Chapter 7 Stephen's Evangelistic Defence.
The words of Stephen in this chapter are a powerful defence against the charges made against him. That is unquestionable. But they are not a defence made by his proving that he did not say the words that he was accuse of. Indeed such a defence might have been impossible. He may well have had no witnesses to prove that he did not say what he was accused of (it is always more difficult to prove that we did not do something). Thus he had to go about establishing his defence by demonstrating his own credentials and beliefs, and showing them to be Scriptural, and by demonstrating that his opponents could in fact be classed as much more guilty of ‘blasphemy' than he. But being the man he was he was also determined to seek to bring those who were listening to him to Christ. He saw these men as open to reason. So he also included within his defence powerful arguments which would appeal to any honest listeners and make them consider their own position. Had he not done so he might well not have been martyred.
At first sight his speech appears simply to be a review of the early history of Israel, but we should note that the use of this kind of approach was the normal style of the day. Directness in speech was not always seen as polite or desirable (compare Abraham's negotiation for the land in which to bury Sarah - Genesis 23). And we must remember that he was speaking to those who were used to such methods of speaking, and were experienced at selecting out from such a retelling of history the intended themes and inferences. For once his speech is analysed more carefully those themes can be clearly observed.
Theme 1. The Repeated Pattern Of The Past With Respect to Deliverers.
It is soon apparent that one primary purpose and theme was to bring out from ‘Moses' Law' a description of how God had constantly sought to deliver His people, and how He had equally constantly been thwarted, and how those deliverers whom God had sent for this purpose all pointed forward to the Great Deliverer, the Righteous One (Acts 7:52) Who has now been among them. This comes out in his selection of notables, Abraham, Joseph and Moses, who were all involved in deliverance. By this he establishes his reverence for the Law, while at the same time getting over a powerful message. This will then lead on to him pointing to the greatest Deliverer and Saviour of all, Jesus Christ.
He begins by stressing that their whole history began with the idea of deliverance. He brings out that the first stage in that deliverance took place when God effectively called Abraham out of ‘the land of the Chaldaeans', out of Babylon, and out from under the influence of idolatry and the occult which Babylon typified. This was deliverance by obedience to the call of God from all that was anti-God.
But having said that he then points out that once Abraham entered the land, he obtained no possession in it. It was not the land that constituted the deliverance, but the fact that in it he was free to worship God away from evil influences, and by the reception of God's theophanies of Himself. It was not possession of the land that was to be seen as the source of Abraham's blessing, but the graciousness of God and His continual presence with him. And as a result of that graciousness he was promised that the land would be given to his descendants, and this even before he had any descendants (Acts 7:5). He was thus to walk in trust before God, confident in His promises, and the land would be a future fruit of his walk of faith
Indeed his descendants would not remain in the land. They would rather choose to sojourn in a strange land. They too would not possess the land. And the result would be that they would sojourn in that land for four hundred years, where they would find themselves ill-treated in a foreign land, and where they would be afflicted (Acts 7:6). But then God would judge that land that afflicted them so that they would come forth and serve Him ‘in this place'. ‘In this place' in the original text means at the mountain of God in Midian (Exodus 3:12 - ‘in this mountain').
Here then was the suggestion that they could look forward to a deliverer (Moses), whom God would in good time raise up (Acts 7:7), who would bring them to the Mountain of God to receive His covenant.
‘In this place.' The phrase is enigmatic. Some see it as meaning ‘this place' where Stephen and the Sanhedrin were. But the words are cited as on the lips of God and all would recognise that they came from Exodus 3:12 (where it is ‘in this mountain'), and in their context there they certainly mean the mountain of God. Thus Stephen probably expected his hearers to understand precisely that. And that interpretation also fits in better with what follows, where he places emphasis on the Tabernacle made at the mountain of God outside the land in contrast with the Temple.
