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

you in ruined health, dissipated fortune, alienated friends, scandal, bankruptcy and a guilty
conscience of which you are ashamed.
22. “But now having been made free from sin and having become slaves unto God, you have your
fruit unto sanctification and the end eternal life.” Regeneration is the flower, and sanctification the
fruit. While the flower is exceedingly beautiful, and indispensable to the production of the fruit, yet
it alone is utterly worthless. Not so with the fruit; you can live on it if you never saw the flower.
Hence we see the grand end of the gracious economy is sanctification, which qualifies you for the
battlefield and robes you for the mount of victory; regeneration being an indispensable preparatory
work, but an utter failure if not followed by sanctification, as the flower is futile if nipped by frost
or blighted by death, so that it falls away, producing no fruit. As we see millions of flowers bloom
and fade and no fruit appear, so myriads are happily converted, who fall away, never producing the
delicious fruit of holiness for the angels and redeemed spirits to enjoy in heaven.
23. “For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.” We see from the preceding that all sinners are Satan’s slaves, who may deluge them with the
alluring promises of the good things in this life, at the same time flattering them that they will get
saved before they die and reach heaven after enjoying all the pleasures of sin. No man can pay what
he does not possess. Satan has nothing but sin, misery, disgrace, death and damnation. Hence he
invariably, in the end, pays off his servants with his own currency, giving them disappointment,
wretchedness and remorse in this life and a burning hell through all eternity. God’s people, when
saved to the uttermost, are free as angels, enjoying the glorious liberty of God Himself, qualifying
them to do everything good and nothing bad. The greatest desire of the immortal soul is eternal life.
This we have in our wonderful Savior, without money and without price; while Satan pays off his
poor slaves with death, not simply the fleeting, evanescent death of the body, but that of the soul,
which never dieth, though dying on through all eternity.