Redeemed by the precious blood of the Son of God!

You are sons, sons of the living God!

As sons, you are heirs of eternal life through Jesus Christ!

Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son, crying, “Abba, Father.”

Blessed assurance!

Oh, what blessed inheritance is yours. What a glorious position you have been given. It is higher than all the kings of the earth. All things are yours. You are Christ’s. Christ is God’s.

Without works at all!

All of grace!

To assure you of that inheritance, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.”

There are two sendings in the text and the context.

First, there is the sending of God’s Son when the fullness of time was come. The coming of Jesus Christ was the event that filled time as water fills an empty cup. The reason that God created time had happened: all of God’s promises were fulfilled; all of the purpose of God for the perfection of his covenant had been accomplished in principle. On the cross Christ said the same thing: “It is finished.” It is finished and the fullness of time have similar meanings. These words teach that the incarnation and the cross of Jesus Christ accomplished full and complete salvation. We are saved in the coming of Jesus Christ, and there is no work that can be added to his for our salvation.

Second, there is the sending of the Spirit. The sending of the Spirit is the fruit of the work of Jesus Christ when he came. Jesus Christ accomplished all of salvation. Salvation is perfect in him. You are saved in him. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus.

In order that God’s elect know, enjoy, and be assured of that salvation, God sends forth the Spirit of the Son. The believer’s possession of his salvation, his enjoyment of his salvation, and his experience of his salvation is no less the perfect work of God than the decree of God and the work of God on the cross. So there is a work of God for our salvation that consists of giving to us the possession and enjoyment of salvation. This is the special work of the Spirit.

God decreed our salvation. That is God’s work alone and not our work. He appointed us to redemption, regeneration, faith, justification, and glorification. That has nothing to do with our works, deeds, or activities. Whose work was first before God’s decree?

Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, was sent forth in the fullness of time, made under the law, to redeem us who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. This is God’s work alone. This has nothing to do with our deeds, activities, or works. Whose activity was first before the work of Christ? His own right hand and strong arm saved us.

And the Spirit has been sent into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.” The salvation appointed to us and accomplished for us is given to us. That is God’s work alone; and that does not depend upon, wait on, or come from our works at all. It is as nonsensical and wicked to say that there are activities of man that precede the election of God and that there are activities of man that precede the cross of Christ as it is to say that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God in time or that man must draw near to God before God draws near to him. The experience and enjoyment of salvation and our whole lives lived in that salvation with all their deeds and activities is the work of God the Holy Spirit.

The whole gift and experience of our salvation can be summarized in a single name: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit incorporates us into Christ; and the Holy Spirit gives to us the possession of our salvation, the joy of our salvation, and the assurance of our salvation.

Our salvation is that we are sons of God. To be sons of God is to be heirs of all grace and all blessing and all things.

To know that we are sons of God and heirs of God through Christ is our blessed assurance.

To assure us of this fact, God sends the Spirit of his Son, crying, “Abba, Father.”

By faith alone!

Without any works!

The Spirit of God’s Son is the Spirit of Jesus Christ incarnated, crucified, risen, and ascended to heaven. God gave to Jesus Christ the promise of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God’s Son is God. The Spirit is God in the same sense that the man Jesus Christ is also God. Jesus Christ is the eternally begotten Word. He became man. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is God, who became the Spirit of God’s Son. He is God. The Spirit proceeds from God. The sending forth of the Spirit of Christ in time is a revelation of the eternal characteristic of the Spirit: he is sent forth. He is the Spirit who proceeds. In God there are three persons. The first person we call Father. The second person we call Son. The third person we call the Holy Spirit. Each person has his unique property and activity in the being of God. The Father begets and breathes the Spirit to his Son. So the Son is begotten and breathes the Spirit to his Father. The Spirit is breathed.

He originates in the Father, and he is breathed to the Son, and he is breathed back to the Father. The Spirit is the eternal consecration of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father and proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Spirit is God’s binding God in eternal affection to God. The Father is in his Son in the Spirit, and the Son is in his Father in the Spirit. God’s being is one loving family in which there is delightful fellowship and eternal friendship between the three persons. He is the eternal covenant God. Father with his Son in the Spirit and Son with his Father in the Spirit. They exchange a holy kiss with one another. They embrace and seek one other. That kiss, embrace, and seeking of each other is the Spirit. The Father breathes out love to his Son, and that is the Spirit; and the Son breathes forth love to his Father, and that is the Spirit. The Spirit is the breath of God on which is carried all the love of God.

