Prosecution:
Patriarchs, Promise, Prophecies and Prophets. Acts 6:11-7:60
Acts 6:7 NASB “…and a great many
of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.” This must have really
begun to irritate the Sadducees. Most pf the priests came from the Sadducee
Party. The Sadducee Party tended to dominate the Sanhedrin and it clearly had
control of temple worship and all of the profit that they made. It wasn’t a
free market environment, it was collusion and in violation of the Mosaic Law as
they were overcharging in the money exchange. It was a corrupt enterprise. But
now there were a vast number of priests being saved and this is beginning to
get very personal for the leadership of the Sanhedrin.
Stephen has a tremendous ministry that
begins to be described in verse 8 and it is irritating to a number of the
Jewish leaders in Jerusalem
who seek to get men to commit false witness, a violation of the tenth
commandment. They are going to lie in court and are going to make certain
claims. It is these claims that are very interesting. They claim that Stephen
has committed blasphemy, i.e. that he is overturning or hostile to what God has
said. Acts 6:11
NASB “Then they secretly induced men to say, ‘We have heard him
speak blasphemous words against Moses and {against} God.’” That is their
starting point.
Acts 6:12 NASB “And they stirred
up the people, the elders and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged
him away and brought him before the Council.” They are rabble-rousing among the
crowds that have come to Jerusalem,
but they are spreading lies and rumours among the people. These things happen
all the time. We see a lot of it today with the Internet. There’s a tremendous
amount of gossip and slander that takes place through email, especially with
regard to political things. It happens on both sides of the aisle and people
are more concerned with just finding something to support what they believe
rather than seeking truth, and they are willing to pass on any kind of lie,
rumour or gossip just because it puts their opponent in a bad light. That is
wrong. We sure make sure before we say anything or pass anything along that we
have checked it out and made sure that it is indeed true. The “elders” here
would refer to the leaders of the synagogues and the scribes would refer to
those who were usually associated with the Pharisees and were responsible for
copying and overseeing the duplication of the Old Testament Scriptures.
As a result of having stirred everybody up
without any evidence they also set up false witnesses. Acts 6:13
NASB “They put forward false witnesses who said, ‘This man
incessantly speaks against this holy place and the Law.” They say he doesn’t
stop speaking blasphemous words, and now it is not against Moses and God, it is
“this holy place and the Law.” So there are four things that he is charged with
in terms of blasphemy: blasphemy against God, blasphemy against Moses,
blasphemy against the Law (Torah), and blasphemy against the temple. The
problem with this is that none of this rises to the level of a blasphemous
charge. He doesn’t say anything that is blasphemous. Numbers 15:30 NASB
“But the person who does {anything} defiantly, whether he is native or an
alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that
person shall be cut off from among his people.” Blasphemy would be that which
is bringing a false charge against God.
What we have here is a dynamic where
spurious charges are being brought against Christians. This is nothing new; it
has been a standard approach of Satan and the enemy down through the ages. This
is one of the easiest ways to try to attack an enemy—ad hominen
charges. People say, “Well look at that person, he is associated with so and
so, therefore whatever he says is wrong.” We constantly hear these kinds of
false charges today.
It is interesting as we look at Stephen’s
response in chapter seven that Stephen does not give evidence of a man who is
showing any disrespect at all for God, Moses, temple or Torah. He shows a
tremendous amount of respect for God, and in the way he lays out his argument
he shows and proves in the end that the leaders among the Jewish people have
never honoured God. He cites evidence of their ongoing chronic idolatry and
rejection of God and rejection of prophets. And this is substantiated from the
Old Testament. This was said many, many times by writers of the Hebrew
Scriptures giving evidence and indictments against the Jewish people for their
rejection of God. This is clearly the reason that the northern kingdom of Israel
was destroyed by Assyria
in 722 and the southern kingdom was destroyed in 586 and the first temple was
destroyed—it was because of idolatry. So Stephen is just repeating and
reaffirming the indictment of the Old Testament. He isn’t saying something new.
Stephen is extremely respectful of God in his message. Neither is he
antagonistic to Moses, but he is going to point out that Moses was a deliverer
of the Jews from slavery in Egypt and that when Moses first came on the scene
he was rejected by the Jewish people as their deliverer. They did not recognize
him as the one God sent to deliver them and it was only the second time that
Moses came that they recognized him as the deliverer that God had sent. And
Stephen isn’t showing any disrespect for the Torah but he is clearly affirming
what the Old Testament Scriptures teach—that the Mosaic Law was temporary and
was not designed to be permanent. He shows respect for the Torah and he shows
respect for the temple.
