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

“uncleanness” peculiar to the wicked gives them a hell on earth — ten thousand aches, pains and
sorrows known only to themselves. Thousands of people annually die in the hospitals of this city
(New York) and are buried alone in the Potter’s Field, with no friend on earth to speak a word in the
dying ear. Millions of people shorten their lives by brutality and sink into paupers’ graves. The
wicked not only sin against themselves and humanity, but sin against God. Hence this double epithet:
“uncleanness,” which is sin against themselves; and “iniquity” (Greek, lawlessness, i.e.,
transgression of God’s laws), sin against God. Here the Holy Ghost specifies the source of all this,
i.e., eis anomian, “pursuant to iniquity” or “lawlessness.” This word means depravity. In, prefixed
to a word, means not. Hence iniquity means the want of equity, i.e., justice. De, used as a word, has
a negative meaning, i.e., deprivation. Hence you see iniquity and depravity are synonymous. In this
verse we have the affirmation that both uncleanness and iniquity proceed from the common source
of human depravity. This is the negative side of the argument. Now, in the prosecution of the
affirmative, we find a radical tergiversation take place, eliminating depravity and superseding it by
holiness to the Lord. “Thus now ye have presented your members slaves unto righteousness pursuant
to sanctification.” This part of the verse describes the experience following the wonderful
transformation of grace. I find here the very pure Greek construction appertaining to sanctification
after the wonderful transition as to depravity in the former state when you were “slaves to
uncleanness and iniquity.” Hence it follows as a logical sequence that the deep interior of the heart,
where Satan has his throne and the rattlesnakes of inbred sin coil and rattle on all sides, is gloriously
expurgated of all evil, Satan ousted, the snakes, reptiles and doleful creatures slain, their blood and
bones enriching the soil, now turned over to King Immanuel, who transforms the entire situation into
the blooming gardens and beautiful fields of Eden, through which the angels walk, and the songs of
the seraphim are wafted on heavenly breezes, and there the Holy Ghost has enthroned Jesus to reign
without a rival. The antithesis is profoundly significant, eis anomian and eis hagiasmon: “pursuant
to iniquity” in case of the sinner, and “pursuant to sanctification” in case of the righteous. Here is
the significant fact: the deep, subterranean region of the fallen spirit, occupied by inbred sin and
impregnably fortified by the devil, is radically expurgated of all carnal debris, washed in the blood
of the Lamb, and filled with the perfect love of God. Consequently the very temptations which
formerly stirred the malevolent affections, i.e., anger, wrath, malice, envy, jealousy, prejudice,
bigotry, egotism, pride, vanity and all of the selfish predilections, now arouse the very opposite, i.e.,
love, kindness, pity, sympathy, philanthropy, charity, forgiveness, and an earnest desire to do good
for evil. All this follows as a logical sequence from the fact that the old malevolent affections are
eradicated and gone, and the benevolent emotions have taken their place. Hence so long as you are
truly sanctified, the very incentives which formerly to your sorrow, defeat and disgrace aroused evil,
will now only awaken the corresponding good. This is truly a miracle of grace, paradoxical to aliens,
but blessedly real to the truly sanctified.
20. “For when you may be the slaves of sin, you may be free of righteousness.” The sinner has
no righteous character whatever. The sanctified have no sinful character. The one the slave of sin,
and the other that of holiness, while the justified are somewhat intermediate, though no longer
serving sin, but still having it on hand in a subjugated state and serving in the kingdom of God after
the similitude of hirelings, liable to go out at any time.
21. “Then what reward had you at any time? in which things you are now ashamed; for the end
of those things is death.” Here is an interrogatory allusion to your old life in sin, when Satan paid