Acts
7
1 “Then
said the high priest, Are these things so?”
And the high priest said for then said the high priest, Authorized Version. The
high priest spoke as president of the Sanhedrin (see Acts 9. 1 and Matthew
26:62).
Theophilus the son of Annas or his brother
Jonathan is probably meant.
2 “And he
said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory
appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in
before he dwelt in Charran,” Brethren and
fathers for men, brethren, and fathers,
Authorized Version.
The Greek is ἄνδρες ἀδελφοὶ - andres adelpohoi - men who are
also my brethren –
καὶ πατέρες
– kai pateres - and fathers. He adds“and fathers” out of respect to
the elder and more dignified portion of the Sanhedrin.
It seems probable that
Stephen, as a Hellenist Jew, spoke in Greek, which
is borne out by the
quotations being from the Septuagint, though some think he
spoke in Hebrew.
Greek was generally understood at this time by all educated persons.
As
regards its scope and object, the two main clues to it are the
accusation
which Stephen rose to rebut, and the application with
which he ended in
vs. 51-53. If we keep these two things steadily in view, we
shall not be
very far wrong if we say that Stephen sought to clear
himself by showing:
(1) by his
historical summary, what a true and thorough Israelite he was in
heart and feeling and fellowship with the fathers of his
race, and therefore
how unlikely to speak blasphemous words against either
Moses or the temple;
(2) how Moses
himself had foretold the coming of Christ as a prophet like
himself, to enunciate some new doctrines;
(3) how at every
stage of their history their fathers had resisted those who
were sent to them by God, and that now his judges were
playing the same
part.
Perhaps it may be further true, as Chrysostom
explains it (Hom. 15.,
16., 17.), that his intention in the early part of the
speech was to show that
the promise was made:
Ø
before the place,
Ø
before circumcision,
Ø
before sacrifice, and
Ø
before the temple,”
in accordance with Paul’s argument (Galatians 3:16-18); and
that therefore
the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant could not be
dependent upon the Law
or the temple. The
God of glory. This unusual phrase
identifies God, of whom
Stephen speaks, with the God
whose visible glory was seen by the patriarchs
(Genesis 12:7; 18:1; 26:2;
28:12-13; 35:9; Exodus 24:16-17; Numbers 16:19;
Isaiah 6.; John 12:41). Paul uses a similar phrase, “The Lord of
glory” (I
Corinthians 2:8). Our father. He thus identifies himself with
his judges, whom he had just called “brethren.” In
would be in Hebrew “
from Genesis 11:31, was “
were taught to say (Deuteronomy 26:5), “A Syrian ready to perish
was my father.” That this appearance was in
they went forth from
quite certain that the appearance of God to Abraham had
preceded their
leaving
15:7; Nehemiah 9:7; and Josephus (‘
language of the call shows plainly that it came to him when
he was living in
his native country, among his kindred, and in his father’s
house, i.e. at
not in
unusual, in Hebrew narrative, in the writer going back to
any point in the
preceding narrative with which the subsequent narrative is
connected.
Genesis 12. It precedes in point of time Genesis 11:31;
similar examples
are Ibid. ch. 37:5-6; Judges 20., passim; I Samuel 16:21 compared
with Ibid. ch.17:28;
22:20-21, compared with Ibid. ch. 23:6; and many more.
It is, however, of course possible that a fresh call may
have been given after
Terah’s death, though it is by no means necessary to suppose it.
Another
imaginary difficulty arises from the statement in Genesis
12:4 that Abraham
was seventy-five years old when he departed from
seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor,
and
age of two hundred and five; and from the statement in v. 4
of this chapter that
Abram did not leave
Terah must have lived sixty years after Abram’s departure (70 +
75 + 60 = 205).
But the whole difficulty arises from the gratuitous
supposition that Abram
was Terah’s firstborn because he
is named first. If Terah were a hundred
and thirty at the birth of Abram, he would be two hundred
and five when
Abram was seventy-five. Now, there is absolutely nothing to
forbid the
supposition that such was his age. It does not follow that
because Abram is
named first he was the eldest. He might be named first as
being by far the
most illustrious of the three, he might be named first
because the
subsequent genealogies — Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve
Patriarchs — were
deduced from him. There may, too, have been other sons of Terah, not
named here because nothing was going to be said about them.
Nahor is
mentioned because Rebekah was his
granddaughter (Genesis 24:15, 24)
and Rachel his great-granddaughter. And
he was the father of
mentioned. If Terah, therefore,
began to have children when he was
seventy, it is quite probable that Abram may not have been
born till he was
a hundred and thirty. That the son named first need not
necessarily be the
eldest is clear from the order in which Shem, Ham, and
Japheth are named,
whereas it appears from Genesis 9:24 that Ham was the
youngest, and
from Genesis 10:2, 21 (according to the Authorized Version
and the Septuagint,
Symmachus, the Targum of Onkelos, and the old Jewish commentators),
that Japheth was the eldest. In Joshua 24:4 God says, “I gave unto
Isaac Jacob and
Esau,” though Esau was the elder; and so
Hebrews 11:20.
So again in Exodus 5:20 we read, “Moses and Aaron” (see
also Ibid. ch.40:31;
Numbers 16:43; Joshua 24:5; I Samuel 12:6; etc.), though it appears from
I Chronicles 6:3 that Aaron was the eldest. So again we
read in Genesis 48:5,
“Thy two sons,
Ephraim and Manasseh,” and in v. 20, “God make thee as Ephraim
and as Manasseh,” though in v. 1 of the same chapter they are named according
to the true order
of birth — “Manasseh and Ephraim.” It
is, therefore, an
unwarrantable inference that Abram was the eldest son
because he is
named first; and with the removal of this inference the
difficulty vanishes;
and Stephen was quite accurate when he said that God
appeared to
Abraham in
difference between
(הָרָן).
It
is called “the city of
Arab village, with the name of
3 “And
said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and come into the land which I
shall shew thee.”
Thy land for thy
country, Authorized Version.
4 “Then
came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt
in
Charran: and from thence, when his father was
dead, he removed
him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.” —
Version; God removed for he removed,
Authorized Version. The land of the
Chaldaeans. In Genesis 11:28
was dead (see note to v. 2). God removed. That God is the subject appears from
the following verbs, “he gave,”
“he promised.” The verb μετώκισεν – metokisen –
he removed, is the technical word
for planting a colony. Wherein, etc. (εἰς τὴν –
eis taen – into which)
ye came and dwelt.
5 “And He
gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set
his foot on: yet He promised that He would
give it to him for a
possession, and to his seed after him, when
as yet he had no child.”
And for yet, Authorized Version; in for for a, Authorized Version.
He gave him none
inheritance, etc. (compare
Hebrews 11:8-9).
6 “And God
spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a
strange land; and that they should bring
them into bondage, and
entreat them evil four hundred years.” In a strange land; a land belonging
to some one else
(Hebrews 11:9, γῆ ἀλλοτρία
- gae allotria – land strange,
alien - as here); a land in
which he had none inheritance, not yet become the
possession of his seed; for as the writer to the Hebrews
says, he dwelt in tents
with Isaac and Jacob; not applicable, therefore,
in the first instance to
at all. And this sojourning as strangers and pilgrims lasted altogether
four
hundred and thirty years, and two hundred and fifteen years in
two hundred and fifteen in
in round numbers of four hundred years from the giving of
the promise to
Abraham to the
giving of the Law on
“four hundred years” must not be taken in connection with the bondage
and the ill treatment
which characterized the last half of the period, but
as spoken of the whole
period during which they had not possession of the
promised land. Bring them into bondage. So the Septuagint; but the Hebrew, as
rendered in the Authorized Version, has “and they shall serve them.” But some
(see render the Hebrew as the Septuagint does. Four hundred years. This is a
round number, as in Genesis 15:13. The exact time, as given in Exodus 12:40-41,
was four hundred and thirty years.
The Ethics of Scripture Quotation (v. 6,
etc.)
Much has been said, in modern times, about the importance
of quoting
from other writers or speakers with the utmost correctness
and precision,
giving the exact language in which the other mind clothed.
its thought.
And, from the point of view of a somewhat narrow theory of
inspiration, it
has been urged that all scriptural quotations should give
the very words of
the Scripture writer. Against making this bondage injurious
and painful,
two considerations may be presented.
1. It may be noticed
that the Scriptures, as we have them, are translations,
i.e. they are the thoughts
of the inspired writers expressed in words chosen
by other men, and there is no reason why men nowadays, who
can grasp
the thought of the original writer, should not give it
expression in other,
better-chosen, and better-adapted terms.
2. It may be shown
that the apostles and New Testament speakers and
writers did not put themselves under any such severe
limitations. They
quoted freely, jealous of the sense, but not unduly
concerned about
repeating the precise phraseology. Of this we have instances
in Stephen’s
speech, to which we direct attention; premising that our
space does not
admit of our pointing out every instance of deviation or
addition, and that
we can only attempt to open an interesting line of study.
It is to be noticed
that Stephen quotes from the Septuagint translation rather
than from the
original Scriptures, but even from the Septuagint he makes
what seem to
be important alterations; and he blends traditional
references with Scripture
quotations, as if some recognized authority attached to
them. It is very
probable that “ancient genuine elements were preserved
traditionally
among the Jews, which received their higher confirmation by
admission
into the New Testament. If we consider the general
prevalence of oral
tradition among all ancient nations, and particularly the
stationary posture
of things which was common among the Jews, such a descent
of genuine
traditionary elements through a succession of centuries will lose the
astonishing character which it seems to have. Illustrations
may be given of
the following points :
AFFECT THE TRUTH.
Ø Truth must get a form of words if it is to
be communicated to and
received by men
and is largely dependent on language.
Ø A particular truth is not, of necessity,
confined to one particular form of
words. Each man
may give it his own form of expression, and,
conceivably,
each man’s form may adequately represent the truth,
and convey it
to another mind.
Ø
The
utmost importance would attach to the ipsissima
verba
(the very words) of
Scripture, if they could be recovered.
Ø That they cannot be recovered, and can
only be known in translation,
may be designed
to convince us of the comparative unimportance of the
mere form.
Ø The Bible is translated into many
languages, and in its varied dress it is
found
efficiently to retain its spirit and its power.
AFFECT THE TRUTH.
Stephen spoke from memory; Paul, in his
writings, quotes from memory. Ministers
and teachers must often quote
from memory. The power of memory
is of two kinds:
Ø the power to retain exact words;
Ø the power to retain the thought, the
truth, or the principle, which found
expression in the
words. It may be easily said that the verbal memory is
alone the
correct one, but, more carefully considered, we would recognize
the superior
correctness of the memory that held the truth rather than the
words.
SHOULD HAVE MORE CARE ABOUT GAINING SPIRITUAL HOLD
OF THE TRUTH. Of this
Stephen gives effective example. And it may be
shown that a precise and
adequate expression of any truth depends, not on
the exact remembrance of a form
of words or an accepted creed, but on
spiritual insight, on the
clearness of our visions of the truth: he who sees
the truth will never find it
difficult to make his brother see it too.
7 “And the
nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said
God: and after that shall they come forth,
and serve me in this place.”
Which for whom,
Authorized Version. And serve me in
this place. These
words are not in Genesis 15., from which the preceding
words are quoted.
Instead of καὶ λατρεύσουσι μοί ἐν τῷ
τόπῳ τούτῳ
- kai latreusousi
moi en
to
topo touto – and
shall be offering divine service to me in this place
- the
Septuagint, following the Hebrew, have μετὰ ἀποσκεύης
πολλῆς – meta
aposkeuaes pollaes - with
great substance. The words “serve me in this place,”
seem certainly to have been suggested by Exodus 3:12, “Ye shall serve God
upon this mountain;” but they give a perfectly correct account of what
happened in this case.
Living Faith (vs. 1-7)
Abraham is well called “the
father of the faithful;” nowhere, in the Old
Testament or in the New do we meet with any one whose life
was such an
illustration of implicit trust and holy confidence in God
as was his. If faith
be not merely the acceptance of a creed, or the utterance
of sacred phrases,
or the patronage of religious institutions; if it be a
living power in the soul,
it will manifest itself in:
home and kindred, and he left
them. He did not know whither he was
going (Hebrews 11:8), but at the
call of God he set forth promptly and
willingly. So Matthew at the
summons of the Savior (Matthew 9:9). So
many thousands since his day;
men and women who have heard the Master
say, “Go,” and they have gone,
relinquishing all that is most cherished by
the human heart. When God
distinctly speaks to us, whatever He may bid
us do, at whatever cost we may
be required to obey, it behooves us to
comply instantly and cheerfully.
God when everything is bright
and hopeful. When we can see our way we
can easily believe that it is
the right one. Living faith shows itself when we
“do not see and yet believe” (John 20:29). Abraham was promised the
land of
it.” “By faith he sojourned in the land of
promise, as in a strange country”
(Hebrews 11:9). This might have
seemed to him as a “breach of
promise” (Numbers 14:34) on the part of Him who brought him out of
Chaldaea, but he does not seem to have entertained any doubts or
misgivings. Moreover, he
believed that the land would be the property of
his seed, though “as
yet he had no child.” “By faith
also he offered up
Isaac,” etc. (Hebrews 11:17). Even in the thick darkness, when he
could not see one step before
him, Abraham trusted God. We profess to
“walk by faith,
not by sight” (II Corinthians 5:7),
but we are often
fearful and doubtful when the
way is clouded. But it is in the night of
adversity that the star of faith
must shine.
“When we
in darkness walk,
Nor feel
the heavenly flame,
Then is
the time to trust our God
And rest
upon His Name.”
that, after being in bondage
four hundred years, his seed should serve Him
in that country. It was a long
time to look forward to. But the believing
patriarch rested in God and was
satisfied. We are impatient if our schemes
do not come to maturity in a
very brief time; we cry “failure” when only a
small fraction of four centuries
is passed without the redemption of our
hope. We are bound to remember
that we “have to do” with the Eternal
One. We must wait his time, whether it be a day or a thousand
years.
8 “And He
gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham
begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth
day; and Isaac begat
Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve
patriarchs.” Jacob the twelve for
Jacob begat the twelve, Authorized
Version. He gave him the covenant
of circumcision,
subsequently to the gift of the land by promise. The
argument suggested is apparently the same as Paul’s in Romans
4:10-17.
9 “And the
patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into
God was with him,” Moved with
jealousy against Joseph, sold him, for moved
with envy sold Joseph, Authorized
Version, more correctly, and in accordance with
Genesis 37:11, Septuagint; and for but, Authorized
Version. Moved with jealousy, etc.
Here breaks out that part of Stephen’s argument which went
to show how
the Israelites had always ill-used their greatest
benefactors, and resisted the
leaders sent to them by God.
10 “And
delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom
in the sight of Pharaoh king of
and all his house.”Before for in the sight
of, Authorized Version. And
delivered
him, etc. And even so had he delivered His servant Jesus from the grave,
and raised
Him to eternal life.
11 “Now
there came a dearth over all the
and great affliction: and our fathers found
no sustenance.” Famine for dearth,
Authorized Version;
Receptus;
12 “But
when Jacob heard that there was corn in
fathers first.” Sent forth for sent out, Authorized Version; the first time for
first,
Authorized Version.
