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

ROMANS
CHAPTER X.
CHRIST THE ONLY WAY, AND RECEIVED BY FAITH ALONE.
1. “Brethren, truly the desire of my heart and my prayer to God in their behalf is for salvation.
2. “For I testify to them that they have a zeal of God, but not according to perfect knowledge.”
The Jews in Paul’s day, like the fallen churches in all ages, had some knowledge of God, but it was
not the experimental sort, such as enables us to know Him personally in practical and real salvation.
3. “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own
righteousness; but did not submit themselves unto the righteousness of God.
4. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Righteousness
arising from legal obedience is nothing but our own counterfeit self-righteousness, which is “filthy
rags” in the sight of God. The only hope of humanity is the righteousness of God in Christ, imputed
unto the broken-hearted through faith alone, and wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost in
regeneration. We have a most wonderful Savior, very God and perfect man. In His divine capacity
He has a righteousness peculiar to His divinity, which He will never impart, but retain forever. In
His human capacity He has a righteousness peculiar to His perfect humanity, which He will never
impart, but eternally retain. Meanwhile He has a third righteousness arising from His perfect
obedience to the divine law, actively in life keeping it and passively in death verifying it. This third
righteousness, which is neither essential to His Godhead, nor His manhood, nor His perfect
Mediatorial character, he procured for all His guilty, ruined brethren to relieve them of condemnation
and establish them irreproachable before the divine law for time and eternity. Since Christ Himself
is the only human being who ever did or ever can keep the law, having become our Substitute in
death and our exemplar in life, since faith in its very nature is the only appropriating grace, we must
all receive this righteousness by faith alone. Here Paul condemns the Jews for “going about” to
establish their own righteousness instead of receiving the righteousness of God in Christ by simple
faith. The world is still full of people “going about” to establish their own righteousness. I was on
that line nineteen years, intervening between my conversion and sanctification. Perfectly honest and
sincere, kneeling before God, I made my consecration to the best of my knowledge and ability.
Meanwhile a voice said to me, “Now, if you want to be holy and all right with God, you go ahead
and perform every duty just right, and you will find your heart clean and your life cloudless
sunshine.” I thought it was the voice of God, but it was that of the enemy, decoying me away lest I
might by simple faith receive the Omnipotent Sanctifier, who was at that time standing right by me,
and ready in a moment to give me the boon for which I went sighing and crying nineteen years. Thus
making my consecration, instead of receiving sanctification by faith in the present tense, I renewed
my covenant and resolved to do much better than ever before. So, leaving the Sanctifier standing by,
I again and again proceeded with this “going about” to establish my own righteousness, instead of
submitting to the righteousness of God through Christ by faith, every time only to be mortified by
finding that I had grieved the Spirit by offering Him another pile of filthy rags, all this time
postponing the blessing which Omnipotent Grace waited to bestow in a moment. The churches are