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

23. “And appointing a day with him, they came to him in his hired house in great numbers, to
whom he expounded, testifying the kingdom of God, and persuading them concerning Jesus, both
from the law of Moses and the prophets, from morning till evening.” We see not only throughout the
epistles but constantly in the Acts a peculiar prominence given to the “kingdom of God.” The
connection here shows very clearly that Paul on this occasion told them that Jesus of Nazareth, who
had been crucified, was none other than the King of Israel, the Successor of David, who is coming
back to restore the kingdom of Israel and reign forever. This kingdom was predicted by the old
prophets, proclaimed by John the Baptist and preached by the Savior and His apostles and their
successors to all nations, calling out the elect, and getting the bride ready for the return of her divine
Spouse from heaven, when He will restore the kingdom of David and reign forever (Acts 15:121).
24, 25. This proved no exception to the universal rule in all the Pauline ministry: the Jews
divided, some with Paul and some against him. So here, as everywhere else, he got the credit of
dividing the Jewish church. All salvation is bound to produce division, as Jesus said: “I came not to
send peace on earth, but division.” People can not be saved without breaking up their old worldly
and carnal alliances, social, civil and ecclesiastical. Paul winds up this day’s preaching with that
notable quotation from Isaiah setting forth the spontaneous rejection of the Holy Ghost by the Jews
and all other fallen churches, thus incurring spiritual blindness, hardness of heart, utterly grieving
away the Holy Spirit, crossing the dead-line and sealing their doom in hell.
28. Now Paul having given the Jews his first message, turns to the Gentiles. So in all our ministry
we are to begin with the church people, giving them the first gospel privileges, then when they reject,
go at once to the “highways and hedges.”
30, 31. So during Paul’s ministry of two years in his hired house, he was constantly “preaching
the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus,” with all authority, no one
hindering him. During this gospel dispensation, the church, i.e., the ecclesia, is to prevail throughout
all nations, this word meaning “the called out.” Hence the great work of the gospel age is to call the
people out of this wicked, ruined world and separate them unto God, thus getting them ready for the
return of our glorious King who now sits upon the mediatorial throne at the right hand of the Father.
“The age to come” (Hebrews 6:5) will not be the church period, but the Kingdom, Satan having been
cast out (Revelation 20), and the world redeemed and dominated by the King of Glory, so the people
will no longer have to come out of the world to be in harmony with God, as the world will have been
gloriously delivered from Satan’s kingdom and
“King Jesus shall have dominion over river, sea and shore;
Far as the eagle’s pinion or dove’s light wing can soar.”