13 “And at
the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren;
and Joseph’s kindred was made known unto
Pharaoh.”
Race became manifest for
kindred was made known, Authorized Version.
“Kindred” is a much better word here, because Joseph’s “race” was
already
known to Pharaoh (Genesis 41:12); “was made known” is a far
better
phrase than “became manifest.”
14 “Then
sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his
kindred, threescore and fifteen
souls.” And
Joseph sent for then sent Joseph,
Authorized Version; called to him Jacob his
father for called his father Jacob
to him, Authorized
Version. Three score and fifteen souls. In Genesis 46:26-27,
the statement is very precise that “all the souls of
the house of Jacob, which came
into
the accuracy of the number
is tested in two ways. First, the names of the sons and
daughters of each patriarch are given, and they are found,
on counting
them, to amount to exactly seventy. And then the totals of
the descendants
of each of Jacob’s four wives is given separately, and
again the total is
exactly seventy (33 + 16 + 14 + 7 = 70). It is true that
the computation in
v. 26 does not agree with the above, for it makes the
number of Jacob’s
descendants, exclusive of Joseph and his two sons,
sixty-six instead of
sixty-seven, which is the number according to the two above
computations,
and consequently the total number (when Joseph and his two
sons are
added) sixty-nine instead of seventy. But this is such a
manifest
contradiction that it seems almost a necessity to suppose a
clerical error,
שֵׁשׁ for שֶׁבַע caused perhaps by the preceding שִׁשִׁים. It is also a singular
anomaly that, in the enumeration of Leah’s descendants, as
well as in the
general enumeration, Er and Onan are distinctly reckoned as well as
mentioned. Jacob
himself is nowhere reckoned in the Bible, though he is in
the commentaries. But when we turn to the Septuagint, we
find that in
Genesis 46:20 there are added to Manasseh and Ephraim Machir, the
son and
sons, and
grandson, of Ephraim, making the descendants of Rachel
eighteen (it
should be nineteen if Huppim,
Genesis 46:21, is added) instead of
fourteen; the number sixty-six of v. 26 is preserved; the
number of
Joseph’s descendants is given as nine (Huppim
apparently being now
reckoned), which, added to sixty-six, makes seventy-five;
and accordingly in
v. 27 the Septuagint read ψυχαὶ ἑβδομηκονταπέντε – psuchai ebdomaekontapente
–
seventy-five souls, instead of “three score and ten.” But except in
the addition of
these five names of Joseph’s grand and
great-grand-children, the Septuagint
support the Hebrew text, even in the strange sixty-six of
v. 26. Stephen,
as a Hellenist, naturally follows the Septuagint. But the
question arises — How
are we to understand the lists? Genesis 46:8 says, “These are the names
of the children of
to find the names only of those who are described in vs.
5-7 as the
migratory party from Canaan to
disturbed by Er and Onan being included in the enumeration. This may,
however, be accounted for by Pharez
and Zerah being reckoned as their
seed. But is it likely that Hezron
and Hamul the sons of Pharez,
and the
other great-grandsons of Jacob, were born before the
descent into
The answer to this is that, as Jacob was a hundred and
thirty years old
when he came down to
improbability in his having great-grandchildren (allowing
forty years for a
generation); on the contrary, every likelihood that he
should. But on the
other hand, as Joseph could not have been above fifty when
Jacob came
down to
likely or possible that Joseph should have had grown-up
grandsons and a
great-grandson, as the Septuagint make him have. Indeed, to
all appearance
Manasseh and Ephraim were unmarried young men at the time
that Jacob
blessed them (Genesis 48:11, 16; 50:23). Therefore we may
conclude
certainly that the additional numbers of the Septuagint are
incorrect, if
understood literally, of these who came down with Jacob
from
Judah, to whom grandchildren are attributed, was Jacob’s
fourth son, and
might be forty or fifty years older than Joseph and
Benjamin. Asher, to
whom also grandsons are attributed, was the eighth son, and
might be
twenty years older than Joseph and Benjamin. Still,
considering that Er and
Onan are reckoned among those who came down to
surprising to find that some of those mentioned in the list
were born after
Jacob’s arrival, but included on some principle which we do
not
understand. In other words, a literal interpretation of the
statement of the
Hebrew Bible involves no impossibilities, but a literal
interpretation of the
statement of the Septuagint does.
15 “So
Jacob went down into
And for so, Authorized
Version; he died, himself for died, he, Authorized Version.
16 “And
were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that
Abraham bought for a sum of money of the
sons of Emmor the father of
Sychem.” And
they were for and were, Authorized
Version; unto Shechem for into
Sychem, Authorized Version, i.e.
the Hebrew for the Greek form of the name
(Genesis 34:2); tomb for sepulcher, Authorized
Version; a price in silver for a
sum of money, Authorized
Version; Hamor for Emor, Authorized Version.
(Hebrew for Greek form); in Shechem
for the father of Sychem, Authorized
Version
and Textus Receptus.
As regards the statement in the text, two distinct transactions
seem at first sight to be mixed up. One, that Abraham bought the field of Machpelah
of Ephron the Hittite for a
burial-place, where he and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah,
and Jacob and Leah, were buried (Genesis
24:16-17,19; 25:9-10; 35:27-29; 49:29-31);
the other, that Jacob “bought
a parcel of a field..., at the hand of the
children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for an
hundred pieces of money,”
where the bones of Joseph were buried by Joshua (Genesis
33:19; 50:25;
Joshua 24:32), and where, according to a tradition still
surviving
in the days of
(‘Epistol.’86,” She came to Sichem,
now called Neapolis (or Nablous),
and
from thence visited the tombs of the twelve patriarchs”).
See also Jerome,
‘De Optimo Genere
Interpretandi. All Jewish writers, however, are
wholly
silent” about this tradition, perhaps from jealousy of the
Samaritans
(Lightfoot, vol. 8. p. 423). And Josephus affirms that all
but Joseph were
buried at
monuments were to be seen at
Machpelah, however, there is no tomb of any of the twelve patriarchs
except Joseph; and his so-called tomb is of a different
character and
situation from the genuine ones (
1st series, pp. 498-500. See also ‘Sermons in the East’:
‘The Mosque of
only Shechem was in Stephen’s
mind. For first he speaks of Shechem at
once, And were
carried over unto Shechem. And adds and were laid
in
the tomb that
Abraham bought for a price in silver of the sons of
Hamor in Shechem. Except
the one word “Abraham,” the whole
sentence
points to Shechem. What he says
of Shechem is exactly in accordance with
Genesis 33:18-19. And what he says of their fathers being
carried over
and buried at Shechem is exactly
true of Joseph’s bones, as related in
Joshua 24:32. So that the one difficulty is the word “Abraham.” It
seems much more probable that this word should have been
interpolated by
some early transcriber, who saw no nominative case to ὠνήσατο – onaesato –
bought; purchases - and who had in his
mind a confused recollection of
Abraham’s purchase, than that Stephen, who shows such
thorough knowledge
of the Bible history, should have made a gross mistake in
such a well-known
and famous circumstance as the purchase of the field of Machpelah, or that
Luke should have perpetuated it had he made it in the hurry
of speech. It
cannot be affirmed with certainty that Stephen confirms the
story of the
other patriarchs being buried at Shechem,
though possibly he alludes to the
tradition. The plural, “they
were carried,” etc., might be put generally, though
only Joseph was meant, or “the bones of Joseph” might possibly be the subject,
though not expressed. Lightfoot — followed by Bishop
Wordsworth, who thinks
that Abraham really did buy a field of Ephron
in Sychem, when he was there
(Genesis 12:6) would thus be right in supposing that the
point of
Stephen’s remark was that the patriarchs were buried in Shechem.
17 “But
when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn
to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied
in
Authorized Version; vouchsafed unto for had sworn
to, Authorized Version
and Textus Receptus.
Vouchsafed; ὡμολόγησεν – homologaesen - in the sense
of “to promise,” as in Matthew 14:7, and not unfrequently in Greek writers,
for ὀμνύειν – omnuein - to swear.
Stephen’s Address: Lessons of the
Patriarchal Time (vs.1-17)
Stephen’s view of Jesus and His mission rests, as every
sound and thoughtful view
must do, on the whole past history of the nation — as a
nation called to a spiritual
destiny in the purposes of God.
Her God is the “God of glory.”
Power, holiness, perfect
freedom, are included in this
idea of the “glorious God.” History is a
Divine revelation, because it
unfolds His counsel. In times of doubt the
rulers of a nation, the guides
of a community, should retrace the past to its
beginnings, for a Divine idea
lies at the basis of the national life and of
every sacred institution.
Ø
The self-revelation of God
to Abraham. Every new epoch in religious
history starts with a fresh
self-revelation of the spiritual nature and
attributes of the glorious God.
Amidst idolatrous scenes, the depths of
Abraham’s spirit were stirred,
and a light from above shone in. From
idols, from Sabaean
fetish-worship, he turned, “to serve the living and
the true God.”
Ø
The call to Abraham. He was to be the
reformer of religion, the founder
of a nation, whose life was to
root itself in the acknowledgment of
a living and a
holy, spiritual Being as their God.
o
Such
calls involve ever sacrifice. Home must be quitted; its loved
associations in
fancy and feeling torn up; kindred left behind. It is the
type of those
moral changes and those consequent sacrifices which
accompany God’s
call to souls at every time.
o
They
involve the exercise of faith. Future good, in the shape of a new
home and land,
are promised to the patriarch, but the when and the
how of their possession are left — as we say
to imagination; as the
Bible says, to
faith. “He went out, not
knowing whither he went.”
It has been
said that life is an education by means of “illusions;”
were it not
better to say that life is an education by means of ideals?
They are of
their nature future, indefinite, must be left for time to
unfold, as with
the prospect of good vaguely shadowed forth before
the mind of
Abraham.
o
They
require unquestioning obedience. Such was that of Abraham. He
had nothing to
rely on but the promise of God; all else was against him.
When he came to
the “land,”
he found no inheritance in it, no resting-
place for his
foot. Spiritual trials consist in the perplexity of the will,
caused by the
contradiction between the unseen truth and the opposition
of appearances
to it. Facts stubbornly resist our ideals; the world,
perhaps, scoffs
at the ideals themselves. To “endure as seeing Him
who
is invisible,” is
part of the certain calling, and at the same time
the high joy,
of the called soul. And faithfulness is certain to know
repetitions and
confirmations of the assuring — promise.
o
The
light of promise ever leads, on. It is to be remarked that the Divine
forecast of the
future is not of unmixed brightness. A sorrow and a
struggle for
the young nation is to prepare for its enjoyment of freedom.
It is to be cradled and rocked in slavery. By the stern and cruel
knowledge in
itself of the tyrant’s oppression,
to Jehovah its
Deliverer, and find in His service emancipation from
every secular
yoke.
o
Divine
institutions confirm Divine promises. Israel had its peculiar
sacramental
institution of circumcision. A sacrament is a species of
religious
language, the more impressive because addressed to the eye
than merely to the ear. In it an act of God and an act of man are
expressed; surrender on the side of man, acceptance and blessing
on the side of
God.
Thus the sacrament becomes
the channel of tradition; the tribe and the
nation have a common and visible
bond of union. Such were the Divine
beginnings of
that of Jesus.
Ø He was the object of envy and unnatural
hatred on the part of his
brethren. So
was Jesus envied and hated by the rulers of the nation, and on
the like grounds
— the manifest favor of God which was with Him. Such is
the law —
superior spiritual energy at first arouses opposition (II Timothy 3:12).
And especially
from those nearest of kin (Matthew 10:36). Such, too, was the
experience of
Jesus. Nothing is more painful to the heart than to see one,
hitherto
supposed an equal, rising to eminence above our heads. The best
will suffer
from jealousy; how much more those whose evil is thus set in
the light of
contrast, exposed and condemned!
Ø But he enjoyed Divine compensations. “God
was with him,” “delivered
him
from all his troubles,” imparted to him grace and wisdom in the
presence of the
earthly great. So was it with Jesus. Hate and envy may be
defied by force
or intellect; but better is it when the envious and hateful are
themselves
revealed in their hideousness by the bright shining of God’s
grace upon the
good man’s life.
Ø Again, the wrath of men is often made the
instrument of good to them.
The force which
would undermine is made to exalt. Joseph becomes
prime minister
to Pharaoh; the crucified Jesus is, through His cross,
exalted to be
Prince and. Savior.
Ø The living soul will find an opportunity
of overcoming evil with good.
The famine in
Canaan gave Joseph the opportunity of a glorious revenge.
The account of
his recognition of his brothers, and forgiveness of them, is
most touching
and rich in typical suggestiveness. Those who love
allegories may
find much food for fancy in the details. Those who prefer
broad spiritual
lessons may also find in the figure of Joseph the very ideal
of the gentle
side of
suffering
Savior, who triumphs over His foes by the might of forgiving love.
Ø The result of the chain of events. The
settlement of Israel in Egypt. How
strangely is
the web of destiny spun! How deeply laid the train of causes
and effects
which result in great histories and revolutions! Any course of
events is
highly improbable beforehand,
which after it has taken
place
unfolds
a providential logic and profound design. So with Christianity
Nothing can
seem beforehand more improbable than the whole story of its
foundation. At
Athens the story of the crucified One was folly, and at
God.
Hatred to Joseph was
the first moving spring of a long religious
history and
triumph. Hatred to Jesus was now being
proved the spring of
His triumph and
the mighty prevalence of His religion. God works through
the evil
passions of men as well as through the good; and all powers in
rivalry with
love must sooner or later be brought submissively to follow in
the wake of her
eternal progress of blessing. In humiliation and in
exaltation
Joseph presents a lively type of Jesus. And the Sanhedrin must
have felt this
as they listened to the old familiar story of the origin of the
nation. They
are face to face with the fact of a new origin. Will they learn
the lesson of
the past for the present? Do we learn the lessons of the past
for our present?
18 “Till
another king arose, which knew not Joseph.”
Over
arose, Authorized
Version.
19 “The
same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil
entreated our fathers,
so that they cast out their young children,
to the end they might not live.”
Race for kindred, Authorized
Version, as in v. 13; that they should cast out
for so that they cast out, Authorized Version;
babes for young children,
Authorized Version.
The connection of the people of God with the
interesting, and suggests valuable lessons for all time. We
are reminded by
the text of:
the eventful experiences of
Joseph (vs. 9-10). First rejoicing in his
father’s peculiar favor, then
sold into Egyptian slavery, then rising to a
position of trust in the house
of his master, then cast into prison, then
raised to the premiership; up on
the height of comfort, down into the depth
of misfortune, up again on the
crest of honor, then down again into the
trough of shame, etc. So with
Israel the man and Israel the people (vs. 11-19).
The patriarch at first in a
position of relief and advantage, then in
one of distress and
disadvantage; the nation falling into the dark gulf of
bitter bondage until raised up
with a strong hand and stretched out arm
into liberty. Thus is it with
men and with nations. With none does the
course of things prove to be a
straight line, either of ascent or of descent. It
is always undulatory.
