5. Stephen the martyr
After the coming of the Spirit and the counter-attack of Satan (whose overthrow Luke has celebrated in 6:7), the church is almost ready to begin its worldwide mission. So far it has been composed only of Jews and restricted to Jerusalem. Now, however, the Holy Spirit is about to thrust his people out into the wider world, and the apostle Paul (Luke’s hero) is to be God’s chosen instrument to pioneer this development. But first, in the next six chapters of Acts, Luke explains how the foundations of the Gentile mission were laid by two remarkable men (Stephen the martyr and Philip the evangelist), followed by two remarkable conversions (Saul the Pharisee and Cornelius the centurion). These four men, each in his own way, together with Peter, through whose ministry Cornelius was converted, made a vital contribution to the global expansion of the church.
Stephen the martyr came first (6:8 – 8:2). His preaching aroused strenuous Jewish opposition, but in his carefully reasoned defence before the Sanhedrin he emphasized the freedom of the living God to go where he pleases and to call his people to go forth too. Although he failed to convince the Council and was stoned to death, his martyrdom seems to have had a profound influence on Saul of Tarsus. It also led to the scattering of the disciples throughout Judea and Samaria.
Philip the evangelist (8:4–40) had the distinction of being both the first to share the good news with the despised Samaritans and the means by which the Jewish–Samaritan barrier was broken. He then led the first African to Christ, the Ethiopian eunuch, and baptized him.
The simultaneous conversion and commissioning of Saul the Pharisee (9:1–31) were an essential prelude to the Gentile mission, since he was called to be first and foremost the apostle to the Gentiles.
Cornelius the centurion (10:1 – 11:18) was the very first Gentile to be converted and welcomed into the church. The gift of the Spirit to him plainly authenticated his inclusion in the messianic community on the same terms as Jews, and so overcame the narrow Jewish prejudice of the apostle Peter.
Only after these four men had played their part in Luke’s developing story was the scene set for the first missionary journey recorded in Acts 13 and 14.
Luke has already introduced Stephen. As one of the Seven, he was ‘full of the Spirit and wisdom’ (6:3). He himself is then described as ‘full of faith and of the Holy Spirit’ (6:5), and now he is reintroduced as a man full of God’s grace and power (6:8a). Filled with the Spirit, and so filled also with wisdom, faith, grace and power, he evidently gave people an excellent impression. ‘Grace and power’ form a striking combination. ‘Grace’ seems to indicate a gracious, Christlike character, while his ‘power’ was seen in the great wonders and signs which he did among the people (8b). So far signs and wonders have been credited by Luke only to Jesus (2:22) and the apostles (2:43; 5:12); now for the first time others are said to perform them. Some conclude that Stephen (6:8) and Philip (8:6) were special cases, both because the apostles had laid their hands on them (6:6), thus including them within their own apostolic ministry, and because they occupied a special place in salvation history, in the transition from Jewish movement to world mission. But this cannot be proved. Stephen and Philip are certainly witnesses to the fact that, even if (according to Luke) signs and wonders were mainly limited to the apostles, this restriction was not absolute.
Yet in spite of all Stephen’s outstanding qualities, his ministry provoked fierce hostility. We are not yet told why, but it is explained that the opposition arose . . . from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called). Also mentioned are Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia (9a). The ‘freedmen’ (libertinoi, a Greek transliteration of a Latin word) were freed slaves and their descendants. But who were the Jews from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia and Asia? Some think that they composed four distinct synagogues, with the freedmen making a fifth. Others think two, three or four synagogues are in mind. But perhaps it is best to understand that Luke is referring to only one synagogue (for the word is in the singular). Because they had been freed from slavery, they must have been foreign Jews who had now come to live in Jerusalem. Perhaps those from Cilicia even included Saul of Tarsus. In any event, Stephen’s appointment as one of the Seven, entrusted with the care of the widows, did not mean that he had to step down as a preacher, for it was to his message that these synagogue members objected.
