Article January 28, 1985 Issue

"As dear children"

STEPHEN GOTTSCHALK

Recently a college friend of mine, who for some years had lived on a kibbutz in Israel, came back to the United States with his small son. The boy had been born in Israel and spoke almost no English. In an unfamiliar environment, and among people whose language he could not understand, he turned trustingly and repeatedly to his father for comfort and help, calling him "Abba," the Hebrew equivalent of our words "Daddy" and "Poppa."

The word is familiar, since it's used several times in the New Testament, for example in Paul's statement to the Romans "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."^{Rom. 8:15.} But hearing how it is actually used makes its meaning clearer. Though sometimes translated as "father," "Abba" is really a less formal, more endearing term, expressing the most tender familiarity and affection.

Most important, some New Testament scholars have pointed out that "Abba" is the word Christ Jesus characteristically used for God.^{See Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), p. 65 .} Jesus spoke to God in just the same familiar, endearing way that a Hebrew child then as now would address his own father in the intimacy of the family circle. This must have been intensely surprising to his contemporaries! There appears to be virtually no record of anyone else in or up to his time addressing God in this way. Yet what could have more naturally expressed the tender immediacy of Jesus' love for God and his assurance of God's love for him? How much more directly could he have expressed his own heartfelt sense of total dependence upon God? What better illustration could he have offered of the truth of his words to the disciples, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven"?^{Matt. 18:3.}