Light and shadow, sweetness and bitterness, hope
and fear, joy and sorrow,
alternate from the cradle to the grave.
felt that his distresses had
been overruled by the Divine hand, we know
(Genesis 50:20). We can also see
how the descent into
the long slavery in that land of
bondage were a discipline which wrought
ultimate good, of the most solid
and enduring kind, to
sufferings which they endured
together in those broiling brickfields, under
those cruel taskmasters, and to
which in happier times their sons looked
back with such intense emotion;
by the marvelous deliverances which they
experienced together in the land
of the enemy and in the “great and terrible
wilderness,” and of which their descendants sang with such reverence
and
such rapture; — by these common
sufferings and common mercies they
were welded together as a
nation, they became rich in those national
memories which are a people’s
strength, they became a country for which,
through many a succeeding
century, patriots would cheerfully risk all their
hopes and proudly lay down their
lives. We learn these lessons.
Ø
Be prepared for coming
changes in circumstance. No man has a
right
to
feel secure in anything but in a wise and holy character, in that which
makes him ready for any event
that may happen. At any hour human
prosperity may pass into
adversity, joy into sorrow, honor into shame;
or at any hour straitness may be exchanged for abundance, lowliness for
elevation, gloom for gladness.
We all urgently need the fixed principles,
the rest in God, the attachment to
things eternal and Divine, the
heritage in the heavenly future,
which will keep us calm in the most
agitating vicissitudes of
earthly fortune.
Ø
Trust God when
things are at their worst. In the
first days of Egyptian
slavery, and still more in Potiphar’s prison, things must have looked dark
indeed to Joseph. “But
God was with him” (vs. 9-10). It was a terrible
time, too, for the children of
Joseph” dealt subtly with and, evil entreated them, slaying their
young
children at their birth (vs.
18-19); but God saw their affliction (vs. 34-35;
Exodus 3:7), and was preparing
to send the deliverer in due time. And
to the upright in any scene of
disappointment and distress there will arise
“light in the darkness” (Psalm 112:4). Trust and wait; the longest and
severest storm will pass, and the
sun shine again on the waters of life.
Ø
Realize that God has
large and long purposes in view. Jacob died far off
from the promised land, but his
bones were to rest there in due course,
and there his children were to
have a goodly heritage. It matters little
what happens to us as
individuals; enough if we are taking a humble
share in working out His great and beneficent designs.
20 “In
which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up
in his father’s house three months:” At which season for in which time,
Authorized Version; he was nourished three
months in his father’s house for
nourished up in his father’s house three
months, Authorized Version. Exceeding
fair (ἀστεῖος τῷ Θεῷ -
asteios to Theo – handsome to God). In Exodus 2:2
it is simply ἀστεῖος (a goodly child) Authorized Version, and so in Hebrews
11:23,
rendered “a proper
child,” Authorized Version. Josephus
(‘
describes Pharaoh’s daughter as captivated by the size and beauty of the child,
and as speaking of him to Pharaoh as of Divine beauty. And Justin (quoted by
21 “And
when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and
nourished him for her own son. 22 And Moses was learned in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in
words and in deeds.”
Instructed for learned,
Authorized Version; he was mighty for was mighty,
Authorized Version; in his words and works for in
words and in deeds,
Authorized Version and Textus Receptus. The
statement of Moses being
instructed in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians,
though not found in Exodus,
was doubtless true. Josephus makes Thermeutis speak of him as “of a
noble
understanding;” and says
that he was “brought up with much care and diligence.”
And Philo, in his life
of Moses , says he was skilled in music, geometry,
arithmetic, and hieroglyphics, and the whole circle of arts
and sciences.
23 “And
when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit
his brethren the children of
When he was precisely forty years old. The exact
meaning seems to be “when
he was in the act of completing
forty years.” The account in Exodus 2:11 only says,
“When Moses was grown” (μέγας γενόμενος – megas genomenos – had grown up –
Septuagint); the age of forty years, and the number of years, forty, that he sojourned
in Midian, as given below, vs. 29-30, are traditional. There are that say that “Moses
was forty years in Pharaoh’s
palace, forty years in Midian, and forty years in the
wilderness.” (Tauchum, in Exodus 2). “Moses
was forty years in Pharaoh’s court,
and forty
years in Midian, and forty years he served
both quoted by Lightfoot (‘Comment. and Exercitations upon
the Acts’).
The sum total of the three periods of forty years is given
as the length of
Moses’ life, viz. a hundred and twenty years (Deuteronomy
34:7).
24 “And
seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and
avenged him that was oppressed, and smote
the Egyptian:”
Smiting for and smote, Authorized Version.
25 “For he
supposed his brethren would have understood how that God
by his hand would deliver them: but they
understood not.” And he supposed
that his brethren understood for for he supposed
that his brethren would have
understood, Authorized Version; was giving them deliverance
for would deliver
them, Authorized
Version.
26 “And
the next day he shewed himself unto them as they
strove, and
would have set them at one again, saying,
Sirs, ye are brethren; why
do ye wrong one to another?” The day
following for the next day,
Authorized Version; he appeared for be showed
himself, Authorized Version.
27 “But he
that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who
made thee a ruler and a judge over us? 28 “Wilt
thou kill me, as thou
diddest the Egyptian yesterday?” Wouldest for wilt, Authorized
Version;
killedst for diddest Authorized Version.
Moses is premature in his actions and for his rashness two days relegates
him to forty years’ absence from the scene and the holy
enterprise into
which he had flung himself with zeal so passionate (vs.
24-28). What will
forty years do for him? What will they make of him? They
will temper him,
subdue much the confidence of self, and will make him more
meet for the
Master’s service, at the very time that he shall appear
less zealous for it.
29 “Then
fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of
Madian, where he begat two sons.” And Moses
fled for then fled Moses,
Authorized Version; became a sojourner for was a stranger,
Authorized
Version; Midian for
Madian, Authorized Version.
Israel in Egypt: The Rise of Moses (vs.
17-29)
We may view these events as typical of the Christian
time or as expressive
of an inner meaning, a Divine logic of history. We may
learn, then, from
this passage:
WITHOUT STRUGGLES, The
people grew and increased, but a sudden
check was given to their prosperity
by the accession of a new king. Israel
might have settled in
had not
persecution compelled her to struggle for existence and for liberty.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time with the blood of
patriots
and tyrants." (Thomas
Jefferson) Times of national danger throw
the nation back upon its true
consciousness. They vivify and purify that
consciousness. It was England’s
struggle against a tyrant which made England.
So the War of Independence made
to the individual also. We may
depend upon it that permanent good must
sooner or later be struggled for
— either that it may be gained, or, if
gained, that it may be kept.
FOR DIVINE INTERPOSITION; or, man’s extremity is God’s
opportunity. “When the tale of
bricks is full,” says the proverb, “then
comes Moses.” Great stirrings
among the people, movements towards
liberty and purity of religion,
seem to produce at the right moment the
patriotic leader and the
reformer. When the hour comes the man is not
wanting. It may be argued that
until the leader appears the movement is not
ripe. God reveals His will for
change in the words and work of great men.
was divinely fair. He was
wonderfully preserved from death; rescued by the
very daughter of the persecutor,
and cradled in the very house of his foes.
His education among one of the most
richly civilized of ancient peoples
was complete; and the influence
of his person was most commanding. God
does not bestow
such graces for nothing. Whenever we see such a one
marked out by beauty, knowledge,
intellectual power above his fellows, we
are entitled to ask — What is
his significance for the world? What does
God mean to do with him for the
good of mankind? Again, the life-ideas in
such great men are often of slow
ripening. Not till he was forty years of
age did his thoughts turn to the
condition of his nation, and the delivering
purpose come to fruit in his
heart. Some men conceive much earlier the
ambition and the call of their
life, and move toward the goal with
extraordinary velocity and
energy. Others appear to be long dormant, like
the oak that tarries to put
forth its leaf in the woodland. Great careers have
been run, great works achieved,
by the age of thirty-seven: Alexander,
Raphael, Byron, arc well-known
examples. Cromwell, on the other hand,
was about the age of Moses when
God called him from the fens of
Huntingdon to save our nation.
The age matters little; men in this respect
resemble plants — “Ripeness is
all.”
CAUSES. A single spark
is sufficient to fire the train of powder which is to
explode the mine. When the mind
is full of an idea, a trifling circumstance
may stimulate all its energies
to action. A forming purpose waits only for
the decisive action to fix and
crystallize it. Thus the act of Moses in
delivering the individual
Israelite from his oppressor fixed him in his
national design. In everything
let us follow the lead of God. Let us
remember that we are here first to be acted upon by Him, that we may then
act from Him
upon others. If we are really in earnest, the opportunity will
never be wanting. God makes His
servants ready for great enterprises by
first inspiring them for lesser
duties. The large and distant project may hold
the mere visionary’s view; but
the practical and really useful man begins
with his neighbor next door. The
man who actually helps his friend in need
is the man who may be trusted to
help a community or a nation. But how
many dreamers are there whose
projects of amelioration begin and end
with eloquent speeches or
articles in newspapers! The old lesson comes
back from Moses’ life to all who
would do and be something in the world:
“Do the thing that lies nearest
to thee; the second will have already become
clearer.”
MISCONCEPTION. There
is much pathos in the simple word that he
thought his brethren understood
that God was delivering them by his hand;
but they did not understand. So
mighty is the strength derived from the
sympathy of numbers, the common
soldier becomes a hero at its electric
touch. So chilling is
misconception and want of sympathy on the part of
friends, it damps the spirit of
the Heaven-born leader. For this reason,
when we sift the examples of
moral courage presented by any time, those
are the bravest and the
greatest, and most prove their call of God, who
show that they can go on, if
needs be, not merely in spite of their open
enemies, but in spite of their
friends. The misconstruction of friends will be
most felt when the action is in
the conscience known to be most
disinterested and sincere. Moses
aims to reconcile contending brethren;
unity among themselves is now
above all necessary. His action is
misconstrued as ambition (v.
28). Thus does the sick man turn on the
kindly physician, the subject on
his prince, the slave on his deliverer. Man
often ignores the
day of his salvation. Moses, like his
great Antitype, was
baffled in his saving designs by
the ignorance and folly of those who would
not be blessed. But he simply
uses prudence and waits for a future
opportunity. We can hardly
construe the flight of Moses otherwise than as
an act of prudence. He saw his
life and with it his design endangered. To
have remained would have been
foolhardiness, often confounded with true
courage. He took the course of
prudence, which is the course of the higher
courage. Far easier to rush on
an heroic death than to nourish a noble
purpose under disappointment,
solitude, and exile. The history of a nation’s
greatness is summed up in that
of its great men. And in the life trials and
struggles of great men God reveals Himself from age to age as the
persevering, unvanquishable, and loving SAVIOUR
OF MANKIND!
His undying purpose, manifested
in all His heroes, is to set us free; and
this in the knowledge of Him and
obedience to His laws.
30 “And
when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the
wilderness of
bush.”
Fulfilled for expired, Authorized Version; an angel
appeared for there
appeared… an angel,
Authorized Version; an angel for an angel of the Lord,
Authorized Version and Textus Receptus; Sinai for Sina,
Authorized Version.
31 “When
Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near
to behold it, the voice of the LORD came
unto him,” And when for when,
Authorized Version; behold for behold it, Authorized
Version; there
came a voice of the Lord for the voice of the Lord came unto him, Authorized
Version. There came a voice. The Authorized
Version is surely right. The Lord
has only one voice; and φωνὴ Κυρίου – phonae Kuriou - the
voice of the Lord –
is that voice. The
grammatical effect of Κυρίου (Lord) upon φωνὴ (voice) is to
make it definite, as in ἄγγελος Κυρίου
– angelos Kuriou – angel of the Lord –
(see ch. 5:19, note).
32 “Saying,
I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses
trembled, and durst not behold.”
Saying, Authorized
Version, is omitted; of Isaac and of Jacob for the God of
Isaac and the God of Jacob, Authorized Version and Textus Receptus; and for
then, Authorized
Version.
33 “Then
said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the
place where thou standest
is holy ground.” And the Lord said unto him for
then said the Lord to him, Authorized Version; loose the shoes for
put off by shoes,
Authorized Version. Loose
the shoes, etc. In Exodus 3:5
it is λύσαι... ἐκ τῶν ποδῶν
σου..- lusai….ek ton podon
sou… - take…off of your feet - Iamblichus, quoted by
Meyer, refers the Pythagorean precept, “Sacrifice and
worship with thy
shoes off,” to an Egyptian custom. The custom of Orientals
to take off
their sandals on entering mosques or other sacred places,
as existing to the
present day, is noticed by many travelers (see also Joshua
5:15).
34 “I have
seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in
deliver them. And now come, I will send
thee into
I have surely seen (literally,
seeing I have seen — the wellknown
Hebrew idiom for emphatic affirmation) for I have seen,
I have
seen, Authorized
Version; have heard for I have heard, Authorized Version;
and I am for and
am, Authorized Version, the change is in accordance with
the Authorized Version of Exodus 3:7-8.
The Call of Moses (vs. 30-34)
It denotes spiritual agency in
its intensity. Fire penetrates and it purifies. It
is, therefore, harmful to evil and
conservative of good. Darkness of
mystery is round about God, and
when He comes forth from it to reveal
Himself to men it is in the form
of fire. It is an emblem of the Holy Spirit. In
the bosoms of men He glows, and
the musing poet bursts forth into inspired
song, and the prophet into
“words that burn and thoughts that breathe of
truth and power.” When we ask
that God will answer us by fire, we ask
that be will make known His
presence in the most vivid manner in feeling,
and with the most mighty effect
on the life. Specially the vision of the
burning bush was a type of
persecution in
— a bright flame springing from
the lowly bush; of the Church amidst its
age long conflicts and trials;
lastly, of all truth, which “like a torch, the
more it’s shook, it shines;” the
more the breezes of controversy blow about
it, the purer and clearer its
illumination.
well as that of sight is
addressed. So ever in the disclosures of the Divine.
What we have felt in part
through the hearing of the car is illustrated and
confirmed by the evidence of the
more skeptical organ, the eye. Or what
we have witnessed with a
certainty not to be gainsaid, in actual fact is
presently interpreted and
connected with the great principle to which it
belongs by some similar voice of
teaching. The utterance here is simple. It
is a declaration that the God of history is THE EVER-PRESENT GOD!
He who was with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob is here with Moses. Faith
has always its past to fall back
upon; it can renew its life in moments of
weakness out of the living fount
of memory.
PRESENCE. First, Moses wonders at the burning bush. Wonder is the
reflection in feeling of the
extraordinary, and it is the parent of curiosity.
Why and whence, the spirit asks,
this interruption into the course of nature? It
is the appearance of the living
God, is the only answer to the question.
Here wonder passes into fear and
trembling, which betray man’s sense of
utter dependence in the presence
of the Almighty and the All-holy. The
sight of the unspeakable glory
is shrunk from. In ordinary life nature and
custom conceal God, and
mercifully; for how could one glimpse of
absolute truth, of Divine
perfection, be endured? But terror passes into
reverence, which is the blending of fear with love and confidence as the
mind becomes more inured to the
experience. The sandals are thrown off,
as in the presence of an august
sovereign. How good to feel that nature,
the daily scene of a wondrous
drama, the occasional theatre of magnificent
spectacles, as in the tempest,
the thunder-voices and fiery revelation
betokening the presence of
creative might, — is holy ground! But the mind
becomes deadened by custom. And
well is it, therefore, that in those places
specially consecrated to
meetings with God — the church, the private
oratory — habits of outward
submission and reverence should be cultivated
which may have their right
influence on the whole moods of the soul.
