Acts 7 - Introduction

Introduction. The Speech of Stephen before the Sanhedrim.

The Main Argument.

The speech began with a grave and earnest defence of himself and his teaching, in the form of an elaborate historical argument, and passed imperceptibly into a passionate attack on his accusers and judges. He represented himself as arraigned not really as a blasphemer of the holy Temple and the sacred law, but as suffering the same persecution at their hands which the prophets and another still greater had endured from their stiff-necked forefathers.

He commenced this defence with great calm and dignity, choosing as his theme a subject which he knew would command the attention and win the deep interest of his audience. It was the story of the chosen people, told with the warm bright eloquence of one not only himself an ardent patriot, but also a trained orator and scholar; he dwelt on the famous national heroes, with rare skill bringing out the particular events of their brilliant lives, which assisted his great argument.

To Stephen the glorious drama of Israel seemed to fit naturally into three acts

The first The age of the patriarchs.

The second Moses, his office and work.

The third The times of the prophets. In each of these the speaker shows how the same Divine hand guided, how the same errors and thanklessness appeared and reappeared among the chosen people.

In the first act, when the children of Israel were still one family, the foremost character was Joseph, the God-taught and divinely-protected; and his brethren the patriarchs, the fathers of the tribes, represented the stiff-necked opposers of what was right and true, who appeared in later times.

In the second, Moses the great lawgiver was the central figure, as the deliverer and guardian of the people; and the descendants of the children of Israel, during his long wise rule, continually refused to obey, and tried to thrust him from them.

Moses (in his later life), and the prophets, were the heroes of the third act of Stephen's history of Israel; but the mention of the stubborn resistance of the people to the messengers of the Eternal stirred up the spirit of the hitherto calm orator, and, after glancing for a moment at the accusation which charged him with lightly esteeming the Temple, he again turns to the crowning wickedness of his forefathers, who persecuted and slew the prophets, and in a flame of righteous anger he accuses his accusers of being themselves murderers of the Just One. But here he is violently interrupted, and hurried to the last scene without the walls.

Alongside the Main Argument flawed another Stream of Thought.

Never absent from Stephen's mind was his Master's rejection and crucifixion. Every historical allusion secretly but plainly points to it; yet he guards himself from ever mentioning it directly, for fear of being stopped altogether by an outbreak of their jealous rage.

Carried away by his intense passion, he breaks at length through the restraint he had imposed upon himself; and with the last words he was allowed to utter, he tears the veil aside, when he charges his judges with the murder of the Just.

[How each of the great historical allusions made by St. Stephen really pointed to the ‘Crucified Jesus, ' the following sketch will show.]

So Joseph was sold by the patriarchs into Egypt. [Had they not for envy delivered Christ to Pilate?] But God was with both: He delivered Joseph out of all his troubles, [as He raised up Jesus from the grave]. He made one ruler of Egypt, [and the other ruler of the Church and the world].

The brethren of Moses understood not his mission; [so Christ came to His own, and His own received Him not]. They resisted Moses the deliverer again and again: [you have crucified Jesus your Redeemer].

They preferred the tabernacle of Moloch to My tabernacle, and the star of their god Remphan to My pillar of fire and cloud. [So now you have preferred the lifeless stones of this Temple, and the now meaningless ritual of a dying law, to the love of the Temple's Master, and His command to substitute for a ritual a life].

And yet in spite of their foolish hard-hearted rejection, first of Joseph, then, on a greater scale, of Moses, God overruled all, and positively against their will delivered first the sons of Jacob by the hand of the outraged Joseph, and afterwards the whole people by the hand of His servant Moses.

This third division was never completed, but we can see clearly what was in Stephen's mind while he was speaking it. We see how it would have proceeded had the Sanhedrim allowed him to go on with his speech to the end.

Their fathers had persecuted Joseph, and again and again had refused Moses. Later, they had persecuted and slain the prophets, and now they had murdered the Just. But as before in the case of Joseph, and still more conspicuously in the case of Moses, their God had in spite of themselves redeemed them and saved them; so He would again; even now, after their deepest crime, if they would but return to Him, and seek through the blood of the Crucified pardon and life. But this last thought the martyr was not allowed to utter.

There is no doubt but that the close of Stephen's defence would have contained, like the sermons of Peter in the second and third Chapter s of this book, the offer of pardon and reconciliation through the very blood they had caused to be poured out. To this the structure of the whole speech pointed; they had but to acknowledge their error and their sin, and all would be forgiven. Stephen would probably have ended with a picture of a new and golden age for humbled and redeemed Israel. So far, these early Christian sermons were constructed on the same lines. If Israel would even now, at the twelfth hour, seek His face, all would yet be well. The great speech of Stephen, however, differs from the addresses of Peter in its broad, all-embracing view of the history of the chosen people. What a magnificent conception, in the eyes of a child of Israel, were those instances of the life-work of Joseph and Moses, both in their turn and degree, God-sent regenerators of the loved people, both in their turn, too, rejected and misunderstood by those with whom their mission lay, but justified and glorified by the unanimous voice of history, which has surrounded the men and their work with a halo of glory, growing only brighter as the centuries multiplied! Might it not be the same with that great One who had done such mighty works, and spoken such sweet glorious words, but whom they had rejected and crucified?

In Stephen's noble words we miss that lofty and sublime calm, that unruffled dignity which neither insult nor danger could disturb, so remarkable in the sermons and addresses of Peter. The Twelve who had been with Jesus, alone seem to have possessed this sweet brave confidence, which nothing on this earth could shake or affect.

Such a view as this in no way detracts from the character or the work of a Stephen, and later of a Paul, who in much takes the first martyr as his model. There was ample room in the great world-field for both these characters. The passionate fervour of these later called ones, perhaps, was even more effectual in the great work than the still, unruffled calm of the older apostles.