First, they began to argue with Stephen (9b). But they had not reckoned with the calibre of the man they were opposing, for they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke (10). This was a fulfilment of the promise of Jesus, which Luke has recorded, that he would give his followers ‘words and wisdom’ which their opponents would be unable to resist or contradict.
Second, thwarted in open debate, Stephen’s enemies started a smear campaign against him, for when arguments fail, mud is often an excellent substitute. So they secretly persuaded some men – presumably by bribery – to allege, We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God (11). In this way they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law (12a).
Third, they seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin (12b), and then produced false witnesses (13a).
So the opposition degenerated from theology through slander to violence. The same order of events has often been repeated. At first there is serious theological debate. When this fails, people start a personal campaign of lies. Finally, they resort to legal or quasi-legal action in an attempt to get rid of their opponent by force. Let others use these weapons against us; may we be delivered from resorting to them ourselves!
After this introduction to Stephen, Luke first clarifies the accusation which was levelled against him (6:13–15), then summarizes the defence he made before the Council (7:1–53), and finally describes the summary sentence which was carried out, in other words his death by stoning (7:54–60).
1. Stephen is accused (6:13–15)
The rumour which had been circulated was that Stephen had blasphemed against Moses and against God (11). Now the false witnesses elaborated the charge before the Sanhedrin: This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law (13). We pause to note that this was an extremely serious double accusation. For nothing was more sacred to the Jews, and nothing more precious, than their temple and their law. The temple was the ‘holy place’, the sanctuary of God’s presence, and the law was ‘holy Scripture’, the revelation of God’s mind and will. Therefore, since the temple was God’s house and the law was God’s word, to speak against either was to speak against God or, in other words, to blaspheme.
But in what sense did Stephen speak against the temple and the law? The false witnesses explained: For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us (14). Stephen’s words against the temple and the law are seen to be his teaching about what Jesus of Nazareth would do to both. But was Stephen right? Was Jesus an iconoclast, who had threatened to destroy the temple and change the law, thus robbing Israel of her two most treasured possessions and even opposing God who gave them? Certainly Jesus had been accused of this, and it is safe to assume that Stephen was faithfully echoing his teaching.
So what did Jesus say about the temple and the law? First, he said that he would replace the temple. ‘We heard him say,’ false witnesses had testified, ‘“I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.”’ Those listening to him thought he meant this literally, and asked: ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ ‘But’, John comments, ‘the temple he had spoken of was his body’, both his resurrection body which was raised on the third day, and also his spiritual body, the church, which would take the place of the material temple. Thus Jesus dared to speak of himself as God’s new temple replacing the old. ‘I tell you’, he declared, ‘that something greater than the temple is here.’ As a result, although in the past the people came together to the temple to meet God, in future the meeting place with God would be himself.
Second, Jesus said that he would fulfil the law. He was of course accused of disrespect for the law – for example, in relation to the Sabbath. But the scribes and Pharisees did not understand him. What he did was to contradict the way the scribes misrepresented Moses and so sweep away all the traditions of the elders. But he was never disrespectful to the law itself. On the contrary, he said: ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.’ In particular, his resolve to lay down his life for us would fulfil all priesthood and sacrifice.
What Jesus taught, then, was that the temple and the law would be superseded, meaning not that they had never been divine gifts in the first place, but that they would find their God-intended fulfilment in him, the Messiah. Jesus was and is himself the replacement of the temple and the fulfilment of the law. Moreover, to affirm that both temple and law pointed forward to him and are now fulfilled in him is to magnify their importance, not to denigrate it.
So far as we can tell, Stephen was teaching much the same as Jesus taught. The false witnesses accused him of saying that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the temple and change the law. That is, they portrayed the work of Christ in negative, destructive terms. But what Stephen was really doing was preaching Christ, positively and constructively, as the One in whom all that the Old Testament foretold and foreshadowed is fulfilled, including the temple and the law.