Ø The call of man by God is ever to service
on behalf of the suffering. All
human
suffering has an
echo in the heart of God. He is the God of all
compassion. He
is not merely love, but love as an active will. He
determines to
save. Now it is a nation from outward captivity, now a
generation from
bondage to ignorance and fear. Light and health are the
images of His
energy and influence.
Ø The called man is a man sent. He has a
mission, and it is ever a mission
to the lowly
and the meek. So has it been with all the great prophets; so
above all with
the Christ. “I send thee into Egypt.” “Where lies the Egypt
to which I am
sent, and where the fulfillment of my life-call must lie?” the
Christian may
ask. John Howard found his Egypt in the prisons of Europe,
and “trod an
open but unfrequented path to immortality.” Our Egypt may
be close at
hand. Wherever we see an obsolete custom, a corrupt habit of
thought, an
ignorance of any kind, a spell laid upon the imagination, or a
vice
tyrannizing over the will of others, there is a house of bondage. God
needs the
co-operation of many finite deliverers that His design of an
infinite
deliverance may go forward. If we, like Moses and like Elijah and
Isaiah, are
ready with our “Here am I; send me,” it will not be long before
we receive
our directions and our marching orders.
35 “This
Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and
a judge? the same did God send to be a
ruler and a deliverer by the
hand of the angel which appeared to him in
the bush.”
Him hath God sent for the
same did God send, Authorized Version.; both a
ruler for a ruler,
Authorized Version. and Textus Receptus;
with the hand for by
the hand, Authorized
Version and Textus Receptus
(σὺν – sun - for ἐν – en - ),
but giving no clear sense in English. The meaning seems to
be that Moses was
to rule and save with the strength given him by the angel but
it is much simpler
to take ἐν χειρὶ - en cheiri – in hand - as equivalent to the common Hebrew phrase
בְיָד, meaning instrumentality, “by means of,” “through,” and to join it with
“did send.” The
angel who spake to Moses in the bush in
the Name of God was God’s instrument in sending Moses. When
an angel
gives a message from God, the words are always given as
spoken by God
Himself (see e.g. Joshua 1:1-3). In this verse
Stephen, having with great
oratorical skill entranced their attention by his recital
of God’s marvelous
revelation of Himself to Moses, now takes them off their
guard, and shows
how their
fathers treated Moses just as they had
treated Jesus Christ; and
how God in the case of Moses had chosen and magnified the
very man
whom they had scornfully rejected; just as now He had exalted Jesus Christ
to be a Prince and a Savior, whom they had crucified.
36 “He
brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders
and signs
in the
This man for he, Authorized
Version; led them forth for brought them out,
Authorized Version; having wrought for after that
he had showed, Authorized
Version;
37 “This
is that Moses, which said unto the children of
the Lord your God raise up unto you of your
brethren, like unto me; Him shall
ye hear.”
God for
the Lord your God, Authorized Version and Textus
Receptus;
from among for of, Authorized Version. The Received Text omits the words
Him shall ye hear, which
follow in Deuteronomy 18:15, and seem to be referred
to in Matthew 17:5 (αὐτοῦ ἀκούσεσθε αὐτοῦ ἀκούετε
– autou akousesthe autou
akouete – Him ye shall
be hearing Him be ye hearing). The
addition of the words
adds much to the point of Stephen’s application (see above, ch.
3:22).
A Prophet like Moses (v. 37)
The reference is to Deuteronomy 18:18, and, as
introduction, the
difficulties which Moses found in executing his mission may
be vividly
described. In Stephen’s day it was the fashion to exalt
Moses and the
Mosaic system, but this was done in forgetfulness of the
facts connected
with Moses’ career. Again
and again his leadership was refused.
The stiff-
neckedness and unspirituality of the people
tried him very sorely; once, to
so great an extent, that he spake
unadvisedly with his lips, and threw down
the tables of the Law. This Moses, in whom now they
trusted, they were
not really willing to heed, any more than their fathers had
been; for Moses
had himself prophesied of the Messiah, and any one who
chose could make
the comparison between Moses and Jesus of Nazareth, and see
that the one
answered to the other just as the great lawgiver had indicated.
Some of the
points of similarity between Moses and Messiah may be
considered and
illustrated.
mysterious preservation; Messiah
in His mysterious birth. Both in early
manhood (each early relatively
to the age they lived): Moses in the vision
of the flaming bush; Messiah in
the dove-vision and heavenly voice at His
baptism.
of the Egyptian court and in the
solitudes of Horeb; Messiah in the
experiences of the carpenter’s
house at Nazareth, and in the temptations of
the Jordan desert.
an advance and a decline from
the older patristic dispensation; an advance
as a fuller revelation of God’s
will, and a decline as imprisoning spiritual
truth, for a time and purpose,
in stiff religious rites and ceremonies.
Messiah, one
which was in every way an advance, liberating men from all
ritual bonds, and
bringing to open hearts the fuller revelations of the
Father.
men; exhibiting afresh His
claims, and revealing Himself. Every man who
sees God thereby becomes a power on his fellows. Moses, in a
surprising
manner, saw God on Sinai; and
with his vision there may be compared our
Lord’s vision on the Mount of
Transfiguration.
by any studies and inquiries of
his own. Both were:
Ø
moral teachers;
Ø
religious teachers;
Ø
teachers of a specific
Divine truth;
Ø
each enabled, by the
power of miracle, to attest their teaching
claims.
made it continually known that
God sent him and God spake by him.
Messiah made it
fully known that He did not speak of Himself, but the
words which the
Father gave Him He gave forth to men.
This claim, based
on Divine authority, Stephen
presses on the attention of the Sanhedrin,
urging that it makes their
rejection of Christ positively criminal.
v. 35 and compare the rejection
of Messiah. Impress that the many-sided
and abundant proofs that Jesus
is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, and
the Savior, bring His personal
claims closely home to us, and make great
indeed the guilt of
our rejecting Him. “How
shall we escape, if we neglect
so great
salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3)
38 “This
is He, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel
which spake to
him in the
received the lively oracles to give unto
us:” Sinai
for Sins, Authorized Version.
(Hebrew for Greek form); living oracles for the
lively oracles, Authorized Version.
In the church. Stephen probably used
the word
ἐκκλησία – ekklaesia – church –
without any reference to its special meaning, “the Church.” It
is used in a secular
sense in ch.19:32, 39, and of the congregation
of
I Chronicles 13:2; I Maccabees
2:56; Ecclesiasticus.
44:15; and elsewhere. In
Stephen’s time it could hardly have become
widely known as the designation of
the flock of Christ. On the whole, the marginal rendering, “the
congregation,”
seems best, but with the idea attached that it was the Lord’s
congregation.
The angel which spake. It may be
doubted whether the phrase, “the angel which
spake to him in the mount
Sinai,” refers to the angel spoken of
in v. 30, or to the
angel by whose
mouth God spake the words of the ten commandments on
Mount
Sinai, as recorded in Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy
5:1-22. Chrysostom
and most
commentators seem to understand it of the angel who gave
the Law; but
not without reason, thinks the reference is to the burning
bush. Living oracles. In
like manner, Paul calls the Holy Scriptures “the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2),
and in Hebrews 5:12 we read again of “the first principles of the oracles of God,”
and Peter says, “Let him speak as the oracles of God”
(I Peter 4:11). For the
force of the living or lively oracles, see ibid. vs. 23, 25. Stephen magnifies
Moses
by reminding his hearers how he had received the Law from
God to give to
the people.
39 “To
whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them,
and in their hearts turned back again into
Authorized Version; turned back in their hearts unto
turned back again into
would not be
obedient, though God had
bestowed such signal marks of
favor upon them. Turned
back in their hearts. A
striking instance of their
rejection of God’s chiefest
mercies.
The Divine and the Human (vs. 20-39)
though it is usually unseen. We
see the Divine working in
Ø
the creation of such a
mind as that of Moses;
Ø
the fashioning of such
a frame as was his (v. 20; Hebrews 11:23);
Ø
the deliverance of the
child from the dangers of the river;
Ø
his being confided to
the guardianship and instruction of Pharaoh’s
daughter,
where he would learn “all the wisdom of the Egyptians”
(v.
22), and thus be prepared for future work.
We can have no doubt as to the
operation of Divine wisdom in such a case
as this. May we not say — Ex
uno disce omnes? (from
one thing you can
discern
all). May
we not conclude that there is the handiwork of God
in all our lives, if we could
but discern it; that He is directing our course;
and that, though it is evidently
best for us that we should not see so much
of Divine intervention as to be
unwisely waiting for it or injuriously
dependent on it, we may console
ourselves with the belief that “we are not
driftwood on the wave,” but
rather as noble ships which a heavenly hand is
steering to the desired
haven? (Psalm 107:30)
was “in Moses’ heart to visit his
brethren,” and he took their cause in hand
in a very practical and decisive
way (v. 24). He may have been mistaken
in the method which he adopted,
but that is of very small moment. The
great thing is that it was in
his heart to sympathize with and succor his
brethren. The temptation to
become naturalized as an Egyptian must have
been great indeed. High honors, great wealth, abundant gratification of the
lower instincts, — these
prizes and pleasures, which are dear to men in
general, were well within his reach. He
deliberately chose to forego them
all that he might play a nobler and braver
part. Well has the event justified
his choice. For as a rich and
powerful Egyptian, he would have achieved
nothing of any value to mankind;
he would long ago have been forgotten;
but as it is, he has rendered
a service to the human race second to none that
lived before the Savior, and has a name that will never die while the world
has any place in its memory for
its heroes and its martyrs. Not on the same
splendid scale, but in the same
estimable spirit, can we emulate his nobility,
preferring an honorable
affliction to unholy pleasure, a sacred and useful
life among the lowly to ungodly
distinction among the great, the service of
Christ anywhere to the smiles
and favors of the world.
Himself to the bodily senses in
a wondrous form; in such form that Moses
felt that, in a very unusual
degree, he stood near to his Creator. Jesus
Christ now
manifests Himself to us as He does not
unto the world:
Ø
in the privileges of
His house and table;
Ø
in the
inspiration and indwelling of His Spirit;
Ø
in the spiritual wonders
He works in the hearts and lives of men with
whom we have to do.
Israelites God must have seemed
very far away. It must have appeared to
them as if He were blind to
their miseries, deaf to their sighs and groans,
indifferent to their wrongs. But
they were mistaken. All the while He
was
observing and
pitying them, and was ready to interpose at the right time on
their behalf. When to our fainting and distrustful heart it seems as if
our
Divine Lord were unobservant or
unmoved, we may rest assured that:
Ø
He sees,
Ø
He
compassionates, and
Ø
He holds Himself
ready to put forth His redeeming strength on
our behalf when the hour for our
deliverance has struck.
contend that the best and
noblest men who have rendered the most signal
and splendid service to our race
are certain to be appreciated according to
the height of their virtue and
the value of their help, we should go in the
teeth of human history. Some of
the very best and wisest have been least
understood, most despised and
ill used. Moses, one of the very greatest,
“attaining to the first three,”
most eminent in privilege, in character, in
accomplishment, was one “whom
they refused” (v. 35), “whom our
fathers would not
obey” (v. 39). We may work, hoping to be appreciated
and honored of men, accepting
gladly and gratefully the esteem and the
love they award us; but we
must not build upon it as a certain recompense
of our endeavor. We must be prepared to do without it, to be able to say,
“I will work on, ‘though the more abundantly I love the less
am I loved.’”
(II Corinthians 12:15) Our true reward is in the smile of the
Savior, the
approval of our own heart (I
John 3:21), the consciousness that we are
serving our generation, the blessing which awaits the faithful in the land
of promise.
that should come was to be “like
unto” the faithful servant in the house of
God (Hebrews 3:5). As He was to
be like one of us, so we are to strive
to be “like unto Him.” And we may bear His image, breathe His Spirit, live
His life, do in our sphere the
work He did in His: “As He is, so are we in this
world.” (I John 4:17) “As
my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”
(John 20:21)
40 “Saying
unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this
Moses, which brought us out of the land of
Egypt, we wot not
what is become of him.”Which shall go for to
go, Authorized Version;
led us forth for brought
us, Authorized Version.
41 “And
they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the
idol, and rejoiced in the works of their
own hands.” Brought a sacrifice
for offered sacrifice, Authorized Version (see
Exodus 32:6, with which the
Authorized Version agrees best); hands for own
hands, Authorized Version.
42 “Then
God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven;
as it is written in the book of the
prophets, O ye house of
have ye offered to me slain beasts and
sacrifices by the space of
forty years in the wilderness?” But for then, Authorized Version; to serve
for to worship, Authorized Version; did ye offer unto me
slain beasts and
sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of
Authorized Version. The passage which follows is nearly verbatim
et literatim
the Septuagint of Amos 5:25, 27, except the well known substitution
of “
for “
readers in the schools and pulpits of the Jews, to
adapt and accommodate a text
to their own immediate purpose, keeping, however, to historical truth.
Here
Stephen points to the Babylonish
Captivity as the punishment of the sins of
their fathers, thus warning them of more terrible judgments
to follow THEIR
REJECTION OF CHRIST!
43 “Yea,
ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your God
Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them:
and I will carry
you away beyond
for your god Remphan, Authorized
Version and Textus Receptus;
the figures for
figures, Authorized
Version. The god Rephan. Rephan, or Raiphan, or Remphan,
as it is variously written, is the Septuagint translation
of the
Hebrew Chiun in
Amos 5:26. The best explanation of this is that Rephan is the
Coptic name of the
planet Saturn, well-known of course to the
Septuagint, and that Chiun is the
Hebrew and Arabic name of the same star, which they
therefore translated by
Rephan. With regard to the difficulty which has been felt by many that there
is
no mention of any such worship of Moloch and Chiun
in the wilderness, and that
sacrifices were continually offered to the Lord, it seems to arise
from an entire
misconception of the passage in Amos. What Amos means to say
is that because
of the treacherous, unfaithful heart of
golden calf and all their rebellions in the wilderness, all
their sacrifices were
worthless. Just as he had said in Amos 5:22, “Though ye offer me burnt
offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them:
neither will I
regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts;” “I hate, I
despise your feast
days; Take away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will
not hear the
melody of thy viols”
(Amos 5:21, 23): just as Isaiah also says, “To
what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?...
I am full of the
burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts ... Bring
no more vain
oblations; ... it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting” (Isaiah 1:11-13,
etc.); and again, “He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that
sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation,
as if he offered swine’s blood” (Isaiah 66:3): so all
the sacrifices
offered up during forty years in the wilderness were no sacrifices at all, and
their hypocrisy was clearly seen when they reached the
and, according to Moses’ prophetic declaration, “forsook
God which made
them… and sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom
they knew
not” (Deuteronomy
32:15-18), such as Chiun and Moloch, Baalim and
Ashtoreth. This later idolatry was the
fruit and the
judicial punishment of
their first declension and apostasy in the wilderness, and
led to THE
CAPTIVITY IN
wilderness that “God turned and gave them up to serve the
host of heaven.”
