Video Notes:

• What does this mean? Daddy? Just father? Something more?
  • In a strict sense, it’s “Dad, Father”. Abba is an Aramaic word which is the less formal word for father, probably something similar to “Dad” in America. The second word, pater, is the normal word for father in Greek.
  • What is more notable than the definition of the words, though, is the fact that this is what Jesus cried out to God in the Garden of Gethsemane in Mark 14:36. This shows a connection that the Christian has with Jesus. It makes sense that the by the Spirit of Jesus we would cry out to God like Jesus did.
  • The use of the two words together gives an emphasis that simply saying “Father” doesn’t. This is particularly meaningful in this section of Romans which is telling us how we are adopted sons of God. We now have much the same Father/child relationship that Jesus has.
• What is more, consider the words right before “Abba! Father!”, “by whom we cry.” That word, “cry”, is used many times in the OT, over 40 times in the Psalms alone. It is used in the context of an urgent prayer.
• “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,”  you have received a Spirit of adoption as sons and daughters of God. There is no need to fear or anxiety.