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

tower to its summit! There I stood gazing up into the blue ethereal firmament of a Palestinian sky
through which my Lord did fly away, and leave the world in darkness to mourn His absence and sigh
for His return. As I gazed skywardly I imagined that I saw the opening heavens and the glory
radiating from the shining presence of my descending King. The trumpet reverberated in my ears,
and I saw old Mount Olivet bestudded all over with the tombs of patriarchs, prophets, saints and
martyrs, breaking into fragments, thus liberating the long-imprisoned saints, leaping into the air and
ascending with tremendous shouts to meet their glorious Lord. I enjoyed climbing that tower; but
I did not like to come down. I longed for my wings, to fly away along the shining ethereal track
whither my Lord had ascended up to Heaven.
11. “And they said, Galilean men, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? The same Jesus who was
taken up from you into Heaven will so come in the manner in which you saw Him going into
Heaven.” Such was the testimony of those radiant angels whose effulgent glory flashed out on the
astounded multitude standing on the summit of Mount Olivet and witnessing the glorious ascension
of our Lord. He went up amid the clouds, bright and glorious (as there are no rain clouds in
Jerusalem in the summer time); so He will come again, riding on a brilliant white cloud, bright as
the lightning. He went up accompanied by hosts of angels as well as redeemed spirits. So He will
return, attended by mighty hosts of unfallen angels and all the disembodied spirits of the Bridehood,
returning to the earth to receive their risen and glorified bodies. Zechariah beautifully corroborates
the testimony of these angels: “His feet shall stand again upon Mount Olivet.” This is grand and
conclusive, assuring us beyond the possibility of cavil that the very same transfigured and glorified
body of Jesus which flew up from Mount Olivet is coming back again to put His feet on that
mountain summit. The word of the Lord is unmistakable. The same Jesus who rode over Mount
Olivet on the donkey is going to ride down on a cloud and put His glorified feet on the spot He
evacuated to fly away to heaven. The very same Jesus who hung on the cross is going to sit on the
throne.
THE UPPER CHAMBER.
12, 13. The walled city of Jerusalem is a quadrangle about twice as long from east to west as wide
from north to south. The population is now estimated at fifty thousand, the city without the wall
containing the same, though occupying a much larger territory and growing rapidly, as the space
within the wall is all densely filled up, crammed and crowded. The walled city stands on a great
mountainous table-land, the four prominences of which are Mount Zion, in the southwest; Mount
Moriah, in the southeast; Mount Bazetha, in the northeast, and Mount Akra, in the northwest.
Jerusalem is by nature the most impregnably fortified city on the globe, the Almighty with His own
hand having prepared the site, high up on those great mountains, environed by the deep mountain
gorges, designated the valleys of Gihon, Hinnom, Jehoshaphat, and Kidron, completely
encompassing the city (really constituting one continuous abyss on all sides except the north). Hence
invading armies in all ages have been utterly unable to approach the city except from the north. As
it is the city of the Heavenly King, all the kings of the earth in all ages, conscious of the rivalry
between this fallen world and heaven, have always held a grudge against Jerusalem and done their
utmost to destroy it. Therefore Jerusalem has stood seventeen sieges and been destroyed seven times.
After the Romans destroyed it, A.D. 73, the emperors, who were loyal worshipers of Jupiter, Apollo,
Venus, Minerva, Diana and other Roman gods, and implacable enemies both to the Jewish and