Moses, and Israel’s Bearing towards Him: A
Figure of Christ.
(vs. 35-43)
OF GOD. The Israelites
refused Moses as their ruler and judge; and God
sent him as ruler and as
emancipator to the people. Moses went into exile,
and there was honored by a
revelation of the glory of God; and with a
special mission Jesus had been
slain in
come back in the power of the
Spirit, to clothe the disciples with fiery
eloquence, to vibrate through
their hearts with power, and to put forth
mighty power to heal through
their means — thus being proved Leader and
Savior of the people. Human
blindness and folly only bring a new reaction
of the power and mercy of God.
So often with us all. We resist the leading
thoughts of the day. We hate the
new truth which brings change with it, the
fresh revelation which calls us
to larger freedom. We think to silence the
new teacher by contempt. But lo!
in some unexpected quarter power
breaks forth to seal the teacher
and his message, and we are silenced.
THAT OF CHRIST.
Grandly the figure of the desert lawgiver rises before
us in the sketch of Stephen.
Ø His mighty works. Those in Egypt,
when he outdid the profound
magicians, and
established the supremacy of Jehovah over Pharaoh and all
the gods of
The memory of
those deeds lived in the heart, could never be forgotten.
They laid the
foundation stones of the great structure of their history. So
did Jesus lay
the foundation of His kingdom in works, the power of which
and the purport
of which He could appeal to as evidence of His Divine
mission.
Ø His prophetic forecast and its fulfillment. The memorable prophecy of
the great
Teacher to come, found in the Book of Deuteronomy, was one of
prophet to come
with Jesus in so many words, his meaning is evident to all
the Sanhedrin.
Was there a hint in that prediction which was wanting in
the actual
character of Jesus? And if the Sanhedrin had rejected Him, how
could they fail
to incur the judgment threatened in that great passage of the
Law? Some of
the later parables of Jesus (as that of the wicked
husbandmen)
were also, perhaps, fresh in the recollection of many. Thus
did the lines
of ancient and recent evidence converge upon the present, and
give to it a
solemn significance.
Ø
The renewed contrast of the divinely
accepted and the humanly
rejected. (vs. 38-39) Moses was the channel of ancient revelation. He
received loving
words to give to the people. And Jesus had said that the
words He spake were not His, but the words of Him that sent Him. Yet
Israel
in the desert
and
presence was
manifestly with Moses. In the desert the angel of God was
ever at his
side. So had it been with Jesus. Had not one of this very
Sanhedrin
confessed to Jesus that God must be with Him, seeing the works
that He did?
Yet both Moses and Jesus had been rejected. And in both
cases, when the
voice of God said, “Forward!” the heart of
back. In the
one case they longed for
the comfort and the luxury of Egypt,
in the other
for the sensual joys of an earthly kingdom. Better to retain
power and
position than to go on the
idle chase after the ideal and the
spiritual; so the low mind, the carnal heart,
argues in every age.
It was
the choice of
the flesh and the denial of the Spirit that was in each case
the cure of the
sin, as it is everywhere and always.
Ø The lapse into idolatry. The
worship of a visible form is far easier than
the lifting of
the spirit to an invisible God. Idolatry is the making to one’s
self a god;
spiritual religion is the constant exertion to rise to HIM who
cannot
be reproduced in finite forms of the intelligence or of art. The
element of self-denial or of self-pleasing predominates in each and every
form of
worship. An upward and a downward movement is always
proceeding in
the religious life of a people. Some are ever trying to bring
God into the service of their passions and
interests; while true religion tries
to mold all
life into conformity with God’s
will. Idolatry brings penal
consequences.
Men are given up to their hearts’ desire. (Romans 1:24,26,28)
The
moral nerve decays. Spiritual
energy being lost, they become weak in
the
presence of their enemies. Those touches of reminiscence from the past
were enough to
touch tender chords in the minds of Stephen’s hearers. Well
they knew
idolatry had been the curse of the nation. Defeat, slavery, exile, —
all came in its
train. All might be traced
back to the bitter root of disobedience,
as that to unbelief
in the living God. And what if now a similar vista of
calamity were
opening; if history were to repeat itself, and disobedience to
the voice from
heaven in Jesus should lead to A
FINAL DOWNFALL!
Our history
mirrors our sins and our mistakes. If we do not heed its warnings,
nothing can
avert our fate. No act of disobedience to conscience has passed
unpunished in
our lives. The worst of madness is deliberately to repeat old
errors and
stereotype our moral failures. If the ghosts of the past, as they
appear in
memory and reflection, do not deter us, what
will or can?
(“Those
who do not know history are doomed to repeat it!”
George Santayana)
44 “Our
fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He
had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he
should make it
according to the fashion that he had
seen.” The
testimony for witness,
Authorized Version; even as He appointed who spake for as He had appointed,
speaking, Authorized
Version; figure for fashion, Authorized Version.
Chrysostom calls attention to the mention of the wilderness, as
showing
that God’s presence and service were not confined to
45 “Which
also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into
the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face
of our fathers, unto the days of
David;” In
their turn for that come after,
(διαδεξάμενοι – diadexamenoi – ones
succeeding him), Authorized
Version;
Joshua (the Hebrew
form) for Jesus (the Greek form of the name), Authorized
Version; when they entered on the possession of the
nations for into the possession
of the Gentiles, Authorized
Version; which God thrust for whom God drave,
Authorized Version. In
their turn; more literally, having received it in succession.
It only occurs here in the New Testament. Meyer quotes
IV Maccabees 4:15,
“On the death of Seleucus,
his son Antiochus received the kingdom in succession ;”
and classical writers. When they entered, etc. There are three ways of
construing the words ἐν τῇ κατασχέσει
τῶν ἐθνῶν
– en
tae kataschesei ton ethnon
-
in
the tenure of the nations.
(1)
as the Authorized
Version, taking ἐν – en – in - in the sense
of εἰς
– eis -
into - and
making the phrase synonymous with the
land
which the Gentiles then possessed;
(2)
in (their) taking
possession (of the land) of the Gentiles, i.e. when they
took,
taking κατάσχεσις - katascheisis – possession
- in a transitive sense,
which
seems to be the sense of the Revised Version:
(3) during the
holdings or possession by the Gentiles of the
land, that, viz. into which their fathers brought the
tabernacle.
The first seems the most simple and in accordance with the
Greek
of the New
Testament, and with what follows of the expulsion of the
nations
before the Israelites.
46 “Who
found favor before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for
the God of Jacob.” In the sight of for before,
Authorized Version (ἐνώπιον –
enopion – in view
before; sight of before); asked for
desired, Authorized
Version; habitation for tabernacle, Authorized
Version (σκήνωμα skaenoma –
tabernacle). Habitation. In Deuteronomy 33:18 σκήνωμα stands in the Septuagint
for אִהֶל, and in II Peter 1:13-14, for the human body as the
tabernacle or
temporary dwelling of the soul or spirit. And the idea of a
temporary or movable
dwelling seems to suit Stephen’s argument better than that
of a fixed one.
The מִשְׁכָנות of Psalm 132:5 (to which perhaps, as well as II Samuel
7:1-6,
Stephen refers) is equally applicable to a tent.
47 “But
Solomon built Him an house.” A house for an
house, Authorized Version.
The οϊκος – oikos - the house - which Solomon built, seems to be almost in
contrast
with the σκήνωμα (the
tabernacle).
48 “Howbeit
the most High dwelleth not in temples made with
hands; as saith
the prophet,” Houses (in italics)
for temples, Authorized Version and Textus
Receptus. The word ναοῖς – naois - temples (here, but not in
ch.17:24) is omitted
in the Received Text. In Isaiah 16:12. In
the Septuagint χειροποίητα – cheiropoiaeta –
hands (plural) is used without a substantive
for the “sanctuary” (מִקְדּושׁ) of
For the sentiment that the infinite God, Creator of heaven and
earth, cannot be
contained in a
house built by the hands of men, see also II
Chronicles 6:18, as well
as the passages above quoted. Stephen justifies himself from
the charge of
having spoken blasphemous words against the temple by
citing Isaiah 66:1.
49 “Heaven
is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye
build me? saith
the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?”
The heaven for heaven, Authorized Version;
the earth the footstool of my
feet for earth is
my footstool, Authorized Version; what manner of house f
or what house, Authorized Version.
50 “Hath
not my hand made all these things?”
Did not my hand make for
hath not my hand made, Authorized Version.
Sin and Righteousness. (vs. 39-50)
These verses suggest to us some thoughts on the nature and
the award of
sin and of righteousness.
Stephen says that the
children of Israel “in their hearts turned back
again into
faced round and marched back
into bondage. The sin was in the spirit of
disloyalty and disobedience
which dwelt within them. “Out of the heart
proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, blasphemies” (Matthew
15:19). “As a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). It is
the secret thought, the hidden
motive, the cherished purpose, the lingering
desire, the burning passion,
that constitutes the essence of the evil in the
sight of Him who looketh on the heart, and not on the outward appearance.
Beneath a fair exterior some men
hide a false and guilty heart; beneath a
broken and faulty behavior others
have a soul that is struggling on and out
— on to a better life, out of
the entanglements of an evil but regretted and
repudiated past.
DETERIORATION IN WHICH IT ENDS. (vs. 41-43.) For their
rebelliousness the children of
wander in the
wilderness, instead of being at once
admitted to their
inheritance; also by being subjected to the rule of foolish and faulty kings
like Saul, instead of wise and righteous prophets like Samuel; also
by being
sent away into captivity, even “beyond
their sin was in their being led
into darker and more aggravated evil. Their
culpable impatience — “We wot not what is become of him” — led them
to an act of positive idolatry: “Make
us gods go before us;” and “they
made a calf… and
offered sacrifice unto the idol;” and
this act of theirs led
on, in course of time, to
idolatrous actions more flagrant and. heinous still
(v. 42); and their wrong-doing
culminated in the worship of Moloch, an
iniquity of the very deepest
dye. This is the course and penalty of sin. One
wrong act leads to another and a
worse; one sin to a number of
transgressions; and these to a
habit of iniquity; and this to a dark, baneful
life and a hateful and odious
character. By far the worst penalty which sin
has to pay is the spiritual damage and
deterioration to which it leads — the
blinded eyes of the
understanding, the weakened will, the enfeebled
conscience, the masterful unbridled passions, the foul soul. Suffering of
body, exile, loss of worldly
prospects, the death of the body, — all these
are nothing to this spiritual ruin.
ENDEAVOUR AFTER GOD AND GOODNESS. (vs. 44-46.) It does
not consist in the possession
of privilege; otherwise the fathers of the
Jewish race — having “the
tabernacle of witness in the wilderness” and
afterwards in the land where the
Gentiles were driven out before them (v.45),
all things having been made “according to the fashion”
which Moses
had seen — would assuredly have
been godly and holy men. True human
righteousness is rather found in
such Godward aspiration and endeavor as
we find in David, the man “who found
favor before God” (v. 46). And
how came he to enjoy this Divine
regard? Not because he was faultless in
behavior — we could wish he had
been far less blameworthy in certain
particulars than he was — but
because he strove earnestly to worship and
serve God, repenting bitterly
when he sinned, struggling on again with
contrite spirit, continually
seeking to gain God’s will from His Word, and
honestly endeavoring, spite of
inward imperfection and outward
temptation, to do what he knew
to be right. This is human goodness; not
angelic purity, not flawless
rectitude, but earnest seeking after the true and
good, hating the evil into which
it is betrayed, casting itself on God’s
mercy for the past, facing the
future with devout resolve to put away the
evil thing and walk in the paths
of righteousness and integrity.
NEARNESS OF GOD TO OUR
SPIRIT. (vs. 47-50.) David was not
permitted to “build an house for
the Lord.” It was a deep disappointment
to him, but he had a very real
consolation. God was near to him
everywhere. Was He not, indeed,
much nearer to the father who did not
build the house, than to the son
who did? David might have written (if he
did not), “I am continually with thee” (Psalm
73:23). “The Most High
dwelleth not in temples made with hands” (v. 48), and though we do not
build Him costly and splendid
sanctuaries, though we should be deprived of
the opportunity of meeting Him
in His house at all, yet when we survey “all
these things” His hand has made and is sustaining, we may feel that He is at
our right hand, and that we
stand “before the Lord.” Nay, if we be “in
Christ Jesus,” we know that, though no magnificent temple can contain
Him, He
dwells abidingly within our hearts, to sustain and to sanctify us.
51 “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do
always resist the
Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”
Stiff-necked; hard
of neck, inflexible.
The word σκληροτράχηλος – sklaerotrachaelos – stiff-necked
ones - only occurs
here in the New Testament. But it answers in the
Septuagint to the Hebrew קְשֵׁה־עֹרֶף
(hard of neck); see Exodus 33:3, 5,
and elsewhere. In applying this expression to his
hearers, Stephen was
using the identical language of Moses
when he conveyed
God’s rebuke to
them. Considering that they professed to be standing on Moses’
side against Stephen, this must have made his words doubly
cutting to them.
Uncircumcised in
heart; ἀπερίτμητος – aperitmaetos – uncircumcised
ones –
only occurs here in the New Testament, but it is found in
II Maccabees 1:51; 2:46;
and in the Septuagint of Exodus 12:48; Judges 14:3; I
Samuel 17:26, and elsewhere
for the Hebrew עֹרֵל. The word, in its application to his Jewish audience,
contains a whole volume of rebuke. They prided themselves
on their
circumcision, they trusted in it as a sure ground of favor
in the sight of
God; but all the while
they were on a level with the heathen whom they
despised, and
were to be reckoned among the uncircumcised whom they
loathed. For they were without the true
circumcision, that of the heart.
Here again Stephen was teaching in the exact spirit and
even words of
Moses and the prophets. See Leviticus 26:41; Deuteronomy
10:16
(where Stephen’s two reproaches occur together); Jeremiah
9:26;
Ezekiel 44:7; and many other passages. Compare the teaching
of Paul
(Romans 2:28-29; Philippians 3:2-3; Colossians 2:11; and
elsewhere).
52 “Which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they
have slain them which shewed
before of the coming of the Just
One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers
and murderers:”
Did not… persecute for
have not… persecuted,; killed for have slain,
Authorized Version; righteous for just, Authorized
Version; have now
become for have
been now, Authorized Version; betrayers for the betrayers,
Authorized Version. The close resemblance of
Stephen’s words to those of
our Lord recorded in Luke 13:33-34; Matthew 5:12;
23:30-31, 34-37, lend
some support to the tradition that he was one of the
seventy, and had heard
the Lord speak them. But the resemblance may have
arisen from the Spirit
by which he spake, “the Spirit
of Christ which was in” him.
53 “Who
have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.”
