not the Spirit proper to slaves, leading them again to shrink from God in fear as they had done when under the law of sin and death, but πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας , a spirit proper to those who were being translated from the servile to the filial relation to God. υἱοθεσία is a word used in the N.T. by Paul only, but “no word is more common in Greek inscriptions of the Hellenistic time: the idea, like the word, is native Greek” (E. L. Hicks, quoted in S. and H.), see Gal 4:5 , Eph 1:5 . The word serves to distinguish those who are made sons by an act of grace from the only-begotten Son of God: τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱὸν Rom 8:3 , τοῦ ἰδίου υἱοῦ Rom 8:32 . But the act of grace is not one which makes only an outward difference in our position; it is accomplished in the giving of a spirit which creates in us a new nature. In the spirit of adoption we cry Abba, Father. We have not only the status, but the heart of sons. κράζομεν (often with φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ) is a strong word: it denotes the loud irrepressible cry with which the consciousness of sonship breaks from the Christian heart in prayer. The change to the first person marks Paul’s inclusion of himself in the number of those who have and utter this consciousness; and it is probably this inclusion of himself, as a person whose native language was “Hebrew” (Act 21:40 ), to which is due the double form Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ . The last word certainly interprets the first, but it is not thought of as doing so: “we cry, Father, Father”.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 15. The ancients were much perplexed to explain this expression: Ye have not received a spirit of bondage. It seemed to them to imply the idea, that a servile spirit had been given to the readers previously by God Himself. Hence the explanation of Chrysostom, who applied the spirit of bondage to the law. This meaning is inadmissible. It would be preferable to understand it of the mercenary and timid spirit which accompanied legal obedience. But could Paul possibly ascribe this to a divine communication? If we connect the adverb πάλιν, again, as we should do, not with the verb ἐλάβετε, ye received, but only with the regimen εἰς φόβον, to fear, there is nothing in the expression obliging us to hold that Paul has in view an anterior divine communication; for the meaning is this: “The Spirit which ye have received of God is not a servile spirit throwing you back into the fear in which ye formerly lived.” Comp. 2Ti 1:7. The character of heathen religions is in fact the sentiment of fear (δεισιδαιμονία, Act 17:22). And was it not in some respects the same among the Jews, though with them the fear of Jehovah took a more elevated character than the fear of the gods among the Gentiles? The feeling with which the Spirit of God fills the believer’s heart is not fear, suited to the condition of a slave, but the confidence and liberty which become a son.

The word spirit might here be regarded as denoting simply a subjective disposition; as in that word of the Lord in reference to Sennacherib (Isa 37:7): “I will put such a spirit in him, that he will return, to his own land;” comp. 1Co 4:21 : a spirit of meekness; Rom 11:8 : a spirit of slumber. Here it would be the filial sentiment in relation to God. What might support this subjective meaning of the word spirit, is the strongly emphasized contrast between this verse and the following, where the objective meaning is evident: “The Spirit Himself beareth witness”...Nevertheless it is impossible, if we consider the connection between Rom 8:15 and the preceding verse, not to see in the Spirit of adoption, of which Paul here speaks, the Spirit of God Himself; comp. especially Gal 4:6, a passage so like ours, and where there is no room for uncertainty. The difference between Rom 8:15-16, so far as the meaning of the word spirit is concerned, is not the difference between an inward disposition and the Spirit of God, but rather that which distinguishes two different modes of acting, followed by one and the same Holy Spirit. In the former case, the operation of the Spirit makes itself felt by means of a personal disposition which He produces in us; in the second case it is still more direct (see on Rom 8:16).

The Spirit of adoption is the Spirit of God, in so far as producing the spiritual state corresponding to sonship; He may even be called: the Spirit of the Son Himself, Gal 4:6. He puts us relatively to God in the same position as Jesus, when He said: Father! The term υἱοθεσία, adoption, reminds us of the fact that Jesus alone is Son in essence (υἱὸς μονογενής, only son). To become sons, we must be incorporated into Him by faith (Eph 1:5).

The pronoun ἐν ᾠ, in whom, shows that it is under the inspiration of the filial sentiment produced in us by this Spirit that we thus pray, and the term cry expresses the profound emotion with which this cry of adoration goes forth from the believing heart.

Abba is the form which the Hebrew word ab, father, had taken in the Aramaic language, commonly spoken in Palestine in the time of Jesus. It was thus Jesus spoke to God when He called Him Father; comp. Mar 14:36. It has been thought Paul employed the form here, because he made use of it habitually in his own prayers, and that he added the Greek translation: ὁ πατήρ, father, in writing to the Romans and to the Galatians, because the Aramaic was unintelligible to them as former Gentiles. But the employment of the expression (which occurs in three writings of the N. T.) must rest on a more general usage. Like the terms Amen, Hosanna, Hallelujah, this word Abba had no doubt passed from the liturgical language of the primitive Judeo-Christian church into general ecclesiastical language. By adapting this sacred form of address, which had passed through the mouth of Jesus Himself, to the worship of Christians, not only was there a compliance with the command: “When ye pray, say: Our Abba (our Father), who art in heaven,” but the feeling of the whole church seemed to blend with that of its High Priest, who had prayed, using the same term for Himself and His brethren. From regard to Greek-speaking Christians, and neophytes in particular, the custom was probably followed of adding the Greek translation: ὁ πατήρ, father, as is done by Mark. Augustine and Calvin suppose that it was meant, by using these two forms in juxtaposition, to express the union of Jewish and Gentile Christians in one spiritual body. This hypothesis has no great probability.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_8:15

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, etc. That is, The Holy Spirit, which you have received, does not produce a slavish and anxious state of mind, such as those experience who are under the law; but it produces the filial feelings of affection, reverence, and confidence, and enables us, out of the fullness of our hearts, to call God our Father.

The phrase, the spirit of bondage, may mean a feeling or sense of bondage, as spirit of meekness, 1Co_4:21, may mean meekness itself; and spirit of fear, 2Ti_1:7 fear itself. This use of the word spirit is not uncommon. Or it may mean the Holy Spirit as the author of bondage: Believers have not received a Spirit which produces slavish feelings, but the reverse. The context is decidedly in favor of this view: because Paul has been speaking of the Holy Spirit as dwelling in Christians. This Spirit is that which they have received, and is the author of their characteristic feelings. In the words again to fear, there is an evident allusion to the state of believers prior to the reception of this, Spirit. It was a state of bondage in which they feared, i.e. were governed by a slavish and anxious apprehension of punishment. In this state are all unconverted men, whether Jews or Gentiles, because they are all under the law, or the bondage of a legal system.

