Dr. W.B. Godbey
(1880-1920)
Harmony of the Gospels and Commentary (1891)
(On Matthew 24:15-18)
“Therefore when you may see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet [Daniel 9:27], standing in the holy place, let the one reading take notice then; let those who are in Judea go. to the mountains; and let him who is on the housetop not come down to take things out of his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his garments.” A.D. 66, Gallus, the Roman general, laid siege to Jerusalem, succeeded, A.D. 68, by Vespasian, the emperor, who was succeeded by his son Titus, A.D. 71, who prosecuted the war to its awful end, as the Jews were divided into bloody factions, and were killing one another, and would not surrender to the Romans. Read Josephus, and you will find the horrors of the siege beggared all description — famine raging, people dying in piles; pestilence, arising from the putrefying corpses, sweeping the city with the besom of destruction far more terrific than the sword, which was also devouring them on all sides, till a solid million perished, and a million more were sold into slavery, the city utterly destroyed and left without an inhabitant. After fifty years a Roman colony was founded on the memorable site where Jerusalem once stood, even the name being dropped, and the new Roman city was called Elia Capitolina the ensuing two centuries, till the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, who came thither, revived the city, and restored the sacred name, Jerusalem. When the Roman armies effected all entrance through the walls, they at once set up their battle-flags on the Holy Campus, on the summit of. Moriah, taking possession of the temple and all the holy places. This was the “abomination of desolation” — “abomination,” because the Roman gods were pictured on it, and the soldiers worshipped them as they looked on the flags; and “desolation,” because those battle-flags meant the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus notified His disciples that the moment they saw these Roman battle-flags floating from the pinnacles of the temple, they should all recognize it as the signal for, them to make their escape. Their flight was to be so sudden that, if on the housetop, they were not. to come down. N. B. — You can now run all over Jerusalem on the flat roofs of the houses, as the narrow streets are overarched, the buildings being continuous, jam up to the wall, which is a part of the contiguous edifice. Consequently they could run to the wall on the roofs of the houses and pass down, thus making their escape, which must be sudden and expeditious, or they would be intercepted and detained.”
(On Luke 21:22)
“Because these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all things which have been written.” Josephus says that a sword, suspended from the pinnacle of the firmament, was visible in the blue sky, hanging over the city a whole year before this awful siege. He also says that a strange man walked upon the walls of the city some time before the siege, crying aloud, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” continuing. there to walk and utter this awful sentence of coming doom till a stone struck him and he fell dead.
(On Matthew 24:28)
“For where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” The vulture belongs to the eagle species, and is evidently here referred to as always voraciously feeding upon carrion. At that time the Jewish State-Church had reached such a culmination of political and ecclesiastical corruption that she was already odorizing the elements, and attracting the vultures from afar. Within forty years those revolutionary fires, then rankling in the deep interior of her putrefying vitals, burst forth into a terrific volcano, disgorging the fiery venom of internal corruption, and transforming into an awful whirlpool, swallowing up her time-honored institutions into the oblivion of an eternal night, and actually annihilating the Jewish polity forever.
(On The End of the ‘World’)
“The popular idea of the end of the world is unscriptural. Matthew 24:3, which reads, “end of the world,” should read, “end of the age.” The Greek word is not cosmos (world), but aeon (age, or time).
(On Hebrews 12:30,31)
“These verses set forth the appalling doom of the hopeless apostate having fallen into the hands of an infinitely just and holy God, with no Christ to intercede for him. This paragraph, and verses 26-31, vividly describes the hopeless doom of the Palestinian Christian who repudiates Christ and apostatizes to Judaism. The rank and file of the Jewish church, with their pastors and official members, unfortunately rejected Christ, endorsed His crucifixion as a malefactor, plunged into idolatry and hastened to their awful doom of destruction and slavery under the invasion of the Roman armies which followed the writing of this letter in a few years. A most powerful combination of social, ecclesiastical and consanguineous influences were brought to bear on the Palestinian Christians to lead them into this awful apostasy with their Jewish brethren.”
