<p>8:15&nbsp;<i>For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again</i>- &ldquo;Bondage&rdquo; is associated with the Mosaic law in Gal. 4:24; 5:1; Heb. 2:15. They received the Spirit at baptism, as all believers do; but it was not a spirit of fear.</p><p><i>To fear</i>- The contrast is between bondage slavery and adoption; and therefore between fear and &lsquo;crying Abba, Father&rsquo;. The fear Paul has in view must surely be the fear of not being good enough, the phobia about rejection at the day of final judgment. This fear of rejection is associated with bondage to a legalistic system, of obeying rules in order to seek acceptance with God. Such a system is itself bondage, slavery. And the image of slavery has been used by Paul with reference to slavery to sin. Once again, he associates sin with legalism and attempted justification through obedience to the Law- for this is where that mindset leads in practice. The implication seems to be that although Paul&rsquo;s readership had received the &ldquo;spirit of adoption&rdquo;, yet they still feared. Paul is seeking to convince them of their high status in Christ, and to perceive, to the point of it affecting their feelings e.g. of fear or otherwise, that really- it&rsquo;s all true. The good news that seems too good to believe is really as good as it sounds.</p><p><i>But you received the spirit of adoption</i>- The fact we have become sons of God see on Rom. 8:14 by means of being in Christ, the Son of God, means that God will send His Spirit into our hearts, to make us more natural members of the family we have now joined by status.&nbsp; Gal. 4:6 thus speaks of how &ldquo;God sent forth the spirit of&nbsp;<i>His&nbsp;</i>Son into&nbsp;<i>our&nbsp;</i>hearts&rdquo;. Thus&nbsp;<i>our&nbsp;</i>hearts have to become transformed to be like that of&nbsp;<i>His&nbsp;</i>Son. This can be so successful that we even call to God as Abba, daddy. Note that the Spirit and our hearts are connected- this Spirit works on the human heart, miraculous gifts aren&rsquo;t in view here. The NRSV renders: &ldquo;When we cry, &lsquo;Abba Father&rsquo;, it is that very spirit bearing witness&rdquo; (8:15,16). The feeling we have toward God as Abba is proof enough that He has sent His Son into our hearts. The obvious question is begged: Is that how we feel? God wants us to feel like that towards Him. We can and should be able to This is one of the most bottom line questions for us as believers; not what theological position we have on this or that point, not what precise statement of faith we follow with what clarifications or caveats, addendums or amendments; not whom we fellowship; not how smartly we have lived our lives even. But whether we really feel to God as Abba, Father. If it takes a woman three divorces or another man 10 years in prison or another a lifetime&rsquo;s battle with alcohol- this is the end point to which we are being brought. This is the &ldquo;witness&rdquo; that we really are God&rsquo;s dear children, if we feel like that toward Him, if we can call Him &ldquo;Abba, daddy&rdquo; just as the Son of God did in prayer. If we do, then &ldquo;the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God&rdquo; (8:16). And Gal. 4:6 becomes so true of us: &ldquo;God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father&rdquo;. Roman law legislated that the adopted child took over the full identity of the adoptive father; what was true of that family became legally true of the adopted person- a concept which was apparently foreign to Greek and Jewish culture, but the concept would&rsquo;ve been appreciated specifically by the Romans. The idea is similar to the concept of righteousness being &ldquo;imputed&rdquo;.</p><p>There is only one Spirit- the spirit of God, of Christ, of the true believer, of adoption- is all the same. The statement here that those in Christ received &ldquo;the spirit of adoption&rdquo; must therefore surely be paralleled with the frequent comments elsewhere in the NT that the believer has &ldquo;received&rdquo; s.w. the Spirit at conversion, just as the apostles &ldquo;received the Holy Spirit&rdquo; (Jn. 7:39; 14:17; 20:22; Acts 1:8; 2:33,38; 8:15,17; 10:47; 19:2; 1 Cor. 2:12; 2 Cor. 11:4; Gal. 3:2,14). Whilst the apostles had their receipt of this gift confirmed by miraculous displays of Holy Spirit gifts which have now been withdrawn, the assumption is clear from that list of verses that after &ldquo;the hearing of faith&rdquo; and baptism into Christ, the Spirit was &ldquo;received&rdquo; (Gal. 3:2 etc.). Baptism was seen as bringing about the receipt of this gift (Acts 19:2; Gal. 3:14 cp. 27-29). When we became &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; at baptism, we were counted as Christ. Just as He called God &ldquo;Abba&rdquo;, so we can. The way Jesus addressed God in this way is wonderful, indeed beautiful. It almost seems inappropriate that this personal relationship of the Son to the Father, calling Him &ldquo;Daddy&rdquo;, should be observed by us even; and yet now Paul says that it has been applied to&nbsp;<i>us</i>, seeing we are truly &ldquo;in Him&rdquo;. We have received such an extraordinarily realistic &ldquo;spirit of adoption&rdquo; that really, as Jesus was God&rsquo;s Son, so are we. Through the work of the Spirit, even the virgin conception and birth of the Lord Jesus is now no barrier between Him and us; for in essence, our spiritual rebirth and adoption as God&rsquo;s children is such that we too are God&rsquo;s very own children just as He was. Our excuse for not fully following Him is that &lsquo;Well He was a bit different to us, you know&hellip; virgin birth and all that&rsquo;. If we grasp what Paul is saying, this now has far less validity. For the same Spirit which caused the virgin conception is what has birthed each believer, and through the spirit of adoption we too can feel towards God as &ldquo;Abba&rdquo;, just as His Son did. The unity between Father and Son has now been realized between the Father and all His children; the prayer of John 17 to this effect has now been answered. At least, potentially, and if we will accept the answer. And yet, it has to be said that we do not feel to God as Jesus did. The Lord Jesus could not have written the bitter lament about spiritual failure which we find in Romans 7. As we have often concluded, the answer is that we are asked to believe that really we are indeed &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;, and seen, counted and felt towards by God as if we really are His beloved Son.