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

would only see that none serve as elders except those who are filled with the Holy Ghost. If the
Holiness Movement does not glorify God by coming back to first principles, and revealing to the
world New Testament simplicity, she will forfeit her crown, and God will give it to another. This
we can not afford to do. As it is very doubtful whether any of the great reformations have ever
reached primary truth and institutionality since the Constantinian apostasy, it becomes the more
imperative that we divest ourselves of every weight and run for the prize set before us. How strange
that every church in Christendom does not gladly drop all of her human inventions and come back
to first principles! since an awful woe is pronounced against both addition and subtraction. The
popular churches are burdened to death with institutions of their own creation, alien from the Bible,
and, in many cases, antagonistical to it. These grieve the Holy Spirit away and turn them over to the
enemy. The New Testament is plain on all doctrines and institutions. We need nothing else. Human
creeds and institutions divide the people of God, build up warring sects, grieve the Holy Spirit,
alienate the people from God, and do a world of mischief, which the Judgment Day can alone reveal.
So long as the apostolic church professed and preached entire sanctification she had neither creeds
nor schisms. There are always green pastures somewhere in the Church of God, whither the sheep
may go, eat and be filled and lie down by the still waters. Human creeds and institutions are the
devil’s fences dividing up Emmanuel’s land, shutting up many poor sheep in dry and desolate
pastures, where they starve to death in piles. God has raised up the Holiness Movement to knock
down the devil’s fences and lead all of the sheep to the green pastures and still waters, where they
may prosper and glorify God.
ORDINATION.
6. “Whom they placed before the apostles, and praying, laid hands on them.” Here is all the
ordination you can find in the New Testament. It is very simple, and I see much of it among holiness
people in my peregrinations. The Lord’s elders, bishops, deacons and saints gather around the dear
ones, whom the Holy Ghost has called to go and work in His vineyard, lay hands on them, pray, bless
and send them forth. There is but one qualification specified in the New Testament for a Christian
worker, preacher, officer, and that is, to be filled with the Holy Ghost. In the E.V. prominence is
given to the church ordination, through mere courtesy to the Episcopal Church, under whose
auspices the translation was made. You will find as a rule where the E.V. uses the word ordination,
it is not in the Greek. We have no objections to the word if used in this same, primitive New
Testament sense, designating the gathering of the saints around the candidates for the Lord’s work,
and praying for them with the imposition of hands.
7. “And a great multitude of the priests were obedient to the faith.” Here we find, much to our
encouragement, that amid the sweeping victories of the Pentecostal revival, a large number of the
regular preachers got religion. Good Lord, save us from the Satanic humbuggery that would
recognize preachers as Christians simply because they are preachers. I wish it were true in case of
half of them, and the other half, too. But, working in the clear light of God’s Word, Spirit and
providence, we are forced to the concession of many unconverted preachers. Of this number, not a
few have been truly converted, but grieving the Holy Spirit, rebelling against sanctification,
becoming secular and popular, have sunk into a grievous antinomian spiritual death. Lord, make us
useful in the conversion of preachers, as well as other people. God forbid that at the devil should get
the dear preachers.