So first came the call to leave ‘Babylon'. Then followed the promises and the covenant. And then the fact that this would finally result in a deliverer. It was a potted history of ‘the Law of Moses' (the Pentateuch), which, as Stephen will draw attention to later, points forward in the end to a greater than Moses, to the Prophet like Moses Who was to come (Acts 7:37). His emphasis on this history stresses his belief in the God of Israel, and of Moses and His promises, countering the suggestion that he had blasphemed either. Meanwhile the land is seen as almost irrelevant except as a future hope. The important thing was rather that they should look to God in faith and anticipation of His promises, and walk with Him. And their future major act of worship was seen as occurring at the mountain of God in the wilderness and not in Canaan itself. God was not tied to a land or a Temple. He was the God of everywhere, as he had proved in Egypt and the Wilderness where he had performed His wonders (Acts 7:36).
Meanwhile Abraham's seed became the twelve Patriarchs, and God's promise concerning him and them was sealed by the covenant of circumcision (Acts 7:8), which was intended to circumcise their hearts as well as their bodies (Acts 7:51). And it was now that they showed themselves up for what they were. Through envy they sold into Egypt the one who had been revealed to them through dreams as a prospective deliverer, Joseph their brother (Acts 7:9), whom God had revealed through dreams was to rule over them. He was a prophet from God. But the one who so prophesied was rejected by his brothers, (the tribal leaders of the covenant community), because of their jealousy, so that they sold him into Egypt (Acts 7:9).
Yet despite their rejection of Joseph ‘God was with him' (Acts 7:9). The tribal leaders were therefore shown to be in the wrong. And there in that foreign land he grew into favour and was given high status by God's action (Acts 7:10), so that when God's people were afflicted through famine it was through Joseph that God delivered them (Acts 7:11-14).
Thus Israel's first deliverer and prophet had initially been despised and rejected by the tribal leaders, and had been sold off, but had then been highly exalted by God in order that He might deliver His undeserving people, and although initially unrecognised (Acts 7:12), he was finally recognised by His own people (Acts 7:13). It was to be a pattern for the future.
Stephen undoubtedly has in mind here, and wants his listeners to have in mind, that Jesus came and prophesied, but was finally unrecognised, that He was despised and rejected by His brethren, that is, by the religious leaders, and went into a foreign land (Galilee of the Gentiles), that He was then sold off, and that God raised Him to high status that He might deliver His people, that is, those who recognised Him when they had their second opportunity, in the same way as those who had been converted since Pentecost were doing.
But the result of God's watch over the Patriarchs was that in the end they were all buried in the promised land (Acts 7:16), in God's future ‘kingdom', for this had not depended on their dwelling in the land but on God's graciousness. In the same way it may be implied that the future new deliverance will also result in entering the Kingly Rule of God. This is not so much typology, but an indication that history is prophetic because throughout history people behave the same, and God acts throughout by the same means.
So while the people did remain in Egypt, God revealed His faithfulness to His promises in that both Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs were buried in Canaan, although they looked not to the land, but to God.
Then the time approached for the coming of the next expected deliverer. When he was born, in spite of being a paragon among babes, he was rejected and almost slain (Acts 7:19-21). But God exalted him and established him in Pharaoh's household, making him powerful and training him in ‘foreign' wisdom, in all the wisdom of Egypt (Acts 7:21-22). He was powerful in his word and works (Acts 7:22, compare Acts 2:22; Luke 24:19). However, when he offered himself as a deliverer to his people in anticipation of their acceptance, they despised and rejected him, and refused to have him as ‘judge and ruler' over them (Acts 7:23-28). Thus Moses had to flee to a foreign land where he remained forty years (Acts 7:29). Then the God of Abraham called him, promising that through him as the deliverer He would deliver His people (Acts 7:31-34). So this one whom they had despised and rejected returned again and was established by the hand of God as ‘ruler and deliverer' over those who would receive him (Acts 7:35), performing great sign and wonders before them all (Acts 7:36) and bringing them through to the promised land (Acts 7:36). God's further promise had been fulfilled.
Again it seems clear that Stephen is presenting a cameo of Jesus. Almost slain at birth (Matthew 2:16), a goodly child (Luke 1:80), exalted and established away from Judaea in Galilee of the Gentiles with what the Sadducees and Pharisees would see as ‘foreign' teaching, mighty in word and deed, despised and rejected when He offered Himself as Judge and Ruler, driven away (through death) until God brought Him back from the dead and established Him as Ruler and Deliverer (Acts 7:35; compare Prince and Saviour - Acts 5:31), performing great signs and wonders (both before and after His death and resurrection), and leading His people through to the heavenly Kingdom.