There was no basis at all for these
charges against Stephen. The problem is that they have deified Torah and temple
so that in an idolatrous manner they have rejected both the teaching of God and
the teaching of Moses. And this is basically the argument that Stephen is going
to bring against them. When he comes to the forefront here he is going to
respond to their charge but he is not going to respond by simply presenting a
defence of what he is said, he is going to turn it into an offensive manoeuvre;
he assaults them on the basis of their history. He completely turns it against
them and presents a case against them. So it is an indictment of the Jewish
leadership at this time and their failure to honour God and Moses and their
failure to respect what the Old Testament taught about the temple and the
Torah. He follows a tradition of the prophets. If we go through the Old
Testament we will notice that the role of the prophet from Moses down through
Malachi is to challenge the behaviour of the Jewish people on the basis of
their covenant responsibilities toward God as spelled out in the Mosaic Law.
The Mosaic demanded on the people their
exclusive loyalty to God and spelled out what that behaviour would appear to be
and what it would look like. And when they violated that, when they were in
rebellion against God, when they were idolatrous, when they failed to apply the
Law, then God would send a prophet who was His representative to bring an
indictment against them. This is how Stephen is functioning. It is the longest
speech/sermon recorded in Acts and it is the only sermon in Acts where there is
no clear gospel presentation. The purpose for this message was not to present
the gospel but to present an indictment against the Jewish people.
It is important to understand what has
been going on in Acts. In Acts we are in a transition period in history—from
the Jews to the Gentiles, from the temple to the church. What happens in Acts
is that at the beginning the focus is on Jews in Jerusalem and the
church is exclusively a Jewish church made up of Jewish believers up to this
point. And there is yet a grace offer to all of the Jewish people to turn and
accept Jesus as the Messiah. This is the thrust of Peter’s message in Acts
chapter two, Peter’s message in chapter three, the focal point of the preaching
of the apostles and of the seven throughout this period, and yet there has been
a continued rejection of this message. So now there is going to be an
indictment. God has extended grace to this generation again, the same
generation that just two years earlier had crucified Jesus the Messiah, and now
there is going to b another indictment from Stephen and there is going to be
the same response from the leaders of the people.
Several sources have estimated that around
30-35 per cent of the Jewish people at the time of Jesus and the early first
century accepted Jesus as the Messiah. That is a huge number, but it wasn’t
represented among the religious leadership which was in a power struggle.
When Peter sets his message up the first
thing he does is focus on Abraham. Then he focuses on Joseph who is mentioned
five times from verse 9 to verse 18. Starting in verse 20 he begins to focus
upon Moses and he does so down through verse 43 and then he begins to talk
about the tabernacle which was done away with and replaced by the temple. So if
the tabernacle was replaced by the temple why can’t God do away with the temple
and do something else? That is his line of argumentation.
What does he says about Abraham? God
called out Abraham as an act of divine love. What he is saying is the core
foundation of Torah Judaism was God’s love and grace was the foundation
relationship with the Jewish people. The core value in their religion was God’s
love and grace. But where does the Torah come in? The Torah doesn’t come in for
450 years. Circumcision was the sign for the Abrahamic
covenant but the Law doesn’t come in for 450 years, so that is a secondary
idea. God has 450 years of dealing with the Jewish people—Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Joseph—long before there was ever a Torah. When does the temple come
along? About 970 BC,
another 500 years after the Torah. So what Stephen is arguing here is
the foundation of real biblical religion for the Jewish people is the love of
God and the grace of God, not the Law, not circumcision, not Moses, and not the
temple. They have idolized those aspects and created a false god out of those
things. This is what is going to end of angering them.
Acts 7:2 NASB “And he said, ‘Hear
me, brethren and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when
he was in Mesopotamia,
before he lived in Haran,
[3] and said to him, ‘LEAVE YOUR COUNTRY AND YOUR RELATIVES, AND COME INTO THE LAND THAT
I WILL SHOW YOU.’” It’s a free gracious act, there’s no
condition set upon this. God said He had a gift for Abraham. He was going to
give Abraham this piece of land, so Abraham had to get himself up and over
there because the only we he was going to enjoy that land was if he went to it.
There is no legalistic condition. [4 ] “Then he left
the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran.