Ye who received for who
have received, Authorized Version; as it was ordained
by
angels for by the
disposition of angels, Authorized Version; kept it not for have not
kept it, Authorized
Version. Ordained by angels. This phrase, thus differently
rendered (εἰς διαταγὰς
ἀγγέλων – eis diatagas angelon
– by prescription, mandate
of messengers, angels), is one of extreme difficulty: διαταγή - diatagae –
ordinance, disposition - means properly
appointment,” or “ordinance,” as in
Romans 13:2; and
εἰς – eis, which has a great variety of uses in the Greek of
the New Testament, means “at,” or “upon,”
or “on
the occasion of,” as
Matthew 12:41, “At the preaching of
Jonah.” So here they received the Law
“at” or “on the occasion of,” the “ordering” or “appointing” of angels.
When the angels, who were
commissioned by God and spoke in His Name,
gave the Law, the Israelites
so received it. The Authorized Version,
“by the disposition of angels” very nearly
expresses the true sense.
Another sense of εἰς — “in view of” — comes to nearly the same thing.
Paul speaks of the part taken by the angels in the giving of the Law, and in
language strikingly resembling the text. He says of it, that it was “ordained
through [‘by,’
Authorized Version] angels. ”
God ordained or appointed the
Law, but the angels were the instruments or ministers of its promulgation.
And it is also distinctly referred to in Deuteronomy 33:2, where the Septuagint
reads, “On His right hand
the angels were with Him.” In the
foregoing verses
the application which Stephen had all through been
contemplating is hurled with
accumulated force at the consciences of his hearers, and cuts them to the heart,
but does not bring them to repentance.
The Recital of a Nation’s Spiritual Pedigree
— Its Leading Suggestions.
(vs.
1-53)
Technically the description of a defense may very
justly be applied to the
long stretch of these verses. They no doubt do stand for
Stephen’s formal
defense. He has been very mildly challenged by the high
priest to say
whether the “things” laid to his charge “are so.” And he
loses not a minute
in replying. He replies, however, in his own way. That way
is somewhat
indirect. His tone betrays some sense of his being in some
sense also master
of the situation. He tempts us much to feel that much may
be read between
the lines, and we soon come to convince ourselves that the
real drift of the
personal defense is laid on the lines of a national indictment — and that
national indictment very little else than the barest recital
of the pedigree of
the nation in question. Stephen does not make it too
apparent at first —
any mere than once on a time Nathan did, when he appeared
to condignly
judge David (II Samuel 12) - but he puts before himself and
hearers the nation
of
what way it has come to this present. The places of
judge and judged almost
seem turned, both in the matter and the manner of Stephen.
It is very
possible that (as Stephen never lived to put in writing nor
to repeat what he
now said) there is some disjointedness in the language as
it is now before
us, and some interval, and (though many doubt the
suggestion) that
interruptions, especially just at the close, determined the
form of some
parts of Stephen’s strong accusation. On the other hand, we
have to
remember that probably nowhere do we read language fresher
from the
dictate of the Holy Spirit. The recital of the spiritual
lineage of this nation
reveals:
MARKED CHARACTER.
These occur in more shapes than one.
Ø There is the originating sovereign choice
and sovereign call of Abraham
(v. 2).
Ø The express command to him whither he is
to go and where awhile to
dwell (v. 3).
Ø Express promises vouchsafed to him and
his seed, and covenant, made
with him (vs. 6-8).
Ø An unfailing, providential guidance of
him and his linear descendants,
Isaac and
Jacob and Joseph. This name
Joseph does not fail to lead
Stephen to
recite:
o
the
providence that wonderfully overruled the worst of the work of
envy;
o
the
providence that exalted Joseph, an alien, to
o
the
providence that was aiming at and that did secure the more remote
result of
settling awhile the nation in
Ø The providential saving of the life of
the infant Moses, educating of him,
endowing him
with a spirit of both goodness and power, preparing him
well by
chastening delay and discipline, and finally calling him to see and
know and take
up his mission, after an interval of forty years (vs. 23, 30,
35). The name
of Moses, again, does not fail to lead Stephen to
commemorate
o
the
chief features of his work, in leading the people of
forty-years wanderings with those people in the
wilderness;
o
the
distinct prophecy with which his lips were charged, relating to
the “Prophet,”
the Messiah, the late well-known Jesus
(v. 37);
o
the
typical “tabernacle in the wilderness,” so carefully and in
minute detail designed in heaven, yet so
temporary in its use for
the service of the wilderness and the
early settlement under
Joshua in “the
possession of the Gentiles”
Ø By two hurried touches, the reason of
which is scarcely far to find,
Stephen implies
rather than mentions the
providence which raised up David
to conceive
and Solomon to execute the building of the temple (ch. 6:14;
v. 48); when,
for whatever exact reason, the climax of the occasion
is reached. The
moment has come for the dropping of the mere recital of
history, every
step of which, however, was telling its own very plain and
very
significant tale. In words of flame and impassioned thrusts, the
solemn,
unanswerable, conscience-stinging charge is flung at the packed
body of accusers
and sympathizers. And the force came, not of bad spirit,
but
of the Spirit, the Spirit of
truth and conviction, of light and life, and,
when needs be,
of “consuming
fire.” So far Stephen’s recital of the moral
lineage of the
people is crowded with the
tokens of providence,
Nay, it is
one chain of
tokens of Divine love and Divine care. But on reading again
the recital we
find:
OF SINNERS,” To us the
things working in the mind of Stephen are not
obscure, but even to those
who heard him, light must have glimmered in
before the final
disclosure. When this came, no man doubted what it meant
nor to what it was
equivalent. Not exactly side by side, and not exactly
pari passu – (hand in hand) with the originating, directing, overruling, and
protecting “dispositions”
(v. 53) of Heaven, but certainly in many a most
mournful and untoward
conjuncture appeared the perverseness of
human
insubordination and
ingratitude and presumptuous opposition.
The worst
growths of ingratitude sprang
up where had fallen the richest showers of
heavenly grace. The worst forms of resistance assorted themselves in front
of the kindest and most
distinguished of heavenly leading. And it had
been
thus too systematically.
It had been so once and again, and the
indications
were to the effect that,” So
my people love to have it.” (Jeremiah 5:31)
Thus the whole length of
exceptional and most beneficent
grace was disfigured by the
intrusion of surprising ingratitude and
rebellion; and of late, Stephen has
to show, things have grown worse, nay,
they are come to a
climax. The seed of evil grew up into
plain sight.
Ø In those “patriarchs, moved with envy,”
who “sold
Joseph into
(v. 9).
Ø In the two cases, that grew upon one
another in degree of blindness,
when Moses
himself was so taken by surprise in that his own brethren did
not perceive
his mission, and that it was one for their benefit, at
whatsoever risk
to himself (vs. 25, 28, 35).
Ø In the rebellion and fickleness of
patent idolatry
there, a career of crime, Stephen implies, which begun there
never got purged
out of their system, but brought on THE CRUSHING
PUNISHMENT
OF THE CAPTIVITY! This was a marvelous stroke
of Stephen’s just
rhetoric — suggestion of the Spirit’s light and force —
to run up in
the compass of one sentence that initial act of idolatry into
the
flourishing continuation of it which both courted and caused the
captivity
of ever MEMORABLE SHAME! (vs. 38-43).
Ø But never so plainly, never so terribly as
now; the present generation
complete the
circle of the evil works of their fathers. They “resist the Holy
Ghost;” they are “the betrayers and murderers” of him for prophesying of
whom men were
both persecuted and slain by their fathers; they have not
honored their
own “Law,”
so boasted in, in the only acceptable way of
honoring it,
viz. in the “keeping” of it; and they have branded themselves
with the names “stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart and in” their very
“ears.” These are the formidable interruptions to
the purity, honor, nobility
of their
lineage. They are stains on their escutcheons — ineffaceable in
themselves. But
even all this is as nothing, for they
now drag their glory in
the
dust, and are for flinging it away FOR EVER!
The recital
shows:
subject, it may be supposed,
Stephen purposed to keep in some check for a
time. Yet:
Ø It is implied, for those who
certainly well knew all the history of Joseph
and his
brethren, in the allusion to the exaltation of Joseph, and his
brethren’s
repairing to him for corn, and finally his father and family
becoming as it
were his permanent guests (vs. 9-14).
Ø It is again implied (see the manifest hint
of some kind of v. 35) in the
justifying of
Moses’ unconscious taking up of his role as reformer and
deliverer of
his brethren (vs. 24-26), and in the parallel condemnation of
those whose
blindness, not seeing it, led them to say tauntingly, “Who
made
thee a ruler and a judge over us?”
Ø
It is
most emphatically stated of the idolatrous Israelites. God “turned,
and
gave them up” (v. 42).
(Can you not see what God is doing in
the 21st
century? Is not He giving
stated in Romans
1:24,26,28? – CY - 2016) And the fact of this being able
to be viewed
either as one long-continued course of retribution or retribution
frequently
repeated shows that, as Stephen approaches the end of his speech,
he is preparing
to give greater prominence to this matter. So far, then, the
striking moral
features of this history consist of unparalleled opportunity,
reckless
disregard of it and Heaven’s own distinct and most impressive
kind of warnings. But the whole case of Stephen
is not over till it is
observed how he
either purposely exhibits or is made the means of
exhibiting:
LINEAGE, MADE TO BE ILLUSTRIOUS, ALL MISERABLY
FORFEITED, AT LEAST FOR THE
FAMILY ITSELF. For:
Ø The aim and use of all, if they had not
been absolutely lost, would have
obviated the
necessity of any defense at all on the part of Stephen; and in
particular
would have rendered unnecessary his allusion to David, to
Solomon, and to
the nature of the dwelling-place of the “Most High,” as
also his
quotation of the prophet’s rapt, inspired, and foreseeing language
(vs. 46-50). It
seems evident that Stephen was far from being supremely
anxious on the
subject of his own personal defense; he is bent on
something far
beyond and above this. But so far as he was at all anxious
about it, it
was here that the point of it lay. Whatever he had said about
“this
place,” and about “the customs of Moses,” and
about “this Jesus of
days,” and who was the end and aim
and substance of all “the
Law and
the
prophets,” was near
to finding its solution, for those who had “ears to
hear,” at the point at which Stephen is found
quoting that prophet (v. 50).
But all was
lost on those whose nation had been educating fourteen
hundred years
if haply they might see this very thing and not lose it.
Ø The lessons of a moral and individual
nature are now to be yet more
shown spilled
on the ground. Yes, spilled, as Stephen’s blood itself was
spilled.
Instead of having learned or now learning, they are “cut to the
heart;” they gnash with their teeth; they cry out with a loud voice; they
stop their ears; they run upon Stephen with one accord;
they cast him out
of
the city; they stone him. It was the evening of hope for many of that
audience when
Stephen began to speak. When he has ended evening has
declined into a
mournful, dark, despairing night. A hundred times they have
been warned in
their own family history, and their fathers cry to them from
the very tombs.
But what can they hear who “stop
their ears”? And what
can any hear
who do likewise?
Lessons of Sacred History (vs. 44-53)
Ø The tabernacle. It was the tent
of witness or of attestation; otherwise
the “tabernacle
of the assembly,” or of the congregation. It was the visible
center of
people and the
altar of God. He met with them to declare His will, to make
known His laws,
and they with one another as a community having a
common weal. Religion is the true foundation of society. She is the” oldest
and holiest
tradition of the earth.” When a house of God is erected in the
wilds of
earthly
representation of a
heavenly reality. Moses made the tabernacle
after a Divine
archetype or model given to him. So worship on earth must
ever aspire to
and reflect the “life
above,” the risen life,
the life of spiritual
freedom and
victory. God is ever saying to new societies, as to the new
society in the
desert, “Make me a house after
the pattern you have seen;”
that is, have
a place and a recognition in your life for the holiest ideals, the
most sacred
purposes of life.
Ø The temple. Both the
tabernacle and the temple were designed and
constructed
after the analogy of human dwellings; the tabernacle was but a
more richly
furnished tent. As the wealth and power of the nation
increased, it
was fitting that this should be reflected in the greater
magnificence of
the house of God; and as they became settled in the Holy
Land, that the
tent of the nomad should give way to the palace of a King.
The temple of
Solomon represented in its magnificence the greatness of the
victorious
people should
keep pace with its growth in material prosperity. It is
miserable that
the church should be worse furnished than the ordinary
dwellings of
the worshippers, or that the minister of religion should fare in
poverty while
he supplies their spiritual wants. A rich man can surely afford
to contribute as
much to the pastor’s necessities as he pays in stipend to his
cook. But there are higher truths. The tabernacle
passed away; the temple,
as Stephen had
predicted, was to pass away; the spiritual verities eternally
remain.
Ø The dwelling of God in visible temples is
a symbolic thought, the reality
to which it
points is His intercourse with the soul of man. This was the
great truth of
prophetic teaching. The prophets were themselves living
illustrations
of it. God dwelt in them, spake through them, breathed upon
them, turned their
hearts unto His shrine, communed with them face to
face, as a man
with his friend. “The true Shechinah is man,” said a great
Father of the
Church.
Ø It is the spiritual indwelling which is at the heart of all true religion.
When it is once
grasped, great consequences follow. The priest and the
ritual and the
fixed place are no longer necessary. Every one who has a
truth from God,
and feels that it must be spoken, is a prophet. New oracles
may be opened
at any moment, new witnesses may arise, the truth find a
fresh utterance
from unexpected lips. If this truth be not recognized, the
sacred building
becomes an empty shell, the priests mere mummers, the
ritual a
pantomime. To believe that God can care for splendid temples and
ritual, for
themselves, is imbecile superstition. To believe that He values all
the expressions
of living and loyal hearts is a part of rational piety. But at
the highest
point of religious intelligence it may be well asked, “What need
of temple, when
the walls of the world are that?”
Ø
The
denial of the spiritual truth is the source of error, superstition, and
crime. The earlier Jews killed the prophets,
leaving posterity to find out
their value and
raise their monuments. Posterity did the like. The very men
who waved the
torch of truth more brightly in darkened ages, and those
who had the best news to tell their times, were silenced and suppressed.
The culmination
of all was the betrayal and murder of Jesus. Such a story
of miserable
persecution and suicidal hatred of the good carries its deep
and permanent
warnings. How dishonest if we take occasion from this
passage to form
an idle opinion of the peculiar bigotry of the Jews! Was
ever a
corporation, a body with vested interests, or a Church, known to act
otherwise towards
the new truth and the new teacher? Has any great
teacher in the
Christian Church been received at first with welcome and
owned as “sent from God”? Grudging toleration is the most he can
expect.
Only those who
know that religion is an affair of the individual soul, not of
the Church or
the formal confession, will welcome him in whom religion
now embodies
itself, and through whom, in the decay of systems, God
speaks with
freshness and power to the world.
Stephen’s Address in the Sanhedrin (vs. 1-53)
The charge was blasphemy and revolution against consecrated
authority.
The answer was, God by His Spirit has been preparing for
this time. Jesus is
the Messiah. As in former days our fathers resisted the
Holy Ghost, so now
this highest manifestation of His grace in “Jesus Christ.”
An appeal to
repentance and faith, Notice:
novelty discarding the past. Yet
not a mere development, but a new gift in
Christ. A great lesson on the
study of the Old Testament, which is too
much neglected. A help to trace
the line of the spiritual manifestations. A
warning against unbelief. A
declaration of the grace of God, apart from
human merit.
man. Courage of deep conviction.