Thus, as God-breathed, the Spirit is also very God. The Spirit is of the same essence with the Father and the Son. The Spirit made the worlds. He was the one who brooded upon the face of the deep in the beginning, and by him were made all the hosts of heaven and all the creatures of the earth. The Spirit is God. He is omnipotent as God. He is sovereign as God. He is gracious, merciful, righteous, and holy as God. The Spirit is all that God is, for he is God.

The Spirit is personally God. He is not a mere extension, power, or force of God. He is personally God. He too says “I.” He has his mind and will. He plans, decrees, and carries out his will and good pleasure.

And God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son! What the Spirit is in God he becomes in us! This Spirit who is God is the Spirit of God’s Son. God’s Son is Jesus Christ. God’s Son is the one who in the fullness of time God sent forth, made of a woman and made under the law, the man Christ Jesus. God the Holy Spirit is given to Jesus Christ to be his Spirit.

He is called the Spirit of God’s Son in the possessive sense. Jesus Christ possesses the Spirit. Jesus Christ possesses the Spirit because of Christ’s perfect obedience to God as a Son. He obeyed God perfectly. He loved God perfectly. He loved God from the depths of hell. He loved God’s will, God’s law, and God’s purpose for the salvation of his elect people. God was Christ’s all in all. Christ ate and lived on the will of God, and the zeal of God’s house ate him up. In perfect love for God, Christ laid down his life at the tribunal of God’s justice and made perfect satisfaction for sin. That work of Jesus Christ earned and merited the eternal Spirit.

Only one who is very God can by his obedience earn such a precious gift as the Spirit. And only one who is very God can receive the Spirit. He does not receive a measure of the Spirit but the whole Spirit. Just as the Spirit is eternally breathed forth of the Son in the being of God, so the Spirit is sent forth of the Son in human flesh in time as the Spirit of God’s Son. The Spirit becomes Christ’s. So much is the Spirit Christ’s Spirit that there is an identification of Jesus Christ and the Spirit. The Lord is that Spirit!

God sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. Our hearts are our spiritual, ethical, and moral centers or cores. The scripture calls our ethical, moral centers our hearts because those spiritual hearts are analogous to our physical hearts. As our physical hearts are the life-centers of our physical and mental lives, so that the health of our hearts determines our physical and mental states, so also our spiritual lives are seated in and flow out of our hearts.

Out of the heart are the issues of life. As a man’s heart is, so is that man’s life in a spiritual and ethical sense.

The natural man’s heart is totally depraved and wicked. In his heart he stands in a relationship of hostility and hatred toward God. Thus the natural man’s whole life is contrary to God. Out of such a wicked heart, the life cannot be good, and nothing in that heart or life is pleasing to God. The natural man loves sin, and he hates God. In the heart of the natural man lives a spirit that rebelled against God, that opposes God with all his might, and that hates God. Oh yes, the natural man has a spirit. He is always ruled by spirits. He has a blaspheming spirit that curses God.

And God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts! While we are enemies of God in our minds and while in our hearts we hate God, God sends forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. And a complete change occurs! As far as our flesh is concerned, it is wicked and evil. In our hearts we are changed. We do not any longer sin with our hearts, even though in our minds and with our wills we commit sin. The Spirit in our hearts keeps us from sin in our hearts.

With the coming of the Spirit, our hearts are made completely new. He takes out our old, stony hearts, and he gives to us hearts of flesh; and on these hearts of flesh, he writes the law of God. He creates in us clean hearts.

Greater and more glorious than his work of creating all things out of nothing, the Spirit recreates us as spiritual sons of God.

Is not that complete change expressed by the fact that the Spirit comes crying, “Abba, Father,” so that out of those human hearts into which the Spirit comes this lovely cry is heard? Can you imagine a human being crying, “Abba, Father”? Out of the dead and depraved hearts of men comes the cry, “God, we hate you!” But when the Spirit comes, out of those human hearts a new cry is heard: “Abba, Father.”