Spirit of adoption; the Spirit that produces the feelings which children have. The Spirit is so called because he adopts. It is by him we are made the sons of God, and his indwelling, as it produces the character of sons, so it is the pledge or assurance of sonship, and of final salvation, Eph_1:14. The contrast here presented between the πνεῦμα δουλείας and the πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας, is parallel to that between δοῦλοι and υἱοί in Gal_3:23-26, Gal_4:1-8. Those who are unrenewed, and under the law, are δοῦλοι, slaves; they are under the dominion of servile fear, and they have no right to the inheritance. Those who are in Christ by faith and the indwelling of his Spirit, are sons, both in their inward state and feelings, and in their title to everlasting life. The interpretation followed by Luther, who renders πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας, ein kindlicher Geist, makes spirit, here mean disposition, feeling, and the genitive (υἱοθεσίας) the genitive of the source; the disposition which flows from adoption or sonship. But this is not only inconsistent with the context, but with such passages as Gal_4:6, where what is here called the Spirit of adoption, is said to be the Spirit of the Son of God, which God sends forth into our hearts. By which we cry, Abba, Father, i.e. which enables us to address God as our Father. Clamor, says Bengel, sermo vehemens, cum desederio, fiducia, fide, constantia. Abba is the Syriac and Chaldee form of the Hebrew word for father, and therefore was to the apostle the most familiar term. As such it would, doubtless, more naturally and fully express his filial feeling towards God, than the foreign Greek word. It is rare, indeed, that any other than our mother tongue becomes so interwoven with our thoughts and feelings, as to come up spontaneously when our hearts are overflowing. Hence, expressions of tenderness are the last words of their native language which foreigners give up; and in times of excitement, and even delirium, they are sure to come back. Paul, therefore, chose to call God his Father, in his own familiar tongue. Having used the one word, however, the Greek of course became necessary for those to whom he was writing. The repetition of two synonyms may, however, be employed to give fuller utterance to his feeling. This is Grotiuss idea: Imitatur puerorum patribus blandientium voces. Mos est blandientium repetere voces easdem. It is a very common opinion that Paul used both words, to intimate that all distinction between different nations was now done away. Significat enim Paulus, ita nunc per totum mundum publicatam esse Dei misericordiam, ut promiscue linguis omnibus invocetur: quemadmodum Augustinus observat. Ergo inter omnes gentes consensum exprimere voluit. Calvin. The former explanation seems more natural and satisfactory.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which sealeth our adoption in our minds, and therefore openeth our mouths.

He declareth and expoundeth by the way, in these two verses, by what right this name, to be called the children of God, is given to the believers: because saith he, they have received the grace of the Gospel, wherein God showeth himself, not (as before in the publishing of the Law) terrible and fearful, but a most benign and loving father in Christ, so that with great boldness we call him Father, that holy Ghost sealing this adoption in our hearts by faith.

By the Spirit is meant the holy Ghost, whom we are said to receive, when he worketh in our minds.

Which fear is stirred up in our minds, by the preaching of the Law.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

For, &c.--"For ye received not (at the time of your conversion) the spirit of bondage," that is, "The spirit ye received was not a spirit of bondage."

again--gendering.

to fear--as under the law which "worketh wrath," that is, "Such was your condition before ye believed, living in legal bondage, haunted with incessant forebodings under a sense of unpardoned sin. But it was not to perpetuate that wretched state that ye received the Spirit."

but ye have received--"ye received."

the spirit of adoption, whereby--rather, "wherein."

we cry, Abba, Father--The word "cry" is emphatic, expressing the spontaneousness, the strength, and the exuberance of the final emotions. In Gal 4:6 this cry is said to proceed from the Spirit in us, drawing forth the filial exclamation in our hearts. Here, it is said to proceed from our own hearts under the vitalizing energy of the Spirit, as the very element of the new life in believers (compare Mat 10:19-20; and see on Rom 8:4). "Abba" is the Syro-Chaldaic word for "Father"; and the Greek word for that is added, not surely to tell the reader that both mean the same thing, but for the same reason which drew both words from the lips of Christ Himself during his agony in the garden (Mar 14:36). He, doubtless, loved to utter His Father's name in both the accustomed forms; beginning with His cherished mother tongue, and adding that of the learned. In this view the use of both words here has a charming simplicity and warmth.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 15. Ye have not received the spirit of bondage] All that were under the law were under bondage to its rites and ceremonies; and as, through the prevalence of that corrupt nature with which every human being is polluted, and to remove which the law gave no assistance, they were often transgressing, consequently they had forfeited their lives, and were continually, through fear of death, subject to bondage, Heb 2:15. The believers in Christ Jesus were brought from under that law, and from under its condemnation; and, consequently, were freed from its bondage. The Gentiles were also in a state of bondage as well as the Jews, they had also a multitude of burdensome rites and ceremonies, and a multitude of deities to worship; nor could they believe themselves secure of protection while one of their almost endless host of gods, celestial, terrestrial, or infernal, was left unpropitiated.

But ye have received the Spirit of adoption] Ye are brought into the family of God by adoption; and the agent that brought you into this family is the Holy Spirit; and this very Spirit continues to witness to you the grace in which ye stand, by enabling you to call God your Father, with the utmost filial confidence and affection.

The Spirit of adoption] Adoption was an act frequent among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans; by which a person was taken out of one family and incorporated with another. Persons of property, who had no children of their own, adopted those of another family. The child thus adopted ceased to belong to his own family, and was in every respect bound to the person who had adopted him, as if he were his own child; and in consequence of the death of his adopting father he possessed his estates. If a person after he had adopted a child happened to have children of his own, then the estate was equally divided between the adopted and real children. The Romans had regular forms of law, by which all these matters were settled.-See in Aulus Gellius. Noctes Attic., vol. i. cap. xix. p. 331. Edit Beloe; and the note there.

Whereby we cry, Abba, Father.] The reason why the Syriac and Greek words are here conjoined, may be seen in the note on Mr 14:36, to which the reader is referred. The introduction of the words here shows that the persons in question had the strongest evidence of the excellence of the state in which they stood; they knew that they were thus adopted; and they knew this by the Spirit of God which was given them on their adoption; and let me say, they could know it by no other means. The Father who had adopted them could be seen by no mortal eye; and the transaction being purely of a spiritual nature, and transacted in heaven, can be known only by God's supernatural testimony of it upon earth. It is a matter of such solemn importance to every Christian soul, that God in his mercy has been pleased not to leave it to conjecture, assumption, or inductive reasoning; but attests it by his own Spirit in the soul of the person whom he adopts through Christ Jesus. It is the grand and most observable case in which the intercourse is kept up between heaven and earth; and the genuine believer in Christ Jesus is not left to the quibbles or casuistry of polemic divines or critics, but receives the thing, and the testimony of it, immediately from God himself. And were not the testimony of the state thus given, no man could possibly have any assurance of his salvation which would beget confidence and love. If to any man his acceptance with God be hypothetical, then his confidence must be so too. His love to God must be hypothetical, his gratitude hypothetical, and his obedience also. IF God had forgiven me my sins, then I should love him, and I should be grateful, and I should testify this gratitude by obedience. But who does not see that these must necessarily depend on the IF in the first case. All this uncertainty, and the perplexities necessarily resulting from it, God has precluded by sending the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, by which we cry, Abba, Father: and thus our adoption into the heavenly family is testified and ascertained to us in the only way in which it can possibly be done, by the direct influence of the Spirit of God. Remove this from Christianity, and it is a dead letter.

