Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

39. “In him, every one believing is justified from all things from which you are not able to be
justified by the law of Moses.” Paul enforces the fact that there never was justification in any other
name. All the bleeding birds and beasts on Jewish altars slain, since the world began, never could
wash away a solitary sin. They could only point earth’s guilty millions to the “Lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world.” The first four thousand years were prospective, faith looking
forward through types and symbols to the coming Christ. Paul assures them their own Christ of
prophecy, whom the patriarchs and prophets trusted to save them, has already come; and, of course,
it is the best news they ever heard.
40-41. He here quotes Habakkuk 1:5, in which the prophets warned them lest they reject the
glorious tidings of their crucified, risen and ascended Lord, and be plunged into hopeless ruin.
42. The crowd is astounded and utterly bewildered. The audience is dismissed; meanwhile there
is a general clamor for those wonderful words to be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Amid the
exhortations of the apostles to the lingering crowd, many of the Jews and pious proselytes are
actually converted to the Christhood of Jesus. We must remember that conversion in that day
included the new birth, i.e., spiritual elevation in case of a saved people. Anon, they fell in with
godly members of the Jewish church, like Zachariah, Elizabeth, Joseph, and many others, who knew
the God of Israel experimentally, and were intelligently saved through the Lord’s coming Christ.
Such did not have to be converted to God, but only to the Christhood of Jesus.
44. The wonderful news of the first Sabbath received universal publicity and brought a great host
to hear the apostles the next Sabbath; meanwhile they pressed the work, in every open door, through
the week.
45-52. The vast Gentile crowd aroused the old prejudice of the Jews so they could no longer keep
the peace. Therefore the apostles turn to the Gentiles, who greatly rejoice to think that all the riches
of the Jews’ religion and the wonderful grace of Israel’s God is as free for them as for the Jews,
whereas the Jews had always taught them that they must first be made Jews by proselytism before
they could receive the salvation of their God. The responsive appreciation of the Gentiles make the
Jews so mad that they actually run the apostles out of the city; so they kick off the dust from their
feet as a testimony against them, and bid them adieu. Jesus says it will be more tolerable for Sodom
and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. Awful will be the doom of many in our day
who reject the gospel preached by the Lord’s holy people.