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

the angelic element of our nature, we will go up and live with the angels when we go out of this
world. If we live for the animal of our nature, we will go down and live with the demonized animals
in the world of woe; we will all reap what we sow.
8. “To those who from self-seeking, and who obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness, there
will be indignation and wrath.” These rewards and retributions have nothing whatever to do with
church membership or its absence, but simply the character of each individual. You either become
like God or Satan in this life. In the final judgment, all who truly and inwardly are like God, will go
up and live with Him forever, while those who have lived for the world, Satan will claim as his own,
since he is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4).
9. “Tribulation and anguish upon every soul, that worketh out the evil, of the Jew first and also
of the Greek.” Jew here represents the whole world who claim to be godly; the Greek, the nonprofessors.
“Worketh out the evil” has a final signification, i.e., indicating the ultimate destiny of
every soul. As you observe the people within the circle of your acquaintance, you will find the
general trend either to the good or the bad developing a finale, one way or the other, before they
leave the world. All wind up this life confirmed either in holiness and God or this world and Satan.
The church means “the called out of the world,” while sanctification means taking the world out of
you and thus perfecting your separation from the world and Satan, who is its god. One way or the
other there is in every case a “working out” of the problem for salvation or damnation.
11. “For there is no respect of persons with God.” He only knows character. The fact that you
have been a great churchman or an elegant preacher will be neither known nor mentioned in the
Judgment Day. Many who have lived and died unknown to the great of church and state will be
called to the front, while multitudes who have been very great and honorable, standing at the front,
will be relegated to the rear. There is but one question, “Are you like God?” If not, all the good you
think you did is sunk in the sloughs of Satan’s kingdom.
12. “For so many as sinned without law, shall also perish without law; while those who sinned
under the law, shall be judged by the law.” From this verse we find there will be three distinct
varieties of judgment in the great day. The heathens will not be judged by the Bible, but simply by
the laws of nature, the light of conscience and the Holy Ghost. The old Jews will be judged by the
Old Testament only, while all who have enjoyed the light of Christendom will be judged by the
whole Bible. Hence many heathens will be acquitted and saved whose moral lives have not measured
up to the stature of many nominal Christians who will go down under condemnation, because the
former walked in all the light they had and the latter did not. Hence we see an infinite diversity of
judgments in that great and notable day of the Lord.
13. “For not the hearers of the law shall be just with God, but the doers of the law shall be
justified.” This does not teach legal justification, but the fact that God’s true people are always
obedient. A beautiful emphasis is here laid on doing, confirmatory of the significant fact that
obedience to the law of God is the normal fruit of true faith in every case, invariably as the shadow
follows the substance. “Make the tree good and the fruit will be good; make the tree evil and the fruit
will be evil” (Jesus).