It has been remarked that slaves were not permitted to use the term Abba, father, or Imma, mother, in accosting their masters and mistresses. The Hebrew canon, relative to this, is extant in the tract Berachoth, fol. 16. 2, העבדים והשפחות אין קורין אותם לא אבא פלוגי ולא אימא פלוגית haabadim vehashshephachoth ein korin otham, lo Abba N, velo Imma N. Men-servants and maid-servants do not call to their master Abba, (father,) N. nor to their mistress Imma, (mother,) N. And from this some suppose that the apostle intimates that being now brought from under the spirit of bondage, in which they durst not call God their Father, they are not only brought into a new state, but have got that language which is peculiar to that state. It is certain that no man who has not redemption in the blood of the cross has any right to call God Father, but merely as he may be considered the Father of the spirits of all flesh.

Some have supposed that the apostle, by using the Syriac and Greek words which express Father, shows the union of Jewish and Gentile believers in those devotions which were dictated by a filial spirit. Others have thought that these were the first words which those generally uttered who were made partakers of the Holy Spirit. It is enough to know that it was the language of their sonship, and that it expressed the clear assurance they had of being received into the Divine favour, the affection and gratitude they felt for this extraordinary blessing, and their complete readiness to come under the laws and regulations of the family, and to live in the spirit of obedience.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. He now confirms the certainty of that confidence, in which he has already bidden the faithful to rest secure; and he does this by mentioning the special effect produced by the Spirit; for he has not been given for the purpose of harassing us with trembling or of tormenting us with anxiety; but on the contrary, for this end — that having calmed every perturbation, and restoring our minds to a tranquil state, he may stir us up to call on God with confidence and freedom. He does not then pursue only the argument which he had before stated, but dwells more on another clause, which he had connected with it, even the paternal mercy of God, by which he forgives his people the infirmities of the flesh and the sins which still remain in them. He teaches us that our confidence in this respect is made certain by the Spirit of adoption, who could not inspire us with confidence in prayer without sealing to us a gratuitous pardon: and that he might make this more evident, he mentions a twofold spirit; he calls one the spirit of bondage, which we receive from the law; and the other, the spirit of adoption, which proceeds from the gospel. The first, he says, was given formerly to produce fear; the other is given now to afford assurance. By such a comparison of contrary things the certainty of our salvation, which he intended to confirm, is, as you see, made more evident. The same comparison is used by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he says, that we have not come to Mount Sinai, where all things were so terrible, that the people, being alarmed as it were by an immediate apprehension of death, implored that the word should be no more spoken to them, and Moses himself confessed that he was terrified;

“but to Sion, the mount of the Lord, and to his city, the heavenly Jerusalem, where Jesus is, the Mediator of the New Testament,” etc. (Hebrews 12:22,24.)

By the adverb again, we learn, that the law is here compared with the gospel: for the Son of God by his coming has brought to us this invaluable benefit, — that we are no longer bound by the servile condition of the law. You are not however to infer from this, either that no one before the coming of Christ was endued with the spirit of adoption, or that all who received the law were servants and not sons: for he compares the ministration of the law with the dispensation of the gospel rather than persons with persons. I indeed allow that the faithful are here reminded how much more bountifully God now deals with them than he did formerly with the fathers under the Old Testament; he yet regards the outward dispensation, in respect of which only we excel them: for though the faith of Abraham, of Moses, and of David, was superior to ours, yet as God kept them apparently under a schoolmaster, they had not advanced into that liberty which has been revealed to us.

But it must at the same time be noticed, that it was designedly, on account of false apostles, that a contrast was made between the literal disciples of the law, and the faithful whom Christ, the heavenly Teacher, not only addresses by words, but also teaches inwardly and effectually by his Spirit.

And though the covenant of grace is included under the law, it is yet far different from it; for in setting up the gospel in opposition to it, he regards nothing but what was peculiar to the law itself, as it commands and forbids, and restrains transgressors by the denunciation of death: and thus he gives the law its own character, in which it differs from the gospel; or this statement may be preferred by some, — “He sets forth the law only, as that by which God covenants with us on the ground of works.” So then persons only must be regarded as to the Jewish people; for when the law was published, and also after it was published, the godly were illuminated by the same Spirit of faith; and thus the hope of eternal life, of which the Spirit is the earnest and seal, was sealed on their hearts. The only difference is, that the Spirit is more largely and abundantly poured forth in the kingdom of Christ. But if you regard only the dispensation of the law, it will then appear, that salvation was first clearly revealed at that time, when Christ was manifested in the flesh. All things under the Old Testament were involved in great obscurity, when compared with the clear light of the gospel.

And then, if the law be viewed in itself, it can do nothing but restrain those, devoted to its miserable bondage, by the horror of death; for it promises no good except under condition, and denounces death on all transgressors. Hence, as there is the spirit of bondage under the law, which oppresses the conscience with fear; so under the gospel there is the spirit of adoption, which exhilarates our souls by bearing a testimony as to our salvation. But observe, that fear is connected with bondage, as it cannot be otherwise, but that the law will harass and torment souls with miserable disquietness, as long as it exercises its dominion. There is then no other remedy for quieting them, except God forgives us our sin and deals kindly with us as a father with his children.

Through whom we cry, etc. He has changed the person, that he might describe the common privilege of all the saints; as though he had said, — “Ye have the spirit, through whom you and all we, the rest of the faithful, cry,” etc. The imitation of their language is very significant; when he introduces the word Father, in the person of the faithful. The repetition of the name is for the sake of amplification; for Paul intimates, that God’s mercy was so published through the whole world, that he was invoked, as Augustine observes, indiscriminately in all languages. His object then was to express the consent which existed among all nations. It hence follows, that there is now no difference between the Jew and the Greek, as they are united together. Isaiah speaks differently when he declares, that the language of Canaan would be common to all, (Isaiah 19:18;) yet the meaning is the same; for he had no respect to the external idiom, but to the harmony of heart in serving God, and to the same undisguised zeal in professing his true and pure worship. The word cry is set down for the purpose of expressing confidence; as though he said, “We pray not doubtingly, but we confidently raise up a loud voice to heaven.”

The faithful also under the law did indeed call God their Father, but not with such full confidence, as the vail kept them at a distance from the sanctuary: but now, since an entrance has been opened to us by the blood of Christ, we may rejoice fully and openly that we are the children of God; hence arises this crying. In short, thus is fulfilled the prophecy of Hosea,

“I will say to them, My people are ye: they in their turn will answer, Thou art our God.” (Hosea 2:23.)

For the more evident the promise is, the greater the freedom in prayer.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(15) Spirit of bondage.—The Greek corresponds very nearly to what we should naturally understand by the English phrase, “such a spirit as would be found in slaves.” The word “spirit” varies much in meaning in these verses. Here it is the “dominant habit or frame of mind;” in the next verse it is used both for the Spirit of God and the spirit of man.

Again to fear.—So as to take you back under the old terrorism of the Law. The Law, if it contained promises, was still more essentially a system of threats; for the threats took effect, while the promises remained ineffectual, because the Law could not be fulfilled.

Spirit of adoption.—That spirit which is characteristic of those who are taken to be sons, who, like the Christian at his baptism, are admitted into this relation of sonship.

