Stephen’s Final Witness: A Gaze Fixed on Heaven Acts 7:51—8:1a
Commentary 14 on Acts: Acts 7:51—8:1a
As Stephen recounts the history of Israel, it is a litany of sin, rebellion, and rejection of God's purposes, emphasizing, as writer Marcel Simon rightly says, "the unworthiness and perpetual rebelliousness of the Jews who, in the long run, exhaust the immense riches of God's mercy" Stephen's description of his accusers is loaded with pejorative theological nuances. The phrase "stiff-necked" was fixed in Israel's memory as God's own characterization of the nation when it rebelled against Moses and worshiped the golden calf (cf. Exod 33:5; Deut 9:13). And the expression "with uncircumcised hearts and ears" recalls God's judgment on the apostates among his people as being "uncircumcised in heart." Stephen's accusation, however, was that nothing had been learned from the past, since an even more horrendous crime had been committed in the present—the betrayal and murder of "the Righteous One"—by those who were so smug about Israel's past failures. When Stephen said he saw “the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,”
he is invoking Daniel 7, a text about divine authority and judgment. To the Sanhedrin, this meant: Jesus is enthroned in heaven, he shares God’s authority and is the judge—and they the Jewish authorities are the ones being judged This was the ultimate blasphemy in their eyes. Such a speech could only have one outcome; he had courted death, and death would be the result. But Stephen did not see the faces distorted with rage. His gaze had gone beyond the present, and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. One is reminded of what St Paul would say many years later, when he said, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col 3:2). To the Jewish authorities this seemed to them as the greatest of blasphemies; and the penalty for blasphemy was stoning to death (Deuteronomy 13:6ff.). It is to be noted that this was not a legal trial. It was a lynching, because the Sanhedrin had no right under Roman law to put anyone to death. The method of stoning was as follows. The criminal was taken to a height and thrown down. (You may remember that having claimed to be the promised Messiah in his native synagogue in Nazareth, the people intended him to throw him over a cliff because in their minds he had blasphemed cf., Lk 4:28-30. The witnesses had to do the actual throwing down. If the criminal was killed by the fall, well and good; if not, great boulders were hurled down upon the person until death resulted. There are in this scene certain notable things about Stephen.
1) We see the secret of his courage. Beyond all that the world could do to him, he saw awaiting him the welcome of his Lord.
2) We see Stephen following his Lord’s example. As Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of his executioners (Luke 23:34), so did Stephen. Those who follow Christ the whole way will find strength to do things which it seems humanly impossible to do.
3) The dreadful turmoil finished in a strange peace. To Stephen came the peace which comes to those who have done the right thing even if the right thing kills them.
The first half of the first verse of chapter 8 goes with this section. Paul has entered on the scene under his original name – Saul. The man who was to become the apostle to the Gentiles thoroughly agreed with the execution of Stephen. But, as St Augustine said, ‘The Church owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen.’ However hard he tried, Saul could never forget the way in which Stephen had died. Even at this early point, the blood of the martyrs had begun to be the seed of the Church.
