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Stephen’s
Defense Before The Sanhedrin; Israel’s History
Of Disobedience; The Death Of The First Martyr;
Our Introduction To Saul; Stephen’s Prayer For
Forgiveness
Seven
men had been appointed to assist the 12 Emissaries
and serve the growing Messianic Community. One
was singled out by Luke because of the grace that
was evident in his life as shown by his closeness
to God, and his faith and wisdom and the miracles
he was enabled to do, and because of the opposition
he stirred up, and because of the great message
he gave to the Sanhedrin, and because he became
the first among Messiah’s Community to be killed
by the non-Messianic leaders, and because of the
faithful way in which he died, and because his
martyrdom was the launching point for the first
great persecution against the Messianic Jewish
movement.
Stephen
was a great witness to the reality of the Resurrected
Rabbi Messiah. Stephen was full of faith and the
Holy Spirit, close to God, very knowledgeable
about the Word of God, experiencing the true obedience
of the Faith, and empowered by the Holy Spirit
to do miracles.
Stephen
had been accused of very serious charges of blasphemy
against God, Moses, the Torah and the temple.
Even though these were charges that could result
in imprisonment or death, Stephen was calm and
peaceful in this time of trial. Even though they
were false charges, he would need to answer the
charges and defend himself before the Sanhedrin.
The high priest said, "Are these things
so”? No, these things were not so. But Stephen
said more than that. Stephen’s defense was to
go on the offense. He gave a synopsis of Jewish
history, demonstrating that the majority of the
Chosen People were almost always wrong. Our people
had a pattern of rejecting the leaders that God
sent to us. And, we had done the very same thing
with the Greatest Leader Of All - Immanuel, the
King Messiah whom the Father had just sent to
be the Savior of the world! In making his defense,
Stephen quoted extensively from the Tenach - from
memory. His knowledge of the Scriptures should
inspire us to be better students of the Word of
God!
And
he said, "Hear me, brothers and fathers!
His opening remarks were respectful. They
showed that he was one of them, and identified
with them. He was not an enemy, but a brother
of his peers and a son to the elders. The God
of glory (the Supreme Being who is glorious
and magnificent and worthy of honor) appeared
to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia,
before he lived in Haran, and said to him, 'Leave
your country and your relatives, and come into
the land that I will show you’. Then he left the
land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran.
The Chosen Nation had a good and supernatural
beginning. Abraham was faithful and obedient.
From there, after his father died, God had him
move to this country in which you are now living.
But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even
a foot of ground, and yet, even when he had no
child, He promised that He would give it to him
as a possession, and to his descendants after
him. The Lord promised father Abraham good
things, but the fulfillment of all of God’s promises
didn’t happen right away. In spite of not receiving
an immediate possession, Abraham was faithful
and obedient. Could Stephen be implying that those
who have faith, like Abraham, must wait patiently
for the fulfillment of the things promised to
them? That even though Yeshua is the Messiah,
the fulfillment of all the good things that will
happen to those who believe in Yeshua won’t happen
right away?
What this
meant for Stephen was that even though he was
the one who was faithful to God, he was alone
and in a position of weakness - but he would not
be weak forever! Even though he represented the
truth, and the truth would ultimately prevail,
it might not always prevail in the short term.
Sometimes
God’s people, like Stephen and the rest of the
Messianic Jewish Community are called upon to
experience injustice and suffering - just like
the Jewish people were called upon to suffer in
the period of our Egyptian enslavement. But
God spoke to this effect, that his descendants
would be aliens in a foreign land, and that they
would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred
years. And whatever nation to which they will
be in bondage I Myself will judge', said God,
'and after that they will come out and serve Me
in this place'. Knowing about the difficulties
in store for his descendants, Abraham was faithful
and obedient. God’s people may be mistreated for
a time, even a long time like 400 years - but
they will not be mistreated forever. Eventually
they will be rescued and vindicated.
It might
not have seemed to the Egyptians that the nation
of Jewish slaves were the Chosen Nation, but they
were! It might not have seemed to the Sanhedrin
that Yeshua is the Messiah, but He was. It might
not have appeared that the Yeshua-believing Jews
were the faithful remnant, but they were. The
Sanhedrin were acting like Pharaoh and the Egyptians,
and they needed to stop it!
