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

PAUL’S RECEPTION AT ROME.
16. He is permitted to select his quarters and preach the gospel ad libitum to all who saw proper
to attend his Bible school. This continues two years daily, and was then discontinued by the untimely
death of Marius, the commander-in-chief of the prætorian army, which guarded the royal palace and
the emperor’s person. Of course, the emperor was too great a man to give personal attention to a
prisoner. Hence Marius received Paul, and gave him perfect liberty as long as he lived. This was
owing to the excellent and even wonderful report given him by Julius, the centurion, who told about
the storm and thrice miraculous deliverance through this paradoxical man, and the letter of Festus,
simply stating that there was nothing against him criminal in Roman law, but simply complicated
matters connected with the Jews’ religion. These two years in Paul’s own hired house in Rome are
memorable not only for his preaching, but for his writing the Acts of the Apostles, and Epistles to
the Ephesians and Colossians and Philemon. Having arrived February, A.D. 61 (leaving Cæsarea
August, A.D. 60), he is taken out of his hired house February, A.D. 63, Marius, his friend and
protector, having died, that official’s successor, neither reading nor caring for the letter of Festus and
the report of Julius, became rigid with him, taking him to the barracks, where he wrote the Epistle
to the Philippians, stood his trial, and was acquitted for the want of evidence. Again returning to his
vast field of labor in Greece and Asia, visiting the churches once more, and writing the Pastoral
Epistles, A.D. 65-7, he was arrested at Necropolis, Macedonia, and again imprisoned in Rome on
charge of the conflagration which was imputed to the Christians, tried and condemned by Nero, and
beheaded about one mile west of the city gate. I was on the spot in 1895.
PAUL’S RECEPTION OF THE JEWS AT ROME.
17. When the Jews finally failed in Judea, and they saw Paul was gone far away to Rome, they
utterly surrendered their enterprise for his destruction, of course knowing that their brethren in Rome
were but a handful in the heart of the heathen world, and could not hope to be especially influential
with the emperor, who neither knew nor cared anything about their religion.
21. Consequently they neither wrote letters nor sent delegates to Rome to assist the prosecution
of Paul.
22. “We desire to hear from thee the things which thou thinkest; for concerning this heresy it is
known to us that it is everywhere spoken against.” The Greek word here translated “sect” in E.V.
is heresy, which means separation, and truly applied to the followers of Jesus, because in so doing
they necessarily became separate from the rank and file of the church, who rejected Him. The Holy
Ghost is the Spirit, Revelator, and Successor of our ascended Jesus, who promised to “be with us
always, even unto the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The holiness people are simply the followers
of the Holy Ghost, the Substitute of Jesus in His dispensation. In following Him we become
spiritually separated from the fallen, worldly churches, and consequently heretics from their
standpoint. Here you see the primitive Christian Church was denominated “heresy” by the Jews. In
a similar manner, the true people of God in all ages have been anathematized and persecuted as
heretics, because we can not be true to God without so separating ourselves experimentally and
practically from the apostate ecclesiasticisms as to become heretics in their estimation.