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

THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE GENTILES.
14. “But I am persuaded, my brethren, concerning you, that ye are full of goodness having been
filled with all knowledge being able also to admonish one another.” Goodness here has the strong
signification of experimental holiness, while knowledge means insight into divine truth imparted by
the Holy Spirit, both of these enduements eminently qualifying their possessors to help one another
by way of kindly admonition, instruction and inspiring exhortation.
15. “But I have written unto you the more boldly, in part, thus reminding you through the grace
given unto me from God.
16. “That I am the minister of Christ unto the Gentiles, preaching the gospel of God in order that
the offering of the Gentiles may be well pleasing, having been sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Paul
is very particular here to remind them of his calling and apostolical authority in behalf of the
Gentiles, Jesus in His glory having appeared to him a second time while he was praying in the temple
at Jerusalem during his first visit to the holy metropolis after his conversion (Acts 23:17), and
notifying him that his own consanguinity will not receive his message, and at the same time
commissioning him to the great Gentile world. Paul is powerful and emphatic in all of his
deliverances on sanctification, here positively specifying that the only way the Gentiles can be well
pleasing to God is through the sanctification of the Holy Ghost, thus emphasizing and enforcing this
great climacteric truth everywhere recognizable in God’s Word, showing up the fact that none can
stand with impunity before the divine majesty, till thoroughly expurgated from all sin actual and
original, and through the complete sanctification of the Holy Spirit delivered from all the penal
consequences of transgression.
PAULINE PERFECTION.
18. “For I will not dare to speak of those things which Christ wrought through me unto the
obedience of the Gentiles in both word and work.
19. “In the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God, so that I from
Jerusalem around about unto Illyricum have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
20. “And thus, being ambitious not to preach where Christ was named, in order that I may not
build on another’s foundation,
21. “But as has been written: Unto those to whom it was not proclaimed they shall seek
concerning him, and those who have not heard shall understand.” Paul’s locomotive power and
availability in an age unequipped with public conveyances, was not only paradoxical but miraculous;
beginning at Jerusalem and traversing all those great countries, Syria and Asia Minor, crossing the
Ægean Sea and penetrating to the Illyric Gulf on the extreme northern border of Macedonia, down
south into Achaia and far west into Rome. He was no superficial preacher, but everywhere
courageously showed up the great Bible truth of Christian perfection, as he here affirms. How
wonderfully courageous to spend all his life in the forlorn capacity of a pioneer, hewing his way
through difficulties to ordinary minds literally insurmountable, heroically refusing to build on