Stephen
continued with his summary of Jewish history.
And He gave him the covenant of circumcision;
and so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and
circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became
the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were faithful and obedient
to the things that the Lord asked them to do.
The Jewish people had a good beginning. But, starting
with the twelve sons of Jacob, a pattern of disobedience
and unfaithfulness would ingrain itself in our
national character. It started with Joseph and
his eleven brothers. The patriarchs became
jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt.
The majority of the founders of the twelve tribes
of the nation rejected the God-ordained leader
of the Chosen Nation! That was very wrong. God
had revealed that Joseph was to be the chosen
leader of the nation. But the majority rejected
God’s choice, and rejected Joseph and did something
terrible to him - sold him into slavery. But in
spite of their rejection, Joseph prevailed and
was exalted and fulfilled God’s will and the rejected
brother was made the leader of Israel!
Yet
God was with him, and rescued him from all his
afflictions, and granted him favor and wisdom
in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he
made him governor over Egypt and all his household.
Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, and
great affliction with it, and our fathers could
find no food. But when Jacob heard that there
was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there
the first time. On the second visit Joseph made
himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family
was disclosed to Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent word
and invited Jacob his father and all his relatives
to come to him, seventy-five persons in all. And
Jacob went down to Egypt and there he and our
fathers died. Joseph, the honored and powerful assistant of the king of a great empire,
who was at first rejected by his brothers, was
later marvelously and shockingly revealed to them!
He had become their God-ordained leader, just
as the Lord had previously made clear. Joseph
graciously forgave them and they were reconciled
to him. Then, he saved them. And, that is what
will happen one day with the One Who Is Greater
Than Joseph! Messiah Yeshua, God’s Great Prime
Minister, whom they had mistreated and rejected,
will be acknowledged as God’s Prime Minister by
all twelve tribes of Israel! Israel will be reconciled
to Him and He will marvelously forgive us and
save us!
From
there they were removed to Shechem and laid in
the tomb which Abraham had purchased for a sum
of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. But
as the time of the promise was approaching which
God had assured to Abraham, the people increased
and multiplied in Egypt, until there arose another
king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph.
It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race
and mistreated our fathers so that they would
expose their infants and they would not survive.
It was at this time that Moses was born; and he
was lovely in the sight of God (and so was
Yeshua, the prophet like Moses), and he was
nurtured three months in his father's home. And
after he had been set outside, Pharaoh's daughter
took him away and nurtured him as her own son.
The God-appointed deliverer needed to be saved
from a murderous scheme when he was an infant.
The same was true of Yeshua, the prophet like
Moses!
Moses
was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians,
and he was a man of power in words and deeds.
So was Yeshua, the prophet like Moses! He
was powerful in His teachings and in the miracles
that the Lord enabled Him to do. But when he
was approaching the age of forty, it entered his
mind to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.
And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly,
he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed
by striking down the Egyptian. And he supposed
that his brothers understood that God was granting
them deliverance through him, but they did not
understand. (Nor did we understand that the
same thing happened with Yeshua, the prophet greater
than Moses. The majority didn’t understand that
God was granting us salvation through Yeshua).
On
the following day he appeared to them as they
were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile
them in peace, saying, 'Men, you are brothers,
why do you injure one another'? But the one who
was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying,
'who made you a ruler and judge over us? You do
not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian
yesterday, do you’? At this remark, Moses fled
and became an alien in the land of Midian, where
he became the father of two sons. Moses, the
God-ordained deliverer, was rejected by his people
and had to leave the people whom he would later
save. And, he left them for a long time. The same
thing happened and will happen with Yeshua, the
prophet greater than Moses!
After
forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him
in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame
of a burning thorn bush. When Moses saw it, he
marveled at the sight; and as he approached to
look more closely, there came the voice of the
Lord: 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob’. Moses shook with
fear and would not venture to look. But the Lord
said to him, 'take off the sandals from your feet,
for the place on which you are standing is holy
ground. I have certainly seen the oppression of
My people in Egypt and have heard their groans,
and I have come down to rescue them; come now,
and I will send you to Egypt'.
