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

Holy Ghost alone can give, constituting the supernatural in justifying and sanctifying faith. Here we
read that Abraham not only believed the promises of God which contradicted the laws of nature
relative to the incarnation, but being so inundated with the dynamite of supernatural faith, he actually
leaped for joy, giving glory to God. Hence, if you would be a son of Abraham, you must have that
supernatural faith which so fills you up with spiritual dynamite that you not only triumph over all
unbelief, but laugh at impossibilities and give glory to God, counting His promises already done
without any visible manifestations of the fact, as Abraham without the shadow of a doubt leaped for
joy in anticipation of His Omnipotent Son, the world’s Redeemer, two thousand years before the
angels sang their gaudeamus over the manger of Bethlehem.
23. “But it was not written for the sake of him alone that it was imputed unto him,
24. “But truly for the sake of us unto whom he is about to impute it,” i.e., “to those who believed
on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.” You see from these Scriptures that we are
justified precisely like Father Abraham. Oh, how simple! He just believed God, and it was counted
unto him for justification. Here it is positively specified that it was not written for the sake of Him
alone, but for us, that we may know how to be saved. People are constantly stumbling over the very
simplicity of God’s saving grace. Satan is constantly decoying us away after big things, lest we
believe the simple truth of God and be saved.
25. “Who was delivered for our transgressions and arose for our justification.” Christ became
our literal, actual, vicarious substitute, taking our place, dying in our room and stead. While He thus
paid the penalty and redeemed every son and daughter of Adam’s ruined race, so perfectly and
satisfactorily as to preclude all necessity of human condemnation, thus actually blockading hell
against the ingress of every soul, and opening the pearly gates, with angelic shouts welcoming every
poor victim of sin and sorrow to the fadeless glories of the heavenly hope, yet redemption is one
thing and our participation of redeeming grace quite another. The latter we can not only secure
through faith in the promises of God, unbelief climaxing an eternal forfeiture. Many have appeared
on the earth claiming to be Christ, but they all fail to rise from the dead. The resurrection of Christ
is the grand Archimedean lever inspiring universal faith in His Christhood.