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

THE HOLY GHOST HIMSELF, THE POWER.
8. “But you shall receive power of the Holy Ghost having come on you.” The English version
gives this very incorrectly, “you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.”
You find it beautifully corrected in the Revised version. I have heard and read many sermons from
this text exhorting the people to seek power after the Holy Ghost had come on them. All this leads
to superstition and fanaticism. The plain revelation is that the Holy Ghost Himself is the power, and
there is no other. So never seek power, but seek the Holy Ghost Himself. When you have Him you
have all the power you need to do anything that God wants you to do. So you have nothing to do but
to get thoroughly sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost, abide in Him, obey, and be true. So long
as you thus abide, responsive to the gentle voice of the indwelling Comforter, verifying His will
revealed by His Spirit, Word and providence, you will have all the power you need to do your whole
duty, because you have Omnipotence to check on at will. After we are filled with the Holy Ghost we
grow with paradoxical rapidity, and thus, with spiritual enlargement, become more and more
capacious of God. Consequently, we should be always reaching for a more copious enduement of
the Holy Ghost, ever seeking Him and depending on Him alone to impart the needed power. The
word translated “power” here is not identical with the word “power” in the preceding verse. There
it is exousia, “authority”; here it is dunamis, “dynamite.” Hence, the literal reading: “You shall
receive dynamite of the Holy Ghost having come on you”; i.e., if you will receive the Holy Ghost
as a personal, indwelling Sanctifier and abiding Comforter, He will supply you with all the dynamite
you need to blow all sin out of you and to qualify you to blow up the Devil’s kingdom wherever you
go, and enjoy an everlasting victory in your heart and life.
TESTIMONY.
“And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost of the earth.” Here we see the beautifully defined and ordinary phenomena of the
indwelling Holy Ghost. Such people are saved from false modesty and tormenting cowardice, so they
are always ready to testify anywhere and everywhere. They have faith in the Holy Ghost to give them
words. So they do not wait to study up something to say, but are always ready to open their mouths
and meekly witness to the mighty works of God in their souls. The fallen churches are dumb like
graveyards. The Pentecostal churches are vocal like graveyards on the resurrection morn, when
tombs are bursting and saints leaping into the air with roaring shouts of victory. Dumb religion is
the devil’s counterfeit. God’s genuine opens the mouth and keeps it open.
THE ASCENSION.
9-11. This is the grand climacteric fact of this chapter, suitable to impress it on the memory as the
Ascension chapter. When I was at Jerusalem I was never satisfied walking over Mount Olivet where
Jesus walked so much. Whenever I had a leisure hour I would run away to Calvary or to Olivet, or
to both. The memorable spot where the feet of my Lord did last tread the earth, how unutterably
hallowed! That sacred spot is left unencumbered with any superstructure to this day. It is free for the
weary feet of loving pilgrims from all lands to tread. About ten paces from it a beautiful stone tower
two hundred feet high has been erected for the accommodation of the Lord’s pilgrims who are
anxious to follow Him just as far as possible in His upward flight. How I was delighted to climb that