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

16. “But if the first fruit is holy, so also is the lump; and if the root be holy, so also are the
branches.” God’s holy covenant with the patriarchs is as fresh in the divine mind this day as when
He first spoke to Abraham in Chaldea.
GOD’S CHURCH IDENTICAL UNDER ALL DISPENSATIONS.
17-24. Here we have revealed the indisputable fact that Christianity is not a de novo institution,
as some erroneously claim, but simply another dispensation of God’s church founded in Eden when
Jehovah preached the first gospel sermon to the fallen twain, serving as the herald of his own
redemptive scheme, perpetuated under the Antediluvian, Patriarchal, Mosaic and Christian
dispensations down to the present day. This, you see, clearly and unequivocally confirmed the
statement, The Gentiles are cut out of the wild olive tree, i.e., Satan’s kingdom, and grafted into the
good olive tree, i.e., the kingdom of God. So when the Jews are converted to God they are grafted
into their own olive tree, i.e., just get back into the true church of God whence they were ejected
when they rejected Christ. We see man’s failure in all of these dispensations He failed in Eden,
winding up in the fall. He failed in the Antediluvian ages, winding up with the flood. He failed in
the Patriarchal, winding up in Egyptian slavery. He failed in Judaism, winding up with the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. He failed in our Savior’s ministry, rejecting it and
crucifying Him. We are now in the Gentile dispensation, and there are a thousand reasons to believe
that we are rapidly approaching the end. What will it be?
21. “If God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee.” Hence we see the same
awful fate awaiting the Gentile dispensation, and as Jesus says, “A time of trouble such as this world
never saw,” i.e., the great tribulation (Matthew 24, Luke 21 and Mark 13). Not only is all this
prophetical, but the unprecedented magnitude of God’s righteous retributive judgments coming on
the apostate Gentile Church will not be local, as in the case of the Jews, but universal, co-extensive
with Christendom. “God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” The
fearfully rapid apostasy of the Protestant churches is an awful omen of the rapidly approaching end
of the Gentile age, and the terrible retributive judgments predicted in both Testaments.
ALL ISRAEL TO BE SAVED.
25. “For I do not wish you to be ignorant as to this mystery, in order that you may not be wise
in your own conceits; that blindness in part has happened unto Israel till the fullness of the Gentiles
may come in.” The present awakening of the Jews is an argument that the end of the Gentile times
is nigh. Thousands of Jews, especially in Russia, where they are more numerous than in any other
country, are now being converted to Christ. Eleven colonization societies are working to bring the
Jews back to Palestine. When I was there three years ago, one hundred and twenty thousand had
already arrived, more than twice the whole number who returned under Nehemiah. The Jews in all
lands are turning their eyes back to the prophetic hills of their holy patrimony. When I visited the
wailing place of the Jews in Jerusalem and heard them crying to the God of their fathers to restore
their inheritance, bring back the wandering children of Abraham and rebuild their temple, I felt that
God heard that mournful cry and would answer those wailing martyrs. The Lunar Chronology runs
out the Gentile times seven years ago, the Calendar thirty-five years hence, and the Solar seventy
years hence. Daniel 12 gives the Tribulation forty-five years, which is to intervene between the