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

multiplied millions of unfallen angels listen spell bound. Since our Lord has led the way, heaven is
now accessible to every disembodied saint, nothing to do but die, and sweep with a shout into glory.
HEAVENLY CORONATION.
29-35. When I was in Jerusalem and visiting this spot, on which they were praying when the Holy
Ghost fell on them, my guide pointed me out David’s tomb right there in full view. Silly heretics
have construed the statement (verse 34), “For David has not yet ascended into the heavens,” as an
argument for soul-sleeping, i.e., that David had no soul to go to heaven. It is a humiliating
illustration of the perversity of human sectarianism to sacrifice all truth, reason and intelligence to
sustain their poor little foolish creed. The obliquity of sectarians is always ready to bend all of the
Bible to their creed, instead of bending their creed to the Bible, or throwing it away altogether, as
certainly God’s plain Word is all the creed and all the authority His children need or have any
business with. The Bible, like all other good books, is in harmony with practical truth and commonsense.
There is no allusion whatever to the soul of David, which had long ago left the body; but Peter
at this point is simply speaking of the resurrection of Christ, simultaneously showing that this
prophecy could not refer to David, though spoken by him, because his body had not yet risen, which
he proved by pointing out his sepulcher.
30. “Therefore being a prophet and knowing that God swore to him with an oath that one from
the fruit of his loins should sit upon his throne.” Peter uses this testimony of David to prove the
kingship of Christ. He was born King of the Jews. Paul says (Romans 2:28, 29):
“He is not a Jew as one outwardly, neither is circumcision that it is outward in the flesh;
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart; in the spirit and
not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God.”
Hence, you see that Jesus was born King of Saints. When Pilate wrote this superscription on His
cross above His head in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, the language of religion, learning and law for
everybody to read, “This is the King of the Jews,” he wrote an eternal truth. That was the reason why
he could not change it afterwards at the request of the Jews. The word INRI, which you so frequently
see above crosses at Roman Catholic grave-yards and other places, is a combination of initials and
stands for Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Ioudiourum, — “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” David, the
brightest type of Christ in the Bible, powerfully symbolizes Him in His regal capacity. As David had
two coronations, — first, he was crowned king of his own tribe at Hebron, and seven and a half years
afterward he was crowned king of all the tribes of Israel at Jerusalem, — so Christ in His first advent
was crowned King of Saints when He ascended up to heaven, when He comes in His glory He will
be crowned King of all the nations upon the face of the earth. David never occupied an earthly
throne. His kingdom was the divine theocracy centralized in heaven and overlapping on the earth.
God said: “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my
wills.” The reason why David was a man after God’s own heart was not because he was infallible,
for he was not, but because he had one fixed and settled policy and purpose in all his administrations,
and that was not to do his own will but the will of God (Acts 12:22). Much has been said about the
perpetuity of David’s throne; great volumes written in an attempt to substitute other dynasties, even
of other nations, in lieu of what is regarded as the forfeited throne of David, and thus fulfill the