Whereby we cry.—The intensity of the Apostle’s feeling comes out in this simple definition. Instead of any more formal elaboration of his meaning, he says the Spirit of adoption is that which prompts the impassioned cry, “Abba, Father.”

Abba, Father.—“Abba” is the Aramaic equivalent for father. The repetition is one of endearment and entreaty, taken from the natural impulse of children to repeat a beloved name in different forms. Comp. Newton’s hymn—

“Jesus, my Shepherd, Husband, Friend,

My Prophet, Priest, and King,” &c.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. have not received] Better, did not receive; a reference to definite past bestowal. See on ch. Rom_5:5, last note.

the spirit of bondage] of slavery.—The verse practically means “Ye received the Holy Spirit not as a Spirit of (connected with) slavery, but as a Spirit of (connected with) adoption.”—See Rom_6:19, where we have a seeming discord, but real and profound harmony, with this verse. The Holy Spirit’s influence leads the regenerate to “yield their members as slaves to righteousness;” but his method of compulsion (see ch. Rom_5:5) is such as to make their real subjection “perfect freedom,” because divinely filial.

again] As in the old days of their “ignorance,” when they knew God only as a justly offended King and Judge. Cp. Heb_2:14-15; 1Jn_4:18. It is scarcely needful to point out the difference between the “fear” of the unwilling slave, or criminal, and the reverent and sensitive “fear” of the child of God; (1Pe_1:17).

adoption] Same word as Gal_4:5; Eph_1:5. The relationship of God’s children to their Father is sometimes viewed as generative, for the change in their wills amounts to a change, as it were, of life and person—a new birth (see 1Pe_1:3; &c.): sometimes as adoptive, in respect of the divinely legal redemption which procures to them this inner change, and also in distinction from the essential and eternal Sonship of Christ, the “Own Son” of the Father.

whereby] Lit. in which; surrounded and animated by His influence.

we cry] Whether in supplication, or in praise. Observe the change again to the first person, suggesting St Paul’s sense of the holy community of the family of God.

Abba, Father] Same words as Mar_14:36; Gal_4:6.—The first word is the Chaldee for “Father.” St Paul places the Gr. equivalent after it, not for explanation, (which was surely needless, in view of the well-known use of the word by the Lord,) but probably because in prayer and praise the Gentile Christians themselves did so. To them the Chaldee word would sound as a quasi-Name, and would be as it were supplemented by their own word; q. d., “Our Father Abba.” So Meyer; who suggests that the word “Abba” was already familiar in Jewish prayers, but now specially sanctified for Christians by the Lord’s Gethsemane-prayer.—The present verse does not, of course, mean that the view of God as the Father of His People was unknown in O. T. (see e.g. Psa_103:13; Isa_63:16), but that the Gospel had both extended this view to others than Jews, and had intensified and glorified it by fully revealing the Eternal Son as the Firstborn among Brethren (Rom_8:29). The knowledge of the Father as our Father because the Father of the Son is among the greatest of the treasures of grace.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,.... By "the spirit of bondage" is meant, not the Spirit of God: for this is just the reverse of his character, who is a "free Spirit", or , "a Spirit of liberty"; and is contrary to his work and office, which is to show a soul its state of bondage by nature, and to deliver out of it; and though fear may arise from the convictions of sin, yet this he removes by discoveries of love; moreover, his work is to make application of grace and righteousness to sensible sinners, and to administer comfort to distressed minds, and make them meet for glory; and it is also contrary to the character of the persons in whom he dwells, who are the sons of God; besides, the Spirit of God, as a spirit of adoption, is in the text itself manifestly opposed to this spirit: but by it is intended a man's own spirit whilst in a state of unregeneracy, and particularly whilst under a work of the law; and it refers to that "pharisaical" spirit which prevailed among the Jews. Men in a state of nature are under a spirit of bondage to the lusts of the flesh; by these they are captivated and enslaved, and the consequence of it is a fearful apprehension, when convicted, of death, judgment, and wrath to come. They are in slavery to the god of this world, who leads them captive, and by injecting into them fears of death, are subject to bondage. The Jews in particular were in bondage to the law, ceremonial and moral; to the ceremonial law, as circumcision, observation of days, and multitudes of sacrifices. This law was an handwriting of ordinances against them; it obliged them to keep the whole moral law; the sacrifices of it could not take away sin; the breach of it, being punishable with death, must unavoidably induce a "spirit of bondage unto fear": they were in bondage to the moral law, which naturally genders to it, as it demands perfect obedience, but gives no strength to perform; as it shows a man his sin and misery, but not his remedy, as it accuses charges with sin, and curses and condemns for moreover, a spirit of bondage is brought upon persons through it, when they seek for justification and salvation by the works of it, for such obey it with mercenary views, not from love, but fear; and their comforts rise and fall according to their obedience: now these believers, though they had formerly been under such a spirit of bondage, were now delivered from it; nor should they return to it again:

but ye have received the spirit of adoption, by which is designed not a spirit of charity, or love, or inherent grace: adoption is not owing to inherent grace, or is any part of it: regeneration and adoption differ; adoption makes men the children of God, regeneration makes them appear to be so by giving them the nature of children; adoption is not a work of grace in us, but an act of grace without us, having its complete being in the mind of God; it is antecedent to a work of grace, inherent grace is a consequence of it, though no man knows, or has the comfort of his adoption, until he believes: rather a filial child like spirit, such a spirit as becomes the children of God is here meant; a spirit of freedom with God, of reverence of him, and of love of him, and of obedience to him; springing from filial affection and without mercenary views; a meek, harmless, and inoffensive spirit. Though it seems best of all to understand by it the Holy Spirit of God, who is distinguished from the spirit of believers, Rom 8:16, and is called "the Spirit of his Son" in a parallel place, Gal 4:6, and stands opposed here to a spirit of bondage, and may be so called because as a spirit of grace he flows from adoption; and is the discoverer, applier, witness, and ratifier of the blessing of adoption; and is the pledge, earnest, or seal of the future adoption or eternal inheritance: now the Spirit is received as such from the Father and the Son into the hearts of believers, by the means of the Gospel, in order to make known their adoption to them, which is an instance of grace, and ought to be acknowledged; for

we cry Abba, Father: by the help of the spirit of adoption; we, the saints under the Gospel dispensation, in opposition to the legal one, under which they had not that freedom; "cry" which denotes an internal vehemency and affection of soul, and an outward calling upon God, as a Father, with confidence; "Abba, Father, Father" is the explanation of the word "Abba", and which is added for explanation sake, and to express the vehemency of the affection, and the freedom and liberty which belongs to children: the words in the original are, the one a Syriac word in use with the Jews, the other a Greek one, and denotes that there is but one Father of Jews and Gentiles. The word "Abba" signifies "my Father", and is expressive of interest and of faith in it; and read backwards is the same as forwards, God is the Father of his people in adversity as well as prosperity; it is the word used by Christ himself in prayer, and which he directs his people to; to say no more, it is a word which the Jews did not allow servants, only freemen to make use of, and to be called by;

"it is a tradition; (say they (b),) that servants and handmaids, they do not use to call , "father such-a-one, or mother such-a-one";''

in allusion to which the apostle suggests, that only freemen, such as have the spirit of adoption, and not servants or bondsmen, can make use of this word "Abba", or call God their Father.

