Acts 7:48

‘However the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands; as says the prophet,'

Thus the Temple was an error, a concession allowed by God but not really adequate (2 Samuel 7:6). The Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands, as the prophets have made clear. They had thrust aside God's God-given provision and had made their own kind of provision. The title ‘Most High' was regularly used in relation to the nations. Thus Stephen is emphasising here that God is the God of all men, not to be limited to Jerusalem. And secondly the title also stresses why He cannot be confined to a permanent house built in Jerusalem, He is ‘most High'. (Isaiah's vision had resolved it by raising it above all mountains. That carried the similar intention of lifting it out of its earthiness).

The phrase ‘made with hands' is intentionally derogatory. The Tabernacle had been made by sanctified and willing hands empowered by the Spirit according to God's pattern (Exodus 30:30). But the Temple was very much a building of earth, with its foreign designer, enforced labour and earthly ostentation. ‘Made with hands' is used in Acts 17:14 where it describes Temples not fit for God's habitation, and in Acts 19:26 where Paul denigrates ‘gods' that are ‘made with hands'. See also Hebrews 9:11; Hebrews 9:24. What is made with hands is the very opposite of what God, ‘the Most High', is.