</p><p><i>Whereby we cry&shy;</i>- &ldquo;Whereby&rdquo; can be rendered &ldquo;in whom&rdquo;. Because we are in Christ, we have His spirit, God&rsquo;s Spirit. We &ldquo;cry&rdquo;- in allusion to how in Gethsemane, the Son of God &ldquo;cried&rdquo; to God as &ldquo;Abba&rdquo;. He there really can be our pattern. The Greek for &ldquo;cry&rdquo; really means to scream or croak- the idea is very much of a baby or young child crying out to &ldquo;daddy&rdquo;.</p><p><i>Abba, Father</i>- In prayer, we address God as Abba, Father- precisely because &ldquo;God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father&rdquo; (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). I take these passages to refer to the way successful prayer involves the spirit / will of a believer becoming united with the Spirit / will of the Father and Son. Gal. 4:6 says that it is the Spirit of Jesus who prays to God &ldquo;Abba, Father&rdquo;; but Rom. 8:15 says that it is us of course who pray to God &ldquo;Abba, Father&rdquo;. We are not slaves but God&rsquo;s very own dear children. The spirit / will / mind of the Lord Jesus is therefore seen as the mind of the believer. And thus Paul could write that it was no longer he who lived, but Christ who lived in him (Gal. 2:20). The whole of the new creation groans or sighs in our spirit; and Jesus, the Lord the Spirit groans in prayer for us too. God&rsquo;s Spirit is to dwell in us, right in the core of our hearts (Rom. 8:11; Gal. 4:6).&quot;We cry Abba, Father&quot; (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), as our Lord did then (Mk. 14:36). We can, we really can, it is possible, to enter into our Lord's intensity then. Paul saw his beloved brother Epaphroditus as &quot;heavy&quot; in spirit (Phil. 2:26), using a word only used elsewhere about Christ in Gethsemane (Mt. 26:37; Mk. 14:33).&nbsp;Luke and other early brethren seemed to have had the Gethsemane record in mind in their sufferings, as we can also do (Acts 21:14 = Mk. 14:36). I have wondered, and it&rsquo;s no more than me wondering, whether it could be that Rom. 10:9,13; Acts 22:16 and the other references to calling on the name of the Lord at baptism imply that the candidate for baptism made the statement &ldquo;Jesus is Lord&rdquo; after their confession of faith or just before their immersion, and then they shouted the word &ldquo;Abba Father&rdquo; as they came out of the water, indicating their adoption as a child of God (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). Biblical prayers rarely request things; if we ask according to God's will, we will receive (1 Jn. 5:14); and yet if God's word dwells in us, we will ask what we will, and receive it (Jn. 15:7). Thus if our will is purely God's will, we will receive answers to every prayer. That our will can be God's will is another way of saying that our spirit can be His Spirit. This is why several passages speak of how God's Spirit witnesses with our spirit (Rom. 8:15,16,26; 1 Jn. 3:24; 4:13). It's why the early church sensed that not only were they witnessing to things, but the Holy Spirit of God also (Acts 5:32; 15:28). His Spirit becomes our spirit. Who we are as persons is effectively our prayer and plea to God. This conception of prayer explains why often weeping, crying, waiting, meditating etc. are spoken of as &quot;prayer&quot; , although there was no specific verbalizing of requests (Ps. 5:1,2; 6:8; 18:1,2,3,6; 40:1; 42:8; 64:1 Heb.; 65:1,2; 66:17-20; Zech. 8:22). The association between prayer and weeping is especially common: 1 Sam. 1:10; Ps. 39:12; 55:1,2; Jn. 11:41,42; Heb. 5:7, especially in the Lord's life and the Messianic Psalms. &quot;The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord hath heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer&quot; (Ps. 6:8,9) crystallizes the point.&nbsp;<i>Desire</i>&nbsp;is also seen as effectively praying for something (Rom. 10:1; Col. 1:9; 2 Cor. 9:14). Weeping, desiring, waiting, meditating etc. are all acts of the mind, or 'spirit' in Biblical terminology. There is therefore a big association between our spirit or state of mind, and prayer. The spirit (disposition) of Christ which we have received leads us to&nbsp;<i>pray</i>&nbsp;&quot;Abba, Father&quot; (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). &quot;Praying in the holy spirit&quot; (Jude 20) is to be seen in this context. Prayer is part of the&nbsp;<i>atmosphere</i>&nbsp;of spiritual life, not something hived off and separate- it is an expression of our spirit. Thus there are verses which speak of many daily prayers as being just one prayer (Ps. 86:3,6; 88:1,2); prayer is a way / spirit of life, not something specific which occurs for a matter of minutes each day. The commands to &quot;pray without ceasing&quot; simply can't be literally obeyed (1 Thess. 5:17). &quot;Watch and pray&nbsp;<i>always</i>&quot; in the last days likewise connects prayer with&nbsp;<i>watchfulness</i>, which is an attitude of mind rather than something done on specific occasions. This is not to say that prayer&nbsp;<i>in no sense</i>&nbsp;refers to formal, specific prayer. Evidently it does, but it is only a verbal crystallization of our general spirit of life.</p>