At this point all who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel (15). It is surely significant that the Council, gazing at the prisoner in the dock, should see his face shining like an angel’s, for this is exactly what happened to Moses’ face when he came down from Mount Sinai with the law. Was it not God’s deliberate purpose to give the same radiant face to Stephen when he was accused of opposing the law as he had given to Moses when he received the law? In this way God was showing that both Moses’ ministry of the law and Stephen’s interpretation of it had his approval. Indeed God’s blessing on Stephen is evident throughout. The grace and power of his ministry (8), his irresistible wisdom (10) and his shining face (13) were all indications that the favour of God rested upon him.
2. Stephen makes his defence (7:1–53)
Many students of Stephen’s speech have criticized it as rambling, dull and even incoherent. A good example is George Bernard Shaw in his preface to Androcles and the Lion. Calling Stephen ‘a quite intolerable young speaker’ and ‘a tactless and conceited bore’, he describes him as having ‘delivered an oration to the council, in which he . . . inflicted on them a tedious sketch of the history of Israel, with which they were presumably as well acquainted as he’. Others have found his speech lacking not only in interest but in point. Dibelius, for instance, wrote of ‘the irrelevance of most of this speech’. Such negative assessments of Stephen’s oratory are by no means universal, however. William Neil even calls his speech ‘a subtle and skilful proclamation of the gospel’.
It is important to bear in mind the nature and purpose of Stephen’s speech. After the two serious accusations had been levelled at him, the high priest challenged him with the direct question: Are these charges true? (7:1). So Stephen needed to defend himself against them in such a way as to develop an apologia for his radical gospel. What he did was not just to rehearse the salient features of the Old Testament story, with which the Sanhedrin were as familiar as he, but to do so in such a way as to draw lessons from it which they had never learned or even noticed. His concern was to demonstrate that his position, far from being ‘blasphemous’ because disrespectful to God’s Word, actually honoured it. For Old Testament Scripture itself confirmed his teaching about the temple and the law, especially by predicting the Messiah, whereas by rejecting him it was they who disregarded the law, not he. Stephen’s mind had evidently soaked up the Old Testament, for his speech is like a patchwork of allusions to it.
a. The temple
It was not because of its architectural magnificence that the Jews prized the temple, but because God had promised to ‘put his Name’ there and meet his people there. Several psalms bear witness to Israel’s consequent love for the temple. For example,
One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
This was right. But many drew a false conclusion. They conceived of the Lord as so completely identified with the temple that its existence guaranteed his protection of them, while its destruction would mean that he had abandoned them. It was against these notions that the prophets protested. Long before them, however, as Stephen pointed out, the great figures of the Old Testament never imagined that God was imprisoned in a building.
What Stephen did was to pick out four major periods of Israel’s history, dominated by five major characters. First he highlighted Abraham and the patriarchal age (2–8); then Joseph and the Egyptian exile (9–16); third, Moses, the exodus and the wilderness wanderings (17–43); and lastly David and Solomon, and the establishment of the monarchy (44–50). The connecting feature of these four epochs is that in none of them was God’s presence limited to any particular place. On the contrary, the God of the Old Testament was the living God, a God on the move and on the march, who was always calling his people out to fresh adventures, and always accompanying and directing them as they went.
