The Primal Cry of “Abba! Father!”

Many Christians would be familiar with the passage in Paul's epistle to the Romans, where he wrote to the church, "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!”" (Romans 8:15, ESV)

 

One of the best illustrations of the meaning of the primal cry of "Abba! Father!" I have heard to-date comes from a message preached by Russell Moore, "Primal Scream Theology: The Call and Response of the Abba Cry", originally preached on Sunday, 3 May 2009, at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where Moore recounts part the story of the adoption of his two sons from a Russian orphanage:

[The] creepiest sound I ever heard in my life was nothing at all.

My wife Maria and I were walking into a Russian orphanage on the first of two trips to the former Soviet Union to meet two boys to whom we had been directed to adopt as our sons.

We'd never seen them; we didn't know all that much about them, but when we walked into the doors of that orphanage, the thing that struck us right away was not the stench, although it was overpowering; I had to resist the urge to walk outside and vomit. It wasn't the squalor of the walls cracking apart and the dilapidated building although that was awful.  

The thing that struck me right away was the silence.

I said to Maria, "Will you just listen for a minute?"

The place is completely still and quiet and there are babies everywhere. As you walked up and down the halls of that orphanage, room after room after room of toddlers and infants, but there was not a cry. It was almost like the Christmas carol that we sing, "all is calm, all is bright", no crying any of them made.

And it slowly dawned on me that what had happened was that you have an institution full of babies without mothers, without fathers, who are learning that when they cry, no one is going to respond. And so a baby learns if he is hungry or distressed or alarmed, that when he cries out, when she calls out, if that happens enough, they will stop crying.

And so all that you heard in this orphanage is the sound of cribs rocking and hitting against the walls as infants comforted themselves in cradles.

And every day, for a week, my wife and I would walk into a room where we found these two little Russian boys. And every day we would play with them and read with them and tell them - even though they couldn't understand us - that we would come to get them and they would be our children soon. And every day we would leave, and we would leave to silence.  

Until the last day of that trip.

Maria and I were told, "It's time for you to go, you're going to have to leave these boys behind, and you're going to have to go back to the United States and you'll have to wait for all the paperwork to be done, and you're going to have to leave now."

We said, "Can we have five more minutes with these boys?"

They said, "You can have five more minutes."

And we hugged on them and we kissed them, and I said, "We will not leave you as orphans. We will come to you." And we walked out of the door.

And as soon as we walked out of the door, one of those little one-year-old boys - little Maxim, whose name now is Benjamin - fell face-first into that crib filled with excrement and screamed.

It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.  

Not because of his agony, not because of his sense of abandonment, but because in that scream he recognised us as his parents. He knew that we would hear.

That is exactly what the Apostle Paul says is happening in the life of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, when through the Holy Spirit you cry out "Abba! Father!"

 

This is our primal cry to God when we cry out "Abba! Father!" It is a cry with the knowledge that we have a God who will hear us. As the Psalmist writes, speaking from God's perspective, "He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him." (Psalm 91:15)

 

This is the spirit of adoption, the spirit of sonship, that we receive through God's beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

Adoption and the Gospel

Ryan Bomberger writes, "Adoption is at the heart of our soul's redemption".

Adoption is an issue so central to the Christian faith that it is shocking how little mention is made of it in regular Christian life.

Various letters to TODAY have discussed the issue recently. Joseph Wong writes in "To help orphans, change our views on adoption" (27 December 2013):

Adopting a child is as much giving life as giving birth and should be celebrated.

Perhaps if society views adoption and adopted children more positively, many more of the millions of orphans in the world might have a family and a new life.

Shafiq Abdullah reiterates this point in "Adoption: Point is to care for orphans, neglected kids" (30 December 2013):

Although many people I know see adoption as a “solution” for couples who cannot have children, I think they miss the more important point of it: Caring for orphans and neglected children.

Adoption is a way for a child to find a stable home where he is loved and protected by adoptive parents.

A progressive society should put the needs of children first. If our society views adoption and adopted children more positively, we could indeed find homes for many orphans and neglected children.

Likewise, Darius Lee writes in "Streamline adoption process, form support groups for families" (31 December 2013):

I agree with Mr Joseph Wong (“To help orphans, change our views on adoption”, Dec 27) and Mr Shafiq Abdullah (“Adoption: Point is to care for orphans, neglected kids”, Dec 30) that we should change our perspective of adoption in order to help orphans and neglected children find homes where they can be loved and protected.

The needs of children should come first. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Singapore is a party, stipulates that the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration under a system of adoption.

According to statistics provided in March by Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing in Parliament, the average number of child adoptions in Singapore over the last five years has been about 400. It takes about five months to process each adoption case.

As a society, we should not only work to streamline our system of adoption, but also encourage adoption by raising awareness of its life-giving potential. The community can form support groups for adoptive families to empower parents in sensitive matters such as disclosure. Likewise, the Government should consider measures to provide information about adoption, while respecting confidentiality.

Thus, we can unleash the life-giving value of adoption, in the best interests of our children. As the minister said, every one child matched with a proper family is one more happy Singaporean.

New family and new life

The Gospel message is about our adoption into God's family through the life-giving sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

The Book of Genesis begins with the story of how Adam, whom Luke refers to as "the son of God" (Luke 3:37), was cut off from God because of his sin in the Garden of Eden. Death entered the world through Adam's sin. Paul explains that "through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners" (Romans 5:19). 

 

All at once, Man had lost his family and life because of sin.

