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