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Gal_4:6. A confirmation of the reality of this reception of sonship from the experience of the readers; for the ἐστέ , which, after the foregoing more general statement, now comes in with its individual application (comp. Gal_3:26), does not refer to the Galatians as Gentile Christians only (Hofmann), any more than in Gal_3:26-29.
ὅτι ] is taken by most expositors, following the Vulgate, as quoniam (Luther, Castalio, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Semler, Morus, Rosenmüller, Paulus, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Ewald, and others). And this interpretation (on ὅτι , because, at the beginning of the sentence, comp. 1Co_12:15; Joh_20:29; Joh_15:19) is the most simple, natural, and correct; the emphasis is laid on υἱοί , which is therefore placed at the end: but because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son, etc. He would not have done this, if ye had not (through the υἱοθεσία ) been υἱοί ; thus the reception of the Spirit is the experimental and practical divine testimony to the sonship. If not sons of God, ye would not be the recipients of the Spirit of His Son. The Spirit is the seal of the sonship, into which they had entered through faith—the divine σημεῖον attesting and confirming it; comp. Rom_8:16. See also Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 340. Others (Theophylact, Ambrose, Pelagius, Koppe, Flatt, Rückert, Schott) take ὅτι as that, and treat it as an abbreviated mode of saying: “But that ye are sons, is certain by this, that God has sent forth,” etc. (comp. Gal_3:11). This is unnecessarily harsh, and without any similar instance in the N.T.; modes of expression like those in Winer, p. 575 f. [E. T. 774], and Dissen, ad Dem. de Cor. p. 205, are different. Wieseler takes it as equivalent to εἰς ἐκεῖνο , ὅτι (see on Mar_16:14; Joh_2:18; Joh_9:17; Joh_11:51; Joh_16:19; 1Co_1:26; 2Co_1:18; 2Co_11:10): “as concerns the reality ( ἐστέ is to have the emphasis) of your state as sons.” But this would unnecessarily introduce into the vivid and direct character of these short sentences an element of dialectic reflection, which also appears in Matthias’ view. Hofmann handles this passage with extreme violence, asserting that ὅτι δέ is an elliptical protasis,—the completion of which is to be derived from the apodosis of the preceding period, from ἐξαπέστ . in Gal_4:4 onward,—that ἐστὲ υἱοί is apodosis, and that the following ἐξαπέστ . κ . τ . λ . is the further result connected with it. In Hofmann’s view, Paul reminds his (Gentile) readers that they are for this reason sons, because God has done that act ἐξαπέστειλεν κ . τ . λ . (Gal_4:4), and because He has done it in the way and with the design stated in Gal_4:4 f. This interpretation is at variance with linguistic usage, because the supposed elliptical use of ὅτι δέ does not anywhere occur, and the analogies in the use of εἰ δέ , etc., which Hofmann adduces—some of them, however, only self-invented (as those from the epistles of the apostle, 2Co_2:2; 2Co_7:12)—are heterogeneous. And how abruptly ἐξαπέστ . ὁ Θεὸς κ . τ . λ . would stand! But, as regards the thought also, the interpretation is unsuitable; for they are sons, etc., not because God has sent Christ, but because they have become believers in Him that was sent (Gal_3:26; Joh_1:12); it is not that fact itself, but their faith in it, which is the cause of their sonship and of their reception of the Spirit; comp. Gal_3:14. To refer the sending of the Spirit to the event of Pentecost (as Hofmann does), by which God caused His Spirit to initiate “a presence of a new kind” in the world, is entirely foreign to the connection; comp., on the contrary, Gal_3:2, Gal_5:14.
ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς κ . τ . λ .] for it is τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἐκ Θεοῦ , 1Co_2:12. Observe the symmetry with ἐξαπέστ . κ . τ . λ . in Gal_4:4. The phrase conveys, in point of form, the solemn expression of the objective (Gal_4:4) and subjective (Gal_4:5) certainty of salvation, but, in a dogmatic point of view, the like personal relation of the Spirit, whom God has sent forth from Himself as He sent forth Christ.
τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ ] So Paul designates the Holy Spirit, because he represents the reception of the Spirit as the proof of sonship; for the Spirit of the Son cannot be given to any, who are of a different nature and are not also υἱοὶ Θεοῦ . Comp. Rom_8:9. But the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, inasmuch as He is the divine principle of Christ’s self-communication, by whose dwelling and ruling in the heart Christ Himself (comp. on 2Co_3:17) dwells and rules livingly, really, and efficaciously (Gal_2:20) in the children of God. See on Rom_8:9; Rom_8:14. Comp. the Johannean discourses as to the self-revelation and the coming of Christ in the Paraclete.
