Abba

The umbrella collects three New Testament uses of the Aramaic vocative Abba, kept untranslated alongside its Greek gloss "Father." UPDV preserves the doubled form in all three.

In Gethsemane

The first use is on Jesus' lips in the garden the night of his arrest: "And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible to you; remove this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what you will" (Mark 14:36). The address opens the prayer that submits Jesus' will to the Father's.

The Spirit's Cry in the Believer

Paul carries the same vocative into the believer's situation. The mode of address is now the work of an indwelling Spirit who undoes the slave-identity of the hearer: "For you⁺ didn't receive the spirit of slavery again to fear; but you⁺ received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15). The plural-you marker (⁺) shows the address is communal — it is what Paul's hearers as a body cry.

The companion passage in Galatians names the Spirit as the Spirit of the Son, so the Son's own cry in Gethsemane is now the cry the Spirit prompts in the adopted children: "And because you⁺ are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6). The same address is therefore Christ's in his suffering, Paul's hearers' in their adoption, and the Spirit's in producing their cry.