Stephen

Acts 7:54-8:1a – Stephen is Stoned for Blasphemy

When Stephen finished his sermon, he saw a vision of heaven standing open and the Son of Man standing by the throne of God (7:55-56). It was this vision that led to his being stoned for blasphemy.

Acts 7:55–56 (ESV) But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

At the ascension, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. Here, he is called the Son of Man, Jesus’s title to describe himself.  This is the only place outside of the gospels where this title calls Jesus – but it is crucial here because it connects the execution of Stephen to the words of Jesus in Luke 22:69. Before the Sanhedrin, Jesus states that he, as the son of Man, will be seated on the right hand of the Father. The words of Jesus combine Daniel 7:14 and Zechariah 12 to refer to his return in judgment on the nation and the whole world.

Stoned for Blasphemy

In Luke 22:69 Jesus says he will be seated on the right hand of the father. Why is he standing in this vision? A judge would stand to condemn a person, so the Son of Man’s standing indicates that the point of the vision is a judgment on the Sanhedrin and the Jewish people in general. They have rejected the Son and the Spirit and are now condemned. Notice how the Sanhedrin react when they are told that Stephen sees (in a vision) the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.

The Sanhedrin reacts with extreme fury (7:54, 57-58). They are furious and gnash their teeth. To “be furious” is literally “their hearts were torn in two.” The Greek word (diaprivw) means “to saw in two.” In Acts 5:33, the word has the sense of being “cut to the quick” (BDAG), but here, it is usually translated as “infuriated.” To gnash one’s teeth is a sign of great anger (c.f., Luke 13:28, Ps 34:16; in Matthew, the word “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is different).

They shout and cover their ears. This is a reaction to Stephen’s description of his vision. These are the people who handed the human Jesus over to be executed. For them, there is no way a human would be standing beside the throne of God. Even if there was a human was permitted to be on the right hand of God, it would not be a convicted criminal like Jesus (Witherington, Acts, 276).

They dragged him outside of town to stone him. This is a lynching. No verdict is given; the high priest has lost control of the assembly. There is no legal basis for the execution. It is simply mob violence. Think of this as a lynching.

Luke dramatically introduces Saul as a member of the group that executed Stephen. “Laying their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul” (7:58).  The word translated young (νεανίας) does not indicate Saul’s age. He might be as old as thirty but still be considered a young man in the Sanhedrin. Saul is described as having approved of the death of Stephen, and he is possibly the ringleader of the persecution that breaks out because of the stoning of Stephen. Witherington suggests it is at least plausible that Saul represents “Zionist, conservative Jews from the Diaspora” who initiated the persecution (by stoning Stephen) and led the house-to-house persecution in Jerusalem (Acts, 278).

To what extent is Stephen’s vision an apocalyptic judgment on the part of Israel that rejected Jesus as Messiah and the activity of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of the apostles? Is it fair to say that Luke’s dramatic introduction of Saul at the end of the story signals a shift in the trajectory of the apostolic mission?

Acts 7:44-50 – Stephen’s Speech: The Tabernacle and Temple

Nearing the conclusion of Stephen’s speech, he finally turns to the accusation against him that he has spoken out against the temple. He does not answer the charges. He does not answer the charges. Instead, he makes a theological argument that God never needed the Tabernacle or Temple because heaven is his throne, and the earth is his footstool (Acts 7:49).

Stephen's Speech

The Tabernacle and the temple were important elements of Israel’s worship (in the wilderness and the kingdom). Stephen does not deny that building a temple is wrong; it is not a sin; it was what God had commanded Moses to do in the first place. It was a sign of God’s favor on David that David’s son Solomon was allowed to build the Temple. Central to the hopes of the Davidic dynasty was the Temple. Just as in the first century, Jews looked to the Temple as a representation of their religious life and their hopes for a revived kingdom. David wanted to build a tent, and Solomon built the Lord a house (1 Chron 17:1-14; 2 Sam 7:2-16; 1 Kings 5:1-6:38; 2 Chron 1:14-5:1).

Sylva suggests four clear allusions to 1 Kings 8:14-30, Solomon’s speech at the temple’s dedication. These four points generally make the same theological points as Acts 7:44-50 (Sylva, 262).

  • David’s intent to find a skēnōma for God (7:46)
  • Solomon’s building God a temple (7:47)
  • The assertion that God does not dwell (katoikeō) in cheiropoiētois (7:48)
  • An assertion of God’s relation to the heavens, the earth, and an oikos (7:49, 50).