ἡμῶν ] The change of persons arose involuntarily from the apostle’s own lively, experimental consciousness of this blessedness. Comp. Rom_7:4.
κράζον ] The strong word expresses the matter as it was: with crying the deep fervour excited by the Spirit broke forth into appeal to the Father. Comp. Rom_8:15; also Psa_22:3; Psa_28:1; Psa_30:8; Bar_3:1; Bar_4:20. The Spirit Himself is here represented as crying (it is different in Rom. l.c.), because the Spirit is so completely the active author of the Abba-invocation, that the man who invokes appears only as the organ of the Spirit. Comp. the analogy of the opposite case—the crying of the unclean spirits (Mar_1:26; Mar_9:26).
Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ ] The usual view taken by modern expositors,[182] following Erasmus and Beza, in this passage, as in Rom_8:15 and in Mar_14:36, is, that ὁ πατήρ is appended as an explanation of the Aramaic Abba for Greek readers (so Koppe, Flatt, Winer, Rückert, Usteri, Schott); along with which stress is laid on the “childlike sound” of the expression, so foreign to the Greek readers (Hofmann). But see, against this view, on Rom_8:15. No; Ἀββᾶ , the address of Christ the Son of God to His Father, which had been heard times without number by the apostles and the first believers, had become so established and sacred in Christian prayer that it had assumed the nature of a proper name, so that the deep and lively emotion of the consciousness of sonship could now superadd the appellative ὁ πατήρ ; and the use of the two in conjunction had gradually become so habitual (Bengel appropriately remarks, “haec tessera filiorum in Novo Testamento”), that in Mar_14:36, by an hysteron proteron, they are placed even in the mouth of Christ. In opposition to this view, which is adopted by Hilgenfeld and Matthias, it has been objected by Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 140, that ὁ πατήρ expresses exactly the same as the Aramaic àÇáÌÈà , and that, if àáà had assumed the nature of a proper name, this name would very often have occurred in the N.T. and afterwards instead of Θεός ; and people would not have said constantly Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ , but also Ἀββᾶ ὁ Θεός . But these objections would only avail to confute our view, if it were maintained that Ἀββᾶ had become in general a proper name of God (as was éäåä in the O.T. and the other names of God), so that it would have been used at every kind of mention of God. The word is, however, to be regarded merely as a name used in prayer: only he who prayed addressed God by this name; and just because he was aware that this name was an original appellative and expressed the paternal character of God, he added the purely appellative corresponding term Ὁ ΠΑΤΉΡ , and in doing so satisfied the fervour of his feeling of sonship. This remark applies also to Wieseler’s objection, that Ἀββᾶ could only have continued to be used as an appellative. It might become a name just as well as, for instance, Adonai, but with the consciousness still remaining of its appellative origin and import. Moreover, that the address in prayer Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ took its rise among the Greek Jewish-Christians, and first became habitual among them, is clear of itself on account of the Hebrew Abba. It is to be remarked also, that, according to the Rabbins, analogous emotional combinations of a Hebrew and a Greek address, which mean quite the same thing, were in use. See Erub. f. 53. Galatians 2 : îøé ëéøé (mi domine, mi ΚΎΡΙΕ ). Comp. Schemoth rabb. f. 140. Galatians 2 : ÷éøé îøé àáé . See Schoettgen, Hor. p. 252. Fritzsche’s view is, that the ἈΒΒᾶ of prayer, which had through Christ’s use of it become sacred and habitual, was so frequently explained on the part of the teachers of the Gentile Christians, as of Paul, by the addition of ὁ πατήρ , that it had become a habit with these teachers to say, ἈΒΒᾶ Ὁ ΠΑΤΉΡ . But this would be a mechanical explanation which, at least in the case of Paul, is à priori not probable, and can least of all be assumed in a case where the fervid emotion of prayer[183] is exhibited. Paul would have very improperly allowed himself to be ruled by the custom. Wieseler contents himself with the strengthening of the idea by two synonymous expressions, but this still fails to explain why πάτερ , πάτερ (comp. Soph. O. C. 1101), or πάτερ ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν (comp. κύριε ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν , Psa_8:2), is not said, just as κύριε , κύριε , and the like.
On the nominative with the article, as in apposition to the vocative, see Krüger, § 45. 2. 7.
[182] See the usual view of the ancient expositors, following Augustine, in Luther: “Abba pater cur geminarit, cum grammatica ratio non appareat, placet vulgata ratio mysterii, quod idem Spiritus fidei sit Judaeorum et gentium, duorum populorum unius Dei.” Comp. Calvin and Bengel.
[183] And let it be noticed, that in all the three passages where Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ occurs (Rom_8:15; Gal_4:6; Mar_14:36), the most fervid tone of prayer prevails.