Galatians 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Great indeed is the rank and privilege of a son of God. The son of Adam, that is taken to be the Son of God, is taken out of the company of the rebels against God, into the company of those that adore and bless His name with thanksgiving, and perform His service with diligence, in His glorious presence. But he always remembers whence he has been taken; that if as a son of Adam he was taken from the comparatively vile dust of the earth, as a son of God he has been taken into a spiritual nature out of the comparatively much viler fleshly nature. He remembers that he is not a real son, but an adopted. Now a real son is always a son to his father, happen what will. And having been born and bred in his house, he knows all that is required of him, and does naturally all the duties of a member of the family. But very different is the condition of an adopted son; he has been born and bred in another family, and therefore under different rules; and hence, however respectable his family may be, he cannot accommodate himself so freely and fully as he could wish, nor sufficiently know the mind of a father, whom he has not known from childhood. Much more then if he be taken out of a family whose habits are quite contrary, and disreputably contrary, to the habits of that into which he has been adopted, he must be in continual fear and perplexity. All is quite strange to him, and let him be ever so willing to accommodate himself to his new situation, still he is in continual doubt as to what he should do, and what he should not do, and is continually, notwithstanding all his watchfulness, letting out the secrets of the corrupt habits of his old family. But on the very account of this natural infirmity, God hath put him under an instructor, to give him the proper knowledge, to form his habits, to influence his will, and by such a thorough change, to qualify him for the duties of the new station to which he has been admitted. And this instructor is the Holy Spirit, called also, from this His very office amongst us, the spirit of adoption, as in Romans 8:14, 15. (R. W. Evans, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. |
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