Stephen quotes Isaiah 66:1-2 to show that his critique of the temple and the leadership’s confidence in the temple is part of the long tradition of the prophets. In Isaiah, the writer emphasizes transcendence: God cannot dwell with men; he is so great that the heavens are his throne, and the earth is merely his footstool. “It is my contention that the transcendence thesis offers the best explanation of Acts 7:46–50” (Sylva, 262).

Israel struggled with the idea that God was so far above them, even though he had also promised to be with them. In the early stories, God led the people; his presence is seen in the cloud and fire in the wilderness, and when the temple is built, that glory dwells in the temple itself! But the image of a cloud for God’s glory indicates that it is not the real glory of God.

The Temple is only a shadow, a misty representation of the reality of God’s glory, which could never dwell in a temple made by human hands. Sylvia argues, “Acts 7:46-50 is not a rejection or criticism of the temple, but rather it is an assertion of God’s transcendence of the temple” (Sylva, 267). This is not much different from what Jesus said. In Mark 14:58, Jesus claimed to replace the temple with one not made by hand.

It is entirely possible that if the Sanhedrin had discussed the theology of God’s presence, many would have agreed with Stephen’s Speechephen at this point in his speech—but he takes it a bit further by comparing the present generation to those who did not understand God’s presence in the Hebrew Bible.

 

Bibliography:  Sylva, Dennis D. “The Meaning and Function of Acts 7:46–50.” Journal of Biblical Literature 106 (1987): 261-73; Steve Walton, “A Tale of Two Perspectives?,” in Heaven on Earth, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Simon Gathercole (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004), 135-  (in logos)

 

 

Acts 7:37-43 – Stephen’s Speech: Moses as both Ruler and Redeemer

This section of Stephen’s speech describes what God did through Moses, although Israel rejected God in each case. Each of these examples anticipates Israel’s rejection of Jesus (and the current rejection of the Holy Spirit). They rejected Moses as judge and ruler, even though God appointed him as both ruler and redeemer (v. 35).

Stephen’s speech

Redeemer (λυτρωτής appears only here in the NT; the noun redemption (λύτρωσις) and the verb (λυτρόω). The word group means paying the price to free something from bondage, such as freeing a slave. Redemption is a keyword in Luke-Acts. It appears in Luke 1:68 in the first line of Zechariah’s prayer, praising the God of Israel for visiting his people and redeeming them. In Luke 2:38, Anna spoke of her encounter with the infant Jesus to “who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” This is a reference to the messianic hope for the soon-deliverance of Israel. At the end of Luke, one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus says they “had hoped that [Jesus] was the one to redeem Israel.” This makes the question in Acts 1:6 more messianic and eschatological:  “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” In some sense, the “redemption of Israel” is restoring the Kingdom to Israel.

Just as Israel rejected Moses as their judge and redeemer, they have rejected Jesus as the redeemer, the one who restores the kingdom to Israel. They are now rejecting the apostles announcing the coming of the Holy Spirit and the soon restoration of the kingdom (Acts 3:16-17).

Stephen’s speech continues: Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, accompanied by signs and wonders. In Exodus, “wonders and signs” (τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα) authenticated Moses as God’s representative. In the Gospels, Jesus did signs and wonders to authenticate his announcement of the messianic age (and that he was the Messiah). Peter says this in his first sermon in Acts. Jesus was “a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst” (Acts 2:22). Now the apostolic community continues to do signs and wonders to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit as they announce the soon-coming of the messianic age (Acts 2:43; 4:30; 5:12).

Just as Israel rejected Moses after God demonstrated his appointment through signs and wonders, they rejected Jesus after he performed signs and wonders. They are currently rejecting the apostles performing the same kinds of signs.

Moses led the congregation in the wilderness (7:38-43). In Numbers, Moses spoke directly with God. In Acts 7:38, “the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai” and Moses received living oracles. In the context of the Golden Calf Incident, Moses is on Mount Sinai speaking directly to God and receiving the Word of God (the Law, the tablets inscribed by God’s own hand).

The fathers “refused to obey him but thrust him aside.”  The verb translated “thrust aside” (ἀπωθέω) can have the sense of reject or repudiate. In Acts 13:46, Paul uses the word to describe his listeners rejecting the word of God. Stephen’s speech began this section with the same word (they rejected Moses when he tried to defend the Hebrew slaves). When he is on Mount Sinai, they reject Moses and turn to worship the Golden Calf. After the Golden Calf incident, God “hands them over” to the worship of other gods (Acts 7:42–43). Although παραδίδωμι is a common verb in the New Testament, it is the same verb Paul used in a very similar context. After humans reject the creator and instead worship the creation, God “hands them over” three times to sin (Romans 1:24; 26; 28).

Citing Amos 5:25-27, Stephen connects the first example of Israel’s idolatry in the Torah (the Golden Calf) to the worship of Molech and Rephan, which led to the exile beginning in 722 B.C. The people “took up around the gods,” ἀναλαμβάνω has the sense of carrying something. Steve Walton suggests this is a parody of carrying the Ark of the Covenant (Walton, Acts 1-9:42, 466). The result of rejecting Moses was the Babylonian exile. Stephen changes the wording of Amos from exile “beyond Damascus” to Babylon to make Amos’s prophecy to the northern kingdom of Israel apply to Jerusalem (which went into exile in Babylon).

Israel is called “congregation in the wilderness” (7:38). Luke first used this noun (ἐκκλησία) in 5:11. Virtually all English translations use “church” in Acts 5:11 (KJV; ESV, NIV; NRSVue), but congregation in 7:38. Steve Walton suggests “Stephen is making a typological point about the believing community as in continuity with the congregation of Israel” (Walton, Acts 1-9:42, 464). Consider the number of allusions to the Jerusalem community in Acts 2-5 as an ideal Israel or a restored Israel. Translating “church” in 5:11 obscures the continuity with the Jewish people in the Old Testament and implies more continuity with Paul’s congregations later in Acts. Perhaps “assembly” (or the Hebrew qahal) would be a better translation since what is happening in Acts 2-5 is not “the Christian Church” as we know it later.

Stephen’s speech summarizes Moses’s life and argues that rejecting Jesus (and the apostolic teaching) is the same as idolatry that led to the Babylonian exile. Stephen is not the one who is blaspheming Moses; the Sanhedrin is.

 

Acts 7:51 – A Stiff-necked Generation

In the conclusion to his sermon, Stephen claims the current generation is stiff-necked, just as rebellious as the wilderness generation, and will, therefore, fall under the same judgment (7:51-53). The conclusion to Stephen’s sermon draws on themes found throughout the Hebrew Bible.

First, resistance to the apostolic message represents resisting the Holy Spirit. The people are called stiff-necked. The word appears only here in the New Testament and 8 times in the LXX, usually in the context of covenant unfaithfulness (Exodus 33:3, 34:9, and Deut 9:6). To be stiff-necked means to “be stubborn, obstinate, or rigid” (HALOT).

Second, they are also described as having “uncircumcised hearts.” This phrase is also associated with covenant unfaithfulness (Jer 9:25, Lev 26:41, Jer 6:10, Ezek 44:7, 9).

Third, the people are resisting the Holy Spirit. “Resistance” is a rare word in both the New Testament and the LXX, appearing only here in Numbers 27:14, where it describes the rebellion of the people in the Wilderness of Zin. The present generation has not accepted the word of God as it has been revealed to them.

Stephen, therefore, claims the leadership of Israel has the Law, but they refuse to obey it. Is it true that Israel has not obeyed the Law? One might argue that they have kept most of it since they make the sacrifices correctly and practice the Works of the Law, which sets them apart as Jews (Sabbath, circumcision, etc.) But as the prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus have all pointed out, the external doing of the Law means nothing if there is no change of heart – sacrifice without obedience with worthless.

Stiff-necked Generation

Stephen accuses the present generation of the same hard-headed resistance to the word of God, which was demonstrated by the worst of Israel’s kings. Persecuting and killing the prophets who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. Those who persecuted the prophets would include Ahab and Jezebel in the northern kingdom, Manasseh in the south (who was reputed to have killed Isaiah and any other true prophet who challenged him), and the temple authorities who persecuted Jeremiah. Jeremiah spoke against the Temple and was nearly killed. Jesus also challenged the Temple and was killed.

The most stinging part of this critique is that these prophets predicted the coming of the Messiah and were silenced by the nation’s appointed authorities. The Sanhedrin would most likely have agreed with Stephen on this point—the prior generations were corrupt—but not so the current administration.

This generation has done the same to the Righteous One himself! At this point, Stephen joins the Apostles, instating that Jesus’s execution was killing the Messiah. When Stephen refers to Jesus as the Righteous One, he emphasizes that he has suffered and died innocently at the hands of the men assembled to hear this speech! Little wonder they react with such fury.

Finally, Stephen accuses the Sanhedrin (and that entire generation) of receiving the Law but not keeping it. They had the Law and the Prophets, which testified to the coming of Jesus, yet when he came, he was not accepted; rather, he was executed as a criminal. The speech is, therefore, not critical of the Law or the Temple; it is a stinging condemnation of the people who had received the Law in the first place.

Acts 7 – Stephen’s Speech

The deacon Stephen is arrested for speaking out against the temple and the Law of Moses. While Luke is clear that these are false charges, Stephen may have preached something that could have been taken as “against the temple and the Law.” There is no indication in Acts that anyone “spoke out against the Law” among the apostolic community, they continued to worship in the Temple and most likely keep all of the Works of the Law which were expected of them as Jews. Sometimes, scholars speculate, based on Stephen’s Speech, that he was already starting to give up elements of the Law, as if he were a forerunner of Paul’s theology in Galatians. Nothing here would give that impression except the false witnesses.

Stephen's SpeechTo speak out against the Temple was not an offense worthy of death. There were, in fact, many critics of the Temple in the first century, including the Qumran community, which separated itself entirely from Temple worship because the Temple used the wrong calendar and was, therefore, celebrating Passover on the wrong day! If Stephen did speak out against the Temple, he is no different than Jeremiah, who condemned the Temple, the priesthood, and the worshipers for not doing true worship (Jer 7, for example), and Jesus himself, who called the Temple a “den of thieves”! In addition, several Second Temple period books also condemn the priesthood as corrupt.

If the audience could agree with most of Stephen’s sermon, his conclusion angers them so greatly. This generation is just as stiff-necked; therefore, they are under the same judgment! (7:51-53) The conclusion to this sermon draws on themes found throughout the Hebrew Bible.

A key theme in the sermon is that God has appointed leaders and spokesmen in the past, yet the nation has rejected them. Abraham, Joseph, and Moses are the main characters of Stephen’s sermon. Joseph was rejected by his brothers despite being full of wisdom; Israel resisted Moses in the wilderness. So, too, the prophets, who represented the word of God in the Hebrew Bible, were resisted, persecuted, and killed by previous generations of appointed leaders, just as the present generation has done to Jesus. Stephen’s speech, therefore, argues God is faithful and he does keep his promises. There has been a long line of “innocent sufferers” in the history of Israel, people who suffered at the hands of the appointed leaders who did not, in fact do the law which they had been given.

Resistance to the apostolic message represents resisting the Holy Spirit. The people are called stiff-necked. The word appears only here in the New Testament. It appears eight times in the Septuagint, usually in the context of covenant unfaithfulness (Exod 33:3, 34:9 and Deut 9:6). To be “stiff-necked” means to be stubborn, obstinate, or rigid” (HALOT). They are also described as having “uncircumcised hearts.” This phrase is also associated with covenant unfaithfulness (Jer 9:25, Lev 26:41, Jer 6:10, Ezek 44:7, 9). Stephen says that this generation has always resisted the Holy Spirit. “Resistance” is a rare word in both the New Testament and the LXX, appearing only here and in Numbers 27:14, where it describes the rebellion of the people in the Wilderness of Zin.

Stephen accuses the present generation of the same hard-headed resistance to the word of God, which was demonstrated by the worst of Israel’s kings. Those who persecuted the prophets would include Ahab and Jezebel in the northern kingdom, Manasseh in the south (who was reputed to have killed Isaiah and any other true prophet who challenged him), and the temple authorities who persecuted Jeremiah. Jeremiah spoke against the Temple and was nearly killed. Jesus also challenged the Temple, and the Temple aristocracy killed him.

The most stinging part of this critique is that these prophets predicted the coming of the Messiah and were silenced by the appointed authorities of the nation. Most likely, the Sanhedrin would have agreed with Stephen on this point: “The prior generations were corrupt, but we are nothing like them!” This generation has done the same to the Righteous One himself!

What other elements of Stephen’s speech resonate with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible? Stephen alludes extensively to the Hebrew Bible in the speech, but is he intentionally connecting his audience with the “wilderness generation”?  What was the point of his constant reference to the wilderness generation?