i. Abraham (7:2–8)
Stephen’s summary of the first or patriarchal epoch focuses on Abraham as the key figure. It is no accident that Stephen describes the Lord as the God of glory, for his ‘glory’ is his self-manifestation, and Stephen is about to give details of how he made himself known to Abraham. He appeared to him first while he was still in Mesopotamia (2), specifically in Ur of the Chaldeans, while he and his family ‘worshipped other gods’. Yet even in that idolatrous context God appeared and spoke to Abraham, telling him to uproot himself from his home and people and migrate to another country which he would later show him. Some commentators regard Stephen as having made a mistake in this, because they deduce from Genesis 11:31 – 12:1 that God’s command to Abraham was given him at Harran, not Ur. But Genesis 12:1 can be translated, ‘The Lord had said to Abram’, suggesting that what he told him in Harran was actually a confirmation of what he had already said to him in Ur. Certainly God later announced himself to Abram as ‘the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans’, and both Joshua and Nehemiah bear witness to this. So Abram left Ur and settled in Harran. But from there God sent him on the next stage of his journey to the land of Canaan. He gave him no inheritance in it, however, not even enough ground to set his foot on, but instead promised that his descendants [though at the time he had no child] . . . would possess the land. At the same time, even they would not inherit it immediately, for first they were to be strangers in a country not their own, where they would be both enslaved and ill-treated for four hundred years (Stephen is content with a round figure, although the precise length of their slavery was 430 years). Even during their cruel slavery God had neither forgotten nor forsaken them; he intervened to punish the nation which had enslaved them and so to rescue them from their bondage (7).
We cannot miss Stephen’s emphasis on the divine initiative. It was God who appeared, spoke, sent, promised, punished and rescued. From Ur to Harran, from Harran to Canaan, from Canaan to Egypt, from Egypt back to Canaan again, God was directing each stage of his people’s pilgrimage. Although the whole Fertile Crescent from the River Euphrates to the River Nile was the scene of their migrations, God was with them. Why was this? It was because he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision (8), that is, made a solemn promise to Abraham to bless him and his descendants, and gave him circumcision to signify and seal this covenant. So, long before there was a holy place, there was a holy people, to whom God had pledged himself. He then renewed the promise he had made to Abraham, first to his son Isaac, then to his grandson Jacob, and then to his great-grandsons the twelve patriarchs (8b). Thus Stephen makes the transition from Abraham to Joseph, the second great figure of the Old Testament he singles out (9–16).
ii. Joseph (7:9–16)
We note at once that, if Mesopotamia was the surprising context in which God appeared to Abraham (2), Egypt was the equally surprising scene of God’s dealings with Joseph. Six times in seven verses Stephen repeats the word ‘Egypt’, as if to make sure that his hearers have grasped its significance. This was the ‘country not their own’ in which Abraham’s descendants would be strangers and slaves for four hundred years (6), and it was because of the patriarchs’ jealousy of their younger brother Joseph that the migration took place (9). Though Joseph was now a foreigner and a slave in Egypt, however, God was with him (9). As a result, God rescued him from all his troubles (the ‘troubles’ being a euphemism for his unjust imprisonment by Potiphar), and gave him wisdom (especially to interpret dreams), so that he gained the goodwill of Pharaoh and was promoted to be ruler over Egypt (10).
God was not only with Joseph but also with all his family, for he saved them from starvation during the famine (11). The venue for this divine deliverance was Egypt too. Stephen outlines the three visits to Egypt paid by Joseph’s brothers, the first to get grain (12), the second when Joseph made himself known to them (13), and the third when they brought their father Jacob with them, together with their wives and children, making seventy-five in all (14). This is the number given in the lxx translation of Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5, although the Hebrew text in both verses has ‘seventy’, the discrepancy being probably due to whether Joseph’s sons are included in the total or not. It is difficult for us to imagine, and indeed Stephen does not mention, how traumatic this journey into Egypt must have seemed to Jacob. He surely knew that in an earlier famine the Lord had specifically forbidden his father Isaac to ‘go down to Egypt’, telling him instead to remain in the Promised Land. Did this ban include Jacob too? It was doubtless to allay Jacob’s anxieties that at Beersheba, near the border between Canaan and Egypt, God told him in a night vision not to be afraid to ‘go down to Egypt’, for he would go down with him, bless him there and ultimately bring him back. So Jacob went down to Egypt (15). And there he and all his sons died, far from the Promised Land, to which they never returned. Only their bodies were brought back to be buried (16).