And this indicates that the Spirit has made those hearts completely new: new judgments, new sensibilities, new thoughts, and new desires. Before, we judged the things of the Spirit to be foolishness; and now we judge them to be the highest good and the sweetest gifts. Before, we judged ourselves as good; and now we judge ourselves as ungodly. Before, we judged God to be evil and man to be good; and now we judge man to be evil and God to be good. The Spirit gives a new sensibility to sin, to the word of God, and to heavenly and spiritual things. The Spirit gives new thoughts of God and of Christ and of heaven and of spiritual things. The Spirit creates in us a desire for eternal life and delight in the gospel. In our deepest beings he makes us new creatures.

The life of the elect child of God is the product of the Spirit. Holiness is not the result of an external code but of the influence of the Spirit. The law could be written on stone tables, on doorposts and lintels, and on the sides of the houses; but the law could never be written on men’s hearts except by the Spirit. The Spirit makes us delight in the law of God after the inward man.

This doctrine of the sending of the Spirit is, first, an answer to the carping critic who places all the emphasis on an external code. Israel had the best law, and it was only bondage. The law brought no comfort, joy, or happiness. The law was a weak and beggarly element. It had no power to make anyone keep it. It had no riches to give to anyone for keeping it. What it never could and never can give is the Spirit. Life under the law is always bondage. The law only ever made anyone think, “Did I do enough?” The law made everyone sinners because cursed is everyone who does not do the whole law. The law always answered the question about a man’s doing enough with the assurance that the man did not do enough and that what he did do he did improperly. The law never made anyone holy. The law cannot make sons. The law has no power to save at all or to give blessings to anyone. The law is not the promise, and the law cannot bring the promise.

God never intended that the law would rule forever, but he intended to cause the bondage of the law to give way to the liberty of the Spirit, so that one’s holiness would consist in a Spirit-directed life. So that arrangement of the law had to go away, and the better arrangement of the Spirit came. The holiness of the believer is rooted deeply in his heart, and he is moved and motivated by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by a Spirit-wrought love of God and not by an external code and a list of dos and do nots. The believer is full of the animating power of the Spirit; the believer is able to judge rightly about his life and the lives of others, about doctrine, and about right and wrong, so that his life of holiness is rooted deep in his being in the work of the Spirit. By the power of the Spirit, the summary of the believer’s heart and thus of his life is that he hates sin and loves righteousness.

The power of the Spirit is especially evident over against false doctrine and persecution, so that in love for the word, the gospel, God, and Jesus Christ—and against every calculation of man—the believer clings to the word. He loves to hear the word preached, and he judges it divine wisdom. This is simply the extension of the fact that the Spirit is the Spirit of God’s Son. He makes us receive Christ when Christ comes in the gospel. And where Christ is not received, there is without doubt no Spirit of Christ.

Second, this doctrine of the sending of the Spirit is an answer to the legalist whose constant refrain is, “Your doctrine allows people to sin freely.” When we say that you are justified by faith alone; when we say that whether you sin or do not sin, or obey or do not obey, or repent or do not repent has no bearing on your righteousness before God; and when we say that you must be an ungodly person to be justified, the legalist says, “You will make people careless.” When we say that all your sins are forgiven, even the ones that you have not committed yet; when we say that we do not need the laws of man or the law of God to make us righteous and acceptable before God, the legalist—the modern-day Pharisee—says, “People will not repent and will live evilly.” That is the legalist’s wicked slander of the gospel. He has never tasted of the power of the Spirit, who comes with the gospel. The apostle absolutely denies this wicked slander. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings with it Christ’s Spirit.

The law does not bring Christ’s Spirit. Thus there is no holiness or righteousness by the law for the simple reason that the law does not bring the Spirit. Christ brings the Spirit, and the Spirit comes with the gospel. The gospel cannot make God’s people careless and profane, for the gospel brings the Spirit.

God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. The work of God the Spirit in our hearts is as irresistible as God’s decree of election. That work of God the Spirit in our hearts does not wait on us. That work of the Spirit in our hearts is to assure us infallibly that we are sons.

God sends his Spirit into our hearts because we are sons. It is true that when he sends his Spirit into our hearts he makes us sons. He works this complete change in us. But that is not the apostle’s point with the words “because ye are sons.” All the emphasis must fall on the words “because ye are sons.” What he means by “because ye are sons” is what in verse 5 he called “adoption.” We are sons by adoption. Christ came that we might receive the adoption of sons. And the apostle brings up adoption again in verse 7 when he says that through Christ we are heirs of God.

