At the end of verse 5, Paul used the first person pronoun we, which would include all Christians. Now at the beginning of verse 6, he switches to the second person plural (to show that you are his sons), thus making a more direct appeal to his Galatian readers. In the second part of the verse, he reverts to the first person plural (God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts), thus completely identifying himself with his readers in the experience of sonship and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Because of the shift between second person plural and first person plural, it may be important to reinforce the first person plural by saying “into all of our hearts.” However, in many languages one does not speak of the Spirit being “in one’s heart” but rather “in one’s life” or “in one’s inner self.” In fact, in some languages it would be more appropriate to translate the second clause of this verse as “God sent his Son’s Spirit to control us,” or “… to guide us.” Such an expression would have much more significance than one which merely speaks of sending a Spirit into one’s heart, particularly if the expression for “heart” has no relation to will or emotion.

Good News Translation signals the presence of an exegetical problem in this verse by giving an alternative rendering to the expression to show that you are his sons. The alternative rendering, “because you are his sons,” treats the expression as causal, giving the reason for God’s act of sending the Spirit into the believers’ hearts. Some translations follow this interpretation (for example, Moffatt “it is because you are sons”), but most modern translations take the expression as a proposition to be established or to be proved (for example, New English Bible “to prove that you are his sons”). In the former case, sonship is the reason for the gift of the Holy Spirit; but in the latter the gift of the Spirit confirms for the believer his status as a child of God. However, the concepts of reason and confirmation are thoroughly interrelated.

The expression the Spirit of his Son, referring to the Holy Spirit, is used only here in the New Testament. Elsewhere, Paul uses the expressions “the Spirit of Christ” and “the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” It is essential that any term for “Spirit” be such that it may apply in the phrases “Holy Spirit” and “God’s Spirit,” for precisely the same term must be used of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ.

The Spirit is sent into our hearts, that is, the center of intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. It is from the heart that the Spirit cries out Father, my Father. The Greek word for cries out is used to describe a loud or earnest cry or even a public announcement, but here primarily it describes prayer addressed to God and shows how intense is the Spirit’s cry within the believer. The expression translated Father, my Father is a combination of both the Aramaic and the Greek terms for “father”; it was probably used by the early church as a liturgical formula. Jesus spoke Aramaic, and he may have started the Lord’s prayer with the Aramaic “Abba.” This liturgical formula suggests a passionate and intimate cry addressed to God in recognition of his fatherhood and in gratitude for the gift of sonship. It is true that the Spirit is the one that cries, but he cries from the believer’s heart. A literal translation of the Spirit who cries out could be interpreted to mean that the Spirit engages in the activity of speaking of the Father, as Father, my Father, but that the individual believer is himself in no way involved. It may, therefore, be necessary to say “the Spirit which causes us to cry ‘Father, my Father.’ ”

In the translation of the verb cries out, it is important to avoid an expression which would suggest either shouting or weeping. What is in focus here is the earnestness with which one speaks.

In a number of languages it may be misleading and, in fact, inappropriate to translate literally “Father, my Father.” A more satisfactory equivalent may be “my dear Father” or “my Father whom I love.” It is, of course, important so to structure verse 6 that the expression Father, my Father will be translated as a reference to God as used in prayer.

This verse is interpreted by some as indicating that sonship precedes the experience of the Holy Spirit. Many commentators, however, see a difficulty in this position, for Paul makes it clear in other writings that the gift of the Spirit is the means through which believers become conscious of their sonship (compare Rom 8.15). The difficulty is really not great, for there is indeed a close relation between sonship and the gift of the Spirit. However, in this verse, Paul should be allowed to say what he apparently intends to say, without being influenced by what he has written elsewhere.

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .