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

6. “It could not be so; then how will God judge the world?” The apostle is answering the
allegation of his opponent, who would excuse himself on the hypothesis that his failure has in no
way affected the perfect purity and glory of the divine administration, since God, absolutely
immutable, verifies and perfects the unimpeachable integrity, honor and majesty of His
administration, despite all the irregularities and failures on the part of the world, whether religious
or irreligious.
7. “But if the truth of God abounded through my life unto his glory, why am I still condemned as
a sinner?” He here answers the argument of the fatalist: “Since the immutable God is neither
changed nor in the least deflected from the perfect integrity of His administration, neither His
veracity suffering the slightest impeachment by my perversity and falsehood; as I am utterly
incompetent to contravene the divine purpose or tarnish the infallible glory of the Almighty, then
why am I condemned as a sinner?” It is the hackneyed pleading of irresponsibility which we daily
meet, offered as an apology on the part of the ungodly.
8. “And not, as we are scandalously reported, and as certain ones certify that we say, that we
must do evil in order that good may come? Whose condemnation is just.” Among the two hundred
millions of martyrs who sealed their faith with their blood in bygone ages, not a single one died in
the capacity of a good person in the estimation of their persecutors. On the contrary, they were all
slain under criminal charges. Hence this Satanic maxim on the part of our enemies has prevailed in
all ages, the present day no exception. God’s people are even now calumniated as disturbers of the
churches, and accused of many misdemeanors of which they are not guilty.
9. “Then what is it? Are we better than they? By no means: for we have proven that both Jews
and Greeks are all under sin.” Paul uses the pronoun “we,” including himself with the Jews in this
contrast with the Gentiles, thus manifesting both the sympathy and humility peculiar to a speaker,
who so frequently in his phraseology identifies himself with his hearers. In this verse “Greeks” is
synonymous with the whole Gentile or heathen world; while “Jews” is identical with the nominal
members of the visible church in all ages. Now, do you see the force of the apostle’s conclusion? It
is the simple fact that salvation is a personal and not an ecclesiastical matter so far as churchism or
non-churchism is concerned; it has nothing to do with salvation and never did, but simply leaves its
votaries all under condemnation, indiscriminately in the hands of the devil, “the god of this world”
(2 Corinthians 4:4). The several verses following this sweeping classification of both church
members and outsiders in the black catalogue of sin, and under the dismal grip of Satan, vividly,
lucidly and appallingly portray the horrific state of moral obliquity pertinent to all the people in all
ages who have not been rescued from the above classifications by the redeeming grace of God in
Christ, regenerating and sanctifying the heart. An astonishing phenomenon has frequently been
noteworthy with reference to these alarming Scriptures, which draw the blackest picture this side the
bottomless pit; e.g., a pastor standing in his pulpit reading them to his congregation as a refutation
of the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification and a confirmation to his people of the
absolute necessity that they all remain in sin down to life’s end, depending on the grim monster to
deliver them from the dark grip of the soul’s destroyer. Such a procedure is simply giving his
members a ticket to hell through his church. The Bible is God’s way-bill to heaven. Like all other
way-bills, while it points out the right way, that the traveler may walk in it, it equally specifically
designates all the wrong ways, that he may avoid them. While the Bible grandly and gloriously