W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

of life, which every soul born of the Spirit receives for the first time and continues to drink of forever.
Argument 5. Acts 22:16: “Having arisen, be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling upon His name.” Here
Ananias exhorts Paul to receive baptism in the name of the Lord and wash away his sins, calling on His name.
The Greek epikalesamenos is the regular word for prayer used throughout the Bible. Romans 10:13: “Every one
who may call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Here is the very identical word used in Acts 22:16, and
salvation is positively promised to every human being who does it. Therefore Paul's case is no exception to
God's universal plan of salvation in answer to prayer. Paul, like every other sinner, got his sins washed away by
prayer. Of course baptism is a symbolic washing; the water applied to the body symbolizing the blood applied
by the Holy Spirit to the human spirit. The idea that water literally washed away Paul's sins is heathenish in the
extreme. I saw the poor heathens in India washing in the holy waters, thinking they could thereby expurgate
their sins. No one can read the Pauline Scriptures and believe that his sins were washed away in the water of
baptism. Romans 3:28: “For we conclude that a man is justified by faith without deeds of law.” Baptism is a
deed of the ceremonial law of the New Testament dispensation.
Paul is the author of the most of the New Testament, and fights legalism, I. e., salvation by works, with all his
might from beginning to end.
How strange to see hundreds and thousands of people deluded with the dogma of baptismal regeneration, when
there is not a syllable in the Bible which can be construed for its support without a wonderful perversion and
making the Bible flatly contradict itself.
During the war period of the Campbellites, they selected their ablest champion to defend their doctrines. I
realized during these debates a grand open door to preach the precious spiritual truths of God to multitudes of
people, who had been led away by these erronists [sic – DVM] till they never heard a Gospel sermon. You may
rest assured that the legalisms which these people preach are not the Gospel. Romans 1:16: “The Gospel is the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”
There are two Greek words translated “power.” The one is exousia, which means power in the sense of
authority; but this word which defines Gospel is dunamis, which has been adopted into the English language as
“dynamite,” the greatest mechanical power in the world. When the scientists discovered it, they ransacked the
vocabulary of the English language with its one hundred and fifty thousand words in vain to find a term strong
enough to reveal their wonderful discovery to the world, but signally failed. Then they went to God's Book to
find a word, and though it is hardly probable that they knew the Lord experimentally, yet I doubt not that the
Holy Spirit guided them to this very word, which is God's definition of Gospel. Dynamite is peculiar for its
paradoxical explosive power.
N. B. It does not say that the Gospel is the written Word. This is indispensable; yet it only serves as the vehicle
through which the Holy Ghost sends the Gospel to the heart.
In the New Testament we find four distinct phases of the Gospel. That on Sinai, thundering forth the terrors of
violated law till transgressors see Hell opened and demoniacal platoons all around them, is the Gospel of
conviction, and when faithfully and persistently preached will always produce a conviction which sinners
cannot shake off. When you preach to convicted people the Gospel of Calvary, which is the dying love of Jesus,
till the Holy Ghost, through the Word, reveals the Savior pouring out His blood to redeem from sin, death and
Hell; when you hear Him say with His expiring breath: “It is finished,” and you, by faith, realize that He has
wrought and finished your salvation on the cross; then your burden rolls away and you receive a new heart.
After this comes the Pentecostal Gospel of the glorious baptism which our Savior gives with the Holy Ghost and
fire, crucifying and burning old Adam and superseding him by the glorified Savior crowned and sceptered
within. Then under the illuminations of the blessed Holy Spirit you are enabled to make an entire consecration
and, by simple faith, receive Jesus as your sanctifier. Then another tremendous explosion takes place, blowing
the deep, ponderous strata of inbred sin from the profound interior of your spiritual organism, giving you a clean
heart and sanctifying you wholly.
The Lord has a Gospel for the sanctified, to keep them on the constant outlook for the return of Jesus with His
glorified angels, to take away His Bride. This Gospel keeps your eyes closed to vain and transitory things,