We may probably presume that much of this would already have been maintained by Stephen in his arguments with the Libertines, and that he would certainly expect the Sanhedrin to recognise the significance of what he was saying. Such indirect ‘hints' from history were a common method of teaching in those days.
Then he brings in the crunch point openly confirming the application of what he had said to Jesus. For what, he asks, had Moses declared? Moses had asserted, “A prophet will God raise up from your brethren like me” (Acts 7:37; compare Acts 3:22-23). Thus the implication of that verse in Deuteronomy 18:15 was that Israel were to expect the coming of Another like Moses. He too would be long awaited, would be in danger at His birth, would be raised among the Gentiles (Galilee was called Galilee of the Gentiles), would then offer Himself as a Deliverer, would be despised and rejected, would perform many signs and wonders, would go away, and was One Whom God would inevitably raise up again to be their Deliverer. At this stage he leaves his final interpreting of this until later when he identifies His coming in terms of the Righteous One Whom they betrayed and slew (Acts 7:52), but they were not foolish men so that they could hardly have failed to gather the implication even at this point. When he does get to that final rejection, he pulls no punches. He is not seeking to pacify but to convict and save. He wants them to respond to God's Deliverer.
Theme 2 Strangers in a Strange Land.
A second unquestioned theme of Stephen's discourse countered the idea that was prevalent in Judaea that as God's people they were in God's land in which was God's Temple and that this was one of the prime and most vital of the fundamentals of their religion and the greatest guarantee of their blessing.
He pointed out that Abraham had first lived in Mesopotamia (Acts 7:1), in the land of the Chaldaeans (Babylon) from which he was called out (Acts 7:3). Then he had lived in Haran and was again called out from there (Acts 7:4). And indeed when he arrived in Canaan he did not possess it as an inheritance, ‘not one foot of it' (Acts 7:5 - Stephen clearly did not consider that a graveyard and a cave even contributed to the inheritance that God had promised Abraham). In other words there was no land that he could call his own. What he did have in abundance was the hope, resulting from the promises from God, of future possession, which applied to both him and his children after him (Acts 7:5).
Following this Stephen then stresses that Abraham's descendants would be four hundred years in a foreign land, in Egypt, where they would be afflicted (Acts 7:6), after which He would deliver them (Acts 7:7), and bring them to worship Him. But even this would be at a mountain outside the promised land. Thus for half a millennium and more Abraham and his seed were to be strangers to the land of promise, first as wanderers, then as removed from it. They were to look to a future hope, which was only realised on death (when they were buried in the land).
God therefore clearly wanted them to look to Him as the God of the promises, and of hope for the future, not as the God of the land and of the Temple. (Even the Tabernacle had been first established at the mountain of God, not in Jerusalem). The basis of their deliverance was thus not to be found in the promised land, but in having faith when in a foreign land, although that did then result in their being buried God's promised land. Yet even so it was not in Jerusalem but in a despised part of it, in land connected with the despised Samaritans. The promised land was simply the final result for both the Patriarchs (Acts 7:16) and all the people (Acts 7:7), and would later in the case of the latter be forfeited by their return to Babylon (Acts 7:43).
Furthermore the deliverers whom God had raised up were not trained in the land, but were trained in a foreign country (Acts 7:10; Acts 7:22), in order that they might be God's deliverers. They were thus not trained up under the influence of the religious leaders of Israel, nor did they look to the land. And even in his seeking of refuge Moses would not turn to the promised land but to another foreign country where he begat his sons (Acts 7:29). All God's preparation for a future Kingly Rule were thus taking place away from the land. The land was not seen as important to that preparation.
Indeed when the people of Israel did begin to approach their land, and then finally possess their inheritance, it was disastrous. They deserted God from the start, firstly in the wilderness after receiving the covenant (Acts 7:41), and then in the land itself, where they worshipped the host of heaven (Acts 7:42), and the result was that they were returned to the Babylon from which God had originally called Abraham (Acts 7:43). Everything had turned full circle, and their time in the land under their organised religion having proved singularly unsuccessful, it resulted in their being returned from whence Abraham had originally come.