(b) T. Hieros. Niddah, fol. 492. T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 16. 2. Massecheth Senachot, c. 1. sect. 13. Maimon. Hilch. Nechalot, c. 4. sect. 5.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Ver. 15. The spirit of bondage] Δουλειας, as 2Ti 1:7, Δειλειας. The law will convince the judgment; but it is the gospel that convinceth the lust and the affection, and so sendeth us to treat with God as a Father, by fervent prayer. The Spirit is here called a "spirit of bondage;" because by the law he enlighteneth a man to see his bondage and slavery to sin and Satan, and his subjection to God’s wrath and vengeance.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The spirit of bondage - The spirit that binds you; or the spirit of a slave, that produces only fear. The slave is under constant fear and alarm. But the spirit of religion is that of freedom and of confidence; the spirit of children, and not of slaves; compare the note at Joh 8:32-36.

Again to fear - That you should again be afraid, or be subjected to servile fear - This implies that in their former state under the Law, they were in a state of servitude, and that the tendency of it was merely to produce alarm. Every sinner is subject to such fear. He has everything of which to be alarmed. God is angry with him; his conscience will trouble him; and he has everything to apprehend in death and in eternity. But it is not so with the Christian; compare 2Ti 1:7.

The spirit of adoption - The feeling of affection, love, and confidence which pertains to children; not the servile, trembling spirit of slaves, but the temper and affectionate regard of sons. Adoption is the taking and treating a stranger as one’s own child. It is applied to Christians because God treats them as his children; he receives them into this relation, though they were by nature strangers and enemies. It implies,

That we by nature had no claim on him; That therefore, the act is one of mere kindness - of pure, sovereign love; That we are now under his protection and care; and, That we are bound to manifest toward him the spirit of children, and yield to him obedience. See the note at Joh 1:12; compare Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5. It is for this that Christians are so often called the sons of God.

Whereby we cry - As children who need protection and help. This evinces the habitual spirit of a child of God; a disposition,

To express toward him the feelings due to a father; To call upon him; to address him in the language of affection and endearing confidence; To seek his protection and aid.

Abba This word is Chaldee (אבא abba), and means “father.” Why the apostle repeats the word in a different language, is not known. The Syriac reads it. “By which we call the Father our Father.” It is probable that the repetition here denotes merely intensity, and is designed to denote the interest with which a Christian dwells on the name, in the spirit of an affectionate, tender child. It is not unusual to repeat such terms of affection; compare Mat 7:22; Psa 8:1. This is an evidence of piety that is easily applied. He that can in sincerity, and with ardent affection apply this term to God, addressing him with a filial spirit as his Father, has the spirit of a Christian. Every child of God has this spirit; and he that has it not is a stranger to piety.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Abba (Pater) St. John Chrysostom, hom. xiv. p. 115. Greek: oude euchomenous outos, &c.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This verse proves the former, that we are led by the Spirit of God, and are his children, and that by an effect of the Spirit in them, which is to enable them to call God

Father. He doth not here speak of two distinct Spirits, but one and the same Spirit of God, in different persons and at different times, is both

the spirit of bondage and

the Spirit of adoption.

The spirit of bondage seems to respect either that state of servitude, which the people of God were under in the time of the ceremonial law; see Gal 4:3,9; or it respects the publishing of the moral law upon Mount Sinai, which was with horror and fear. Compare Exo 19:16, with Heb 12:18-21; see Gal 4:24. Or else it respects that horror and slavish fear, which the Spirit of God doth work in men’s hearts and consciences, by the ministry of the law, when he opens the eyes of men to see they are in bondage and slavery to sin and Satan, and that they are subject and obnoxious to the wrath and vengeance of God; this is many times preparatory and introductory to their conversion; but when they are regenerated they are delivered from it: see Luk 1:74; Heb 2:15; 1Jo 4:18.

Objection. Many of God’s children are full of doubts and fears.

Answer. These are not always from the suggestions of God’s Spirit, but the misgivings of their own spirits. Some distinguish between the spirit of bondage and desertion; the children of God are delivered from the former, but exercised with the latter. The Spirit of God is called the Spirit of adoption, both because he works and effects it in us, and because he testifies and assures it to us. He might have said, the Spirit of liberty; the antithesis required it; but he said as much, when he called him the Spirit of adoption, for children are free.

Whereby we cry, Abba, Father; or, by whom we cry. Acceptable prayer is wrought in us by the Spirit, Rom 8:26.

Abba is a Hebrew or Syriac word, signifying Father; why then is the word Father added in the Greek? To signify, that God is the Father both of Jews and Gentiles, Rom 3:29; 10:12; or to show the double paternity that is in God, he is the Father of all men by creation, of believers only by grace and regeneration: or, rather, to denote the importunity and earnestness which ought to be in prayer; and so it agrees with the former word, crying. Ingeminations carry an earnestness with them. There are two places more where these two words are repeated or used together, Mar 14:36; Gal 4:6.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. Again—After having once been emancipated from it.

Spirit of adoption—Being adopted as children into God’s family, God has breathed into us the humble confidence of the child feeling himself at home in his father’s house.

Abba, Father—For the Hebrew and for the Greek our apostle furnishes this blessed word in both languages to indicate that both may claim the same divine paternity.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 15, 16. The Spirit received by Christians.

The Holy Spirit is the gift of God to his people in Christ promise of the Father;" the Comforter whose advent was foretold by Christ, accompanying Divine truth, and characterizing the new dispensation of God"s mercy and love. In this passage the Spirit is mentioned, not so much as the Gift of God, as in the aspects he assumes in the conscious experience of God"s people.

I THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY. Man in a state of sin is under bondage to the Law, to sin, to fear, and slavishness. But by the emancipating power of the Spirit, the disciple and friend of the Divine Saviour is set at liberty, is freed from the dominion of sin, from the trammels of the world, from the inner bondage of fear and distrust. He possesses "the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

II THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION. This is indeed a marvellous truth, a marvellous privilege. All mankind are the creatures of Divine power, and it is in this sense the poet affirmed, "We are all his offspring." The reflective man perceives that in a higher sense we are children of God, inasmuch as our reason and conscience are the reflection of the Divine nature. But it was reserved for Christianity, as the highest form of revelation, to introduce the conception of man"s spiritual sonship in Jesus Christ. The establishment of this relation is a proof of God"s condescending kindness. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God!" Here is no question of a merely external relationship; a change of heart, of character, of life, is here implied. Where this relation is realized, the cry, "Abba, Father!" ascends from the affectionate and filial heart.

III THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE SPIRIT OF WITNESS. The personality of the Spirit is compatible with the personality of the human recipient of his blessed influences. There is a unity, and yet a diversity. God"s Spirit. is in contact with the spirit of Christ"s disciple, and witnesses with it, assures of Divine favour and fatherhood. The Word is revealed to the soul; the soul is enlightened to apprehend the Word; the truth is realized, the privilege appropriated; the response is rendered. The same Spirit gives power to the Word and receptiveness to the heart, and brings, the two into exquisite sympathy and harmony. And this witness is effected, not by a vision or a voice, not by fancy or enthusiasm, but by Divine, conclusive evidence. The Spirit of truth and holiness manifests his presence and his power, by calling into existence the fruits of the Spirit, whose quality and abundance leave no room for doubting the Divinity of the agency to which they owe their existence.

The twofold fellowship.

A person may be the heir to a title and to a great estate, and yet, in some circumstances, he may in his minority and even afterwards be exposed to some privations. He may even be a homeless wanderer, thrown into uncongenial society and unfamiliar scenes and undesirable occupations. If such be the case, it may well happen that his experience may be profitable and serviceable. He may taste "adversity"s sweet milk, philosophy." He may learn many a lesson of self-control and self-denial, of forbearance, patience, and considerateness. His character may mature, his best qualities may be called out. He may learn to sympathize with the afflicted, and to make allowances for the tempted. And when the time comes for him to enter upon his inheritance, he may fulfil the duties of his exalted position all the more wisely and faithfully for the discipline he has passed through, stern and harsh though that experience may have been. In like manner, the Christian, who is a joint-heir with Christ, has appointed for him a period of probation, of humiliation, of spiritual conflict and suffering. This is the decree of infinite wisdom and love. Our Father would, by subjecting us to earth"s discipline, fit us for the heavenly inheritance, the eternal glory. The Christian"s exile is the preparation for his home, his inheritance, his crown.

I CHRISTIANS HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST IN SUFFERING. They may suffer for Christ. Doubtless, to Paul and to the early Christians, this was a familiar thought and a not infrequent experience. The apostles, the martyrs, and confessors, all in the primitive Church who by their steadfastness in the faith incurred men"s displeasure and hostility, were partakers of the sufferings of Christ. And in our own time, and amongst ourselves, there are those whose witness to the Saviour is borne amidst petty persecution and haft-concealed hostility from their unbelieving and scoffing companions. And, even amongst professing Christians, those who prefer fidelity to Christ and his gospel to compliance with current fashions and opinions must make up their minds to endure much for the Lord"s sake. There are, however, other senses in which Christians may be justly said to share Christ"s sufferings, to suffer with their Master.

1. There was anguish and distress peculiar to the Son of God. The burden of our sins he bore in his own Person; he "trod the wine-press alone;" he "bore our sins and carried our sorrows;" he "tasted death for every man." His sacrifice was his alone. But there was suffering which be endured because he lived in a sinful world, because he submitted to the buffetings of Satan and endured the contradiction of sinners. To Christ"s people their necessary contact with a sinful world is painful, even as such contact was conspicuously painful to the holy Saviour himself, who in character and conduct was emphatically "separate from sinners." As he also sorrowed over this sinful race, could not look upon the multitudes without grief and commiseration, could not gaze upon the guilty Jerusalem without weeping over it; so true Christians are constrained to sigh and cry for the abominations that abound in the world, for they have learned to look upon humanity with the eyes of their Lord himself.

2. Yet again, we are called to share our Master"s sufferings by reason of the temptations to which we are exposed. What Christ endured from the assaults of the tempter, the adversary, we can never know; yet the record of his temptation implies that it was the occasion to him of sore distress; "he suffered, being tempted." He only overcame through resistance and bitter strife. That this must be our experience is well known to every follower of the Lamb. "We wrestle not with," etc. "He knows what sore temptations mean, For he has felt the same. In this matter all the Lord"s servants must, in his own language, "deny themselves, take up the cross, and follow him." Their path is one not of compliance with the tempter, but of opposition to him. They die with their Lord unto sin; in this respect being crucified with him unto the world, knowing the fellowship of his sufferings, and being planted together in the likeness of his death.

3. There is a wider and more general sense in which we may be said to suffer with Christ. There are afflictions which are common to men as men, but which have to Christians a signification different from that which they have to others. All men have to endure, more or less, weakness and suffering of body, depression of mind, bereavements, changes in outward circumstances, and other afflictions providentially appointed or permitted. But to Christians these come as messages and monitions from the heavenly Father, and they have to be accepted in the spirit which the Lord Jesus has displayed and exemplified. When suffering and sorrow are borne in the spirit of him who said, "Not my will, O my Father, but thine be done," then there is evidence of fellowship with the Lord.

II CHRISTIANS SHALL HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST IN GLORY. It is a sign of God"s great condescension and fatherly kindness that he, in his Word, deigns to cheer and encourage his poor, suffering, struggling children, in their encounter with life"s ills, by the assurance that in due time the shadows shall flee away, and the bright morning shall break upon their sight. He does not even say merely, "Your sufferings shall come to an end; your toil and conflict shall be followed by repose." This is said; but, with it, something more. Victory, triumph, glory, festive joy, such is the prospect held out to us. To be told that we shall be glorified with Christ seems too much; it is only credible because it is the assurance of him who cannot lie. With regard to the glory of our Saviour, we have material for judging. Something of his proper outward glory appeared when he was transfigured; more when he was raised from the dead, and when he ascended on high. Yet his real glory was, and surely ever must be, spiritual. Exalted to the throne of heaven, our Saviours glory is to be discerned in the loyalty and affection with which he is regarded by human hearts, the joy with which his authority is practically acknowledged by the natures which have felt his love and holiness. Christ was, when here upon earth, in his humiliation, the same in character and in nature as now, but the hindrances to his recognition have been removed, and his glory is now apparent. Our Saviour himself intimated that his faithful people should participate in his approaching glory. They should sit on thrones of judgment. Having been with him in his tribulations, having drunk of his cup and received his baptism, they were appointed to reign with him and to see his glory. It was a lesson deeply impressed upon the minds of Christ"s companions. "If we suffer with him," said. one, "we shall also reign with him." They spoke of a crown which they believed to be reserved for them. They looked for an inheritance incorruptible and unfading. And the chief element in future blessedness and glory they deemed to be union and association with their Lord. To be ever with him, to see him as he is, this was all their desire and hope. There seems something so utterly alien to our poor, feeble, sinful humanity in the "glory" which is revealed as the future lot and life of the Christian, that it is not easy for a sober mind to take in the thought. Yet it is plainly taught that Christians shall appear with their Lord in glory, that they are called to eternal glory. This may be explained by two remarks. First, the chief glory is moral and spiritual; to be delivered from sin, and to be changed into the same image with Christ, that is glory. Secondly, whatever glory may attend the Lord"s people in the future life is simply that which he sheds. To be near Jesus is to receive from him something of that holy radiance which is native and proper to him, and ever streams from him.

PRACTICAL LESSONS.

1. Let those who have been bereaved of Christian kindred and friends learn to submit with resignation to the will of God. Concerning these who sleep in Jesus, we may well believe that their sufferings are over and their glory has begun.

2. Let those to whom the Christian life is a scene of trial and conflict cultivate patience and fortitude. Think not of your experience as something strange happening to you. It is the path which our Lord and all his followers have trodden before you.