Yet through faith in Jesus Christ, we have all received God's grace and are adopted into God's family. Paul teaches us that we "are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26). God has made us His children and heirs:

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:15-17)

We have been given a new family and a new life.

Caring for orphans

Another reason why adoption is so central to the Christian faith is the importance of caring for orphans.

 

The Bible describes God as a "father to the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5). He "defends the cause of the fatherless" (Deuteronomy 10:18).

 

All throughout the Old Testament are injunctions to protect the rights of the fatherless. For example, the prophet Isaiah exhorted the people of Judah to "defend the cause of the fatherless", and rebuked the rulers for failing to protect their rights (Isaiah 1:17, 23).

 

Likewise, James writes in the New Testament:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

The Bible is clear about the importance of caring for orphans. God cares for them, and we as His children should do likewise.

 

Should we not do likewise?

Adoption is central to the Gospel message. Through Jesus Christ, we receive God's grace and mercy and become His children when we were once cut off by sin and death. We have been given a new family and a new life. 

 

Moreover, we reflect the love of God Himself when we care for orphans and neglected children and protect their rights. 

 

Having received God's love and having been adopted into His family, should we not also open our homes to the orphans and neglected children in our midst?

Aren't you glad Jesus did not embrace a "prochoice" worldview?

The Radiance Foundation has lately published an article titled "What Would (a Prochoice) Jesus Do?" (17 December 2013):

Sometimes we achieve clarity when we put an ideology into a different context. Our news media superficially celebrates those who fight for “equality” while denying it to millions through the violence of abortion. They go all Lady Gaga over someone who will stand for a whopping 11 hours to demand the death of innocent human life. Christ hung on a cross for a lot longer, and I’m pretty sure it was more physically tasking than standing in place in comfy pink sneakers. The difference? His sacrifice was so others wouldn’t perish.

But what if Jesus were to have embraced a “prochoice” worldview? What would that look like?

We could kiss salvation goodbye. Adoption is at the heart of our soul’s redemption, yet a maligned consideration on the “prochoice” periphery.  (Planned Parenthood aborts over 149 children for every 1 adoption referral). Half of us would immediately be written off as unwanted, therefore disposable, and certainly not worth eternally saving.

A “prochoice” Jesus would be the ultimate hypocrite having his own life spared from a single teenage mother scenario only to condemn to death others in similar circumstances. He, like the Jesse Jacksons of the world (who was conceived in rape), would enjoy the grand possibility of life while others the grim inevitability of undeserved death.

A Savior who espouses the tenets of the “prochoice” faith would not have to reveal the power of miracles, but instead rely upon a pessimistic outlook that misery is the natural outcome of physical affliction. The blind seeing, the lame walking and lepers healed would only take valuable time and resources away from those who weren’t a “burden” on society.  He would relish in His efforts to eliminate the “unfit” from the overpopulated world upon which He apparently miscalculated.

A Christ that embraced abortion dogma would be far less compassionate. That love would be conditional, dependent upon someone’s assigned worth. Those deemed “unwanted” or “undesirable” would automatically be assumed to be unlovable. He would preach to the multitudes that they should treat others how they would like to be treated, unless the others were worthless and their removal improved your bottom line.

Those who sinned and deeply desired redemption would be told that they should, instead, consider how they feel. Did it feel good to lust after someone else’s wife? Did your natural tendency to suppress self-restraint gratify you? Did you feel limited in a monogamous marital relationship that, in turn, forced you to discover your true femininity in sexual exploration? The woman caught and accused of adultery, would not have been spared from stoning because there were no men (including the adulterous ones) without sin, but because there was no sin to speak of. Christ the ProChoicer would’ve given her partially accurate birth control advice, STD-prone prophylactics and an affirming lecture on how her sexual promiscuity was normal and healthy.

This month we celebrate Christmas and the birth of a Savior who would eventually give His own life. But a “prochoice” Jesus would’ve prevented such selflessness. Narcissism is at the heart of abortion doctrine. His death and resurrection never would have happened; self-sacrifice is anathema to sacred abortion beliefs. Jesus would not have been seized from the Mount of Olives, because He would’ve chosen someone else to take his place. He had 12 disciples. Certainly one of them could be sacrificed.

Instead we have a Messiah who cares about every life from the moment of conception until natural death and beyond. He chose to be nailed to a cross, despite His innocence, and die so that we can be redeemed, no matter what we’ve done. We have a Savior who saves the most wretched, the most defenseless and the most broken. He emblazoned Purpose on our hearts from the moment we were conceived. In Christ we have compassion, grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, hope and possibility personified.

This Christmas look beyond the flashing colors, the overly-marketed ploys to buy plastic with plastic, and the well-choreographed holiday church services into the simplicity of why His birth is so meaningful and life-changing.

And rejoice! For unto us a Savior is born! And the outcome of that (humanly) unplanned pregnancy was not misery, but our very eternal liberty.

Aren't you glad Jesus did not embrace a "prochoice" worldview?

This Christmas, let us thank God for His wonderful gift of life!

John Elefante - This Time

"I can't imagine life without my daughter, Sami, and it just breaks my heart that pregnant young women much like her birth mother, instead of choosing life for their babies, are denying them the chance to be born," Elefante said. "If our song can in any way bring attention to this issue and encourage those who are considering abortion to choose life through options such as adoption, then we couldn't be happier."

Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
and that you may love the Lord your God,
listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him.
(Deuteronomy 30:19b-20a)