Who Are We?

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” Romans 8:14-15 NASB

Spirit of Adoption – Don’t you find Paul’s conjunction of pneuma (spirit) and huiothesias (sons) rather odd? Don’t we usually refer to believers as sons or daughters without the intervening notion of “spirit”? Why did Paul add the qualification? Why not just say that we have received adoption as sons? The answer lies in the Greek and Hebrew use of words about familial relationship.

In the ancient world of divine beings, “son” could refer to the celestial offspring of the gods, the divinely-chosen kings or the host of divine beings populating the spiritual world. It was common for pagan gods to have children, both spiritually and physically sired. YHVH is the exception, not the rule, in His legal claim on Israel, not as physically derived but as a result of God’s free resolve. But Paul is writing to an audience in the Greek world, even if that audience has Jewish believers within it. Therefore, Paul carefully avoids the implication that there is any similarity between the pagan gods begetting children and the election of YHVH. We are not children by the usual means of generation. We are children by the act of God as Spirit. God breathes life into what is mortal and corrupted and in that sense we are brought into the family through His free will, not as natural sons but as chosen ones.

What is the result? We have a Father. We are a part of the tribe, a child of the chief. What is the result? We can cry out, “Abba!” Once we lived under the rule of slavery. We acted as slaves and had the attitudes of slaves. Now we are adopted as sons and daughters and our attitudes and actions have changed. We enjoy a new lease on life, a new “spirit” within us. We breathe differently.

There are days when the idea of the Fatherhood of God seems distant. There are days when even my own role as father is a struggle, a concern, an expression of grief at the failure to be all that I wished to be for the children I brought into this world. It is difficult to find a sense of intimacy in those moments. When I am most aware of my own dereliction, I also discover that I am unable to see myself as a child of God. I am tempted to return to the spirit of slavery where all I had to do was make do. Some days it seems too much to be free. Those are the days when I need to remember that I am not released from obligation by being adopted. I am still a servant. I’m just not a slave. YHVH does not free me from the bondage of slavery in order to set me on a course of my own choosing. He frees me from bondage so that I may enter into obligation to Him. He is Father and I am child, even if there are times when I don’t feel like it. When those moments come (and they certainly will), I can cry out, “Abba!” He hears me!

There were times when my own children wished to cry “Abba!” to me and I did not hear. I was too preoccupied with myself. I set aside my obligation as father in order to take care of myself as slave. “Me first” led to my children’s silence. They stopped crying out because I failed to hear them. Not so with God. If I have the courage to overcome the personal deprecation of my failures, if I stop pining over my past sins (which, by the way, is another form of self-preoccupation), if I dare to call to Him, He will answer. I might have failed, but He will not. Abba hears me! And for now, that is enough.

Topical Index: spirit, pneuma, adoption, huiothesia, Abba, Romans 8:14-15