Galatians 4:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

We shall say to them first that it is one thing to be from someone, and another thing to belong to someone.

That the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son is not subject to doubt and is confirmed by all Scripture. But no Scripture testifies that He is from the Son.

Otherwise we would introduce two causes of the Spirit, namely the Father and the Son.

They say: but He breathed on the disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (Jn 20:22). What a false understanding!

If He gave the Spirit to the disciples when He breathed on them, then how did He tell them that after a few days they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:5, 8)?

Or why do we believe that the descent of the Spirit occurred at Pentecost, if He gave Him on the evening of the day of His resurrection?

For then He had already breathed. But this is quite absurd. Clearly, He did not then give them the Holy Spirit, but one of the gifts of the Spirit, namely the forgiveness of sins.

For He immediately adds, "Whose sins you forgive" (Jn 20:23).

The Son has the Spirit essentially, as consubstantial with Him, and not as one moved to activity by Him. For the prophets are moved to activity.

He is called the Spirit of the Son because the Son is truth, power, and wisdom. The Holy Spirit is described by Isaiah as the Spirit of truth, power, and wisdom (Is 11:2-3).

He is also called the Son's Spirit in another sense, namely because He is given to men through the Son.

Believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and is given to creatures through the Son. This will be for you the rule of Orthodoxy.

I say this because many, through ignorance of Scripture, assert that the Holy Spirit is often called now the Father, now the Son. Firmian does this in the eighth book of his letters to Dimitrian.

Although we believe most definitely in the Holy Trinity, they abolish the Third Person. They imagine that He is not a distinct substance, substantia, but only a distinct name.

So as not to go too far, since I am composing not a dialogue, dialogus, but only a commentary, I shall briefly show that three Spirits are named also in the fiftieth Psalm.

The prophet says: “O God, create in me a clean heart, and renew a right Spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and establish me with a princely Spirit,” principali.

By the princely Spirit he means the Father, because the Son is from the Father, and not the Father from the Son.

By the name of the right Spirit, the Spirit of truth and righteousness, he names Christ the Lord. For “the Father has given all judgment to the Son” (Jn 5:22), as David says: “O God, give Thy judgment to the king, and Thy power to the King’s Son” (Ps 71:1).

Finally, by a clear name he calls upon the Holy Spirit. They are distinct in persons and names, but united in essence and nature. Therefore the same Spirit, by unity of nature, is called now the Spirit of the Father and now the Spirit of the Son.

With this ending the Apostle concludes the proof on which he is trying to stand: namely, that we are no longer under the Law, but under the grace of the Lord Jesus.

Above he said, “That we might receive adoption as children of God.” Now he says that we are sons of God. This is proved by the Spirit Whom we have within ourselves.

For, he says, we would never have dared to say, “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” except through consciousness of the Spirit dwelling in us and crying with the loud voice of feeling and teaching: “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15).

Abba is a Hebrew word meaning the same as Father. In many places of Scripture this custom is preserved: a Hebrew word is set together with its translation.

Thus Bartimaeus is translated “son of Timaeus,” Asher as “riches,” Tabitha as “gazelle” (Acts 9:36), and in Genesis Mesech as “home-born,” that is, a slave not bought, but born from a slave belonging to the household. Other examples are similar.

Since Abba means Father in Hebrew and Syriac, and since our Lord commands in the Gospel that no one except God be called Father (Mt 5), I do not know by what right, qua licentia, in monasteries we both call others by this name and accustom them to call us so.

If we do not swear, then we should not call anyone else father either. If we introduce a new understanding for the term father, then we are compelled to do the same concerning oaths.

It is also necessary to note that in Holy Scripture “crying out” does not mean producing a loud sound with the voice, but greatness of knowledge and teaching.

Indeed, in Exodus the Lord says to Moses: “Why do you cry out to Me?” (Ex 14:15), although no words had previously been uttered by Moses.

Scripture calls a heart that is truly contrite and that groans for the people with tears a cry. Therefore, just as the one who has the Spirit of the Son of God is a son of God, conversely, the one who does not have the Spirit of the Son of God cannot be called a son of God.

Therefore the Spirit, descending from the Father, rests upon the Son, and if you wish, in the Son also. The difference of cases introduces no change here.

The prophet Isaiah also proclaims the same thing from the beginning, referring the utterance to the person of Christ: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me" (Is 61:1).

Have you ever heard those glorious men, Gregory or Zachariah? Perhaps they will sooner put your shamelessness to shame.

Have you heard how they say that the Spirit rests in the Son? And from this did you not at once pass to Paul's saying, where he says, "the Spirit of His Son" (Gal 4:6)?

Instead of inventing fables about procession, why did you not awaken to the understanding that, since the Spirit rests in the Son, He would rightly be called the Spirit of the Son?

For the sole cause of the Spirit in the Son would not be unclear and would not force persuasion as to why "Spirit of the Son" is said.

What does the apostolic testimony more readily allow one to think: that the Spirit rests in the Son, or that He proceeds from the Son?

Rather, the comparison itself is inappropriate. For the Baptist of the universal Master proclaims one thing, and the prophet foretells it from of old.

The Savior Himself, reading the saying, seals it. Piety, having received mystical instruction from this, is set before all the faithful for teaching.

But you, arising from the dark gates of impiety, instead of glorifying that the Spirit rests in the Son and upon the Son, fight against God by saying that He proceeds from the Son.

He rests in the Son and therefore is the Spirit of the Son. This is also because, as I said above, He is of the same nature, Godhead, glory, Kingdom, and power.

If you wish, He is so also because He anoints Christ, for it is said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me."

And because the conception beyond words and the ineffable and seedless birth occurred when the Spirit overshadowed the Virgin. For it is said: "And He has sent Me to preach good tidings to the poor" (Is 61:1).

"For it was not they who spoke, but through them spoke the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from God the Father, yet is not foreign to the Son according to the concept of nature."

Do you hear in what sense "Spirit of the Son," "proper to Him," and "not foreign" are said?

"According to the concept of nature," he says, that is, as consubstantial with Him.

And Basil the Great says in chapter 18 to Amphilochius: "It is said, 'the Spirit of Christ,' as being joined to Him by nature."

What better interpreter of the apostolic words and of their own words shall we seek besides those divine Teachers?

Thus both we and you, all believers, became sons. That you truly are sons needs no distant proof. The testimony is in you yourselves: the Spirit dwelling in you. By Him your whole inner being is disposed to cry out to God: “Abba, Father!”

You could not have this Spirit if you were not sons. He is in you because you are sons, just as you are sons because He is in you. He made you sons, regenerating you by His grace and placing you in the rank of those born of God, who are His sons.

Having regenerated you, He dwells in you and keeps you in the feelings of sonship toward God. The Apostle’s expression suggests that, because you are sons, God sent the Spirit. In reality, the Holy Spirit makes believers in the Lord sons through regeneration.

Yet these moments need not be distinguished, for they enter into one another. Does the Spirit of God make all sons by regenerating them? Not all, but only those who have believed in the Lord, resolved to follow Him in everything, and for these dispositions have been received into God’s favor, as though foreordained to be sons.

After this, the Holy Spirit, coming through the mysteries, makes them sons substantially. Having made them such, He dwells in them and teaches them to rise up to God as Father.

In the course of the ordering of our salvation it was so: the time came to bring Jews and Gentiles spiritually into sonship. The Son of God came, accomplished everything preordained in the counsel of God concerning our salvation, and, having ascended into heaven, sent down the Holy Spirit from the Father.

Then this Spirit made sons of all who believed. The holy Apostle’s thought was to impress this: now everything extraneous must be cast aside. You see that the awaited time has come for men to be sons. You can see this clearly from the Spirit acting within you.

The Spirit is present. Seek nothing more. Lean on nothing else. Bind yourself by nothing. The Spirit cries in the hearts: “Abba, Father!”

This seems to be something mystical and hidden, acting in believers beyond consciousness, or deeper than consciousness. No, it truly exists and is consciously known by true believers who have within themselves the action of the Spirit of grace.

In such people the whole inner being is so attuned that they deeply feel themselves to be sons of God and know God as Father to them. This is the possession of all Christians.

Even now, those who have preserved the grace of baptism by living continuously as Christians should, feel themselves to be such. Those who have lost the grace of baptism cannot feel themselves to be such.

They must recover this grace through repentance. Then they must allow grace to gain mastery over them through the labors of self-denial, ascetic struggle, and good works. Then the same feeling of sonship toward God will be reborn in them.

So teach all the Spirit-bearing Fathers. To see that this is so, take for comparison the feelings of a slave who has gravely offended his master and expected nothing from him but death.

Yet, returning to him with repentance, he is mercifully received, caressed, and restored to his former rank. Such a servant cannot refrain from crying out from the depths of his soul to his master: “My own father!”

He will remain with this feeling thereafter. So it is in our spirit in relation to God. This is so essential in Christianity that whoever lacks such feeling toward God has not yet become a true Christian.

He either lives in negligence or has not yet reached the point at which the Holy Spirit becomes active in the heart. Since this subject is of first importance for us, I shall cite the words of all the ancient commentators who gave it their attention.

Blessed Jerome writes: “That we are sons, the Apostle proves from the Spirit Whom we have within ourselves. We would never have dared to cry, ‘Our Father, Who art in heaven,’ unless we were conscious within ourselves of the indwelling Spirit Who cries, ‘Abba, Father!’

Therefore, just as the one who has the Spirit of the Son of God is a son to God, so the one who does not have the Spirit of the Son of God cannot be called a son to God.”

Ambrosiaster reasons thus: “When he called the Gentiles who believed in Christ sons, though they were formerly enemies, there is no doubt that he also gives this name to the believing Jews, who, as is known, received this title long ago.

Yet they received this name only as an image, so that afterward it might be confirmed for them substantially through Christ. Without the Spirit it was not full and substantial.

So that we might have proof that we have truly been adopted by God, He gave us His Spirit. The Spirit shows the Father’s mark upon the sons. He gives us boldness to say to God what before, through weakness and unworthiness, we did not dare to say: ‘Abba, Father.’”

Blessed Augustine says this: “The Apostle said that we Jews were redeemed from under the law, that we might receive adoption. It remained to show that the same adoption belongs also to the Gentiles, who were not under the law.

He does this by mentioning the gift of the Holy Spirit given to all. Therefore Peter also defends himself before the believing Jews for having baptized Cornelius the uncircumcised centurion. He says that he could not forbid water to those who had already plainly received the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 10:47).

Saint Paul had already used this most important proof above when he said: ‘Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?’ (Gal 3:2).

So here too he says: ‘Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father!’”

Oecumenius speaks for all the Eastern Fathers, since all say the same: “How is it evident that we have been counted worthy of adoption? From the Spirit of adoption. He overshadowed us and teaches us, for this is what ‘crying’ means, to call God Father. This certainly would not be so if we had not been counted worthy of adoption.”