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

APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION SPIRITUAL AND NOT OFFICIAL.
13. “And no one of the rest dared to identify himself with them, but the people magnified them.”
The popular mind has found a contradiction between this and the following verse, which states that
“believers continued to be the more added unto the Lord.” There is no contradiction, but perfect
harmony. While the conviction on the multitude was wonderfully augmented and intensified by the
sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira, and consequently the revival took new impetus, spreading
more rapidly than ever yet, as certified in verse 13, they all recognized superhuman power in the
apostles, peculiar to themselves alone, which did not appertain to the disciples. Hence the longagitated
controversy and the boasted ecclesiastical dogmata of apostolical succession are utterly
without foundation, as the apostles never had any official succession in the sense claimed by the
churches. In Ephesians 4:10, Paul mentions apostles in the catalogue of God’s ministers, along with
evangelists, pastors and prophets throughout the gospel dispensation. But we must bear in mind that
all these ministerial offices belong to the Holy Ghost alone, as it says He gives them. Hence official
succession in an ecclesiastical sense is precluded. God made Bishop Taylor an apostle to Africa, and
Hudson Taylor to interior China. And many others are leading forth the embattled host at the present
day, as apostle simply means “one sent” as a pioneer. While all of these officers are still efficient on
the earth, perpetuating the ministry of the church in her primitive beauty, spirituality and glory, yet
they are given by the sovereign, discriminating power of the Holy Ghost alone, never having been
transmitted to any ecclesiasticism. The Holy Ghost became incarnate on the day of Pentecost, and
has so remained ever since, taking some to heaven, and filling and using others, thus perpetuating
His church upon the earth. In contradisctinction to the human ecclesiasticisms, really Satan’s
counterfeits and constituting spiritual Babylon, Rome, the old harlot mother, and the fallen Protestant
churches, her daughters, constituting the counterfeit Bride, contrastive with the true, simple, humble,
meek and lowly Bride of Christ, the sympathetic companion of the suffering Savior, left on the earth
to represent Him and prepare the world for His coming kingdom. The Apostolic Church remained
pure through bloody centuries of Pagan persecution, till by Constantine promoted from the lion’s
mouth and the burning stake to Cæsar’s palace, precipitating the great apostasy into Roman
Catholicism. From the fatal epoch of the great Constantinian apostasy, God had a true people
perpetuated in the novations, A.D. 250. During the middle ages they were denominated the
Waldenses, and afterwards the Moravians, who became instrumental in the conversion and
sanctification of John Wesley after he had preached ten years in the Episcopal Church, perfectly
honest, exceedingly zealous, and awfully persecuted for having too much religion, while he did not
have any; thus illustrating the blindness with which Satan beclouds human ecclesiasticisms. When
carnal men appropriate the church, the Holy Ghost leaves it and lets the devil have it. Meanwhile,
the Holy Ghost moves right on perpetuating His work, independently of human officers and
institutions. While all these ministerial officers are still in the church, and always have been, they
are the creations of the Holy Ghost, dispensed in different ages and nations, pursuant to His infallible
wisdom, superabounding grace, and discriminating providence.
DIVINE HEALING.
15, 16. While the revival tide is inundating Jerusalem and rolling into the surrounding country like
an ever-widening sea, we see as in all ages a corresponding prominence given to divine healing —
“and a multitude of the cities around Jerusalem came together, bringing their sick and those