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

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
CHAPTER II.
PENTECOST.
1. The Kairites (so named from the Greek word which means time and occurs in the phrase “times
and seasons”) are scholarly critics who make times and seasons a specialty of investigation. These
tell us the day of Pentecost was Sunday. Our Savior was crucified on Friday, April 14th. This would
make Pentecost the first Sunday in June, and the notable epoch on which the dispensation of the
Holy Ghost was inaugurated. The celebrated Dr. Gordon denominated Pentecost “the birth of the
Holy Ghost.” Though this strikes us as strange phraseology, yet it is not without a degree of
plausibility. Of course, such a statement does not ignore the pre-existence of the Holy Ghost, as He
is none other than the very and eternal God, co-existent with the Almighty from all eternity. The
same is equally true of the Son; yet He was born in Bethlehem. The Son of God was as real in the
old dispensation as in the new, excarnate in the former and incarnate in the latter; but just as truly
a Savior of the antediluvian as of the present generation. Before Pentecost the Holy Ghost was in the
world in all ages; but it may be said that He operated on human hearts extrinsically, i.e., from
without. E.g., while the minstrel played, the Holy Ghost came on the Jewish prophet. When Samson
arose and shook himself the Spirit of God came mightily on him. As the Son of God when born in
Bethlehem came into a human body, so the Holy Ghost in the day of Pentecost came into the bodies
of the disciples, thus incarnating Himself in human bodies and inaugurating His own dispensation,
whose crowning glory is the incarnation of the Holy Ghost. When the Holy Ghost radically purifies
a human spirit and moves into it, thus incarnating Himself in a human being, a new order of
administration and operation at once supervenes, in which the incarnated Holy Spirit operates
intrinsically, i.e., from within upon the external world, using the person thus occupied as a medium,
spiritual, intellectual and physical, to transmit His omnipotent heavenly influences to all with whom
He comes in contact. Hence you see that the incarnation was an indispensable prerequisite to make
the church truly aggressive in the conquest of the world to Christ. Hence our Savior told His
disciples that they would do greater works after He had gone to His Father; because He must go up
and receive the Father’s approval of His expiation of a guilty world before the divine administration
can be magnified by the incarnation of the Holy Ghost in the people of this world. This is really the
glorious earnest of the grand restitution. When the Holy Ghost thus incarnates Himself in a human
being, He brings in the “age to come” (Hebrews 6:5), i.e., the millennium, a prelibation of the
glorious millennial reign of our descended Lord. The grand ultimatum of the gospel dispensation is
this incarnation of the Holy Ghost, in which we are actually married to Him (because He is none
other than the Spirit of Jesus), and this spiritual wedlock verifies the Bridehood of Christ,
anticipatory of the glorious celebration of the heavenly nuptials in the presence of the Father and
multiplied millions of unfallen angels at the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven, which shall
immediately follow the rapture of the bride, for which we are this day in constant outlook. Our Lord
ascended into heaven on Thursday. Flooded with the thrilling anticipations of His glorious
prophetical fulfillments in the descension and incarnation of the Holy Ghost, they go away to their
mission hall on Mount Zion, thrilled with jubilant expectations. Some think the Lord will honor His
ascension day and send the Comforter before the sun goes down. In this they are mistaken, and a
night of prayer brings deep illuminations into their hearts. Friday, ever memorable for the crucifixion