The words “because ye are sons” stand in contrast to two ideas. First, these words contrast with the idea that God sends his Spirit into our hearts because we obey. Because you are sons and because you act like sons, God sends his Spirit into your hearts. This is the thought of that comfortless doctrine that God gives the assurance and experience of salvation because you obey. No, not because you act like sons in obedience but because you are sons by adoption and without any acts of obedience or repentance or love on your part, he sends his Spirit. Second, these words contrast with the idea that God sends his Spirit into your hearts to make you sons, and then you act like sons and obey your Father; and in that way of faith and obedience, God sends his Spirit to assure you of eternal life. Then there are two sendings of the Spirit: one sending to enable you and another sending that is contingent on your faith and your obedience to assure you. But the Spirit says that he is sent because you are sons.

God sends his Spirit because we are sons! We really and truly are sons before we have the Spirit! We are sons by divine election. God chose us that Jesus Christ might be the firstborn among many brethren, and that will of God is the eternal reality and the irresistible divine power to realize and bring to pass what it wills.

We really were sons at the cross. Jesus died that we might receive adoption; and because he died, we did receive the adoption of sons. We are adopted of God. We are adopted of God and are sons of God without one sigh of repentance, without one act of obedience, without one word of regret. We are sons. You are sons of God before you ever hear one syllable of the gospel. You are sons of God before there ever arises in your hearts one sigh of repentance, before there comes one flicker of faith, or before one act of love. Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son!

So the Spirit is sent into the hearts of the afflicted who have no righteousness; he is sent into the hearts of the poor who have no obedience; he is sent into the hearts of the ungodly who have broken all the commandments of God and kept none of them. The Spirit is sent because you are sons for Christ’s sake. We have no obedience, but Christ does. We have no righteousness, but Christ does. We have sin and iniquity, but Christ has perfection. We do not deserve to be sons, but for Christ’s sake we are sons. We are sons before we were born. Through Christ! And because we are sons, God sends forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.

From his abode deep in our inner beings, the Spirit cries, “Abba, Father.” Abba is a cry of love and affection. It means Father, but it means more than that. Abba communicates all of the joy, trust, and happiness that a child has in his Father. Abba arises from the assurance that the child has that his Father loves him, will care for him, and seeks his best.

The Spirit does not cry, “Abba, Father” for himself. He cries out the truth of what is ours for Jesus Christ’s sake. The Spirit’s crying is always a crying in connection with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are sons in Christ, and the Spirit cries in our hearts, “Abba, Father,” impressing upon us the truth that without works, obedience, or acts of love we really are sons of God, that all our sins are forgiven, and that we are heirs of God. His cry of “Abba, Father” means that he brings to us Christ’s perfect work, by which we are made sons. The Spirit brings to us the perfection of our sonship in the cross and decree of God. The Spirit makes the preaching of the gospel effectual in assuring and confirming in us our salvation and the certainty of eternal life for Christ’s sake.

The crying of the Spirit, “Abba, Father,” is the work of the Holy Spirit to assure us. God willed not only to appoint us to sonship, not only to secure that sonship in the cross, but also that we know and be assured of our sonship for Christ’s sake. God willed that we know him as our Father and that we know that he has forgiven our sins, that we stand in his grace, that we have peace with him, that he is for us and never against us, and that he never leaves us nor forsakes us.

The Spirit is granted without works at all, and with him comes the assurance that we are sons without any works at all. The Spirit, and thus the assurance of our salvation, is given to the poor, the afflicted, the wicked, the disobedient, and the ungodly, who have no righteousness of their own, who have no obedience, and who have broken God’s commandments.

That we know and are assured of our salvation without works is a very important point to emphasize over against the false doctrine that we have fellowship with God in the way of our obedience; or that we must first love our neighbors before God forgives us; or that we cannot experience the assurance of our salvation except in the way of obedience; or that our righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is our acts of love toward our neighbors. The chief article of the faith of many is that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God and especially this point: that there are activities of man that precede the assurance of salvation. Before man has assurance he must do this or do that. Really, in the end he can have no assurance. That demand that he has the fellowship of God in the way of obedience must carry through all the way to the final judgment, so that one’s eternal fellowship with God is in the way of obedience; one’s abiding in Christ unto the final judgment is by faith and in the way of obedience. So such teachers rob all their pupils of joy, comfort, and hope.