Additional to this diminishing of the importance of the land from Israel's religious point of view came the diminishing of the importance of the Temple, for he makes clear first of all that, when the people were delivered, their worship was ‘in this place', that is at the mountain of God in the wilderness, following it with his view (and Scripture's view) that The Temple is not the equivalent of the God-given and God-designed Tabernacle, which had proceeded from the mountain of God in the wilderness and was long lost, but is only a ‘Temple made with hands' (many minorities in Judaea in fact saw it this way), and that God was far beyond dwelling in such a house (Acts 7:45-50). ‘Made with hands' is intended to be derogatory (see below on the verse).
It is difficult to avoid here the idea that Stephen is suggesting that the teaching in the land had been unsatisfactory and had not brought the people to God, that God had therefore trained up His own servants away from the teaching of the land, and that for long periods God had also not seen possession of the land as important to their destinies, nor seen it as necessary for worship. There is surely also the pointer to the fact that as with Joseph and Moses, the true Deliverer was to be trained up in a ‘foreign land'. Certainly from the point of view of orthodoxy Galilee was seen as a ‘foreign land'. The dictum was clearly stated that no prophet would arise in Galilee (John 7:52), and Nathaniel himself had said, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?' (John 1:46). ‘Galilean' was regularly used as a word of religious contempt, and even honoured Galilean Rabbis were seen as very unorthodox. Thus Stephen is here attacking the standard idea that truth was to be found among the teachers of Jerusalem. Rather, he says, in order to train up His deliverers God always turned away from the leaders of Israel. As with Joseph and Moses, when God had wanted His Prophet to grow in wisdom and knowledge, it was arranged for it to take place ‘in a foreign country', (and now with Jesus it had been in ‘Galilee of the nations' - Isaiah 9:1).
So in both these trends Stephen was firmly pointing the Sanhedrin towards Jesus Christ as God's Teacher and Deliverer and calling on them to recognise Him as their Saviour, and also to recognise the failures, both in their own teaching, and in their previous rejection of Him, as well as urging them to take the stress in their religion away from the land and the Temple and put it on encouraging faith in the promises of a transcendent God (compare here Jesus' words in John 4:23-24) especially as fulfilled in His great Deliverer and Saviour.
Underlying these trends are also the ideas that:
1) God's purposes and plans continually change, and men must therefore be ready to respond to that change. Each of the men whom Stephen describes ‘went out' from what they were used to, which had become corrupt, in order that they might prove God. Each had had to be rescued from his environment which could otherwise have choked him. One lesson was therefore that it is not by clinging to the past that we can be saved, but by leaving the past and launching out into the future as God shows us the way. It is that God's way is not that of going with the crowd, and of our environment, but of standing out as different. If only the Sanhedrin had been willing to launch out on the new Way how different history might have been.
2) The second lesson was that God's plans had only marginally had to do with the land and God's earthly dwellingplace, the first of which they eventually forfeited, and the second of which they eventually rendered inoperative. In fact both land and Temple were secondary, and had little importance in the fulfilment of God's will. God's purposes were all to do with faith in God, with going forward at His command and with looking forward to His future hope, His Kingly Rule.
3) A third lesson was that God's purposes have always involved the one being rejected by the many. When Abraham went into the land he was alone neither owning land nor having seed. But by this he was delivered from his environment. Joseph stood alone against his brothers, and was shaped by entering a new environment. Moses stood alone against the people, and he too had to be shaped by a new environment. The prophets stood alone, called out of their environment and shaped in a new environment, and were persecuted or slain by the people. The Righteous One, the Prophet promised by Moses, Who would be like him, had also come and had stood alone, being different from His family and His people, and had been betrayed and killed. They should therefore have considered that as Stephen stood alone before the Sanhedrin it was an indication that he too should be listened to. They should have left their cosy cocoon and considered whether they too needed to launch out. Thus truth is seen as always to be found to be represented by a minority, and comes from being released from the chains of the environment around us. God must become our environment. What is popular is unlikely to be truth.
4) God's deliverers had all been prepared by God away from the influence of the leaders of Israel, had always been initially rejected by the people, but had always finally came up good for those who trusted in them.
5) Israel's record had been one of continual opposition to both God and the men whom He has chosen as deliverers, as was still the case. They clung to what was easily familiar and refused to respond to those who brought God's truth.
All these lessons demonstrated the need for men to shake themselves free from what bound them, and go forward looking to God and to Christ. We can see why, if they were not willing to respond to his message, such suggestions would make them unbelievably angry. For anger is always the response of exasperated unbelief. What cannot be defended is fought for by other means.
But saddest of all were the blessings which Israel had received and forfeited. They had received the oracles of God, and had turned from them into their own ways. While they had made much of seeking to observe them, they had not truly done so, but had made them into what they wanted them to be. They had receive the Law from angels ‘and had done it not'. And they had received the God-patterned, Spirit produced, Tabernacle, which had pointed to a transcendent God, and had rather chosen a man-made Temple by which they could limit God.
Having thus considered the main trends and ideas in Stephen's speech let us now see how they contributed towards his defence.
The charges against Stephen were that:
1) He spoke blasphemous things against Moses and against God (Acts 6:11).
2) He spoke blasphemous words against the Holy Place and the Law (Acts 6:13).
3) He said that Jesus would ‘destroy this place' (the Temple), and change the customs of Moses which he delivered to them.
In his speech he makes a full and positive reply to the first two sets of charges by establishing his Scriptural orthodoxy and his recognition of the hand of God in history, and by demonstrating that in fact it is not he, but the people of Israel as a whole, who have in the end ‘blasphemed God' by their behaviour, a policy which the present people of Israel are themselves also involved in.
The charge concerning the Temple he largely ignores, treating it with the contempt that it deserved, although he does express his own view concerning the Temple. There were in fact many at that time who had doubts about a Temple built by Herod. He would, of course, have admitted, if pressed, that he did believe that the Temple would be destroyed, for Jesus had Himself said so (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). But it was one thing saying that, and quite another to give the impression that he had suggested that Jesus would come physically to destroy the Temple, which he had certainly not done.
With regard to changing the customs of Moses, that would be a matter of opinion. There could certainly be no doubt that Jesus had changed them for the better in, for example, the Sermon on the Mount, but in doing this Jesus had made clear that He was not destroying the Law but fulfilling it (Matthew 5:17). And all the early Christians believed that they were fulfilling the Scriptures. Indeed they continually justified their position from the Law and the Prophets. They were their Scriptures. So while Jesus' changes were obviously profound ones, so that Stephen would hardly have denied that Jesus had presented a teaching which was advanced on that of Moses, it was quite another thing to say that He was aiming to change Moses' Law. As Jesus had pointed out it was the Rabbis who changed Moses' Law (Mark 7:6-23). He on the other hand ‘filled it full' (Matthew 5:17-18). So Stephen answers this charge by demonstrating that Moses is as important to him as he is to them, and that he gives Moses due honour. This is made especially clear by the fact that most of his defence is found in citing Moses' writings.
Let us now therefore consider how he went about answering the charges. This will necessarily require some repetition.
1a) The Charge of Blasphemy Against God.
Stephen initially answers the charge of blasphemy against God by his description of Him as ‘the God of glory' (Acts 7:2). It was as the ‘God of glory' that Israel especially saw Him, and was how Stephen saw Him. This phrase would be well known to his hearers and is taken from Psalms 29:3. It stands there in conjunction with an ascription of glory to God which is such that it could only serve to repudiate any charge of dishonouring God. By it he portrays the highest possible view of God. The full context reads:
“Ascribe to Yahweh, O you sons of the mighty,
Ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength.
Ascribe to Yahweh the glory due to his name;
Worship Yahweh in holy array.
The voice of Yahweh is on the waters.
The God of glory thunders,
Even Yahweh on many waters.”
No description of God could exceed that. It expressed His position as the Lord of glory and as Lord over creation.
He then demonstrates his high view of God by describing the history of Abraham and his people, revealing thereby his view that God is sovereign and is the Judge of all men everywhere, and as such has continued to bring about His purposes to deliver His people, even in the face of their failure.
He establishes that God had called Abraham (Acts 7:2) when he was in a foreign land, in Ur, and had brought him out of Babylon (the land of the Chaldaeans), making clear by this his view that God was such that He could speak to men anywhere, even in Babylon (which is always synonymous in Scripture with all that is against God). He then demonstrates that He also called him out of Haran (Acts 7:4), again demonstrating God's worldwide control, and that he had even finally remained a foreigner in the land to which he went (Canaan), possessing not so much as a foot of it (Acts 7:5). He had therefore had to look to God in faith each step of the way, and had had to walk in obedience to God by faith with no land to hold onto (he might well have added ‘as a stranger and pilgrim in the world').
Note how God called Abraham in two stages, which ties in with the two stages in which Joseph was made known to his brothers, and the two stages in which Moses was revealed as deliverer to the people. The point would seem to be that those who now had a second opportunity of responding to Christ should take it immediately.
Joseph and the Patriarchs are then also revealed as having been foreigners in another land, in Egypt, and their descendants as having been ill-treated there (Acts 7:6). They too therefore were seen as having to look to God in faith. But again the suggestion is there that He was watching out for them in that land.
So the first theme of his speech indicates the comparative unimportance of the land in regard to God's people, and stresses rather the faith that His people had had to have in Him Himself. And it reveals that far from blaspheming against God he gives the greatest honour to God as Lord of all.
But there would come a time when God would step in and judge the nation that had ill-treated them (Acts 7:7) and deliver His people (through Moses) so that they could come forth safely and serve Him in the land (Acts 7:7). This promise was sealed by the covenant of circumcision, a covenant which demanded a change of heart. The circumcision was to be in their hearts (compare Acts 7:51). This guaranteed that one day He was going to send a deliverer for whom they had to wait expectantly, ready for his coming. He had, however, stressed that it would not become a reality for hundreds of years until He had judged the nations who reigned there (Acts 7:6-7). Note the implication that He is both judge in Egypt and judge in Canaan.
Thus here God is declared to be faithful to Abraham over hundreds of years during which the land was not possessed, to have made a covenant with him requiring his continuing response of faith, to be the Judge of the nations Who had control of the land so that He could do with it what He would, and to be One Who could be relied on to keep His promise, which was that one day He would send a deliverer (Acts 7:25; Acts 7:27) and judge those who possessed the land (Acts 7:7). Could these, Stephen is asking, really be considered to be the words of a blasphemer?
On the other hand he points out that God is revealed not to have forgotten the Patriarchs in all this because, even though they had gone to Egypt, they had all finally been buried in the land of promise, so that His continued faithfulness could not be in doubt (Acts 7:16)
These were mainly ideas of which his listeners could only approve wholeheartedly. They were ideas that repudiated the idea that he was a blasphemer against God, and demonstrated his confidence that God acted on behalf of His people and constantly gave His people reason to look forward for a deliverer.
He now also introduces the next pertinent idea that when He was preparing a deliverer (Joseph), the children of Israel, moved with jealousy, had sold the one whom He had chosen to be His deliverer (Acts 7:9), into Egypt, even though thankfully for them he did in process of time still become their deliverer (Acts 7:10-15). They would have been in a bad case without him. Thus rejection of God's deliverers, and their connection with a foreign country, had early on become a habit with them.
A further lesson that arises from all this is that both Abraham and Joseph were revealed as men who were not hidebound in their ideas, but were very flexible, and had been prepared at the call of God to accept changes to their beliefs and plans, recognising that God's ways were best, even when they did not understand them, Joseph especially doing so as a man of divine grace and wisdom. Let his hearers then be the same.
By all this Stephen demonstrated his high view of God and his confidence in His faithfulness, and demonstrated that he believed Him to be the God Who had worked for those who waited for Him. The point arising from this was that he himself should therefore be seen as the very opposite of a blasphemer against God, for he believed all that Moses had spoken. At the same time he had demonstrated how little importance God had laid on possession of the land, how He had at that stage pointed to a coming promised deliverer (Moses), and how it had been demonstrated what in fact Israel did with deliverers whom God provided.
1b) The Charge of Blasphemy Against Moses.
He then continued his defence with reference to Moses. Here his major challenge was as to how they could possibly have the nerve to accuse him of blasphemy against Moses when it was they who proudly claimed to belong to a people, who, on the Moses' first coming as God's deliverer, had themselves rejected him as their ruler and judge (Acts 7:27), and had continued with that rejection in the wilderness (Acts 7:39).
He pointed out that it was when Moses, living in a foreign country, trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, had arisen (Acts 7:20-23), that they had been offered a deliverer (Acts 7:24-25), and that because they were not ready to receive him they had immediately proceeded to reject him as their ruler and judge (Acts 7:27). Once again, as with Joseph, they had spurned God's deliverer. It was thus they who had blasphemed God by rejecting the ‘judge' He had sent, by rejecting Moses.
The result had been that Moses had had to flee among Gentiles in a foreign land (Acts 7:29), and had only returned forty years later when God appeared to him at the Bush (Acts 7:30-31), at which point God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Acts 7:32), did make him ruler and judge over those who had rejected him (Acts 7:35). And at this stage he had revealed his credentials by proceeding to deliver them by signs and wonders (Acts 7:36).
So again, having first rejected God's deliverer, they had had to wait patiently for him, before finally responding to him, and this time he was revealed by signs and wonders. Note here his connection back to the God of Abraham. It was the same God Who had blessed Abraham and would deliver his seed after a period of waiting, Who had sent Moses as a deliverer.
So God's people having twice had to wait in faith for God to work, had twice rejected God's deliverers, and had then twice been able to give thanks because the deliverer had in God's sovereign will come again into prominence. Thus was Stephen to be seen as Moses' champion, not as a blasphemer against him.
And it was at this point that he introduced his next telling blow to his listeners. He pointed out that Moses had also promised that there would arise another Prophet like himself whom also they should obey (Acts 7:37). There was thus Another Who was promised and was to be waited for, Another Who would come as ruler and judge and would perform signs and wonders, as Moses had (Acts 7:35-36), and Who should as a result be responded to. His implication was that the Prophet like Moses had indeed come, and that they had again behaved in the same way as they had done previously by also rejecting Him, in spite of the signs and wonders He had done. The final conclusion to be obtained from this was that as with the previous deliverers there would be a second opportunity, and that they should now seize it by responding to Jesus.
He then went on to point out that when the original Moses had received the ‘living oracles' on their behalf (Acts 7:38), the very Law and Covenant of God, (which he was supposed to have spoken against), the response of the people of Israel had, as a ‘congregation' (church) in the wilderness (Acts 7:38), been to constantly behave blasphemously against God, in that they had themselves ‘thrust' Moses from them (Acts 7:39), rejecting him as judge and ruler over them, and had worshipped first the calf in the wilderness (Acts 7:40-41) and then the host of heaven (Acts 7:42) and then had finally sought to Babylon (Acts 7:43). They had continually rejected Moses and the living oracles and had gone from one degree of idolatry to another (Acts 7:42-43). Was this not blasphemy against Moses, and against God? Was it not they who had spoken against the Law?
Was it surprising then that they, his listeners and judges, who were of the same people, had rejected another Who had come with the oracles of God, and Who had come working wonders and signs? Him also they had rejected, following the ways of their fathers.
So overall it was the people of Israel and not Stephen who were to be seen as blasphemers against God and against Moses, and as those who had also rejected the Deliverer Whom God had sent, the Prophet like Moses, and in fact had had a pattern of such rejection from Joseph onwards. In his view this cleared him of the second charge.
2a) The Charge of Blasphemy Against The Holy Place.
He then proceeded to point out that during their deliverance their fathers had also received ‘the Tabernacle of witness in the wilderness' which had been made on the heavenly pattern (Acts 7:44). Note the twofold fact that unlike the Temple it was established in the wilderness and was based on a God-given pattern. He had already previously emphasised that when they worshipped it would be ‘in this place', and that place was, according to Exodus 3:12, the mountain of God in the wilderness. This Tabernacle then had been produced there and they had brought it into the land from the mountain of God, led by another Jesus (Joshua), into the land which had been possessed by the Gentiles, whom God had then thrust out (Acts 7:45). Thus they entered the land eventually to be free from all foreign influence, with a God-designed Tabernacle produced at the mountain of God. Surely they would hold on to and treasure this Tabernacle which was made at the mountain of God and whose design was from heaven? This situation had then continued up to the days of David who had himself sought to establish a Tabernacle for God because he had found favour with God (Acts 7:45-46). (His intentions had been good, as befitted David). But it was in the end Solomon who had acted (Acts 7:47). And what had he done? He had not raised up a Tabernacle according to God's pattern. He had built a House ‘made with hands', one in which God could not dwell, as the prophet had made clear (Isaiah 66:1-2). It was not a Tabernacle made at the mountain of God and patterned on the heavenly pattern revealed on the Mount (Acts 7:44). It was of man, and built where man chose.
