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

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
CHAPTER XIX.
SANCTIFICATION OF THE EPHESIAN CHURCH.
1-7. Apollos remains preaching in the great church at Corinth, the largest and most gifted of the
age, the result of an eighteen months’ protracted meeting held by Paul, Timothy, Silas and Luke.
Happily, in the good providence of God, the great Apollos, now bright and fresh in his Beulah-land
experience, arriving soon after Paul went away on that great tour visiting all of his Asiatic churches,
“confirming them,” i.e., getting them sanctified and establishing them in the experience and life of
holiness. After this long tour, “Paul having come through the upper parts [i.e., those countries east
of the river Hollys], arrives at Ephesus and finds some disciples.” This little band of twelve disciples
had been converted under the preaching of Apollos before he was sanctified, and while he was still
fervently proclaiming the gospel of Jesus the Christ in the Johanic dispensation, as he lived away in
Africa where he had not come in contact with the stirring history of the crucifixion, resurrection,
ascension and Pentecost at Jerusalem, as you must remember they had no mails nor newspapers.
2. “Did you receive the Holy Ghost, having believed? And they said, But we did not hear that the
Holy Ghost is given.” Apollos, under the powerful preaching of John the Baptist, having learned that
the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire, after He has consummated the atonement on
Calvary and ascended into heaven, thus satisfying the violated law and preparing the way for the
incarnation of the Holy Ghost as in the Eden times. Apollos, after his powerful conversion and call
to the ministry under the preaching of John the Baptist, who so constantly emphasized the coming
Baptism of the Holy Ghost by his Divine Successor, had gone away to Africa, faithfully preaching
the glorious gospel, but not enjoying an opportunity to keep posted in the current events at
Jerusalem. Thus, under the Johanic dispensation, as was his custom, on arrival at Ephesus he
preaches in the Jewish synagogues, proclaiming Jesus after the manner of John, who had introduced
Him, and assuring them that it will be their privilege to receive the personal indwelling Holy Spirit
when the Messiah shall baptize them. The E.V., “We have not so much as heard that there be any
Holy Ghost,” is not only illusory, but out of harmony with the Greek. Apollos, “fervent,” i.e., boiling
over in spirit, was really a Holy Ghost preacher, bright in the experience of regeneration, so
prominent in the ministry of John the Baptist, to whose dispensation he belonged, yet preaching, as
we see from this record, the second work of grace, though he had not yet received it, and was
consequently incompetent to lead others into it.
3. “And he said, Unto what then were you baptized? And they said, Unto the baptism of John.”
This is a confirmation that Apollos was one of those mighty men, ushered forth by the ministry of
John the Baptist and still preaching in his dispensation. Was not this a pity? Apollos was a few years
behind the age when he came to Ephesus. But what about the unsanctified preachers in all of the
popular churches at the present day, who are not, like Apollos, a dozen years behind the age, but
three thousand years behind, as they are preaching in the dispensation of Moses? So we can withhold
our criticisms from Apollos.