There were two patriarchal burial grounds in Canaan. The first was the field and cave of Machpelah near Hebron, which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite; the second was a plot of ground near Shechem, which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor. Some commentators have made fun of Stephen (or Luke) for confusing these, since he speaks of Abraham buying the Shechem tomb, instead of Jacob. But it is highly unlikely that Stephen, with his intimate knowledge of the Old Testament, would have made this mistake. It is better to conclude either that Jacob bought the Shechem burial ground in Abraham’s name, since he was still alive at the time, or that, in giving an overall account of the burial of all the patriarchs, Stephen deliberately conflated the two sites, since Jacob was buried at his own request in the field of Machpelah, whereas Joseph’s bones were buried many years later at Shechem.
iii. Moses (7:17–43)
Stephen’s third epoch (17–43) was dominated by Moses, through whose ministry God kept his promises to Abraham which had seemed to be in abeyance. Perhaps Stephen’s handling of Moses’ career (which he divides into three forty-year periods) is longer and fuller than his account of the others because he had been accused of speaking against Moses (6:11). He leaves his judges in no doubt of his immense respect for Moses’ leadership and lawgiving.
The Israelites’ exile and slavery in Egypt lasted for four bitter centuries. Had God forgotten his people, and his promise to bless them? No. He had warned Abraham of their four hundred years of enslavement and mistreatment (6). But now at last the time drew near [the set time, for God is the lord of history] for God to fulfil his promise to Abraham (17a). God had actually made Abraham two promises, namely to give him both a seed (numerous descendants) and a land (Canaan). The first promise was being fulfilled even during their Egyptian captivity, for the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased (17b). But how would the promise of the land be fulfilled? Only after much suffering. For another Pharaoh came to power in Egypt who, knowing nothing about Joseph, oppressed the Israelites, even forcing them to throw out their newborn babies (18–19).
It was at that time, when the people’s sufferings were greatest and their prospects bleakest, that Moses was born, their God-appointed deliverer. No ordinary child combines the ideas of his being beautiful and pleasing to God (20). For the first three months of his life he was nurtured by his own mother, but was then brought up in the Egyptian palace as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter (21). He was thus educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became powerful in speech and action (22).
At the age of forty, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites, in the sense of investigating their plight and seeking to remedy it (23). Witnessing two cases of injustice, he took things into his own hands. First, he tried to defend an Israelite, and killed the Egyptian who was ill-treating him (24). The following day he tried to reconcile two Israelites who were fighting, and appealed to them to remember that they were brothers who, because of that, should not hurt one another (26). In both cases he thought his own people would realise and acknowledge his God-given vocation to rescue them (25). But they did not. Instead, the Israelite who was ill-treating the other challenged Moses’ authority to be their ruler and judge, and enquired if he intended to kill him as he had killed the Egyptian (27–28). Alarmed that his act of murder was known, Moses fled to Midian, where he settled down as a foreigner, married, and had two sons (29). This was the beginning of his second forty-year period.
At the end of it came the turning point in his career, when God met and commissioned him. True, it is said to have been an angel who appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai (30). Yet it was the Lord who called him and announced that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so that Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look (31–32). The divine voice then told him to remove his sandals because the place where he was standing, in the very presence of the living God, was holy ground (33). This statement was central to Stephen’s argument. There was holy ground outside the holy land. Wherever God is, is holy. Moreover, the same God who met Moses in the desert of Midian was also present in Egypt, for he had seen his people’s oppression there, had heard their groaning, had actually come down in person to set them free, and was now sending Moses back to Egypt to bring about their liberation (34). This . . . same Moses, whom the Israelites had rejected as their ruler and judge, was now appointed their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush (35).
Moses’ third forty-year period was spent in the desert after he had led them out of Egypt. Moreover, alike in Egypt, at the Red Sea and . . . in the wilderness, his unique ministry as their deliverer and lawgiver had been authenticated (like the equally unique ministry of the apostles) by wonders and signs (36). This is the same Moses, continued Stephen, wishing to magnify his ministry, who foretold the coming of the Messiah as a prophet like him, who was in the assembly [ekklēsia] in the wilderness, along with the people and with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and who received living words, oracles from God, to pass on to his people (37–38). True (and here Stephen anticipates how his defence will end), this greatly privileged nation refused to obey God. They not only in their hearts turned back to Egypt, but, rejecting Moses’ leadership, commissioned Aaron to make them substitute gods to go before them into the Promised Land (39–40). They then brought sacrifices to the golden calf and revelled in what their own hands had made (41), which provoked God to turn away from them and to give them up instead to the worship of the sun, moon and stars (42a). Although Stephen backs up his accusation with a quotation from Amos 5 which dates from several centuries later, it nevertheless refers to the corrupt worship of Israel during their forty years in the desert. Their sacrifices and offerings were not in reality brought to the Lord, whatever their claim may have been, but rather to pagan idols (42b–43).
Stephen has traced the life and ministry of Moses through its Egyptian, Midianite and wilderness periods, and has shown that God was with him in each period and place. Chrysostom understood the significance of this. Both when Moses was being educated in the Egyptian palace and when God appeared to him in the desert of Midian, there is ‘not a word of temple, not a word of sacrifice’ (Chrysostom repeats this phrase). In fact the ‘holy ground’ at the burning bush was ‘far more wonderful . . . than . . . the Holy of Holies’, for God is nowhere said to have appeared in the inner sanctuary in Jerusalem as he did in the burning bush. So the lesson to learn from the experience of Moses is that ‘God is everywhere present’ and that ‘the holy place is there wherever God may be’.
iv. David and Solomon (7:44–50)
It is in Stephen’s fourth epoch (44–50), which includes the settlement of the Promised Land and the establishment of the monarchy, that a religious structure is mentioned for the first time, namely the tabernacle of the covenant law which the people had with them in the wilderness (44).
In referring to the tabernacle and the temple, Stephen insults neither. On the contrary, they were associated with some of the greatest names of Israelite history – Moses, Joshua, David and Solomon. Further, the tabernacle was constructed as God directed Moses and according to the pattern he had seen (44). Then their ancestors under Joshua brought it with them into the land they took from the nations they dispossessed (45a). For a long period it remained in the land as a focus of national life, even until the time of David (45b), who enjoyed God’s favour and asked permission to build God a more substantial and permanent dwelling-place (46). His request was refused, however, and it was Solomon who built a house for him (47). In this story of the transition from tabernacle to temple, Stephen is seen by some as showing a bias towards the former because it was mobile. But he expresses neither a preference for the tabernacle nor a distaste for the temple. For both were constructed in accordance with God’s will. Does this not contradict what Stephen is saying? No, Stephen’s point is not that it was wrong to construct either the tabernacle or the temple, but that they should never have been regarded as God’s home in any literal sense. For the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands (48). Paul was to make the same point to the philosophers in Athens (17:24). And, although this point is not expressed in the Old Testament in so many words, Solomon himself understood it. After the temple had been built he prayed: ‘But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!’ Instead of quoting this, however, Stephen cites Isaiah 66:1–2 where God says: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. So what kind of house or resting place could be built for him? God is himself the Creator; how can the Maker of everything be confined within structures made by human hands (49–50)?
It is not difficult, then, to grasp Stephen’s train of thought. A single thread runs right through the first part of his defence. It is that the God of Israel is a pilgrim God, who is not restricted to any one place. Key assertions in his speech are that the God of glory appeared to Abraham while he was still in heathen Mesopotamia (2); that God was with Joseph even when he was a slave in Egypt (9); that God came to Moses in the desert of Midian, and so the place became identified as ‘holy ground’ (30, 33); that, although in the wilderness God had been ‘moving from place to place with a tent as [his] dwelling’, yet ‘the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands’ (48). It is evident then from the Bible itself that God’s presence cannot be localized, and that no building can confine him or inhibit his activity. If he has any home on earth, it is with his people that he lives. He has pledged himself by a solemn covenant to be their God. Therefore, according to his covenant promise, wherever they are, there he is also.
b. The law
The false witnesses had accused Stephen of two blasphemies, namely of ‘speaking against this holy place and against the law’ (6:13). In response to both accusations he developed a similar defence, namely that in each area he was more biblical than they. That is, the Old Testament Scriptures laid less emphasis on the temple than they did, and more emphasis on the law. We have followed his argument in relation to the temple; now in relation to the law he turns the tables on his judges. It is not he, he maintains, who has shown a disregard for the law, but they, like their ancestors before them. The accused assumes the role of the accuser.
This theme has already been sketched in the earlier part of Stephen’s speech. His respect for Moses and the law was unmistakable. His acknowledgment of Moses’ divine vocation has been plain beyond question. Moses’ birth and early education were overseen by God (20–22). His call came direct from God, who spoke to him out of the burning bush (31–32). His appointment as Israel’s ruler and deliverer was made ‘by God himself’ (35), and from the same God ‘he received living words’ to pass on to the people (38). The shocking disrespect which Moses received, then, came not from Stephen but from the Israelites themselves. It was they who failed to recognize him as their heaven-sent deliverer (25), who ‘pushed Moses aside’ (27), who rejected his leadership (35) and who ‘refused to obey him’ in the wilderness; instead, in their hearts they turned back to Egypt and became idolaters (39ff.). It was the same with the prophets. Stephen quoted two of them with approval (Amos in verses 42–43, and Isaiah in verses 48–50), but in both references the prophets were rebuking Israel.
So now, having exposed Israel’s past unfaithfulness to the law and the prophets, Stephen went on to accuse his judges of the same sin.
We notice how Stephen boldly called the Sanhedrin stiff-necked, meaning stubborn, a description which both Moses and the prophets had applied to Israel. And though they insisted on bodily circumcision, he described their hearts and ears as being uncircumcised, another expression which was common to Moses and the prophets and which implied that they were ‘heathen still at heart and deaf to the truth’ (neb). Indeed, in their wilful rejection of God’s word, he said to them: you are just like your ancestors (51).
Pressing home his accusation in greater detail, Stephen declared them guilty of sinning against the Holy Spirit, the Messiah and the law. First, you always resist the Holy Spirit (51) by rejecting his appeals. Second, whereas their ancestors had persecuted every prophet, and even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One, they had been still worse, for they had betrayed and murdered him whom the prophets had predicted (52). Third, although they had been especially privileged to receive the law through the mediation of angels, they had not obeyed it (53).
Stephen’s speech was not so much a self-defence as a testimony to Christ. His main theme was positive, that Jesus the Messiah had come to replace the temple and fulfil the law, which both bore witness to him. As Calvin put it, ‘No harm can be done to the temple and the law, when Christ is openly established as the end and truth of both.’
3. Stephen is stoned (7:54–60)
Stephen was ready to be the first true martys, who sealed his testimony with his blood. His death was full of Christ. Luke records three further sentences which he spoke, the first of which referred to Christ, while the remaining two were addressed to Christ.
First, when the Sanhedrin, infuriated by his accusations, gnashed their teeth at him (54), snarling like wild animals, Stephen, filled with the Spirit, had a vision of the glory of God (55) and cried out: Look . . . I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (56). Several guesses have been made why Jesus was standing (repeated in verses 55 and 56), instead of sitting, at God’s right hand. It may have been that the Son of Man, who in Daniel’s vision was led into the presence of God, stood before him to receive authority and power. But it seems likely that Christ’s standing related more directly to Stephen, and that he had stood up either as his heavenly advocate or to welcome his first martyr. As F. F. Bruce has put it, ‘Stephen has been confessing Christ before men, and now he sees Christ confessing his servant before God.’