(On Matthew 12:43-45)
“When the unclean spirit may go out from a man, he goeth through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none.” But what was their history? They retrogressed into cold, dead formality and bleak, hollow hypocrisy, which were seven times worse than their old idolatry. Consequently they rejected their own Christ, and put Him to death, imputing all of His mighty works to the devil, thus grieving away the Holy Spirit, committing the unpardonable sin, provoking the righteous indignation of the Almighty, bringing on them the Roman armies, precipitating their own swift destruction. (Vol. 6 , Gospel Harmony 1, p. 218)
(On Revelation 2:10)
“10. “You shall have persecution ten days.” The term “day” in the Bible frequently means a period. During the three hundred years of blood and slaughter, there were ten distinct persecutionary epochs, inaugurated and prosecuted by the different emperors, all of whom endorsed and reiterated the cruel edicts of Nero, the originator of the persecutions. Pursuant to these imperial edicts they did their utmost to exterminate Christianity in the Roman Empire, which at that time embraced the known world. The persecutions purified the Church, kept her under the blood, filled with perfect love, robed and ready, and fearless of bloody death.”
(On Matthew 24:34)
“Truly I say unto you, that. This race can not pass away until all things may be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words can not pass away.” The E.V. translation, “This generation shall not, pass,” has puzzled many. Genea, means “race” as well as “generation,” while the verb is in the subjective mode. So you see, with the above translation, the difficulties all get away. As to the firmament and the earth passing away, of course they will in their present form, this being no conflict with the prophetic revelation of the new, heaven (firmament) and new earth. (Revelation 21) The Roman armies did their best to exterminate the Jews.”
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- Date:
- 15 Apr 2004
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- 17:54:45
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WILLIAM BAXTER GODBEY: APOSTLE OF HOLINESS Barry W. Hamilton, Ph.D. Northeastern Seminary (Rochester, New York) William B. Godbey was one of the most influential evangelists of the Wesleyan-holiness movement in its formative period (1880-1920). Thousands of people experienced conversion or entire sanctification under his ministry, and Godbey gained a reputation for having revivals everywhere he went. A prolific author, he dictated over 230 books and pamphlets and wrote numerous articles for holiness periodicals. He produced a new translation of the New Testament in 1901, and published a seven-volume Commentary on the New Testament (1896-1900). Godbey’s publications, along with his preaching and “Bible lessons” at camp meetings, earned for the evangelist a widespread reputation among “holiness people” as the “Greek scholar” and “Bible commentator.” Relentlessly on the move, Godbey traveled extensively across the continental United States and circled the globe five times. He was widely reputed to be the holiness movement’s expert on “Bible lands” and “Bible manners and customs.” Through his publications and sermons, Godbey joined a limited number of other ministers who introduced premillennialism into the holiness movement. Godbey was also one of the principal agents responsible for keeping the “tongues movement” out of the rest of the holiness movement. Godbey encouraged large numbers of people to join the new holiness denominations, and through his preaching and publications shaped popular opinion on holiness and millenarian doctrines. However, he never joined any of these new denominations; rather, he chose to remain in “Babylon” as a lifelong member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Today Godbey has in large measure been forgotten in Methodism as well as among most people in the separatist-holiness denominations. His most honored remembrance may be found in the ranks of the Conservative holiness denominations. Unfortunately, Godbey is remembered almost universally as an “eccentric.” Indeed, many of Godbey’s contemporaries regarded him as an eccentric, and some stated that Godbey’s odd personal habits hindered his capacity for positive influence. Historical research cannot overturn the judgment that Godbey had several eccentric personal habits; however it could restore Godbey to a balanced remembrance which appreciates the evangelist’s singular achievements in shaping the holiness movement, in publishing a considerable body of holiness literature, and in garnering a large number of converts for the movement. To dismiss Godbey on account of his “eccentricities” or to present the story of his ministry without mentioning his personal habits would betray a lack of integrity in the research. While historians of the Wesleyan-holiness movement may be tempted to “clean up” history in the name of respectability, honest scholarship must admit the eccentric elements which shaped the early days of the movement. William B. Godbey spent more than seven decades in Christian service, and his radical pursuit of holy living–from his perspective–often involved the principled rejection of respectability. Striplinghood William Baxter Godbey was born June 3, 1833 in Pulaski County, Kentucky. Raised on the family farm until age twenty, Godbey grew up in a pious Methodist home in which he had a conversion experience and call to preach at age three.[1] Two significant characteristics of his mature ministry were rooted in his childhood nurture in Kentucky Methodism. The first characteristic was the revivalism that permeated rural Kentucky society in the nineteenth century. Born in a family with deep roots in Methodism, Godbey understood his entire life and ministry within the context of revivalism. This is the most fundamental characteristic of his ministry–the holding of protracted meetings (often without a predetermined date for ending the services–this depended on the leading of the Spirit) that moved people toward God through contrived means. The second characteristic was the legacy of the Cane Ridge revival meetings of the first decade of the nineteenth century. The Cane Ridge meetings of 1800-1801 became models that generated a climate of expectancy for many revivals.
[2] Rural Kentuckians expected revivals to be emotional, transformative events in which people fell down under the power of the Holy Spirit and through physical exercises–weeping, shouting, running and/or jumping–gave public evidence of God’s work in their souls. These expectations played a key role in shaping Godbey’s own expectations for intended outcomes of revivals.
[3] Godbey may have encouraged the conjunction of the Cane Ridge legacy with Wesleyan-holiness doctrine to form a distinctive culture that prized physical demonstration as evidence of the work of God in the human soul.
[4] In light of the expectations manifested in the culture of Kentucky revivalism, Godbey’s conversion as a three-year-old was undoubtedly bereft of the drama that was normally expected to accompany a ‘sound’ conversion experience.
[5] At age 16 (November 1849) Godbey attended a Baptist revival and engaged in an intense, inward struggle for a “clear” conversion experience.
[6] Godbey’s own account of his conversion experience reveals an intense inward struggle with doubt that reached a point of despair, a divine-human drama resolved through an overwhelming sense of divine power and accompanied by unbounded joy. The intensity of the drama magnified the behavioral manifestations of the religious experience, which contributed to the public recounting of the event–the personal testimony–as a credible story that convinced others of its veracity and–more importantly–could move people to seek similar experiences. Furthermore, the movement in Godbey’s experience from doubt to despair to joyful resolution is not only similar to other conversion accounts, but is virtually identical with the description of his experience of entire sanctification.
[7] In fact, when Godbey recounted his experience of December 1868, witnesses at the scene thought he had “completed his conversion,” since they could not distinguish his behavior from the kind typically manifested in those experiences labeled “conversion” in the revivalistic culture of that era.
[8] By his own accounts, Godbey read the “old Methodist books” on sanctification, but had no idea how to obtain such an experience, and lacked a guide who had the experience and could lead him into it.
[9] After Godbey had a profound experience at the altar of the Methodist church where he was pastor, along with fifty other seekers–many of whom shouted with him–his ministry was distinctly changed. Godbey’s ambitions for the Methodist episcopacy were “burned up,” and he experienced an outpouring of divine power along with significant results in his subsequent revival work. He credited the Holy Spirit’s work in entire sanctification for making him a “cyclone of fire,” with the result that he had revivals everywhere he went.
[10] For Godbey, his experience of entire sanctification was the most important qualification for his work as a minister.
[11] Cyclone Evangelist Godbey’s ministry began when he was licensed in 1853 as a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. During his student days at Georgetown College (KY) he preached to African American slaves in Methodist “colored churches.”
[12] He also spent several years teaching school in order to pay for his college education. Godbey received a “classical education” from Georgetown College, graduating with a baccalaureate degree on June 30, 1859. The marks of this “classical education” can be found throughout his books, articles and pamphlets, and undoubtedly influenced his revival sermons. Stories from the Greek and Roman classics adorned his publications, and word studies in Greek and Latin were liberally sprinkled in his Bible lessons. As a teenager Godbey participated in rural debating societies, and he credited his debating experience with the acquisition of rigorous study habits which served him throughout his lifetime. His debating experience may also have been the origin of his speaking style–ornate, after the fashion of the day, yet addressed to common people–a style consistently reflected in each of his publications, and attested in personal reminiscences of those who knew him.
[13] Godbey was admitted on trial to the Methodist ministry in 1866, and into full connection in 1868.
[14] He served as president of Harmonia College in Perryville, Kentucky from 1859 to 1868, and moved the school to Indiana during the Civil War since Godbey was a “Union man.”
[15] In 1860 he married Emma Durham, whose family had been prominent in early Kentucky Methodism; they had eight children, only one of whom survived past early adulthood.
[16] From all appearances, Godbey’s career was typical of Kentucky Methodist ministers in this period–with the exception of his “classical education.” However, the experience of entire sanctification in 1868 set Godbey on a course that would carry him to the very edges of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and at the center of the holiness movement. After 1868, Godbey served several Methodist charges as pastor, was appointed twice as a presiding elder on the Kentucky Conference from 1873-1876, and served several smaller pastorates from 1877 to 1884. Godbey held revival meetings in every place he could, with spectacular results. Appointed to the Methodist Church in Foster, Kentucky in 1872, he saw more than 500 conversions in one year.
[17] Revival meetings eventually took a toll on Godbey’s career in the Methodist ministry, until in his final charge in 1883-1884, he spent the entire year outside the boundaries of his conference, holding revivals in every place where he had been invited.
[18] In 1884 Godbey found himself at the end of the Annual Conference without an appointment to a Methodist charge. When he spoke with his bishop, Rev. Holland N. McTyeire, the bishop encouraged Godbey to locate, become an evangelist and travel to Texas, where the Methodist Episcopal Church, South needed rapid statistical growth. For the rest of his life, Godbey pointed to this event as the time when Bishop McTyeire “turned him loose on the whole connection.”
[19] The bishop may have intended to frustrate the evangelist and eventually drive him out of the Methodist ministry. McTyeire probably anticipated that Godbey’s talents for revivalism would bring statistical gains for the Methodist churches on the Texas frontier. In less than ten years most of Godbey’s ministry would be conducted among widely-scattered Methodist churches and camp meetings, until the new holiness denominations were formed after 1895. However, once driven to the periphery of Methodism, Godbey became one of the most prominent evangelists in the holiness movement, and prepared a foundation for many of the holiness denominations that would soon be started. His own account reveals an energetic, restless evangelist with a driving passion for his work, who profoundly influenced the men and women who attended his meetings.
[20] Godbey’s success in conducting revival meetings may be attributed in part to the dramatic character of his sermons. Godbey developed strong proficiency in preaching colorful, emotional sermons that produced visible effects in congregations, and this proficiency enabled him to move people toward a dramatic, ‘crisis’ experience at the mourner’s bench. He typically surveyed a revival congregation on the first night of a revival meeting, ascertained a large number of people who needed conversion (this knowledge was allegedly a gift of the Holy Spirit), and preached the “Sinai Gospel” to awaken them. Godbey transliterated the Greek term dunamis into the English word “dynamite,” thus rendering Romans 1:16 as “The gospel is the dynamite of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.”
[21] He equivocated on the meaning of “dynamite,” connecting the connotation of explosive charge to the demonstrative worship style of the frontier revivals and camp meetings. For Godbey, “dynamite” referred to “hellfire and damnation” preaching, which aimed to kindle conviction of sin in unbelievers. He called this type of preaching “taking Mount Sinai for our pulpit,” with “thunderbolts, earthquakes and lightning-shafts.”
[22] Godbey credited this type of preaching with producing phenomenal results in his revivals, and he was convinced that entire sanctification was the foundational experience which had equipped him to preach the “Sinai Gospel” with “the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” He advocated the “Sinai Gospel” as a means for bringing sinners to a point of ripe conviction, and refused to bring his revival meetings to a point of resolution–through opening the mourner’s bench–until he sensed that the congregation had reached the breaking point.
[23] He would preach in this manner for several nights, allowing the emotions in the congregation to climb until there was a general breakdown in order. Then Godbey would preach the “Calvary Gospel” and move people from despair to joy, while emphasizing the “dying love of Jesus.”
[24] His emotional style can be gleaned from his description of the preacher standing “on the crimson hill of Golgotha and with solemn wails and breaking heart, preach the dying love of Jesus to the souls crushed by the thunder-bolts of Sinai.”
[25] His revival practices often divided churches, and coupled with his odd mannerisms, brought down on himself the charge of being “crazy.”[26] Large numbers of people often came to his revival meetings out of curiosity, in order to hear a “crazy” preacher, and one occasion a young cowboy preacher named Bud Robinson drove a wagon twenty miles to hear Godbey preach on entire sanctification.
[27] However, while many people opposed Godbey’s preaching, those who approved of his dramatic manner of presenting conversion and entire sanctification as “epochal” (instantaneous) experiences endorsed him as an “old-style Wesleyan.”
[28] Unfortunately, Godbey met strenuous opposition in several places, especially in his travels across Texas (beginning in 1884), on account of his preaching on the subject of “sanctification.” Even though Hardin Wallace had introduced specialized preaching on entire sanctification in his Calvert, Texas revival meeting in the winter of 1876-1877, and connected the doctrine with John Wesley’s A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, sanctification had become associated with fanaticism, especially in Central Texas, where extremists in the two decades before Godbey’s arrival had poisoned the reputation of the subject.
[29] Two groups that had infused the term with extreme teachings were most responsible for the controversy over sanctification. The “Corsicana Enthusiasts” joined holiness and premillennialism to form a millennial sect which Methodists and other “outsiders” associated with the Millerites.
[30] The group also required husband and wife to separate subsequent to entire sanctification, if the couple disagreed over the experience.
[31] Another group that served to discredit the cause of holiness in Central Texas was a band of women, officially known as the Woman’s Commonwealth, but commonly called the “Sanctified Sisters” or the “Belton Sanctificationists.” Walter Vernon gives a succinct account of the origins of this sect, which took place in the Central Texas town of Belton: “Mrs. Martha McWhirter had an experience in 1866 in which she believed she heard God speaking to her; she in turn spoke in tongues. She decided that she was experiencing guidance from God in all aspects of her life, and opposed the move of the Methodist congregation from a union church to their own. She gathered some other women around her. . . [who] decided that they should not have physical relations with their husbands.”
[32] The Belton Sanctificationists challenged the male-dominated society of nineteenth-century Central Texas, and in turn received opposition and hostility from townsfolk, especially men.
[33] News of these rebellious women may have spread over Central Texas, compounded with the “fanaticisms” of the “Corsicana Enthusiasts,” for according to Godbey, people in this region were strenuously opposed to sanctification.
[34] The term “sanctification” had become associated with domestic rebellion, and represented an experience that empowered women to leave their husbands and lead independent lives. The holiness movement would thus have appeared divisive, rendering asunder the sacred bonds of matrimony and threatening male dominance. This association could explain the violent attacks on Godbey during his evangelistic campaigns in Texas, when groups of men pelted him with rocks, dirt and eggs.
[35] While holiness movement tradition has typically viewed these accounts of persecution as ‘martyrdom,’ these attacks were probably reprisals from men whose wives had attended the revival meetings. Godbey often recalled instances of women who sought sanctification in his revival meetings–he reveled in an account of a presiding elder who censured him for preaching sanctification, while the presiding elder’s wife was at the mourner’s bench seeking the experience. Godbey never mentioned opposition from women in these campaigns–his opponents were angry men who perceived sanctification as a challenge to their domestic authority.
