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

ROMANS
CHAPTER I.
1. “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.” Oiketees means “a hired servant”; doulos, the word here
occurring, means “slave,” the signification at once beautiful and profound; a striking allusion to Old
Testament slavery, which went out at the Jubilee. However, the law provided for the indefinite
detention of such as were not willing to leave their masters, specifying in that case that the proprietor
should nail his ear to the door-post, thus signifying that he should never go out of his house, but
abide his slave forever. This is a beautiful symbolism. All sinners are Satan’s slaves. All truly
sanctified people are God’s slaves. Meanwhile the unsanctified Christians rank as hired servants in
the kingdom of God, serving for hire; e.g., preaching for a salary, et cetera. The sanctified gospel
blows the Jubilee trumpet this day in all the world. Responsive to the trumpet call to sanctification,
many reject and go back to the carnal freedom of Satan’s kingdom, serving God no longer. Praise
the Lord, while they go back by thousands, rejecting holiness and forfeiting justification, yet they
do not all go back. The elect few still, as in olden time, say: “Master, I will not leave thee.” “Then
come up to the door-post and let me nail your ear, so that you shall abide in my house forever;” i.e.,
let me nail old Adam to the cross, and crucify him, thus sanctifying you wholly, so that you shall
never go out of my house. How unutterably blessed to be the “Lord’s love slave.”
“Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness and lost in His love.”
“An elect apostle, having been separated unto the gospel of God.” “Called” in the E.V. is the word
for “elect.” We are nominated in regeneration, elected in sanctification, and crowned in glorification.
Paul was utterly separated from the world for this work, as God’s elect people are this day.
2. “Which He before proclaimed through His holy prophets.” “Gospel” means the good news that
God has redeemed the world and salvation is free. This was the burning message of His prophets
from the days of Abel.
4. “Defined the Son of God with power from the resurrection of the dead, through the Spirit of
holiness.” The resurrection of our Savior by the omnipotent power of the Holy Ghost was the
irrefutable confirmation of His Messiahship, the grand leverage of human faith and the prelude of
the universal resurrection of the dead.
5. “Through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto the obedience of faith among all the
Gentiles, for His name’s sake.” The redemption of Christ is the only procuring cause of salvation,
the Holy Ghost the efficient cause, the preaching of the Word the instrumental cause, and faith the
conditional cause.
6. “In whom ye are also the elect of Jesus Christ: