But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God - that is, But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God - that is, such a visible manifestation as was vouchsafed so frequently of old.
And Jesus standing on the right hand of God - the place of coequal power and honour. Ye who can transfer to canvass such scenes as these, in which the rage of hell grins horrible from men, as they sit condemned by a frail prisoner of their own, and see heaven beaming from his countenance and opening full upon his view, I envy you, because I find no words to paint what, in the majesty of the divine text, is here so simply told. 'But how could Stephen in the council chamber see heaven at all?' I suppose this question never occurred but to critics of narrow soul, one of whom (Meyer) conjectures that he saw it through the window! and another, of better mould (Alford), that the scene lay in one of the courts of the temple. Since the sight was witnessed by Stephen alone, the opened heavens are to be viewed as revealed only to his bright beaming spirit. But why was Jesus seen standing on this occasion and not sitting?-the posture which the glorified Saviour is elsewhere invariably represented as occupying (Psalms 110:1; Matthew 26:64; Mark 16:19; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 12:2).
Augustine replies, that Christ sits as a Judge, but on this occasion stood as an Advocate. This Calvin thinks somewhat far-fetched, giving it as his own opinion that the sitting and the standing postures both mean the same thing, since neither can be literally understood. But this decides nothing. For, granting that these postures are to be understood figuratively, the question will still remain; Do they both mean the same thing? And as it seems impossible to doubt that in Psalms 110:1, and especially in the use made of it in Hebrews 10:12-13, the idea of rest after the completion of a work, and calm expectation of the fruit of that work, so, for our part, we cannot doubt that the standing posture here exceptionally ascribed to Christ, at the right hand of God, is intended to express the eager interest with which He watched from the skies the scene in that council-chamber, and the full tide of His Spirit, which He was at that moment engaged in pouring into the heart of His heroical witness, until it beamed in radiance from his very countenance.