From there, after his father died, {God} had him move to this country in which
you are now living. [5] But He gave him no inheritance in it…” He now emphasises the fact that he never
owned a square inch of property other than what he bought to bury Sarah and
himself in. He never owned real estate that was promised by God, but God gave
him this promise that He would give him this land. So0 we have a foundation
here of promise.
This argument is subtle. What He was going
to show is that Abraham was given a promise. He was given a far promise which
is, you are going to own the land and are going to have an inheritance forever
in the land. And He has given a near promise, and that promise/prophecy is that
Abraham’s descendants were going to leave this land and be slaves in Egypt
for about 400 years, and then God was going to bring them back to this land. The
fact that God brought them back to the land and that part of the promise proved
to be literally true was to be evidence that if God could do that in the near fulfilment
He would also give them the land in perpetuity in a far fulfilment. And the
point that Stephen is making to the Sanhedrin is that what the Jewish people
did again and again and again was to reject that God could ultimately fulfil
that promise and to reject the God who gave that promise. They weren’t faithful
to the covenant. There was always a remnant that was but for the most part he was
saying that they Rejected Joseph, they rejected Moses, they rejected the
promise, they defiled the temple time and time again by putting idols in the temple
and that they are all under indictment.
So he goes through the circumstances with
the promise to God and the promise that God would give him this land: “… 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.”
But in the short term [6] “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 then quoting from Genesis chapter
fifteen God said: “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.”
There was a clear prophecy there that God would provide deliverance. As a sign of this God gave them the covenant of circumcision.
Stephen is going to talk about key
individuals now. Why did he talk about Abraham? Because the call of Abraham
shows the real core of Jewish religion: the grace of God and the love of God. So
why does he bring in Joseph and Moses? What do they have in common? They are
both deliverers that God sent to Israel.
They both show up twice. They show up initially; they are rejected by the rest
of the Jews. The Jews reject them the first time and they accept them the
second time. What is the pattern? Jesus shows up as the Messiah. He is rejected
the first time but He will be accepted the second time. It fits the pattern.
Stephen now turns to Joseph. Acts 7:9 NASB “The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph
and sold him into Egypt. {Yet} God was with him.” This is a
pattern guys, we become envious of other people and we reject God’s provision. He
is indicting them for carrying out that pattern. [10] “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”—in a position where he can
deliver his family in a time of world-wide famine.
Acts 7:13 NASB “On the second
{visit} Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was
disclosed to Pharaoh.” This time the brothers are elevated to a position of
privilege because they are relatives of Joseph. But then in verse 18, “…THERE AROSE
ANOTHER KING OVER EGYPT WHO KNEW NOTHING
ABOUT JOSEPH. [19] 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.” So now there is the circumstance where this
Pharaoh is passing a decree that all the Jewish male babies have to be put out
to die. In violation of that when Moses was born his family kept him in secret
for three months. God in His providence saw that he would be adopted into the
royal family.
We are told some things in this section
that we don’t learn in Exodus. Acts 7:22 NASB “Moses was
educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in
words and deeds.” He was one of the most educated individuals possible in the
ancient world. But somewhere along the line Moses seems to be aware of who he is—that he is Jewish, not an Egyptian, and this could
conceivably be because he was circumcised. He came to understand that there was
a difference and that he wasn’t like the Egyptians and he began to identify
himself with his people.
Acts 7:24 NASB “And when he saw one {of them} being
treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by
striking down the Egyptian.” There is a sense in which he knows that he is to
be their deliverer but he doesn’t know how to do it the right way. What people
don’t understand is that a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong. Moses does
things the wrong way and is eventually going to be run out of Egypt. [26] “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 brethren, why do you injure one another?’ [27] But the one
who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away,
saying, ‘WHO
MADE YOU A RULER AND JUDGE OVER US?’” They don’t recognise him as the
deliverer, they reject him as a deliverer, and Moses ends up fleeing, spending
another forty years in basic training by God.
Then one day when he is out with the sheep in the wilderness of Mount Sinai he saw a burning
bush. That is not anything unusual. But this bush didn’t get consumed, and that
is what caught his attention. He decided to check it out and when he did God
began to speak to him and identified Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. Acts 7:32 NASB “
‘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. [33]
BUT
THE LORD SAID TO HIM, ‘TAKE OFF THE SANDALS FROM YOUR FEET, FOR THE PLACE ON
WHICH YOU ARE STANDING IS HOLY GROUND.’”