Freedom from Jewish prejudice. Gospel
liberty not rationalistic
license. Spiritual conception of God and His
worship. Charge of the Jews.
revelation, and the challenge
founded upon it. Receive the
gospel or you
resist THE SPIRIT. This position evidently rested on the person
and work
of Christ, “the righteous One,”
whose message was above that “ordained by
angels” (see Hebrews chapters 1 and 2). The circumcision of the
Old Testament
was declared worthless in view
of the new circumcision of the “heart and ears,”
otherwise the sign of the new
covenant, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Although evidently broken off by
the murderous riot which ensued, the
address was advancing to an
appeal to faith on the basis of the new
outpouring of the Spirit: “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of
salvation.” A great example to us to lead men through conviction of
sin to
acceptance of grace — through
the sense of what they are to the hope of
what they may be in Christ.
Stephen’s Defense (vs. 2-53)
It was usual in the court of the Sanhedrin to allow an
accused person to
plead guilty or not guilty, and to speak in his own defense.
As this address
of Stephen’s is his defense, we must know of what he was
accused.
Generally it may be said that he was a blasphemer of God
and the Law;
but, to understand how such a charge could possibly be
made, we must
appreciate the intense and superstitious feeling concerning
Mosaism which
characterized the rulers of that day. The more manifestly
that the spiritual
life faded out of the older system, the more intensely the
people clung to its
mere forms and traditions; jealousy of it as a national
system had taken the
place of faithfulness to it as a revelation of God and a
means of grace.
Stephen was “the first man who dared to think that the
gospel of Jesus was
a Divine step forward, a new economy of God, which the
existing Hebraic
institutions might indeed refuse to accept, but which, in
that case, would
not only dispense with, but in the end overturn, the
Hebraic institutions.”
So far as a charge was brought against Stephen, it closely resembled that
brought against our Lord. The false witnesses declared that they had heard
him say “that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy
this place [i.e. the
temple], and shall change the customs which Moses
delivered us.” But
while this was the definite charge, we find that the real
offence must have
been his bold and unqualified assertion of the Messiahship and divinity of
Christ. Stephen’s
crime, in the eyes of bigoted Jewish rulers, was his
discernment of the spirituality of Christ’s mission;
but this Stephen saw on
its antagonistic side, and therefore we cannot wonder that
he should excite
such prejudice against himself. The Jews, with a
disposition of mind that looked to
outward things, did not rightly comprehend the thoughts of
Stephen, but took a
distorted view of them.
What he had represented as a consequence of the operation
of the Spirit of Christ, whose design it was to
consecrate the world as a great temple
of God, and to
guide religion from externals to the heart, that the Jews
conceived as a purpose to be accomplished by violence,
and thus they
ascribed to him the destruction of the temple and the
abolition of Jewish
usages — things which he had never attempted.
He was accused of teaching what would materially change the
old Jewish
customs. He replies in effect:
(1) that God had
given a new revelation, and that he was only asking them
to hear God’s
message and receive God’s Messenger;
and
(2) that, in rejecting a new message from God, they were only acting as
their fathers had done in all the previous generations. This Stephen, in a
very subtle way, hinted at by his historical references;
but he reserved the
full unfolding of it until the close of his speech.
Then he presses two points home upon the heart and
conscience of his
audience.
(1) In reference to
the charge that he proposed the destruction of the
temple and its ritual, he urged that God’s direct spiritual
dealings with men
were and always had been strictly independent of forms, or
ritual, or
temple. And
(2) in reference to
the Jewish rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, he urged
that the Jews, under
every succeeding form of Divine revelation, had
resisted the Spirit. As
often as it had pleased God, through chosen messengers
of His will, to lead Israel forward through a new moment of
change into a fresh
spiritual epoch of blessing, so often had:
a.
God’s thoughts been
misunderstood,
b.
His purposes hindered,
and
c.
His messenger rejected
by the bulk of Israel.
This had been their national failing — to cling to
the present and material,
whenever God was calling them to higher spiritual good.
This they had done
so often that their
doing it now, by rejecting a spiritual Christ and idolizing
a material temple, was only of a piece with their entire
history. We must suppose
that the excitement of the Sanhedrin, who detected his
point, and the clamor
of the crowd, who followed the cue given by the council,
reached at last such
a height that Stephen could only close his speech suddenly
with the few intense
words given us in vs. 51-53. It was a noble boldness and a
sublime testimony,
but we cannot wonder that it fed the flame of excitement
and made a
violent death for the heroic champion almost a certainty.
There are times in
life when what colder natures call imprudence is the
immediate duty to
which men are called. Stephen’s burning words have carried
their
conviction to human consciences through the long Christian
ages.
Literature has no more intense warning against losing the spiritual
by
doggedly clinging to the bare and formal and literal.
54 “When
they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they
gnashed on him with their teeth.” Now when for when, Authorized Version.
They were cut to the heart (see ch. 5:33 and
notes).
55 “But
he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly
into heaven,
and saw the glory of God, and Jesus
standing on the right hand of God,”
Looked up
steadfastly (ἀτενίσας – atenisas – looking
intently); see ch.
6:15; 3:4,
and note. The glory of God; i.e. the
visible glory which surrounds and
proclaims God’s near presence (see Exodus 24:10, 16-17;
Isaiah 6:1-3;
Ezekiel 1:28; Revelation 21:23). Jesus standing. Sitting at the right
hand of God is the usual attitude ascribed to our Lord in token of His
victorious
rest, and waiting for the day of judgment. Here He is seen
standing, as rising
to welcome His faithful
martyr, and
to place on his head the crown of life
Revelation 2:10). Whether Stephen saw these glorious things in
the flesh or
out of the flesh he probably knew not himself.
In every darkest hour of God’s people
there is some point of light which holds the
future within it. Saul is in that
scene. His conversion partly the fruit of it. The Spirit
began to work, goading him with
conviction. So the blood of martyrs has always
seed of truth to water: the blood of
Stephen watered conviction in Saul’s heart.
56 “And
said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man
standing on the right hand of God.” The Son of man. Our Lord’s usual
designation of Himself (see Matthew 8:20; 26:64; etc.; and also
Daniel 7:13),
but only here and Revelation 1:13, spoken of
Jesus by any other.
Visions of the Risen Christ (vs, 55-56)
It is hardly to be doubted that Paul preserved the record
of these
incidents; and we may realize how such a cry from the
persecuted
Nazarene, as we have in the text, would fix itself in the
thought and
memory of one so religious and so impulsive as Paul. It
would be most
vividly recalled to mind when he too was smitten down with
the glory on
the Damascus road, and himself heard the voice of Jesus,
the risen and
exalted One. Evidently the thing that most impressed Paul
was
Stephen’s firm conviction that the
crucified Jesus WAS RISEN, EXALTED,
LIVING AND GLORIFIED, DIVINE! However
intensely Paul resisted this
conviction at first, it had more power on him than he
estimated. And the scene is a
most impressive one. The howling mob; the reverend
officials, borne away from
all their proprieties by fanatical excitement; the young
Pharisee, too
aristocratic to take any actual part in carrying off the
victim, or throwing
the stones, helping to raise the excitement with stirring
words; and amidst
all the noise and the violence, the man of God, calm, rapt
beyond present
scenes, seeing the unseen, and uttering a last splendid
testimony: to the one
truth he had labored to declare. Say what men may of the
Impostor of
Nazareth, who was shamefully crucified, Stephen saw him
living, and
“standing on the right hand of God.” We need not think that there was any
“external spectacle;” the vision was that kind of internal
vision men have
had when in a state of ecstasy. The fact of the vision was
“inferred partly,
we may believe, from the rapt, fixed expression of the
martyr’s face, partly
from the words that followed, interpreting that upward
gaze.” The vision
may be treated as;
the Savior’s presence always
with His people, but especially when they
should be brought before kings
and governors for His Name’s sake. Even
making due account of the
excitement produced by the surroundings of
martyrdom, and its power to
raise a heroic spirit, it has never been found
an easy thing to face torture
and death. But the story of the martyrs
provides abundant illustration
of the
varied ways in which Christ has
comforted His
witnesses. Stephen was comforted by
the vision in three
ways.
Ø
It assured him that
what he had testified was true. Christ was living
and exalted.
Ø
It declared that he
was not suffering alone. The Christ was in fullest
sympathy with him.
Ø
And it encouraged him
to full trust in all his Lord’s promises of strength
and grace for the enduring and
final triumph over his foes. The vision
seemed to say, “When
thou passest through the waters, I will be with
thee.” (Isaiah
43:2)
times different parts of the
Christian truth have been the citadel or the
redan round which the chief fighting has raged, and on which the
issue of
battle has depended. In the
early Church the conflict was mainly over the
question of our Lord’s
resurrection from the dead. Two things were seen
to depend on this resurrection.
Ø Our Lord’s claim
to Messiahship.
Ø
The spiritual character
of our Lord’s mission. If risen and exalted,
His
kingly authorities are declared
to be no coarse earthly dominion; He is:
o
King of souls,
o
Deliverer of
sinners,
o
the living One
who SAVES!
the witness was effective is
shown in its increasing their rage. A dying
testimony that
was more effective than anything he had spoken in life. But
the hated name, spoken of as
being at God’s right hand in the glory, let
loose the tide of rage which awe
had for a moment frozen, and with illegal
tumult, councilors and
bystanders, turned through sheer passion into a
mob, swept him from the chamber
with a rush, and hurried him for
execution beyond the northern
city gate. His dying testimony sealed
the witness of Stephen’s life.
57 “Then
they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and
ran upon him with one accord,” But for then, Authorized
Version; rushed
for ran, Authorized Version. (ὥρμησαν – hormaesan – they
rush).
58 “And
cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid
down their clothes at a young man’s feet,
whose name was Saul.”
They cast for cast,
Authorized Version; garments for clothes, Authorized Version;
the feet of a young man for
a young man’s feet, Authorized Version; named Saul
for whose name was Saul, Authorized Version. They cast. We have here the
identical phrase of Luke 4:29. The witnesses. According
to Deuteronomy 17:7,
“the hands of the witnesses were to be first upon” the idolater “to put him
to death.”
They took off their clothes, their outer garments,
so as to be free to hurl the
stones at their victim with greater force. The feet of a young man. The
word νεανίου – neaniou – of
young man - is found only here and in ch. 20:9;
23:17-18, 22; and frequently in the Septuagint. for the
Hebrew נַעִר. A man
might be called a νεανίας (a young man) probably to the age of thirty. This
appearance of Saul upon the stage of Luke’s narrative is an element which
will soon change the whole current of the narrative, and divert it from
this introduction of the young man Saul to our view as an
accomplice
(albeit “ignorantly in unbelief” – I Timothy
1:13) in the
martyrdom of Stephen.
Who that stood there and saw him keeping the clothes
of the witnesses would
have imagined that he would become the foremost apostle
of the faith which
he sought to destroy from off the face of the earth?
Our Introduction to the Greatest of
Apostles (v. 58)
It is only casually mentioned that “the witnesses laid down their
clothes at
a young
man’s feet, whose name was Saul,” and
yet how much is declared
in
the brief sentence! It is our first sight of the zealous young Pharisee from
impulsiveness that has taken up so violent an opposition to the Nazarene
impostor and all His followers. If Saul cannot be allowed to throw
the
actual stones, seeing he was not one of the witnesses, he will do
the next
thing — he will hold the clothes of the men who have stripped
themselves
in
order to do more efficiently their deadly work. It was the occasion on
which Saul gained an impression which he never afterwards lost,
and which
resulted in what would surprise no one so much as it did himself,
in leading
him
to take up and carry on that very witness and work for which the
heroic Stephen died. The age of Saul at this time cannot be
certainly
known. We may assume that he was under
thirty years old. Three points
may
receive consideration in the picture that our text presents to us.
Stephen’s death.” “He gave his voice against him.” He watched over the
clothes. He regarded the scene with satisfaction. A delusion
sometimes
possesses men that they cannot be guilty of a crime unless
they took actual
part in it. Saul had nobler moral sentiments. The approver
is as guilty as the
actor; for he also would have done the thing had opportunity
served. But
how searching and how serious becomes the consideration
that, before
God, we
may be judged guilty on the ground of our approval and consent!
With what
limitations and qualifications must this point be pressed?
Paul does
not hesitate to take on himself the guilt of Stephen’s death,
though he never lifted a stone.
explained on one or other of the following grounds:
Ø
The law of the execution,
which required the witnesses against the
victim to effect and complete the death.
Ø
The position Saul
occupied as one of the judges. He gave his vote,
and it is never regarded as becoming in a judge to execute
his own
sentence. Whether Saul
was a member of the actual Sanhedrin, or
of some committee appointed to deal with these followers of
Jesus
of Nazareth, does not appear.
Ø
Aristocratic
sentiments might keep Saul from actually engaging in
the stoning. Nothing could free Saul from his share of the
guilt of
Stephen’s death.
Endeavor
to estimate his conflict of feeling. While actually watching, rage
and hatred may have prevailed, but his mind was receiving
its picture of the
calm and heroic sufferer; and presently Saul lost sight of
judges, witnesses,
and crowds, and the vision on his soul alone was before him.
He saw the
saintly man fall asleep; he heard again those dying cries;
he seemed to look
through and see what Stephen saw, the Son of man glorified;
and, strive
how he would to blot out the vision, it was there; rush
desperately into
persecuting ways how he might, still the vision was there.
Stephen, we may
fairly say, awakened Saul to anxiety, and prepared the way
for that vision
of Christ which bowed down Saul’s pride and won him to
penitence, to
faith, and to service. Better than the fable of the phoenix
is the truth of
Saul. Out
of Stephen’s death he sprang to a nobler, longer life of witness
for the living Christ than Stephen could have lived. Death
is often found
the way, and the only way, to life. “Dying, and behold we live.”
(II
Corinthians 6:9)
59 “And
they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit.” The Lord (in
italics) for God (in italics),
Authorized Version. The Authorized Version is certainly
not justified by
the context, because the words which follow, “Lord Jesus,” show
to whom
the invocation was made, even to Him whom he saw
standing at the right
hand of God. At the same time, the request, Receive my spirit, was a striking
acknowledgment of the divinity of Christ. Only He who gave the spirit could
receive it back again, and KEEP
IT SAFE UNTOT HE RESURRECTION!
Compare “Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit” (Luke
23:46).
60 “And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud
voice, Lord, lay not
this sin to their
charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”
Cried with a loud
voice. Compare again Luke
23:46, and with Stephen’s
prayer, Lord, lay
not this sin to their charge, compare ibid. v. 34.
He fell asleep. Blessed rest after
life’s toilsome day! Blessed contrast
with
the tumult of passion and violence which brought him down
to the grave!
How near, too, in his dying was that likeness to his Lord
advanced, which
shall be perfected at His appearing! (I John 3:2) “Blessed are the dead
which die in the Lord,... that they may rest from their labors, and their
works do follow them.” (Revelation
14:13)
Sti. Stephani;’ Conybeare
and Howson, vol. 1. p. 82) attributes Saul’s
conversion to the prayer of Stephen: “Si
Stephanus non orasset,
Ecclesia
Paulum non haberet.”
