One of the most precious passages in the Bible regarding the work of the
Holy Spirit is found in Rom. viii. 15, 16, R. V., “For ye received not the
spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are the children of God.” There are two witnesses to our
sonship, first, our own spirit, taking God at His Word (“As many as
received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God,” John i.
12), bears witness to our sonship. Our own spirit unhesitatingly affirms
that what God says is true that we are sons of God because God says so.
But there is another witness to our sonship, namely, the Holy Spirit. He
bears witness _together with_ our spirit. “Together with” is the force of
the Greek used in this passage. It does not say that He bears witness _to_
our spirit but “_together_ with” it. How He does this is explained in Gal
iv. 6, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son
into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” When we have received Jesus
Christ as our Saviour and accepted God’s testimony concerning Christ that
through Him we have become sons, the Spirit of His Son comes into our
hearts filling them with an overwhelming sense of sonship, and crying
through our hearts, “Abba, Father.” The natural attitude of our hearts
towards God is not that of sons. We may call Him Father with our lips, as
when for example we repeat in a formal way, the prayer that Jesus taught
us, “Our Father, which art in heaven,” but there is no real sense that He
is our Father. Our calling Him so is mere words. We do not really trust
Him. We do not love to come into His presence; we do not love to look up
into His face with a sense of wonderful joy and trust because we are
talking to our Father. We dread God. We come to Him in prayer because we
think we ought to and perhaps we are afraid of what might happen if we did
not. But when the Spirit of His Son bears witness together with our spirit
to our sonship, then we are filled and thrilled with the sense that we are
sons. We trust Him as we never even trusted our earthly Father. There is
even less fear of Him than there was of our earthly father. Reverence
there is, awe, but oh! such a sense of wonderful childlike trust.
Notice when it is that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we
are the children of God. We have the order of experience in the order of
the verses in Rom. viii. First we see the Holy Spirit setting us free from
the law of sin and death, and consequently, the righteousness of the law
fulfilled in us who walk not after the law but after the Spirit (vs. 2-4);
then we have the believer not minding the things of the flesh but the
things of the Spirit (v. 5); then we have the believer day by day through
the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the body (v. 13); then we have
the believer led by the Spirit of God; then and only then, we have the
Spirit bearing witness to our sonship. There are many seeking the witness
of the Spirit to their sonship in the wrong place. They practically demand
the witness of the Spirit to their sonship before they have even confessed
their acceptance of Christ, and certainly before they have surrendered
their lives fully to the control of the indwelling Spirit of God. No, let
us seek things in their right order. Let us accept Jesus Christ as our
Saviour, and surrender to Him as our Lord and Master, because God commands
us to do so; let us confess Him before the world because God commands that
(Matt. x. 32, 33; Rom. x. 9, 10); let us assert that our sins are
forgiven, that we have eternal life, that we are sons of God because God
says so in His Word and we are unwilling to make God a liar by doubting
Him (Acts x. 43; xiii. 38, 39; 1 John v. 10-13; John v. 24; John i. 12);
let us surrender our lives to the control of the Spirit of Life, looking
to Him to set us free from the law of sin and death; let us set our minds,
not upon the things of the flesh but the things of the Spirit; let us
through the Spirit day by day put to death the deeds of the body; let us
give our lives up to be led by the Spirit of God in all things; and _then_
let us simply trust God to send the Spirit of His Son into our hearts
filling us with a sense of sonship, crying, “Abba, Father,” and He will do
it.
God, our Father, longs that we shall know and realize that we are His
sons. He longs to hear us call Him Father from hearts that realize what
they say, and that trust Him without a fear or anxiety. He is our Father,
He alone in all the universe realizes the fullness of meaning that there
is in that wonderful word “Father,” and it brings joy to Him to have us
realize that He is our Father and to call Him so.
Some years ago there was a father in the state of Illinois, who had a
child who had been deaf and dumb from her birth. It was a sad day in that
home when they came to realize that that little child was deaf and would
never hear and, as they thought, would never speak. The father heard of an
institution in Jacksonville, Ill., where deaf children were taught to
talk. He took this little child to the institution and put her in charge
of the superintendent. After the child had been there some time, the
superintendent wrote telling the father that he would better come and
visit his child. A day was appointed and the child was told that her
father was coming. As the hour approached, she sat up in the window,
watching the gate for her father to pass through. The moment he entered
the gate she saw him, ran down the stairs and ran out on the lawn, met
him, looked up into his face and lifted up her hands and said, “Papa.”
When that father heard the dumb lips of his child speak for the first time
and frame that sweet word “Papa,” such a throb of joy passed through his
heart that he literally fell to the ground and rolled upon the grass in
ecstasy. But there is a Father who loves as no earthly father, who longs
to have His children realize that they are children, and when we look up
into His face and from a heart which the Holy Spirit has filled with a
sense of sonship call Him “Abba” (papa), “Father,” no language can
describe the joy of God.