Now it is not in the land of Israel.
Holy land
is any land where God’s presence is on the ground. [34] “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.”
We are going to do the right thing now at the right time and in the right way.
Now Stephen skips ahead to the prophecy
that Moses gives in verse 37, which is a quote from Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18
that the Lord will raise up a prophet like Moses. This is a messianic prophecy
which looks forward to the fact that there will be a prophet like Moses who has
this intimacy with God and that the people should listen to Him. This is not
just any prophet but a unique prophet who will have a leadership role like
Moses but will be greater.
Acts 7:38 NASB “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. [39] Our
fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and in their
hearts turned back to Egypt…”
So why are you accusing me of blasphemy and not obeying when you are the heirs
of those in the wilderness who wouldn’t obey Moses and wouldn’t obey God? You are
just carrying on the family tradition of disobedience to God and rejecting His
messengers. He begins to raise the indictment level against them. He points out
now the episode of idolatry that occurred while Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the
Law from God. They are so impatient and their attention span on worshipping God
is so short, and as soon as Moses is out of sight almost they enticed Aaron to
make some idols for them to worship. What is Stephen pointing out here? He is
pointing out that historically throughout the Old Testament period the Jewish
people rejected the Torah, they rejected the mandate to worship God, and they
were always antagonistic to Moses.
This is explained in vv. 42, 43 which is a
quotation from Amos 5:25, 27: NASB “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.’” This was a reminder that they have
committed idolatry throughout their history, this was a chronic problem, and
God was going to bring judgment upon them. Jeremiah 32:35 is another indictment.
NASB “They built the high places of Baal that
are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons
and their daughters to pass through {the fire} to Molech,
which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do
this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” 2 Kings 23:10 NASB “He
also defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the
son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire for Molech.”
In the final stage of his argument Stephen
goes through the issue related to the temple. He starts with the tabernacle in
verse 44 NASB “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.” The point that he is making is that the tabernacle
was temporary and was eventually replaced by the temple, and the temple was
designed to be temporary also because God doesn’t dwell in houses made by human
hands. This isn’t something new from Stephen, this is a quote from Solomon who
built the first temple: 1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 6:16 both record this. So
there is a quote here from Isaiah 66:1,2 NASB “Thus says the LORD, ‘Heaven
is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could
build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest?
For My hand made all these things’…” In other words, I don’t need
a house, the universe is my dwelling. So again, Stephen is showing great
respect for the temple. He doesn’t say anything negative about the temple, he just says it is not permanent.
Then he drives the point home. Acts 7:51 NASB
“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears…” That was a
term used by Moses to refer to not physical circumcision but mental circumcision
and has to do with a failure in their thinking to submit to the authority of
God. This is seen in such passages as Leviticus 26:41. “… are always resisting
the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. [52] 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; [53] you who received the law as
ordained by angels, and {yet} did not keep it.” He has refuted their arguments
and the reaction is that their emotions are so strong that they are gnashing
their teeth. But in contrast, [55] “But being full of the Holy Spirit [a term
for maturity], he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” The position of Jesus is seated, but
He is standing to receive Stephen. [56] “and he [Stephen]
said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the
right hand of God.’” This term “Son of Man” is an term
for the Messiah from Daniel chapter seven, and this just makes them even
angrier.
Acts 7:57 NASB “But they cried
out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one
impulse. [58] 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.”
Saul was probably representing Gamaliel at these
proceedings and we are first introduced to him here. This foreshadows the
transition into what will come later on. [59] “They went
on stoning Stephen as he called on {the Lord} and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit!’” He is addressing Jesus because that is who he sees standing at the
right hand of the Father. [60] “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 begins to set up a transition. We are
introduced to Saul who becomes the chief persecutor of the church in chapter
eight. His conversion is in chapter nine. But this assault and execution of
Stephen becomes the end of the first stage of the expansion of the church in
the stage of their being in Jerusalem.
After this there is going to be an expansion because now they
have to leave Jerusalem
because a huge persecution begins. Up to this
point the Sanhedrin has just has had basically a hands-off policy, although
they have been hostile; now they are hostile, aggressive, out to kill,
slaughter, arrest and actively persecute all of the Jews who have accepted
Jesus as Messiah. Remember the church is still Jewish at this time, it is not
Gentile. They are assaulting other Jews, it is a spiritual civil war against those
who have accepted Jesus as Messiah.