Knowing God’s Name & Using His Name …
5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. 6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I. (Is.61.5-6. KJV)
Dedicated to ABBA Some readers may agree my use of ABBA in this POST In many cases; and some may not. Throughout the research on an, compiling, and writing process an historical novel entitled “Call it Not Tyranny, But Providence (to be completed May end 2022), a new and more intimate relationship initiated in me with love and simple awe for ABBA, My Father. Part of the stimulus was wanting to know the real Christian beliefs of the Founding Fathers, which serves as an underlying theme in the novel.
And the same is true for His Holy Spirit of Truth; that relationship was not there at the beginning of the writing of the novel, nor a TRACT which accompanies it.
Yet that “perfect gift from My Father of lights” (James 1.17) of an intimate relationship with ABBA, My Father, and using that name ABBA, has supported me with great comfort in a way which the traditional, more impersonal names of “the LORD, “ “lord, God,” and all the ancestral Hebrew and Greek names, rendeded by translators over time, just did not convey to my heart a personal “relationship” which the use of ABBA has worked in me.
I’ve slowly come to understand and appreciate why Christ Jesus used ABBA; although many times ABBA was unfortunately “translated” into Greek as Pater, then English as Father. ABBA takes it from traditions of men, lifts it out of the history books o others, releases it from the “objective” descriptions in lexicons, concordances, dictionaries, tracts, pamphlets and sermons … into a subjective, intimate relationship of a father to a small child. Evidence …
ABBA is translated to Father 156 times in the book of John … alone … and 60 more times in the remaining Gospels. In the Sermon on the Mount, ABBA is used by Christ Jesus 15 times. … And the word Father appears only 14 times in the Old Testament; spanning 4,000 years of history … but always on a (tribal) collective, national basis in an “Impersonal” manner!
Christ Jesus called upon his Father in the Aramaic intimate word ABBA. He did not speak Greek or even Hebrew, although His words were translated from the Khabouris manuscript of 164 A.D. to Greek in the latter part of the 1st - 2nd century. [See page of this site at “Why Aramaic …]. He called out to ABBA in the Aramaic word ABBA. What is Christ Jesus telling us then and today? Like ABBA, Christ Jesus’ words are immutable, not subject to change. “8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. 9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.” (Heb. 13.8-9. KJV.)
Answering the question, what does he mean … obviously many things, but with the numerous times He used the name ABBA in teaching His audience; just that teaching alone was nothing short of REVOLUTIONARY. When the religious elders of that day heard him, they were shocked, because it was considered illegal, an offense, a death sentence subjecting him to stoning.
In the Jewish culture of that time, the elders and religious leaders identified Abraham as their father, and were more than outraged that Christ Jesus said he was a son of ABBA.
To them, it was considered blasphemy, and they picked up stones to harm Him.
This was and is important. ABBA speaks many times through the Prophets, and ascribes blessings and fulfilled promises to those who use, or knew His Name. It is about the personal relationship that “Father” ABBA has to his children; that of fatherly love, intimacy, endearment, patience, kindness and yes! It is nowhere found expressed that way in the over 4,000 years of Old Testament writings.
The New Covenant of resurrection, forgiveness and grace, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of Truth are at its very core.
