Acts 7:50

Hath not my hand made all these things?

Hath not my hand made all these things? The prophet goes on to say that the chosen and proper resting-place of Yahweh is the "contrite heart that trembleth at His word," and that the time was coming when those who clung to the temple and its ritual would be objects of divine abhorrence, as great as the rankest idolaters; while the true spiritual worshippers, though but a despised and excommunicated remnant, would find the Lord upon their side, and interposing gloriously in their behalf (Acts 7:2). From this it will be seen how singularly apposite to Stephen's case was this reference. He contents himself, however, with quoting the first verse and part of the second, condemning that idolatrous attachment to the material temple and its external services which was the cause of all their rage at his preaching, and of his now standing at their bar on a charge of impiety. The attempt made by the Tubingen critics (Baur and Zeller) to make out that Stephen meant here to condemn the temple and its services in themselves, or out and out-and so stood self-convicted of the charge brought against him-affords a good specimen of the wretched character of their criticism. The same style of reasoning would prove Isaiah and most of the ancient prophets to have been opposed to the whole external services of the economy under which they lived-an opinion which some of themselves have not scrupled to express.

The Defense Concluded, in a Brief and Pungent Statement of the Nation's Treatment of the Lord's Designs and Messengers from First to Last (7:51-53)