The phrase ‘made with hands' is a denigrating one. It is used in Acts 17:14 of Temples not fit for God's habitation. It is used in Acts 19:26 where Paul denigrates ‘gods' that are ‘made with hands'. See also Hebrews 9:11; Hebrews 9:24. For, as Solomon himself had pointed out (1 Kings 8:27), God did not dwell in a House made with hands, because He is Lord over all. Thus the Temple was even seen by the prophet (and by Solomon) as being of secondary importance, and earthly, unlike the first Tabernacle patterned in heaven, which they had themselves disposed of. Who then was it who had acted against God's holy place?
(Compare with regard to this how the charge had been made against Jesus that He had said, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.” (Mark 14:58). Thus His opponents at least thought in terms of a Temple ‘made with hands' as being demeaning in His eyes and the eyes of His followers, and as needing to be replaced).
The final conclusion from his argument could only be that the Temple was not the final place to which man should look. He should look to the God who rules the heavens, to the eternal Tabernacle. He should submit to the invisible Heavenly Rule of God.
2b) The Charge of Blasphemy Against the Law.
So what he has said has proved that it was the people of Israel who had blasphemed against God and Moses. They had sold off Joseph, a God sent deliverer; had rejected Moses, the judge and ruler whom God had sent to them, although then benefiting from his deliverance; and had preferred a Temple made with human hands to one patterned on the divine pattern.
And now he came to his final challenge, the people's response to God's Law and promises. What had they done with regard to these? They were a people who had received the living oracles of God. They were a people who had received a heavenly Tabernacle and covenant. They were greatly privileged. And yet they had thrown it all away, by turning from what the oracles had demanded and replacing the Tabernacle with a man made edifice. They had resisted the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51), persecuting His prophets who had called for response to that Law (Acts 7:52), and killing those who had shown beforehand the coming of the Righteous One (Acts 7:52), and they had now betrayed and murdered the Righteous One Himself (Acts 7:52). Furthermore the whole truth was that on being given the Law through angels they had not kept it (Acts 7:53). So all the charges that they had laid against him in fact pointed back to themselves. The charges that they had made lay squarely at the door of all the children of Israel, which included themselves, along with the charge of having rejected God's Righteous One. It was therefore they who were blaspheming against the Law, not him.
We can now understand why they were ‘cut to the heart' at his words, and gnashed their teeth at him, for they must have been totally baffled by his defence, having no reply to make to his arguments, which had taken the ground from under their feet. It was a history that they could not deny. But they did not like it and closed their eyes to his aspect of the truth.
Instead of responding they hated him all the more for making them face up to the truth about themselves and their own people. And when at this point he was filled with the Holy Spirit and saw the vision of the glory of God, and of Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and declared to his hearers that he himself could now see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God, the result was inevitable. He had left them no choice. Either they must respond to Jesus Christ, or they must deal vigorously with the one who proclaimed him. And there is no persecutor as violent as the guilty who have no answer except to resort to violence.
Having established the patterns we will now consider the speech verse by verse, much of which reflects Stephen's use (as a Greek speaker) of LXX. See the Excursus 2 at the end of the chapter for problems arising from this fact.
Chapter 7 Stephen's Defence and Counter-Attack Before The Sanhedrin.
Having been brought before the Sanhedrin, Stephen was now called on to answer the charges of blasphemy made against him. Up to this point no blame could attach to the Sanhedrin. It was in fact the Sanhedrin's solemn duty to examine a charge of blasphemy. They were not to be seen as at fault for doing that. What they were at fault for was not calmly and fairly considering the evidence.