The Holy Father: The Significance Of The Holy Spirit

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The mention of the Holy Spirit so often in Romans 8 (more than twenty times) has the purpose of pointing out the actions of the Father, which serves to reveal His identity as the one who raised Jesus, specifically in Romans 8:11, from the dead. This same verb, is also used in Romans 4:17 in relationship to the faith of Abraham. The Father who raised Jesus from the dead and gives life the Abraham 's faith is the same Who will raise the believers of Jesus. In a similar fashion to the identity descriptions within Romans 4, namely Romans 4:5, 17, 24 and their relationship, there is an echo in Romans 8:32: “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” The Father is He who …show more content…

This functions as an introduction to a broader theme found throughout the letter of Galatians: Fatherhood (Gal 1:3, 4, 4:2, 6). The purpose of doing such is to indicate a developing understanding of the relationship that the Father has with Jesus as His Son; and with the Galatians, who are sons in the Son. The nature of this sonship is confusing to the Galatians and is clarified by Paul through the example of Abraham (3:7, 15-18, 4:22-31). The introduction of the theme of Divine Paternity and the argumentation to clarify the stance of the Galatians with God the Father indicates that the identification goes beyond describing the action of God, but specifies the nature of one Divine Person in relation to Another. Essentially, the first verse of Galatians in consideration with the whole of the letter is identifying God the Father in relation to Jesus, God the …show more content…

In Romans 4 the act of raising Jesus from the dead is related to giving Abraham life through fulfillment of promise. Here the same actions is used to introduce a theme and indicate to the faithful that Abraham is their father in faith (cf. Gal 3:7). In Romans 8 the act of raising Jesus from the dead assures the Spirit of Sonship will bring about life and lead the children of Abraham to call out to the Father (cf. Rom 8:14-16, Gal 4:6). Here in Galatians we see a relationship, also found in Romans, between giving life to the dead and the calling of the faithful (cf. Gal 1:6,

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