Stephen
then gave the Sanhedrin the lesson he wanted them
to understand from the life of Moses. This
Moses whom they disowned, saying, 'who made you
a ruler and a judge?’ is the one whom God sent
to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help
of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn
bush (this angel is almost certainly “The
Angel Of The Lord”. The Angel Of The Lord is the
Son of God, the Messiah, before He came to Earth
in the Incarnation). This man led them
out, performing wonders and signs in the land
of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness
for forty years. This is the Moses who said to
the sons of Israel, 'God will raise up for you
a prophet like me from your brothers’. Moses,
the one whom our nation rejected, was in reality
the God-sent, miracle-working leader and savior
of Israel! So is Yeshua, the prophet greater than
Moses!
Even after
the Lord used Moses to do many great miracles
and help the people, the great teacher and deliverer
was rejected again by the majority of our faithless
nation! This is the one who was in the congregation
in the wilderness together with the angel who
was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was
with our fathers; and he received living oracles
to pass on to you. Our fathers were unwilling
to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and
in their hearts turned back to Egypt, saying to
Aaron, 'make for us gods who will go before us;
for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt
- we do not know what happened to him’. And,
the Sanhedrin was doing the very same thing to
Yeshua, the Savior greater than Moses and the
teacher greater than Moses and the prophet greater
than Moses! They were unwilling to be obedient
to Yeshua and were rejecting, and by rejecting
the Son, they were turning their backs on the
Father!
Israel’s
pattern of habitual disobedience continued after
the golden calf fiasco. At that time they made
a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and
were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But
God turned away and delivered them up to serve
the host of heaven; as it is written in the book
of the prophets, 'it was not to Me that you offered
victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness,
was it, O house of Israel? You also took along
the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god
Rompha, the images which you made to worship.
I also will remove you beyond Babylon'. The
majority of the Chosen People continued to be
unfaithful to God throughout our years in the
wilderness. We rejected the true God and served
other gods. We continued that pattern of faithless
rejection of God for another 900 years. From the
wilderness until the exile to Babylon, the majority
of the nation worshiped other gods. Likewise,
the rejection of God’s Son was equivalent to doing
the same thing. To reject the Son is to reject
the Father. The majority of the nation, led by
the faithless Sanhedrin, were once again turning
their backs on the Lord - which we had done so
often before!
We continually
rejected the God of Israel in spite of Him being
so close to us. God’s presence in the Tabernacle
testified of His reality and His truth and His
nearness to us. Our fathers had the tabernacle
of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who
spoke to Moses directed him to make it according
to the pattern which he had seen. And having received
it in their turn, our fathers brought it in with
Joshua upon dispossessing the nations whom God
drove out before our fathers, until the time of
David. David found favor in God's sight, and asked
that he might find a dwelling place for the God
of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house
for Him. However, the Most High does not dwell
in houses made by human hands; as the prophet
says: 'Heaven is My throne, and Earth is the footstool
of My feet; what kind of house will you build
for Me’? says the Lord, 'or what place is there
for My repose? Was it not My hand which made all
these things’? No, the infinite God cannot
be contained in a tent or house or temple - but
He can fully live in a living and sinless human
being who is made in His image! And, just as Israel
was disobedient to God, even though He was close
to us in the temple, the Sanhedrin had done the
same thing. They were disobedient even though
He came even closer to us in the Person of Yeshua,
the One Who Is Greater Than The Temple, in whom
God fully lives!
Finally,
Stephen summarized his bold and true and powerful
defense. You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy
Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.
Which one of the prophets did your fathers not
persecute? They killed those who had previously
announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose
betrayers and murderers you have now become; you
who received the law as ordained by angels, and
yet did not keep it".
In other
words: I and the Messianic Yeshua-believing
community are righteous and innocent. But you
are the ones who are wrong! You are proud, stubborn,
and not in a right relationship with God at the
core of your beings! You are not hearing God speak
to us in our day. You are resisting His Spirit!
You are repeating the same pattern of faithlessness
and disobedience that the majority of Israel has
so often engaged in to our great detriment. Just
as the majority of our ancestors killed the prophets,
you members of the Sanhedrin betrayed and murdered
Righteous Rabbi Yeshua, who always did what was
right! You are lawbreakers and criminals of the
highest order! Stephen had cleverly reversed their
places. They were the one who should be on trial
- not him!
Now
when they heard this, they were cut to the quick
(very very angry), and they began gnashing
their teeth at him. They were experiencing
tremendous anger and rage. In contrast,
Stephen was experiencing something quite different.
