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

Holy Ghost, the glorious hyperbole of the gospel dispensation. Mark the word “gift” here in the
singular number. The Holy Ghost confers gifts on the sinner, i.e., conviction, repentance,
regeneration, justification and adoption to bring him into the kingdom. Then when you are truly
converted, it is your glorious privilege to receive from the Father and the Son the “gift of the Holy
Ghost,” i.e., the Holy Ghost Himself as an indwelling Sanctifier and Comforter. This was the
crowning glory of the Pentecostal experience, consummating full salvation. After you have received
the “gift of the Holy Ghost,” and thus been sanctified wholly, it is still your precious privilege to
receive the greater gifts of the Spirit, nine in all (1 Corinthians 12), by which you are enabled to save
others, these gifts of the Spirit constituting your impregnable panoply and preparing you for the
Lord’s battle-field.
FOR ALL AGES AND NATIONS.
39. “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to you who are afar off, so many as the
Lord our God may call.” This verse is positive, unequivocal and unmistakable, confirmatory of the
great New Testament truth that the promise of the personal incarnated Holy Ghost appertains to
every human being on the globe whom the Lord may call by His Word, Spirit and Providence to
come and participate in the glorious gospel feast, now ready and free to every fallen son or daughter
of Adam’s ruined race. While the concession of God’s pardoning mercy, extended to all, is generally
conceded, ecclesiastical autocrats and theological heretics pertinaciously repudiate the second great
work of grace, i.e., the reception of the personal Holy Ghost as an indwelling Sanctifier and
Comforter. Not only is this verse clear and unequivocal, but Peter at the house of Cornelius and in
his testimony before the apostles at Jerusalem most unequivocally certifies that the Gentiles received
the same identical spiritual enduement which the apostles received on the day of Pentecost. While
these Scriptures are so positive, clear and conclusive as to preclude the possibility of
misapprehension and leave no conceivable apology for cavil; yet it is a significant fact that bold
heretics this day from Dan to Beersheba are persistently and indefatigably laboring to convince the
people that no one but the apostles ever did receive the Holy Ghost, whereas a hundred and eight of
the original disciples who received Him on the first morning of Pentecost were not apostles, and a
number of them were women. Why do these bold heretics labor so hard and so persistently to flatly
and positively contradict and refute the plain and unmistakable Word of God? Brother Godbey, what
is heresy? And who is a heretic? The original meaning of heresy is to separate; thence a heretic is
one who separates himself from God and takes issue with God; while heresy is doctrine dissimilar
to God’s Word and out of harmony with it. The martyrs were all stigmatized heretics and burnt for
heresy, because they separated from the corrupt clergy and the fallen church. If you will retain in
your mind the definition of heresy, i.e., separation from something, the analysis is plain and easy.
When a church becomes corrupt and heretical because it is separated from God, it invariably falls
into the hands of carnal ecclesiastical autocrats and despots who are ready to persecute all who dare
to separate from them. You must not forget that Satan is the great counterfeiter and counterfeits all
truth. He calls evil good and good evil; hell, heaven, and heaven, hell; and calls himself God, and
he is the god of this poor fallen world (2 Corinthians 4:4). His intelligence so far transcends that of
every human being as to enable him to cunningly manipulate the greatest intellectualists and the most
profound scholars. He has but one available competitor, and that is God. So infinite is the devil’s
intellectual perspicacity above that of all human beings that he has no trouble to radically and
completely deceive all classes from the simpleton to the philosopher, from the barbarian to the most