A Scriptural Description of ABBA…
In 2 Cor 6:18 Paul quotes mentions “Father” which is ABBA in the original Aramaic text, Who promises "I will be a Father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to Me," says the Lord Almighty (all powerful and able to fulfill what He promises - Do you believe that beloved?) And in another place Paul explains that God " … predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will" (Eph 1:5), and fulfilled our "destiny" by sending "forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, that He might redeem those who were under (subject to, totally under the power, authority and control of) the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" (Gal 4:4-5) which occurred when we "received Him (Jesus and God gave us) the right (and authority) to become children of God, to those who believe in His Name (Jesus)" (Jn 1:12). Now because we are God's sons and daughters, we have not received "a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but (we) have received a spirit of adoption by which we cry out "Abba! Father!" " …for through Him (Jesus) we have our access into one Spirit to the Father." (Eph 2:18) Again Paul writes that "… because (we) are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts (Ro 5:5, Ro 8:9) crying, "Abba! Father!" (Gal 4:6)
Barnhouse:
(God) has come to us in Jesus Christ, and to those who receive Him, He gives the authority to become His sons, even to as many as believe on His name (John 1:12). This is the new birth. He then puts within their hearts the Holy Spirit of adoption, of placement as sons. It is this public acknowledgment before the universe that makes it possible for the believer to come in spirit and in truth, to look up into His face without fear, and to call Him, “Abba, Father.” (God’s Heirs: Romans 8:1–39)
Spurgeon:
“This work (of regeneration[1], Jn 3:7) is wonderful because of the grandeur of the relationship into which it introduces us. The child that is born has a father from the very fact of its birth, and we that are born from above cry “Abba, Father,” from the very fact that we are regenerated. Adoption gives us the rights of children, but regeneration alone gives us the nature of children. Because we are sons God sends forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry “Abba, Father.” (Ro 8:15) If I have been born again, no matter what my station in life or position in society, then God is my Father, and it follows that Jesus Christ is my Brother; and this not merely in form and in name, as men call each other brethren when there is no actual relationship, but there is a real relationship between us and Christ Jesus and the divine Father, for we are made “partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Pe 1:4) We are the sons of God (1 Jn 3:1), and if sons of God, then are we brethren of Christ. It must be so, and it follows from this that, if children, then heirs, and if Christ is the heir, we are joint-heirs with Him (Ro 8:17).
My brethren, what privileges spring out of the relationship which arises from the new birth, for our Father then pledges Himself for our support, for our comfort, for our education, for all that is necessary for our perfection in the day of the home-bringing when we shall see Him face to face. What can happen to a man so great as to be born again? Suppose some of the poorest of the earth who have swept the streets for a paltry pittance should suddenly be elevated by royal favour to the peerage, or imagine that by some revolution of the wheel of providence they should become emperors and kings themselves; yet what of that? The change would be extraordinary, and men would wonder at it; for the passages in history which have been thought most noteworthy have been those wherein paupers have mounted from the dunghill to the throne, and fishermen have cast aside their rough garments to put on the imperial purple. But these strides from nothingness to greatness are inconsiderable and trifling compared with rising from being a slave of Satan to become a son of God. To be elevated by God Himself from the darkness and degradation and bondage under which we are brought by the fall and by actual sin to the liberty, to the glory, to the eternal blessedness of the children of God—this surpasses all conception. This can only be ours through our being born again. Our first birth makes us sons of Adam, our second birth makes us sons of God. Born of the flesh, we inherit corruption; we must be born of the Spirit to inherit incorruption. We come into this world heirs of sorrow because we are sons of the fallen man: our new life comes into the new world an heir of glory, because it is descended from the second man, the Lord from heaven. Thus I have spoken upon the wonderful character of this work, as well as upon the thoroughness of it.”
A LIST OF QUOTES OF HIGHLY RESPECTED CHRISTING LEADERS AND WRITERS HAS BEEN COMPILED ON THIS TOPIC OF “FATHER” AND ABBA. It will be made available as a link here when formatted.
Notes:
[1] regeneration (n.) mid-14c., regeneracioun, "act of regenerating or producing anew," originally spiritual, also of the Resurrection, from Old French regeneracion (Modern French regénération) and directly from Late Latin regenerationem (nominative regeneratio) "a being born again," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin regenerare "make over, generate again," from re- "again" (see re-) + generare "bring forth, beget, produce," from genus "race, kind" (from PIE root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups). Originally theological, "radical spiritual change in an individual accomplished by the action of God;" of animal tissue, "power or process of growing again," early 15c.; of forests, 1888. SOURCE (**) https://www.etymonline.com/word/regenerate