The Three-in-One God allowed this great servant
in a very difficult moment to experience a rare
glimpse into the very center of the universe!
The veil that separates Heaven and Earth was torn
allowing Stephen to see a heavenly vision. The
Sanhedrin had sinned, and Stephen had made that
clear. Now God allowed him to see and present
to the Sanhedrin the positive side of his defense.
But being full of the Holy Spirit (he was
very close to God and God was very close to Him),
he gazed intently into Heaven and saw the glory
of God, and Yeshua standing at the right hand
of God; and he said, "Behold, I see the Heavens
opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right
hand of God”.
Stephen,
who at that moment was very close to God, was
privileged to see what few human beings have ever
seen. He was given a glimpse into the very throne
room of the universe! There he saw the glorious
presence of God the Father, and there next to
the Father was Yeshua the Son, in the position
of greatest honor, at the Father’s right hand,
standing there in a position to serve, standing
to be in a position to quickly help His servants
on Earth - like Stephen.
And, although
it might not seem like Stephen was being helped
by the Son of God, he was. He was being helped
to tell the truth in a difficult situation; Yeshua
was helping him with the grace to suffer and die
in a way that honored God and fulfilled his life.
Due to
Stephen’s charges against them and his declaration
of his vision of Yeshua, the members of the Sanhedrin
had worked themselves into a murderous rage. But
they cried out with a loud voice, and covered
their ears and rushed at him with one impulse.
When they had driven him out of the city, they
began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside
their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
(Luke introduces us to Rabbi Paul, who will
become one of the very greatest witnesses for
Yeshua the world has ever known. But Saul didn’t
start off that way. He was one of those men who
was close to the Sanhedrin and who rejected Yeshua
and opposed and persecuted His followers).
They
went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord
and said, "Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit"!
Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a
loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against
them!" Having said this, he fell asleep.
This is one of the few prayers directed to
the Son of God Himself. Stephen died in faith,
trusting God, trusting Yeshua, not angry at Him
for allowing Him to die; asking Yeshua the Savior
to receive his non-material part, the part of
us that human beings can’t kill, into His presence
in Heaven. Nor was Stephen angry at the Sanhedrin
and their assistants for what they were doing.
Like Yeshua dying and praying, Father forgive
them, this great servant died praying for the
forgiveness of those who were killing him. He
fell asleep, because death for a great man like
this (and Stephen is one of the greatest men who
ever lived) is more like a short nap followed
by a great awakening!
Lord,
make us more like Stephen, who was filled with
Your Holy Spirit!
Lord,
make us more like Stephen, who was wise and knew
Your Special Writings and understood what they
really meant!
Lord,
make us more like Stephen, who spoke the truth
so boldly and clearly. May we not tone down the
message and communicate to people who are not
OK that they are OK!
Lord,
make us more like Stephen, Your first New Covenant
martyr and witness!
Lord,
make us more like Stephen, who was able to stand
firm in the midst of a great trial!
Lord,
make us more like Stephen, who was so gracious
and forgiving!
Notes
On Chapter 7
The
following note comes from The Expositor’s Bible
Commentary on Acts, pages 340-341: There
are a number of difficulties as to chronological
sequence, historical numbers and the use of biblical
quotations in Stephen’s address that have led
to the most strenuous exercise of ingenuity on
the part of commentators in their attempts to
reconcile them... Verse 3 quotes the words of
God to Abraham given in Genesis 12:1 and implies
by its juxtaposition with v.2 that this message
came to Abraham “while he was still in Mesopotamia,
before he left Haran,” whereas the context of
Genesis 12:1 suggests that it came to him in Haran.
Verse 4 says that he left Haran after the death
of his father, whereas the chronological data
of Genesis 11:26-12:4 suggests that Terah’s death
took place after Abraham’s departure from Haran.
And verse 6 speaks of 400 years of slavery in
Egypt, whereas Exodus 12:40 says 430.
We need
not, however, get so disturbed over such things
as, on the one hand, to pounce on them to disprove
a “high view” of biblical inspiration, or, on
the other hand, to attempt to harmonize them so
as to support such a view. These matters relate
to the conflations and inexactitude of popular
Judaism, not necessarily to some then-existing
scholastic tradition or to variant textual traditions.
