Gal 4:6: And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
Because we are sons (and daughters). I love the past tense, especially in Scripture. We are already sons and daughters of God. We are not waiting until we get there to become sons and daughters. Our adoption is a done deal.
Isn’t it interesting also that in the Old Testament God is not addressed as Father? He is referred to as the Father, but the intimacy of addressing Him as Father is absent. Not until the New Testament when Jesus arrives on the scene do we hear God addressed as Father, and not just Father, but our Father.
God, as part of the redemption brought to us by Christ, has now placed the Spirit of the Son in our hearts so that we can share the same intimacy that Jesus had. We can boldly approach God as our Father and not fear that we will be spurned or ignored.
We need to remember that this intimacy comes to us when the Spirit of the Son is in our hearts. It is not an intimacy shared with those who have rejected God’s plan of salvation. They may think of God as a Father, such as the Father of Creation, but without the Spirit of the Son, which comes to us through redemption, they cannot understand the intimacy found in those two little words … our Father.
“Wonder of Wonders!”
