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

welcome, even walking out to the Appian Forum and Three Taverns (forty miles) to greet and
accompany him into the city and introduce him to the brethren.
THIS EPISTLE.
I may here safely observe that among all the apostolical epistles, Pauline and general, this bears
the palm, and even among all the books of the whole Bible, for symmetry, beauty, comprehensibility,
unity and variety, this book stands pre-eminent. As Rome was the capital and metropolis of the
whole world, it is believed Paul did his best in this noble production, so comprehending and
expounding every phase of gospel truth that if all the rest of the Bible were lost, this epistle would
furnish all the truth necessary to salvation. Opening with the sin side of the argument, he addresses
the first chapter to the heathens, appropriate at this great emporium of paganism. When I was there
three years ago I was in the Pantheon, a great temple in which all the gods were worshipped. This
was there in Paul’s day. Chapter 2 is addressed to the Jews, who were the popular church-members
in that day. With verse 18 of the third chapter the sinward argument closes, and the most thorough
and elaborate exegesis in the Bible runs from verse 19 of this chapter through the fifth chapter,
expository of justification by the free grace of God in Christ, received and appropriated by faith
alone. Chapter 6 is a grand and unanswerable exposition of entire sanctification, while Chapter 7
gives Paul’s wonderful Arabian experience of his own glorious sanctification after a three years’
conflict with the man of sin and the law (Galatians 1), till God revealed His Son in him, having
appeared to him on the way to Damascus. Chapter 8 is grand and wonderful on the sanctified
experience, also running triumphantly into glorification. Verse 29 of the eighth chapter opens that
climacteric presentation of election and reprobation, running through Chapter 9 Chapter 11 unlocks
the mysterious and much controverted problem relative to the ultimate destiny of the Jews, God’s
miracle of providence after the expiration of the Gentile times. Chapter 12 is lucidly and gloriously
expository of experimental and practical sanctification. Chapter 13 assures us of the Lord’s near
coming and the transfiguration of the saints. Chapters 14 and 15 elucidate sundry duties and
responsibilities, and the sixteenth is devoted to the salutations of the great crowd of saints who had
been saved through his ministry and had migrated to Rome during the twenty eight years since the
church was founded by the Pentecostal converts.