In large measure they can be paralleled in other
popular writings of the day, whether overtly Hellenistic
or simply more nonconformist in the broadest sense
of that term. Philo, for example, also explained
Abraham’s departure from Ur of the Chaldees by
reference to Genesis 12:1 (De Abrahamo
62-67), even though he knew that Genesis 12:1-5
is in the context of leaving Haran (cf. De
Migratione Abrahami 176). Josephus spoke of
Abraham’s being seventy-five years old when he
left Chaldea (contra Genesis 12:4, which says
he was seventy-five when he left Haran) and of
leaving Chaldea because God bade him go to Canaan,
with evident allusion to Genesis 12:1 (cf. Antiq.I,
154 [vii.1]). Likewise, Philo also placed the
departure of Abraham from Haran after his father’s
death (De Migratione Abrahami 177). And
undoubtedly the round figure of four hundred years
for Israel’s slavery in Egypt - a figure that
stems from the statement credited to God in Genesis
15:13 - was often used in popular expressions
of religious piety in Late Judaism, as were also
the transpositions of meaningful and usable phrases
from one context to another.
Two further
difficulties ... are (1) the number seventy-five
in verse 14 for the total number who originally
went down to Egypt, whereas Genesis 46:27 (MT)
sets the figure at seventy (i.e., sixty-six plus
Jacob, Joseph, Joseph, and the latter’s two sons),
and (2), the confusion in verse 16 between Abraham’s
tomb at Hebron, in the cave of Machpelah, which
Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite (cf. Genesis
23:3-20) and wherein Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
were buried (cf. Genesis 49:29-33; 50:13), and
the burial plot purchased by Jacob at Shechem
from the sons of Hamor, wherein Joseph and his
descendants were buried (cf. Joshua 24:32). Again,
these are but further examples of the conflations
and inexactitudes of Jewish popular religion,
which, it seems, Luke simply recorded from his
sources in his attempt to be faithful to what
Stephen actually said in his portrayal. And again,
they can in large measure be paralleled elsewhere.
Genesis 46:27 in the LXX, for example, does not
include Jacob and Joseph but does include nine
sons of Joseph in the reckoning, thereby arriving
at “seventy-five souls” all together who went
down to Egypt. And with And with this number both
Exodus 1:5 (LXX) and 4QExod(a) at 1:5 agree. Likewise,
the telescoping of the two burial grounds in this
verse can be compared to the similar phenomenon
with regards to Abraham’s two calls in verses
2-3.
There
is remarkable psychological or emotional truth
in Luke’s report of Stephen’s address. Stephen,
with his life at stake, was speaking under intense
emotion and with God-given eloquence. With remarkable
verisimilitude Luke shows him using commonly understood
language as in vivid terms and with burning eloquence
he refers to Israel’s history. Stephen’s speech
was not a scholarly historical survey; it was
a powerful portrayal of God’s dealings with Israel
and it mounted inexorably to a climax that unmasked
the obstinacy and disobedience of Israel and of
their leaders in Stephen’s time. Church history
knows of few, if any, greater displays of moral
courage than Stephen showed in this speech. And
to dissect it on precisionist grounds shows lack
of understanding of its basic truth.
A Note On Angels And
The Revelation Of God
Stephen
mentions angel or angels four times in his address
to the Sanhedrin. Of importance is the help of
angels in the giving of the Law. In his commentary
on Acts, F.F. Bruce notes that the angel whom
Moses saw (verse 30) was the special “Angel of
the Lord” (Exodus 3:2), that is, God Himself in
His manifestation to human beings. The “angel
of the presence” of God (literally “the messenger
of His face” is the angel who makes God’s presence
real to human beings - in other words, the Angel
of the Lord. The book of Exodus makes no mention
of this angel in the account of the giving of
the Law; we may compare, however, “the angel of
God” in Exodus 14:19; also Exodus 33:14, “My presence
will go with you” where “My presence” is literally
“My face”. See also Isaiah 63:9 (in all their
affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of
His presence saved them). Deuteronomy 33:2 in
the Septuagint reads: The Lord has come from Sinai,
and shone forth unto us in Seir; He came with
haste from Mount Paran, with the myriads of Kadesh
were angels with Him at His right hand”.
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