But the apostle says that because we are sons for Christ’s sake, God sends his Spirit, crying, “Abba, Father.” In that cry of the Spirit, all of our salvation, assurance, joy, happiness, and hope are found. He cries what is true. He bears witness with our spirits that we are sons of God and that we are heirs of God without works and for Christ’s sake. We must believe that we are acceptable to God and pleasing in his sight not because of our obedience but because of Christ’s obedience and suffering. This is the beginning of joy and of all peace. And this is the Spirit’s work; this is the Spirit’s work without any of our works, obedience, repentance, or love. So we rest in this declaration: because you are sons for Christ’s sake. If we are sinners, Christ is not. If we are unrighteous, Christ is not.

The Spirit’s cry is a great, divine noise—an irresistible sound like a mighty rushing wind—that overcomes every other testimony. False teachers say that you are not righteous until you have performed this or you have done that. The Spirit cries to overcome that wicked testimony. There are teachers who would bring us back into bondage to the law and who insert obedience to their commandments and doctrines before our enjoyment of Christ. The Spirit’s cry drowns out that depressing sound with the joyful sound of the gospel. The law condemns us that we have broken all God’s commandments and that we are terrible sinners. The Spirit’s cry abolishes the testimony of the law from our consciences. The devil tries to turn us from Christ and his righteousness, and the Spirit’s cry overcomes the devil’s lies. The Spirit’s cry is the crying in us of the one who chose and appointed us to be sons. It is his purpose that we know ourselves as sons of God without works and for Christ’s sake. He realizes his own purpose in us and assures us that we are sons apart from any obedience on our part.

That testimony of the Spirit overcomes all other testimonies, and we cry, “Abba, Father.” If someone is certain that he is a son of God, then the Spirit has done his work. The Spirit so cries that you understand that you are not slaves, that you are not under law, and thus that you are not under sin but that you are sons and under grace. The Spirit so cries that you are not in doubt about your inheritance but understand that you are heirs of God through Christ.

This is our precious assurance. We cannot be unsure of God’s grace toward us, for then nothing stands secure. Then we doubt the promise of God, we doubt the sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness, and we doubt the very will of God for our salvation. And we count ourselves as reprobates. That is the wicked effect of the doctrine that we come to God in the way of our obedience or abide in Christ by faith and by obedience. That doctrine takes all joy and comfort out of our hearts. If we come to God for any other reason and in any other way than the death of Christ alone, then nothing will stand secure.

To use the language of the false teachers, if your love of the neighbor must be your righteousness whereby you come to the table of the Lord; if one of the requisites of true prayer is obedience to the law; if you abide in Christ by faith and by obedience; if you have fellowship with God in the way of obedience; if there are works of man that precede blessings of God, then nothing is certain at all, and there is no comfort. Our only certainty that we are sons of God and will be received of God in mercy is Christ.

So important is that assurance that God did not leave it to our own reasoning but assures us himself. It is the personal work of God the Holy Spirit, who is the personal bond of love in the triune being of God, to assure us that we are loved of God and are incorporated into his holy family. It is his gift to us by faith and without any obedience. Assurance is not found in flogging ourselves, in seeking to do more, in laboring harder, or in trying to be holier. Assurance is not found in leading a more disciplined, more orderly, or cleaner life. Assurance is not found in obeying the law of God. Assurance is not found in obeying God’s law, and so assurance is certainly not found in obeying the doctrines and the commandments of men. Assurance is not found in a life that consists of the devilish doctrine of touch not, taste not, handle not. Assurance is not found in our repenting, which all the while is defiled with sin. Repentance is important. The Lord commands it. Ministers preach it. It is a great Christian virtue. But there is no assurance in it. Assurance is a gift of the Holy Spirit and the result of his cry and living testimony, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit who assures us is given for Christ’s sake and apart from obedience.

Then, free from the crushing bondage of the law, we walk at liberty before God in the Spirit as sons and heirs of God through Christ.