3. Let those whose conflict has been protracted, and who must soon lay" down the weapons of the earthly warfare, cherish the hopes which are justified by God"s Word, and look forward with lowly faith to the glory of the heavenly inheritance.

The guidance of the Spirit.

Moses displayed a beautiful absence of jealousy when he cried, "Would to God that all the Lord"s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!" His wish is realized under the.Christian dispensation, where "the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." This gift is the fulfilment of Christ"s promise that his disciples should not be left "orphans," and our investiture with his Spirit is a testimony to the efficacy of the work of Christ. The Spirit operates silently but powerfully on the heart; though unseen, his presence is most real. Science acquaints us with subtle forces that work on matter. Place a bar of steel in the magnetic meridian with the north end downward, and, if struck with a wooden mallet, the bar will be magnetized.]No outward difference is perceptible, yet the particles have assumed a uniform direction, have acquired new properties. So does the Spirit impart a new tendency, a new nature, and the whole man is changed. The Spirit works not like the influences of our environment from without inwardly, but from within outwardly.

I THE LEADING FOR WHICH THAT OF THE SPIRIT IS SUBSTITUTED. It is called "self," or "the flesh," where the inimical power of the great adversary is the chief factor. The aim of the life may not be clear to the man possessed. He may seem to have no definable object of pursuit; led on now by one impulse, now by another, its force and persistency varying in all degrees. Some rely on their own native wisdom for the steerage of their course, others are governed by the maxims and customs of the society in which they move. The "spirit of the age" is a prevalent controlling force. In proportion as any one goal is kept in view, and "reached forth to" perseveringly, is the man esteemed strong and successful. And the Christian is strong according to the heartiness and fidelity with which he surrenders himself to the guidance of the Spirit. He acknowledges that "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

II THE ROAD TRAVELLED UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF THE SPIRIT. It is a heavenward journey; the affections are "set on things above." It begins with taking up the cross to follow Christ, and implies self-denial in order to please God. It is a pilgrimage. This world is not our rest, or our final home. It involves a warfare, for many foes beset our path, and there is no turning aside to By-path Meadows for the man under the influence of the Spirit. How the natural life is glorified and transfigured by this conception of the unseen hand impelling us! No man is ever harmed by the Spirit"s leading, and if he falls into a snare it is because he has mistaken the Divine indications of his route.

III ASCERTAINING THE MIND OF THE SPIRIT. We are not led blindfold and irresistibly; the reason is illumined, the emotions are quickened. All that strengthens the spiritual life contributes to the clearness with which we recognize the Spirit"s prompting, and to the readiness with which we yield to his gentlest touch. Prayer keeps open the communication with the spiritual realm. Ask for guidance before, not after, commencing an enterprise; nor expect the Holy Spirit to come in as a deus ex machina to rectify your errors. Compare your judgment and conduct with the precepts and principles of Scripture, and with the example of good men, especially of Jesus Christ. We are taught in his school. Like an artist intently studying some work of genius and imbibing its spirit, so meditate on Christ till you catch his enthusiasm for goodness and consecration to the will of God. Make the most of the seasons when you are blessedly conscious that you are "in the Spirit," be it on "the Lord"s day" or any other. It is sin that darkens our spiritual perceptions, as some accident to the body may blunt the finer sensations, may dull the hearing and dim the sight.

IV THE FAMILY LIKENESS WHICH THIS GUIDANCE IMPARTS. The Spirit of God enables us to realize our sonship. Hatred and disobedience and fear are exchanged for glad communion and willing service. We become increasingly like our Father, like our elder Brother Christ, and like the rest of the redeemed children. It is not identical sameness, but similarity, which results. Members of the same home may differ much in exact lineaments, yet the stranger can discern a family likeness. By his Spirit is the Saviour preparing his brethren for their heavenly home, to enter with intelligent zest into its enjoyments, the society of the angels and of the blest, into holier worship and higher service than we can render here. S.R.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye - Who are real Christians. Have not received the spirit of bondage - The Holy Ghost was not properly a spirit of bondage, even in the time of the Old Testament. Yet there was something of bondage remaining even in those who then had received the Spirit. Again - As the Jews did before. We - All and every believer. Cry - The word denotes a vehement speaking, with desire, confidence, constancy. Abba, Father - The latter word explains the former. By using both the Syriac and the Greek word, St. Paul seems to point out the joint cry both of the Jewish and gentile believers. The spirit of bondage here seems directly to mean, those operations of the Holy Spirit by which the soul, on its first conviction, feels itself in bondage to sin, to the world, to Satan, and obnoxious to the wrath of God. This, therefore, and the Spirit of adoption, are one and the same Spirit, only manifesting itself in various operations, according to the various circumstances of the persons.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Observe, 1. That there is a spirit of bondage, which the children of God do for some time receive, working fear in them. By the spirit of bondage understand those convictions and terrors of conscience which awakened persons labour under, when the law of God charges them home with the guilt of sin; and layest them under direful apprehensions of the wrath of God. The spirit of bondage is neither to be slighted, nor yet to be rested in; not to be slighted, because it is preparatory to conversion; and not to be rested in because it is like a spark of hell kindled in the conscience; it is as a bearded arrow shot into the conscience, which only the hand of God can pluck out.

Observe, 2. That the spirit of bondage to God’s children is succeeded by, and ends in a spirit of adoption; the signs of such a spirit are a child-like love to God, a child-like fear and hope, a child-like trust and dependence, and a child-like obedience to his commands.

Observe, 3. That God’s Holy Spirit, after he has once been a spirit of adoption never again becomes a spirit of bondage to the same soul, Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.

Observe, 4. That one principal work of the spirit of adoption is to enliven and embolden the soul in prayer, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you received the spirit of sonship, in which we cry out, Father, Father.” The “spirit of bondage” here mentioned does not refer to the unconverted, but the regenerated state, peculiar to the period of spiritual infancy. This passage is corroborated by Gal 4:1-7 (which you do well to read in this connection), setting forth spiritual servitude and sonship contrastively;

