Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest
Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest
20, 21. Now the sorrowing Nazarenes gather around their murdered brother to bury him. To their joyful surprise, he jumps out of the rock-pile with a big shout, and walks with Barnabas to his next appointment at Derbe. Cheered with God’s blessing on their labors, and witnessing many conversions, they come right back to Lystra, where they had killed Paul. Do you think you could have come back and give them a chance to kill you again? 22. “Establishing the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to abide in the faith, and that through many tribulations it behooveth us to enter into the kingdom of God.” Many of Paul’s meetings were entirely on the sanctification line, making no converts, but establishing the saints. “Kingdom of God” here has its final sense of the heavenly state. 23. “Electing unto them elders in every church.” Here is another case where the E.V. inserts “ordaining” in order to sustain the authority of the Episcopal Church, of which the translators were members, there being no such a revelation in the Greek. The word translated “ordain” is cheirotoneoo, from cheir, “the hand,” and toneoo, “reach forth”; hence it simply means that they elected the elders by a vote in reaching up the hand. Doubtless they did gather around them, lay hands on them, and pray for them, thus commending them to God to use them in their offices as conservators of the general interest of the church, but there is no mention of it. The ecclesiastical ordination, of which so much is made in the popular churches, is utterly unknown in the New Testament. When the Holy Ghost had called out the saints for some special work, they fasted and prayed for them with the imposition of hands, thus consecrating them to their work, and that is all you can find in the New Testament having the similitude of ordination, which has been so woefully corrupted and perverted by the fallen ecclesiasticisms. 24-28. Now the apostles take a circuitous route through Pisidia, Pamphylia and Italia, arriving back at Syrian Antioch, whence they set out on this great evangelistic tour. Convening the church, they are received with delight by all the saints, who are spellbound and electrified by their rehearsals of the mighty works of God through their humble instrumentality in the various heathen lands of their long and perilous peregrinations.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES CHAPTER XV. THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL. In the Apostolic age, as at the present day, only a minority even of the preachers, who were many, had clear and cloudless light on the pure and immaterial spirituality of the gracious economy. While the apostles, their evangelistic comrades and many others were walking in cloudless, spiritual day, they prudentially waived the prominence of all non-essential though innocent temporalities, incidentally appertaining to the visible church. While in Jerusalem they let the Jewish Christians go ahead with bloody sacrifices and everything their consciences demanded under the law of Moses, as they knew interdiction in those matters would jostle many of their Jewish converts to the Christhood of Jesus; for the same reason they utterly ignored everything appertaining to the Mosaic dispensation among the Gentiles. Consequently preachers coming down from Judea into Syria had greatly disturbed them by persistent effort to foist on them the Mosaic law. Of course, Paul and Barnabas, in the clear light of the pure spirituality of the gospel, courageously withstood these Jewish preachers, and defended the Gentile Christians against all encroachments on their free gospel rights and privileges. Consequently, the church at Antioch, the Gentile metropolis, representative of the Gentile wing of Christendom, resolved to settle the matter by sending delegates along with Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to submit this vexed question to the apostles and elders. 1-8. Peter certifies before the council that this question had been settled by the heavenly vision at Joppa and the descension of the Holy Ghost on the Gentiles at Cæsarea, seven years ago, none of whom had ever received any of the Jewish ordinances, thus God Himself clearly confirming his acceptance of them, precisely as He had the Jews on the day of Pentecost. 9. “And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” This Scripture settles forever the fact that the hearts of the apostles on the day of Pentecost were purified by faith, in order to be filled with the Holy Ghost. It also settles the matter beyond the possibility of cavil that the plan of salvation is the very same for Jew and Gentile, at Jerusalem and in the uttermost parts of the earth. All hearts must be purified by faith after conversion, as in case of the apostles, and then filled with the Holy Ghost. 10, 11. Here Peter pleads with them to put no yoke on the necks of the disciples, whether Gentiles or Jews, assuring them that all are saved by the free grace of God through faith, without works, legal obedience or ritual ceremonies. Of course, true saving faith is in its very nature always obedient, yet the faith is the only condition of salvation, and not the obedience, which would involve the popish heresy of salvation by works. We constantly have this trouble with the holiness people. After the Omnipotent Savior has broken from our necks every yoke sin and Satan ever put on us, oh! how we are tempted to let good people put yokes on us, or even with our own hands to put them on our necks again. “If the Son shall make you free you shall be free indeed” (John 8:34). Jesus wants to make you free as angels and keep you free forever. Beware that you do not take a yoke of bondage.
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20, 21. Now the sorrowing Nazarenes gather around their murdered brother to bury him. To their<br />
joyful surprise, he jumps out of the rock-pile with a big shout, and walks with Barnabas to his next<br />
appointment at Derbe. Cheered with God’s blessing on their labors, and witnessing many<br />
conversions, they come right back to Lystra, where they had killed Paul. Do you think you could<br />
have come back and give them a chance to kill you again?<br />
22. “Establishing the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to abide in the faith, and that<br />
through many tribulations it behooveth us to enter into the kingdom of God.” Many of Paul’s<br />
meetings were entirely on the sanctification line, making no converts, but establishing the saints.<br />
“Kingdom of God” here has its final sense of the heavenly state.<br />
23. “Electing unto them elders in every church.” Here is another case where the E.V. inserts<br />
“ordaining” in order to sustain the authority of the Episcopal Church, of which the translators were<br />
members, there being no such a revelation in the Greek. The word translated “ordain” is<br />
cheirotoneoo, from cheir, “the hand,” and toneoo, “reach forth”; hence it simply means that they<br />
elected the elders by a vote in reaching up the hand. Doubtless they did gather around them, lay<br />
hands on them, and pray for them, thus commending them to God to use them in their offices as<br />
conservators of the general interest of the church, but there is no mention of it. The ecclesiastical<br />
ordination, of which so much is made in the popular churches, is utterly unknown in the New<br />
Testament. When the Holy Ghost had called out the saints for some special work, they fasted and<br />
prayed for them with the imposition of hands, thus consecrating them to their work, and that is all<br />
you can find in the New Testament having the similitude of ordination, which has been so woefully<br />
corrupted and perverted by the fallen ecclesiasticisms.<br />
24-28. Now the apostles take a circuitous route through Pisidia, Pamphylia and Italia, arriving<br />
back at Syrian Antioch, whence they set out on this great evangelistic tour. Convening the church,<br />
they are received with delight by all the saints, who are spellbound and electrified by their rehearsals<br />
of the mighty works of God through their humble instrumentality in the various heathen lands of<br />
their long and perilous peregrinations.
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