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

arrows in Tartary; Thomas interpenetrated with a cruel iron bar, and thus martyred, in India; and
John, having been miraculously delivered from the caldron of boiling oil in Rome into which he was
cast to make soap of him, was then banished to Patmos, where he saw the apocalyptic visions;
finally, at the age of 101 years, was translated to Heaven from Ephesus, Asia Minor. Justin Martyr,
Irenæus, and other Christian Fathers, so certify, and I believe. Why have we no record in Scripture?
Good reason: John himself was the last writer, surviving all the other apostles thirty years. Hence
no one was left to record his translation. John Wesley believed it, and so do I. God, in His wonderful
providence, gave the Romans the whole world in one vast consolidated empire, as a grand
preparation for the universal propagation of the gospel, which would have been an impossibility
without the protection of a universal government. For a similar reason, He gave Alexander the Great
all nations B.C. 325, in order to establish the Greek language in all the world as the necessary vehicle
which God in His wonderful providence had prepared to transmit the gospel to the world, and retain
it in its inspired original to the latest generation.
9. “For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, how I incessantly
make mention of you always in my prayers;
10. “Supplicating, if possible indeed at some time I shall be pleased in the will of God to come
unto you.” Paul had been preaching twenty eight years when he wrote this letter, all the time desiring
and praying that it might be his glorious privilege, in the will of God, to visit the world’s metropolis
and there preach the gospel in the capital of all the nations beneath the skies.
11. “For I long to see you, in order that I may impart unto you a certain spiritual gift, that you
may be established.” Since the Bible abundantly reveals entire sanctification as the establishing
grace, we legitimately conclude that this is an indirect, though exceedingly forcible, allusion to the
great second work of grace, so prominent in the Pauline epistles, as well as the whole Bible. Paul
made great tours traveling through many different countries, “confirming the saints;” i.e., getting
them sanctified and established in the experience.
12. “But this is the consolation among you through the faith in one another, both of you and me.”
While God is the only object of faith, yet in a subjective sense the faith of the saints mutually
cooperates, developing reciprocal invigoration, intensification and augmentation.
13. “I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, I purposed to come unto you, (but was hindered
hitherto,) in order that I may have some fruit among you, as indeed among other Gentiles.” A halfdozen
years had elapsed since Paul first planted the gospel in Greece, which was separated from Italy
only by a narrow sea, yet it is the Adriatic, in all ages notorious as a storm-center and a tempest
breeder. In that age, when the art of navigation was in its infancy, the mariner’s compass and the
steam engine not yet dreamed of, the enterprise of crossing that stormy sea from Greece to Italy was
no insignificant affair. You must remember that when Paul made this voyage it occupied about five
months, and involved an awful shipwreck after a storm of two solid weeks without letting up. We
must not forget that our apostle was entirely without financial resources, so essential to this long,
perilous and expensive voyage. Hence, in the providence of God appealing to Cæsar, he forced his
enemies to defray the expenses of this tour, all the way from Jerusalem to Rome. During these
twenty eight years his work had resulted in the establishing of hundreds of churches (i.e., mostly