[36] In spite of the violent opposition, Godbey became one of the most successful evangelists of the holiness movement between 1884 and 1893, and developed an extensive network of ministerial and lay supporters across the South–a network that quickly became national–and international–prior to 1900. Bible Scholar As the ‘holiness people’ became aware of their distinctive status, they sought firmer biblical-exegetical foundations for apologetical purposes, and expressed their concerns for a set of Bible commentaries “from the full salvation standpoint.” Beverly Carradine rejoiced in the “double pleasure” that a set of holiness commentaries would be written, and that Godbey would be the author: “Dr. Godbey is the man to do the work. His wide range of reading, his familiarity with the different versions of the Scripture, his knowledge and experience of the blessing itself, all fit him for the task. There will not be a dissenting voice to this throughout the holiness ranks.”
[37] Godbey’s popularity testified to his success as an evangelist, Bible teacher and author prior to the publication of the first volume of his Commentary on the New Testament in 1896. His earlier publications–Baptism (1884), Sanctification (1884), Christian Perfection (1886), Victory (1888), and Holiness or Hell? (1893)–enjoyed an extensive circulation, with some titles going through several printings. Godbey credited his friend Martin Wells Knapp with persuading him to write the Commentary on the New Testament.
[38] By the mid-1890s Godbey had become “one of the most prominent evangelists of the last quarter of the [nineteenth] century.”
[39] He states, “The holiness people had been exceedingly clamorous a full dozen years for me to write commentaries expository of the New Testament. This conception had originated from my constant habit of teaching the Scriptures during my evangelistic meetings, utilizing the day time in the instruction of the Lord’s people and preaching in connection with my evangelistic meetings at night.”
[40] Godbey frequently mentioned his extensive use of the Greek text in his teaching ministry. Since most people in his congregations were not acquainted with biblical languages, they would have uncritically accepted Godbey’s expertise as a Greek scholar. Godbey could read Greek, but his scholarship was comparable to other college-educated ministers of his generation. Knapp persuaded him to write the commentaries; however, Godbey refused to begin this project until he had traveled to Palestine, for he believed the “land and the book” to be inseparable. Godbey set out on his first trip around the world in 1895 (with subsequent trips in 1899, 1905, 1912 and 1918), after receiving a gift of $500 from J. S. Hunton subsequent to a lecture at the Texas Holiness Association’s campgrounds in Waco, Texas.
[41] Godbey wanted to travel in “Bible lands” and improve his understanding of the geography, manners and customs of the land and the people. To the precritical mind, these factors were important in developing an accurate interpretation of the biblical text.
[42] Godbey also wanted to make firsthand observations concerning the fulfillment of prophecy–the “signs of the times”–in order to confirm the truthfulness of premillennialism. He intended to establish premillennialism as the prevailing orthodoxy on eschatology in the holiness movement, and traveled around the world to gather evidence. He could not have constructed a convincing argument for this controversial eschatology until he had traveled widely and could cite firsthand observation of the “signs.” His travel accounts would have carried conviction to the minds of his readers; Godbey was a prominent evangelist in the movement, who had traveled where most of them had never been (and would never go), who had observed these “signs” with his own eyes (potent evidence for common-sense realists), and who concluded from his experiences that certain Bible prophecies were thereby fulfilled. Godbey’s commentaries confirm this purpose when he discusses the fulfillment of prophecy pertaining to the return of Christ, for it is in this context where he recounts his observations in foreign travels. Godbey’s references to his travels in “Bible lands” figure prominently in Volume One of the Commentary on the New Testament, which deals with the Book of Revelation, a book which in Godbey’s perspective is “all on the Second Coming of Christ.”
[43] Godbey’s extensive travels also garnered a wealth of personal knowledge of the “Bible lands” of his day, as well as a personal acquaintance of holiness missions around the globe–knowledge which would have significantly increased his stature as a teacher in holiness circles. His travels also provided material for several subsequent publications, of which several can be found in minister’s personal libraries today. One of Godbey’s most popular accounts of his travels was Footprints of Jesus in the Holy Land.
[44] Primarily an exposition of the Old Testament, Footprints of Jesus could be characterized as a sermonizing travelogue. Places and events were occasions for digressing on Bible stories, sermon illustrations and personal anecdotes that illustrated such ‘Bible truths’ as entire sanctification. As in his other travel accounts, Godbey mentioned the “multitudinous perils” which he faced on his journeys, and admitted, “Very few comparatively undertake this voyage, and the number would be much smaller if they knew beforehand the labor and danger involved.” When one considers that Godbey was past sixty years of age when he began his first tour, it becomes evident that he was a remarkable person of uncommon courage and motivation. Besides his Commentary on the New Testament, Godbey’s most remarkable publishing achievement was his Translation of the New Testament (1901). In the “Apologue” he called it the “hardest work of my life,” the fruit of twenty-five years of using only the Greek New Testament in his preaching, and the result of a dozen years of popular demand from the holiness movement. Godbey shared with his nineteenth-century Protestant colleagues a historical perspective which exaggerated the “apostasy and barbarism” of the “Dark Ages,” which began shortly after the beginning of the fourth century and ended in the sixteenth century with the Protestant Reformation. Calling this historical period “Satan’s millennium,” Godbey emphasized the widespread illiteracy of these centuries, as well as the efforts of the “heathen” (Goths, Vandals and Muslims) to destroy all books and learning, “sparing not the Word of God.” Providentially, God preserved the pristine text of the New Testament of the apostolic age, which was hidden in the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai. God revealed this text to “His faithful servant, the learned Tischendorf” in 1859, and this text subsequently become known as Codex Sinaiticus. Shortly after graduation from Georgetown College in the same year, Godbey procured a copy of this Greek text from Germany, and based his Translation of the New Testament on this text. He was convinced that the resulting translation was “the most literal, lucid, and perspicuous translation now extant in the English tongue.” Why did the “holiness people” need a new translation of the Bible? Godbey claimed that the English Version (the “Authorized” or “King James” translation of 1611) had “two thousand mistakes. . of which nine hundred and four are corrected in the Revised Version.” The restoration of the New Testament text would augment the restoration of ‘New Testament Christianity,’ and would provide textual support for the doctrine of entire sanctification as a second work of grace distinct from justification and regeneration. At the turn of the twentieth century, the holiness movement articulated a vision of lay preachers–men and women–who would preach the restored gospel of the apostolic age to the world’s entire population. Godbey shared this vision, and believed that God would call–not thousands, but “millions”–of laity to this task. This preaching of the laity would hasten the ‘Return of Jesus’ for His saints.
