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

ROMANS
CHAPTER VII.
The first chapter of this wonderful epistle is addressed to the heathens, elucidatory of the gracious
possibility of their salvation, if true to the light of nature, conscience and the Holy Ghost, but sadly
affirmatory of their fatal apostasy from God, first into rationalism, secondly into idolatry, and finally
into the low debaucheries and gross sensualities of literal brutality. The second chapter is addressed
to the Jews, representing the popular churchism of the day, and consequently synonymous with the
fallen ecclesiasticisms of the present age, setting forth the deplorable fact that while their attitude
is condemnatory of the non-professing world, it is equally conclusive of their own guilt. Hence he
finds them confessing judgment against themselves, clearly implicated in the same condemnation
along with the heathen. Consequently he recognizes three orders in the final judgment, the heathen
being judged by the laws of nature only, the old Jews by the Old Testament, and all Christians by
the whole Bible. Hence he culminates in the bold declaration that he is not a Christian who is one
outwardly, neither is baptism that which is outward on the flesh; but he is a Christian who is one
inwardly, and baptism is that of the heart, in the spirit and not of the letter, whose praise is not of
men, but of God; thus beautifully developing the confusion that salvation is purely an individual
enterprise, consequently involving none but the inquiring soul and Omnipotent Savior, human
ecclesiasticism being utterly irrelevant and nonessential, notwithstanding their value in a didactic
sense. Winding up the sin-side of the argument, finding heathens and church members all under
condemnation, with the exception of the individual acceptance of saving grace, he now begins the
grace side of the argument with verse 19 of Chapter 3, setting forth the great fundamental truth of
justification by the free grace of God in Christ, received and appropriated by faith alone; this
magnificent elucidation expounded from the Abrahamic covenant, recognizing that patriarch as the
representative of the faith paternity on the divine side of the gracious economy; antithetical to the
Fatherhood of God in Christ, constituting the divine side of the grace paternity; this argument
culminating in Chapter 5, with the beautiful contrast of the two Adams, the First representing
humanity and the Second redemption, the latter infinitely superior to the former, as God totally
eclipses man, illustrating the transcendent victory of grace over sin. Chapter 6 is entirely devoted to
the elucidation of entire sanctification, illustrated in the crucifixion, utter destruction of the body of
sin, rendering us actually free from sin, having our “fruit unto sanctification and the end everlasting
life.” How natural for the apostle now to corroborate the preceding exegesis with his personal
experience of entire sanctification. I am satisfied this seventh chapter is a description of that
wonderful Arabian experience, tersely alluded to in Acts 9:22: “Then Paul continued to be more and
more filled with dynamite,” and lucidly narrated in Galatians 1:15-19, when Paul certifies that God
was pleased to reveal His Son in him; therefore, conferring not with flesh and blood, he went off into
Arabia and spent about three years seeking this grand and glorious experience of entire sanctification
before he would dare to go up to Jerusalem and compare experiences with the apostles who had
received the Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, and claim a participation in the
apostleship of the Lord. How natural it was for him, after his miraculous conversion under the
ministry of Ananias in Damascus, to go to preaching with all his might, feeling that the complete
work was done and he was ready for the Lord’s war. I have seen the same a thousand times in my
ministry; e.g. people rousingly converted, shout uproariously and work heroically a few days, and
then get blue as indigo, collapse, give way to a terrible assault of doubts and fears. Of course that