Unwilling to listen to Stephen’s testimony to the exaltation of Jesus, the Council both covered their ears and sought to drown his voice by their yelling. Worse, they were determined to silence him. So they rushed at him (57), dragged him out of the city and began to stone him (58a). Since the Romans had taken away the Jews’ right of capital punishment, it seems that Stephen’s stoning was more a mob lynching than an official execution. Yet it had a small semblance of justice, since according to the law, the first to begin stoning the condemned person must be ‘the witnesses’, which means his accusers, whether in Stephen’s case these were the false witnesses of 6:13 or Sanhedrin members. At all events, they laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul (58b), an experience he never forgot (22:20). In this way Luke discreetly introduces into his narrative the man who is soon to dominate it.
It was during his actual stoning that Stephen uttered his second sentence: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit (59). His prayer was similar to that which Luke has recorded Jesus as praying just before he died: ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ Yet this was not to be Stephen’s last word. He spoke a third sentence when he fell on his knees. He cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’ (60a). It was a reminder of the first word from the cross which Luke has recorded: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ Whether it was Stephen who deliberately imitated his Master, or whether it was Luke who observed and highlighted the fact, there are several parallels between the death of Jesus and the death of Stephen. In both cases false witnesses were produced and the charge was one of blasphemy. In both cases too the execution was accompanied by two prayers, as each prayed for the forgiveness of his executioners and for the reception of his spirit as he died. This is how the disciple – whether consciously or unconsciously – reflected his Master. The only difference was that Jesus addressed his prayers to the Father, while Stephen addressed them to Jesus, calling him ‘Lord’ and putting him on a level with God.
Luke concludes his story with a dramatic contrast between Stephen and Saul. Stephen fell asleep (60b), which F. F. Bruce called ‘an unexpectedly beautiful and peaceful description of so brutal a death’. By contrast, Saul was there, giving approval to his death (8:1a). We shall return later to Stephen’s influence on Saul. At this stage it is enough to note how brightly Stephen’s tranquil faith shines against the dark background of Saul’s murderous anger (8:1, 3).
4. Conclusion
What interests many people most about Stephen is that he was the first Christian martyr. But Luke’s main concern lies elsewhere. He emphasizes the vital role Stephen played in the development of the worldwide Christian mission through both his teaching and his death.
Stephen’s teaching, misunderstood as ‘blasphemy’ against the temple and the law, was that Jesus (as he himself had claimed) was the fulfilment of both. Already in the Old Testament God was tied to his people, wherever they were, not to buildings. So now Jesus is ready to accompany his people wherever they go. When Paul and Barnabas set out soon into the unknown on the first missionary journey, they will find (as Abraham, Joseph and Moses had found before them) that God is with them. That is exactly what they reported on their return (14:27; 15:12). Indeed, this assurance is crucial to mission. Change is painful to us all, especially when it affects our cherished buildings and customs, and we should not seek change merely for the sake of change. Yet true Christian radicalism is open to change. It knows that God has bound himself to his church (promising that he will never leave it) and to his word (promising that it will never pass away). But God’s church means people not buildings, and God’s word means Scripture not traditions. So long as these essentials are preserved, the buildings and the traditions can go if necessary. We must not allow them to imprison the living God or to impede his mission in the world.
Stephen’s martyrdom enhanced the influence of his teaching. Not only did it deeply impress Saul of Tarsus and contribute to his conversion, and so lead to his becoming the apostle to the Gentiles, but it also led to ‘a great persecution’ which led to the scattering of the disciples ‘throughout Judea and Samaria’ (8:1b).
The church was shocked, even stunned, by the martyrdom of Stephen and by the violent opposition which followed. But, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see how God’s providence used Stephen’s testimony, in word and deed, through life and death, to promote the church’s mission.