[45] Godbey supplied the holiness movement with his publications–especially his Commentary on the New Testament and his Translation of the New Testament–to support the movement’s vision of lay preaching. Indeed, Godbey himself–in his restless “peregrinations” around the world–was the living embodiment of this vision. He fervently believed that the end of the age was at hand, the Second Coming of Christ would take place no later than 1923, and that the “signs of the times” signaled an extreme urgency for the task of preaching the gospel to every living person on earth. Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament and Translation of the New Testament stand today as monuments to the vision of the early holiness movement to “spread scriptural holiness” around the world, concomitant with the restoration of the primitive gospel of the apostolic age and in preparation for the coming millennial restoration of the created order. Godbey’s contributions to holiness literature also included numerous small booklets which nourished the holiness people in sound doctrine and inoculated them against the ‘heresies’ which were sweeping across America in the late nineteenth century. These booklets were printed on cheap (high acid content) paper in order to make them affordable (usually ten cents each), and as a consequence, most of them exist today in a state of marked deterioration. Topics included expositions of holiness soteriology, critiques of “popular evangelism,” indictments of the “fallen churches” (especially Methodism), warnings against such ‘heresies’ as “Mormonism,” and devotional studies of the geography of “Bible lands.” However, the most prominent topic was the Second Coming of Christ. Godbey wrote numerous booklets concerning the “signs of the times,” expositions of dispensationalist chronology (outlining periods of history, the Rapture, the Tribulation Period, the Millennium, and the final judgment), and exhortations to be “robed and ready” with the experience of entire sanctification. These booklets contain an abundance of Godbey’s sermon illustrations–personal anecdotes, allusions to classical Greek mythology, references to rural life, and stories taken from religious biographies of such notable personalities as George Whitefield, John Wesley, Benjamin Abbott, and Charles G. Finney. These booklets provide today’s readers with snapshots of Godbey’s preaching style– homespun stories, rhetoric, pointed exhortations, allusions to classical literature–and provide a clear picture of a distinct personality. Like the rest of his publications, Godbey’s booklets were not polished productions; rather, they were transcriptions of his reminiscences, taken down by “amanuenses”–most of them students of God’s Bible School. Godbey had serious problems with his eyesight, and his handwriting was very difficult to decipher. He dictated his books and pamphlets from memory, and these publications represent a raw transcription of his personality and speaking style. Gospel Ranger Godbey was indeed unique–a complex personality with several distinctive aspects which must be held together in order to have an accurate assessment of his ministry. First of all, he was a well-educated Methodist minister who could communicate most effectively with common people–especially those who had a rural background. Second, he had a profound religious experience in 1868 that dramatically altered his ministry. Third, he was effective in communicating this experience to large numbers of people, and persuading them to receive a similar experience. Fourth, he had a passion for relentless travel–he was constantly on the move, from meeting to meeting, from the time he left the presidency of Harmonia College (1869) to the last four weeks of his life (1920) when he was physically unable to travel. Fifth, his personal habits included unconventional patterns of behavior, which encouraged people to label him as “eccentric.” These sides must be held together in tension, or an unbalanced picture of the man emerges. Godbey’s brilliance and eccentric personal habits often produced a mixed reaction from colleagues, who admired his intense dedication the holiness cause, appreciated his biblical scholarship and his preaching, and at the same time eschewed some of his behavior. Students at God’s Bible School, where Godbey occasionally taught (when he wasn’t holding revivals or touring “Bible lands”) remembered him with reverence and affection. They also remembered his “eccentricities,” which included his speculations on “celestial evangelism,” and his personal habits.
[46] Godbey’s eccentric traits included extreme thrift, which he attributed to his desire to send as much money as possible to missionaries. When he planned his funeral, he requested that no flowers be purchased, and that his former students (alumni of Harmonia College) dig the grave free of charge. He desired his possessions to be sold for missions support–“about ten or twenty thousand dollars worth” of unsold publications.
[47] When Godbey passed away on September 12, 1920, those who knew him best responded with unmitigated admiration and respect. The most detailed description of Godbey’s final illness and funeral was an article written by Mrs. Martin Wells Knapp, editor of God’s Revivalist and Bible Advocate
- Date:
- 12 Jun 2004
- Time:
- 16:55:41
Comments
this is not a quote but you might like to know this he was in our family. We look for his books all the time so if you know anywhere where we can buy his books e-mail me at cj24bdby@aol.com
Date: 30 Sep 2005
Time: 09:09:27
Comments:
Hi, I am W. B. Godbey’s great great great grandaughter. It is an interesting site. Kathy Dyke
Date: 23 Mar 2009
Time: 16:03:33
Your Comments:
AS a owner of the Godbey commentaries even though I do not agree with Dr. Godbey concerning his views on the book of Revelation He (Dr. Godbey) was a futurists not Historical. I hold to the historical interpretation of prophecy which means that the Book of Revelation is showing what will happen to the Church down through the ages and all that is contained therein is ALL symbolic not literal as the left behind people try to decieve us into believing
Brother Bud