“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, . . “ (Romans 8:15-16)
Paul speaks here about the flesh but refers primarily to the unregenerate human nature. The flesh is human nature that stands opposed to God, is subject to sin, weakness, limitations, and death. The flesh cannot please God at all. Thus it is only by the indwelling Holy Spirit do we have spiritual life now and eternal life assured. And so since we have the new life by the Spirit, we ought to live it, for the Holy Spirit accomplishes what the law could never do because of our weakness and frailty. The Holy Spirit enables us to follow the Law of God. Though we follow imperfectly we now have a new relationship to God as sons. We now can come to Him freely.
These days there is a lot of talk about the evils of racism. The fact is that true fellowship exists among races, nationalities, and ethnic groups only in the Kingdom of God. It cannot be brought about human effort no matter how noble or altruistic. The reason lies with the term “Sons of God”. This is quite a radical term. It indicates that the relationship that we have with the Father is the same relationship that He has with Christ, because He is the Son and we also are sons. We are equal in relationship and in inheritance. There is no place for identity politics here for we are all united as one in Christ. There is unity and communion for Sons of God applies to all Christians, men and women, black, white, yellow, and brown, noble and commoner, celebrity and unknown. In Paul’s day, this would have been much more radical than we perceive now for then, in general, only male sons had rights, privileges, property and inheritance. Women were an inferior class and slaves had no rights at all. What Paul was saying was that there are no legal or social distinctions among Christians. All have equal rights before God in terms of relationship, of access to Him, the blessings of the regenerate life, and the assurance of the future eternal inheritance.
In our new relationship we can go to our Father without fear. We can call Him “Abba, Father” the same words used by Jesus when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). These words were used in the context of the intimate family relationship, and were never used by the Jews to refer to God. But we can use them! We as children may always approach the Father and find a listening ear, comforting words and a helping hand. We have access to God, we have freedom from sin and we have the eternal assurance of life everlasting.