the former appertaining to the entire period of spiritual infancy, beginning at birth, i. e., regeneration, and running up to majority, i. e., sanctification, where you enter spiritual manhood. Upon examination you readily see that these two periods are but counterparts in the history of the same individual, the servile character predominating during spiritual infancy, while you need “nurses” and “guardians,” and the filial having pre-eminence during your majority, when you are competent to take care of yourself and consequently no longer under the and guardians. A dead man is not subject to law in any sense. Regeneration raises you from the dead and puts you under a legal regime of nurses and guardians in the visible church, till you reach the majority of entire sanctification, old Adam, who is under the law, being crucified, thus gloriously liberating you, so that you are “no longer under the law but under grace” (Chapter 6:14). We must not discriminate too widely between “servant” and “son” in this exegesis, so as to conclude that they are different individuals, for they are not, but one and the same; during the regenerated state, while under the law, which can only be satisfied by the crucifixion of Adam the First, the servile character predominating; while in the sanctified experience the filial relation comes to the front, throwing into eclipse the former period of spiritual infancy amid the cloudless glories of full salvation. Your son is as truly your heir from his infancy as he will ever be, though under the law of domestic government and frequently flogged for misdemeanor till he reaches adult age. Though after this epoch you treat him as a servant no more, but simply as a son, yet he is more obedient and actually serves you better than when, a naughty lad, you found the rod a valuable auxiliary. The old theology is here at random recognizing the dead church members as servants of God, though they had never been born of the Spirit. You see that is untrue, because the servant in this case is your child, who serves you like a slave during minority. Hence you see that all the servants of God are not simply His servants, but His children, denominated “servants” during a spiritual minority, but “sons” after they have reached majority. Hence it is flagrantly murderous to true diction to call these common sinning church members who have been born from above the “servants of God,” even though they be ever so loyal to the church and obedient to the preacher. That is a Romish heresy, now fearfully rapidly creeping into all the Protestant churches. God does not yoke up the devil’s cattle to pull the salvation wagon. He works none but His own oxen.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father . [That ye are the sons of God is apparent, as I say, because of the Spirit which leads and animates you, and which changes your own spirit. For, in your unsaved, unregenerate state you had a spirit of bondage, leading you to fear God, and his wrath; but when ye were baptized, and became regenerate, ye received a different spirit; viz.: the spirit of adoption or sonship, which dispels fear, and causes you, with confident gladness, to approach and address God as your Abba (which is, being interpreted, Father).]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. For ye did not receive the spirit of bondage. The time is referred to when they were born again, and entered the kingdom of God. They did not receive the spirit of bondage, of slavery to sin, so that they would obey its dictates, and thus be in fear of death. Instead, they received the Holy Spirit according to promise (Acts 2:38). The Spirit of adoption. The Spirit God bestows upon those who are accepted as his children. Paul was writing to the Romans, among whom the adoption of children, not their own by nature, was common. They would understand this to mean that those converted, or born again, are adopted as children of God; upon those thus adopted he bestows his Spirit; this Spirit in their hearts produces a loving trust that enables them to address God as Father. Abba, Father. Abba, Chaldee for Father.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

15, 16. Parenthetic, enforcing the description of Christians as sons.

15. ἐλάβετε. Again an appeal to baptism.

πάλιν. Though still δοῦλοι in a true sense (cf. Rom 6:18-19; Rom 6:22) the spirit in which they serve is not a spirit of slavery but of sonship.

πν. υἱοθεσίας. Cf. τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐ., Gal 4:6. It is a spirit of sonship because it is the effect of the Spirit of His Son; cf. 9.

υἱοθεσίας = the status of sons by adoption, sonship by adoption; cf. 23, Rom 9:4; Gal 4:5; Eph 1:6 only. It is the right of son and heir, given out of the natural order, as in the ease of Jacob. cf. Deissmann, Bibelstudien II. pp. 66, 67; the stress here is of course on the sonship, not on the way it came; cf. Heb 12:7.

ἐν ᾧ κ.τ.λ. Corresponds to εἰς φόβον of the preceding clause—not slaves to a master but sons to a Father: the reference seems to be direct to the ‘Lord’s Prayer,’ as the norm of Christian prayer, the new basis of appeal to GOD.

Ἀββά ὁ πατήρ. Cf. Mar 14:36; Gal 4:6. The repetition is not merely for interpretation, but for emphasis; of. S. H., Lft ad Gal. l.c[159], Chase, Texts and Studies, I. 3, p. 24.

[159] l.c. locus citatus

ὁ πατήρ. Nom. for voc. (not merely a Hebraism; of. Moulton, pp. 70, 235).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. πνεῦμα δουλείας. This is another subtle variation in the use of πνεῦμα. From meaning the human spirit under the influence of the Divine Spirit πνεῦμα comes to mean a particular state, habit, or temper of the human spirit, sometimes in itself (πνεῦμα ζηλώσεως Num 5:14, Num 5:30; πν. ἀκηδίας Isa 61:3; πν. πορνείας Hos 4:12), but more often as due to supernatural influence, good or evil (πν. σοφίας κ.τ.λ. Isa 11:2; πν. πλανήσεως Isa 19:14; πν. κρίσεως Isa 28:6; πν. κατανύξεως Isa 29:10 ( = Rom 11:8); πν. χάριτος καὶ οἰκτιρμοῦ Zec 12:10; πν. ἀσθενείας Luk 13:11; πν. δειλίας 2Ti 1:7; τὸ πν. τῆς πλάνης 1Jn 4:6). So here πν. δουλείας = such a spirit as accompanies a state of slavery, such a servile habit as the human πνεῦμα assumes among slaves. This was not the temper which you had imparted to you at your baptism (ἐλάβετε). The slavery is that of the Law: cf. Gal 4:6, Gal 4:7, Gal 4:24, Gal 4:5:1.

πάλιν εἰς φόβον: ‘so as to relapse into a state of fear.’ The candidate for baptism did not emerge from the terrors of the Law only to be thrown back into them again.

υἱοθεσίας: a word coined, but rightly coined, from the classical phrase υἱὸς τἰθεσθαι (θετὸς υἱός). It seems however too much to say with Gif. that the coinage was probably due to St. Paul himself. ‘No word is more common in Greek inscriptions of the Hellenistic time: the idea, like the word, is native Greek’ (E. L. Hicks in Studia Biblica, iv. 8). This doubtless points to the quarter from which St. Paul derived the word, as the Jews had not the practice of adoption.

Ἀββᾶ, ὁ πατήρ. 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 Mar 14:36 (‘Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee’) and in Gal 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 Mar 14:36) thinks that in the Gospel the word Ἀββᾶ only was used by our Lord and ὁ Πατήρ 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.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Spirit of bondage [πνευμα δουλειας] The Holy Spirit, as in Spirit of adoption. The Spirit which ye received was not a spirit of bondage. See ver. 4, under pneuma, 7.

Spirit of adoption [πνευμα υιοθεσιας] . The Spirit of God, producing the condition of adoption. Uioqesia adoption, is from uiJov son, and qesiv a setting or placing : the placing one in the position of a son. Mr. Merivale, illustrating Paul 's acquaintance with Roman law, says : "The process of legal adoption by which the chosen heir became entitled not only to the reversion of the property but to the civil status, to the burdens as well as the rights of the adopter - became, as it were, his other self, one with him... this too is a Roman principle, peculiar at this time to the Romans, unknown, I believe, to the Greeks, unknown, to all appearance, to the Jews, as it certainly is not found in the legislation of Moses, nor mentioned anywhere as a usage among the children of the covenant. We have but a faint conception of the force with which such an illustration would speak to one familiar with the Roman practice; how it would serve to impress upon him the assurance that the adopted son of God becomes, in a peculiar and intimate sense, one with the heavenly Father" (" Conversion of the Roman Empire ").

We cry [κραζομεν] . Of a loud cry or vociferation; expressing deep emotion.

Abba [αββα] . Compare Mr 14:36. A Syrian term, to which Paul adds the Greek Father. The repetition is probably from a liturgical formula which may have originated among the Hellenistic Jews who retained the consecrated word Abba. Some find here a hint of the union of Jew and Gentile in God. 45

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.