Abba (אַבָּא in Aramaic and Hebrew script) is the Aramaic word for father, the language Jesus spoke in everyday life. It is a word of intimacy and trust — used by a child addressing his own father directly, by name. In contemporary settings the word can be rendered something like daddy or dear father, though it was also used by adult children and was not, in itself, infantilizing. The New Testament preserves the Aramaic word Abba in three places — once on Jesus’ own lips in Gethsemane and twice in Paul’s letters describing how the Holy Spirit teaches believers to address God — and the choice to preserve the original word, rather than translate it into Greek, is itself doing real theology. Abba is the intimate form of address Jesus used with the Father, and through the Spirit that same word is now given to us.
The Aramaic word
Aramaic was the everyday spoken language of first-century Jews in Palestine. (Hebrew was the language of Scripture and formal worship; Greek was the language of the wider Mediterranean world.) Abba is the Aramaic word for father in a familiar, personal sense — the word a child uses to a parent at home.
In the surrounding cultures, addressing God as one’s personal Father was rare. Jewish prayer commonly invoked God’s covenant titles — Adonai, El Shaddai, the LORD God of Israel, the Holy One, blessed be He. The intimacy of my Father, my Abba was unusual.
Jesus’ regular use of this address was striking enough that the early church kept the original Aramaic word in the Greek text rather than translating it. They wanted us to hear how He prayed.
Three New Testament passages
The word Abba appears explicitly only three times in the Greek New Testament, but the witness is concentrated.
1. Jesus in Gethsemane
Mark preserves Jesus’ prayer in the garden in the most personal possible form: “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36 KJV).
The double form — Abba, Father — is the Aramaic word followed by its Greek translation. Mark seems to want his Greek readers to know both: the original word Jesus used (Abba) and what it means (pater — Father). On the night before His death, in the hardest hour of His life, Jesus prayed in His mother tongue, by the most intimate name He had for the Father.
2. Paul on the Spirit of adoption
Paul uses the same double form in his letter to the Romans: “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15 KJV).
The point Paul is making is enormous. Christians are not slaves of God; we are children. And the Spirit who lives in us teaches us to use the same address Jesus used. Abba — the intimate Aramaic word — is now ours to use, because we have been adopted into the family the Son shares with the Father.
3. Paul on the Spirit in our hearts
A parallel passage in Galatians: “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6 KJV).
Here Paul makes the connection even more explicit. The Spirit of His Son lives in our hearts. The Son’s own way of addressing the Father — Abba — becomes the cry of the Spirit within us. We do not invent the right way to address God; we are given it, by the Spirit who is the Son’s own Spirit.
What this teaches us
A few things, gently.
When you pray, you have permission to be intimate with God. The address Jesus used in His most personal moments is the address He gives to you. The Christian life is not first slavery to a distant deity; it is sonship and daughtership in a Father’s house. Abba is the language of that home.
Intimacy is not informality. Jesus’ Abba in Gethsemane was personal and deeply reverent — “not what I will, but what thou wilt.” The intimacy did not erase the Father’s authority; it deepened it. Christian prayer follows the same shape: closer to the Father than any other relationship in our lives, and bowed before Him more deeply because of how close we are.
And the most personal prayer is a Spirit-given prayer. Paul does not say we choose to call God Abba; he says the Spirit cries it within us. The very desire to pray in this way is itself the Holy Spirit’s work. So even on days when you do not feel close to the Father, the Spirit is still teaching your heart the word Abba. He has not stopped because you have wandered.
Related: Father in Jesus’ teaching
This intimate address sits behind the most famous prayer in Christian history. The Lord’s Prayer begins “Our Father which art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9) — and the original Aramaic Jesus used was almost certainly Abuna (our Father) or Abinu, drawing on the same Abba root.
Jesus’ teaching about prayer is built around this address. “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father…” The single most transformative move in Christian prayer is the move from addressing God by office or title to addressing Him as Father — our Father, my Father — in the trust of a child who knows He is loved.
Reading these passages in context
For more on Abba — the Aramaic background of Jesus’ prayer life, the cultural settings of first-century Jewish address to God, the early church’s reading of Romans 8 and Galatians 4, and the cross-references between Gethsemane and the Lord’s Prayer, The Context Bible opens up five lenses on every verse. Open it in your browser or download free.
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” — 1 John 3:1 KJV
