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"As it is necessary to distinguish between the Hebrew and Chaldee idiom in the word
abi and abba, so you may, I had almost said, you must, distinguish of their sense. For the
word abi, signifies indeed a natural father, but withal a civil father, also an elder, a
master, a doctor, a magistrate: but the word abba, denotes only a natural father: yea, it
denotes, `My father'."
Lightfoot gives a series of examples which are not intelligible unless the exact
Hebrew and Chaldee is printed. His statement though giving practically the truth of the
matter, is not to be taken to be the rule without an exception, for John Nicholson,
translator of Ewald's Hebrew Grammar, cites the Targum translation of Gen. 45: 8 and
of Job 38: 28 as exceptions, and also says that according to Buxtorf's Lexicon to
the Talmud, the Talmudical writers did occasionally use abba to express rabbi and
master, but these few exceptions do not alter the fact that the slave was not permitted to
use this very personal name abba, O Father.
"Wherefore" continues the Apostle, "thou are no more a slave but a son; and if a son
then an heir of God through Christ" (Gal. 4: 7).
"If a son then an heir."
Here then is another set of contrasting names, servant versus son, and if we have
hitherto underestimated the glory of being not only a `child' but a `son' of God, we trust
Paul's blessed antonym will have been the means of leading the read into fuller light.
No.6. A Study in Galatians.
"Law versus Grace."
pp. 175 - 180
We have now reached the fifth and last of the great antonyms of the epistle to the
Galatians, "Law versus Grace", and although this set comes last, it really underlies all the
rest. For:
if the change of state from bondage to liberty be a change only just short of a
change from death to life, and
if the change of instrument, faith instead of works, be like the coming of peace
after war, and
if the change from the flesh to the spirit be like the exchange from despair to
triumph, and
if the change from the condition of servitude to that of sonship be a translation
from what is most abject to what is truly glorious,
then the change of dispensation from that of law to that of grace must be one of the most
important features of truth that the believer can know.
And yet, how many true believers have spoken slightingly of `Dispensational Truth',
not realizing that until the dispensation of law gave place to that of grace, liberty though