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

ROMANS.
PROLOGUE.
From Jerusalem to Rome is about fifteen hundred miles. I traveled the route directly during my
tour in 1895. It is a small matter now, however perilous, prolix and paradoxical in the apostolic age,
and attended with such difficulty and danger in the absence of the steam-engine and the mariner’s
compass, that even Paul, with his supernatural courage, advised postponement till spring, and after
all was caught in a storm, wrecked on the Island of Malta, and detained till spring. The second time
I crossed the Atlantic I was in a storm which lasted five days and nights, but our noble steamer with
thirty-six boilers shot through the face of the tempest like an arrow. Jesus appeared to Paul twice,
(a) on the Damascus road and (b) while praying in the temple (Acts 22:17), where He gave him his
commission to the Gentiles. As Rome was the capital and metropolis of the Gentile world, I trow
from the hour of his commission in Jerusalem his heart leaned away toward Rome. Eventually he
receives clear light, assuring him that he must go at no distant day. Hence, when he wrote this letter
in Corinth, in the winter of A.D. 58, he enjoyed quite a prescience of his ministry in Rome in the
near future. His arrest and imprisonment in Jerusalem took place in June A.D. 58, being soon carried
to Cæsarea to save his life from the mob, and there detained by the avaricious Felix — in hopes of
filthy lucre for his release — two full years, when, pursuant to his appeal to Cæsar, Festus, the noble
successor of the unworthy Felix, was forced by Roman law to send him to Rome, though utterly
failing, even through the judicial help of King Agrippa, to ascertain even the smallest allegation
against him criminal in Roman law. Hence the letter written by Festus to the emperor, corroborated
by the testimony of Julius, the Roman centurion, who had him in custody, secured for Paul great
leniency and full evangelistic liberty at Rome during the life of Burrus, the commander-in-chief of
the prætorian army which guarded the imperial palace, who, receiving the letter of Festus and the
report of Julius in reference to the innocence of Paul, permitted him to enjoy perfect liberty to push
the gospel work in his hired mission hall, central in the city, two full years, till this noble man —
Paul’s only influential friend at the imperial court — passed on to his account with God. His
successor, neither knowing nor caring anything about Paul, had him removed to the military
barracks, where he wrote the letter to the Philippians, having written the epistles to the Ephesians,
Colossians, and Philemon during the two years in his hired house. Who founded the Roman church?
We are satisfied that no apostle founded it in person. I trow the “strangers from Rome, Jews and
proselytes,” on the day of Pentecost, having received the baptism with the holy Ghost and fire, went
home and founded their own church. As Pentecost was a purely Jewish assembly (I mean religiously,
as all proselytes were Jews in an ecclesiastical sense), of course the original nucleus of the church
was about all Jews. We ascertain from Paul’s long catalogue of salutations in the sixteenth chapter
that he knew personally quite a host of the members when he wrote this letter at Corinth early in
A.D. 58. Rome was the center and metropolis of the known world, as well as the home of the
emperor and his five thousand senators, the rulers of the world. Consequently the trend of universal
immigration to Rome was great. Paul arrived in February A.D. 61, the Pentecostal revival being June
A.D. 33. Hence during these twenty-eight years a host of Paul’s converts, not only from Asia, but
especially from Europe, had migrated to Rome, not only swelling the membership, but
revolutionizing it in the fact of giving a majority to the Gentile element. Hence, when Paul wrote this
letter, he had quite a multitude of happy Christian friends and acquaintances at Rome, not only ready
to receive with joyful appreciation this wonderful letter, but to greet the apostle with joyous