A wonderful testimony to the reality of
the work of the Spirit. How the signs increased.
From the gifts of Pentecost to this
manifestation of Divine glory to a dying man, calling
upon Jesus to receive his spirit, and so confirming,
as with a light coming down directly
out of heaven, all the facts of the
gospel — a risen and glorified Redeemer, able to
forgive sins, receiving
the spirits of His disciples into heaven, giving them complete
victory over the sufferings and darkness
of their last hour. May we die the death of
the righteous!
The First Martyrdom (vs. 1-60)
When we look at the Lord Jesus as our Exemplar, though we
are conscious
that all His excellences of life and character were
strictly human, and within
the range of those human faculties which we possess in
common with our
Lord, yet are we also conscious that the transcendent
perfection of His
human life is what we can never reach. Our Lord’s goodness
was the
goodness of man, and yet it is a goodness that we never can
attain to.
Where His feet stood firm, our feet will slip. Where His
love triumphed,
ours breaks down. Where His will moved on undaunted in
obedience to His
Father’s will, ours faints and halts and stumbles to its
fall. The temptations
that He crushed, crush us; where His spirit was clear as
sunlight, ours is
clouded and mixed. Where He soars in glory, we are heavy
with sleep; and
where He wrestles in an agony of prayer, we fall asleep for
sorrow. His
courage, His faith, His humility, His meekness, His
constancy, His patience,
His firmness, His love, His zeal, His self-consecration to
God, His loving
obedience, His transparent truth and purity, — we see them,
we look upon
them with adoring wonder, but when we try to imitate them,
it is like trying
to climb up to the stars; do what we will they are at an
immeasurable
distance above us, inaccessible and unapproachable. It is,
therefore, a great
help and encouragement to us that, besides the infinite
perfection of
Christ’s human nature, we have other examples of saintly
men set before us
in the Word of God, which we may hope to follow more
closely, treading
even in their very steps. The apostle, the evangelist, the
martyr, the holy
woman, the faithful disciple, all stand out before us on
the pages of
Scripture, and we ask ourselves why
should not we be like them, seeing we
have the same Holy
Spirit which dwelt in them to sanctify us also. The
chapter before us invites us to study the character of a
true martyr, as
exemplified in Stephen. The model martyr thus is:
catching up every folly that is
started, and carried away by every blast of
doctrine; but a man of solid and
approved wisdom, discerning things that
differ, holding fast that which
is good, and rejecting the pernicious error
though it be the fashion of the
day; one whose steady and quiet walk in the
paths of godliness has earned
him a good report among his neighbors. He
is well spoken of because he
does good quietly, and seeks not the praise of
men. He is of good report
because he is never hurried, into ill-advised
action under the influences of
temper or self-will, or the contagion of
example, or any corrupt or
selfish motive, but is known constantly to do
the thing that is right.
not only wise and upright in all
his dealings with men, has not only wisdom
and discretion in the affairs of
this life, but, being filled with the Holy Spirit
of God, he has all spiritual
wisdom likewise. His enlightened reason and his
elevated affections soar above
the world, and are deeply engaged in the
things of God and the affairs of
the
faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him.
LIFE OF EASE AND INDOLENCE. He is ready at the call of the Church
to undertake any office or work,
however burdensome or responsible, for
the good of the whole body and
the comfort of the brethren. He does not
seek dignity, or emolument, or
the praise of men, as the price of his labor,
but simply gives himself as
Christ’s servant to work for Christ and for
Christ’s people. Impartial,
fair, equal, and kind in his administration, he
soothes irritation, allays
jealousy, and promotes peace and love.
platform, he sees more of the
spiritual wants of men around him. Having
received higher gifts, he looks
for wider opportunities of exercising them.
Every soul won to Christ is as
fuel to the flame of his love. Every victory
over Satan stirs him up to war
more resolutely as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ. Failures do not daunt
him, and success cheers him on. Nothing
seems impossible with Christ on
his side. Everything must be attempted
which may snatch the prey from
the destroyer and enlarge the kingdom of
light.
OF CHRIST BARS HIS ONWARD PROGRESS. The wisdom of the
world crosses swords with the
wisdom of the spirit. Formalism, Pharisaism,
priestcraft, superstition, self-righteousness, self-importance, ignorance,
combine to resist the gracious
teaching which would strip men of
selfishness to clothe them with
Christ. At first it is argument against
argument and reasoning against
reasoning. But when the sword of the
Spirit begins to cut through the
shield of carnal disputation, and the sword
of the worldly logic becomes
blunted against the martyr’s shield, and the
Word of truth becomes too strong
for the lying lips to answer, then begins
a new form of contest. The defeated disputant throws aside his reasoning
and his
caviling, and takes up the weapons of force and fraud. Prison and
rack, fire and faggot, the wild
beast and the sword, shall answer the
arguments which were too strong
for the reasoner. And how then will the
martyr act? Will he be silenced
and dismayed, or will he stand to his truth
and die? He gathers up his
courage, he looks up to God, he confronts his
accusers, he lifts up his calm
voice, and his speech is as the song of the
dying swan. For:
UNTROUBLED MEMORY GATHERS UP THE TESTIMONIES TO
THE TRUTH OF HIS DOCTRINE WHICH ARE SCATTERED ON
THE PAGES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. Has he preached Jesus Christ
whom they denied? Did not their
fathers deny Moses their lawgiver and
deliverer from
God was not confined to the
walls of temples made with hands? Did not
Isaiah say the same? Had he
denounced the vanity of sacrifices and
offerings when offered by
uncircumcised hearts and unclean hands? Had
not their prophets done so
likewise? He could not retract what he had
spoken according to the oracles
of God. He had spoken the truth, and by
the truth he
would stand. But were they there to
judge him? Nay, but he
would judge them. They had,
indeed, received the Law, but they had
broken it. The Holy Ghost had spoken to them, but they had resisted
Him.
God’s Christ had
come to save them, and they had betrayed and
crucified
him. Let them fill up the measure of their fathers; he was
ready to receive
death at their hands.
with the waves dashing upon it;
the vision of invisible glories swallowing
up all things in its brightness;
the rapturous confession of Jesus Christ; the
calm committal of his spirit to
His safe keeping; the free forgiveness of his
cruel murderers; the devout
prayer of his parting breath; the peaceful death
like an infant’s sleep; earth exchanged FOR HEAVEN; — and
the martyrdom
is complete. Complete, but not ended;
for the witnessing voice is still ringing
in our ears, and tells us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God,
and that we have life THROUGH HIS
NAME!
Illustrations (vs. 51-60)
We have some of the best and one of the worst things illustrated
in this passage.
REPROACH. (vs. 51-53.)
Stirred (as we suppose) by the impatient
interruptions of the senators,
who at this point showed themselves
unwilling to listen, Stephen
rebuked them in the strong and stringent
language of the text. They who
imagined themselves to be “the cream of
the cream,” the very best
specimens of the holiest people, were setting
themselves to resist the
gracious dealings of God, who was willing to bless
them with His fullest blessing
(see Psalm 81:10-16); they were resisting the
“Holy Ghost” and injuring, in the worst of all ways, the people they
were
chosen to serve. Unqualified condemnation is sometimes the
duty of the
servant of God. Not often, indeed; for usually it is our
wisdom and our duty
to hold our feelings of
indignation in check. But there are times when holy
resentment should overflow in words of unmeasured indignation, when we
shall not “deliver our soul” unless we denounce the wrong that has been
done and warn against
the evil which impends. (See Ezekiel
33:5)
Sometimes sin is checked and
cowed by the strong voice of holy censure,
and it holds its hand if not its
tongue. At other times it is only driven by
exasperation to say and do its
very worst. So here, it:
Ø
yielded to frenzy;
Ø
proceeded to
unmannerly exhibitions of rage — ‘‘they gnashed on him
with their teeth;”
and
Ø
ended in brutal and
fatal violence “they stoned him.”
There is something, not only
painful and horrible, but also contemptible in this
resort to physical violence. It
seems to say, “We cannot answer your
words; we cannot resist your
influence. We will do the only thing we can
do; we will break your bones and
draw your blood.” Such a fearful sight is
sin driven to its worst. How
needful to keep clear of its dominion!
To hHis
devoted servant in this trying hour God vouchsafed an
exceptional
manifestation of Himself, an extraordinary proof of His Divine
favor and
assurance of support. We do not look
for anything of this kind.
But to us, if we are true and
loyal to our Savior’s cause, when the time of
special trial comes, our Lord
will grant some tokens of His presence and of
His sympathy. He will not leave us
alone; He will come to us. And
if the
heavens be not opened, and if a
vision of the Son of man be not granted us,
we shall have “the comfort of the Holy Ghost,” and the strong inward
assurance that He who was with
Stephen at this solemn scene is laying
beneath us “the everlasting arms.”
“They stoned
Stephen… and he cried… Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge.” We can hardly conceive a nobler end than this: a man
sealing his
testimony to Christian truth,
with his life-blood, and with his last breath
praying for mercy to be granted
to his murderers. To few of us is it thus
given, “not only to believe on Him, but
also to suffer for His sake.” But in
the course of every Christian
life there are offered many opportunities of
Ø
showing the martyr
spirit, and of
Ø
acting in the spirit
of large-heartedness.
Though we may gain no applause
for so doing, and expect no notice to be taken
of it by any chronicler, we may
remember that “great is our
reward in heaven,”
that we have the approval of the
Divine Master, when in any sphere and in any
degree we cheerfully “bear
his reproach” and show a generous spirit
toward those who do us wrong.
agitating scenes Stephen was
perfectly trustful; he said, “Lord Jesus,
receive my
spirit.” In the midst of such tumult
he was calm; it seemed
natural to the historian to write
of his death as if he were going to rest —
“he fell asleep.” We often look on to the time of our departure, and perhaps
wonder what will be the manner
of our “going out into the light.” If we
nourish our faith in Christ as we
have the means of doing, by use of sacred
privilege and seizure of
manifold opportunity, then when the end shall
come, in whatsoever form it may
appear, our hearts will be
Ø
trustful in our Divine Savior — we shall tranquilly resign our spirits to
His charge, as into the
hands of our Almighty Friend;
Ø
peaceful — our death will be to us as a pleasant sleep.
Weary with the toil and strife
of earth, we shall lie down to die as those who
commit themselves to the
darkness of the night, to the restfulness of the couch,
in sweet assurance that the
eyes which close on this side the grave will open
on the other side, to be filled with the light and to behold the glories of
immortality. Live in Christ, and you will die in reverent confidence
and
unbroken serenity of soul.
The Martyrdom of Stephen (vs. 54-60)
with the pain of the sense of
guilt, though judges, they gnashed with their
teeth upon Stephen, “like
chained dogs who would bite those who would
set them free.” “Contempt
pierces through the shell of the tortoise, says the
Indian proverb. On their high
seat they were reached by the stinging words
of the servant of Jesus; their
obstinacy exposed, the contradiction between
the part they were playing as the
representatives of the Law and outwardly,
while their spirit and aims were
deadly opposed to its spirit, brought into
the most glowing light. The most
hellish of wrath is that where the mind is
felt to be at variance with
itself and seeks a victim on which to discharge its
fury. If the truth does not convert men, it turns them
into its foes.
interests
are bound up with the truth, to whom nothing in the world can
afford satisfaction in which truth
and reality are not. He cannot separate his
consciousness of life and its
sweetness from his consciousness of God’s
light and love in him, which are
dearer than life. With this clear light within
his breast, he” sits in the
center and enjoys clear day.” “No greater thing
can man receive, no more august
boon can God bestow, than truth,” said
one of the noblest of heathen
writers, Plutarch. This is the feeling in which
the martyr lives, in which he is
willing to die. And he may be and doubtless
is often favored with peculiar
visions, which foretell the triumph of truth
and of faith. Stephen sees the
heaven opened, and the crucified One, the
“Son of man,” standing in the place of glory and power, at God’s right
hand. There are secrets in the life of individual piety which
if known, might
go far to explain the
cheerfulness with which privation or persecution has
been borne. God opens an inner door into heaven to others
inaccessible,
and speaks of things, which
cannot be uttered, and offers visions, which
cannot be described. We know
little more than the outside of others’ lives.
The bad man in power, the good
man in weakness and suffering, each has
another side to his life.
hypocrisy.
Ø To pretend indignation against the person
of an opponent. It is
easy to
feign a pious
horror of sentiments we do not care to examine, and to cast
obliquely the
reproach of blasphemy upon one who utters truths which are
evil in their
bearing upon us, Jesus, Stephen, Paul, and in their turn all
reformers, have
had to incur this reproach.
Ø To end the matter by violence. Cast the offender out of the synagogue;
hand him over
to the civil power; or put him to death under the show of
law and
justice. So was Stephen done to death. The worst crimes have
been done in
the name of law and under the cloak of religion.
Master.
Ø Stephen is thrust out of the city, like him who suffered “without
the
gate.” Nor can any man expect to live at all places and times the true
life,
without having
to suffer some form of social expulsion. In suffering for our
convictions we
come to know the deeper fellowship of the spirit of Jesus.
Better to go
with Jesus “without the gate” and
suffer, than to tarry within
the city and to
purchase ease at the expense of compliance with evil.
Ø Life is yielded up in prayer. As he had sighed, “Father, into thy hands I
commit
my spirit,” so His
servant, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” As He,
“Father,
forgive them,” so
Stephen, “Lay not this sin to their charge.” Love,
the animating
principle of the Christian in life, the secret energy which
prompts all,
his words and deeds, in the cause of truth, — love is the
temper in which
he dies. Christ s religion, in teaching us this love and
making its
practice possible, proves itself Divine. And this active love is
rooted in the
sense that we have been loved and sought of God. He who
has once found
us and blessed us with fatherly hand, gives courage for
struggle and
resignation in defeat.
Ø The effect on others. We
think of the young man Saul who stood by.
What effect
upon him had not this spectacle of love in death? And what
evidence amidst
wild scenes of savage life has not the end of the good man
blessing, not
cursing his foes, given to the love of God and what it can
accomplish in
the human heart! The Red Indian, as he binds his captive to
the stake,
expects him to prove his manhood, when escape is hopeless, by
bitter taunts
and blasphemies to the last. And this is the fruit of cruelty in
many lands. It
is the marvel in human nature, the appearance of the lamb
where we looked
for the lion — the reaction of love against hatred, which
betokens the
presence of a power and a will beyond experience. The life of
the world had
passed into a new phase when men could die in the very
arms of love
and fall asleep with the smile of blessing on their brow.
The Holy Spirit had long commanded life for Stephen and for
his work. This had
made him “full of faith” and “full
of power,” and able to “work great wonders
and miracles among the people.” This commands all
Christian life, energy, and
usefulness. It is the
secret of life, but, more than that,
the strong, sure force of it.
And as the Holy Ghost had been the mighty Quickener of spiritual life and
“work and wonder “for Stephen while he
lived, so He is with him the strong
Director and Supporter when he must face
death. Here is something very
different — a man with the splendor of the glory of
God and the realities of
heaven and the exalted Jesus bursting on his
vision, and yet, amid storms of
stones, recalled to prayer for himself and the
trustful committing of his soul
to the charge of Jesus, and to intercession
on bended knees for his murderers.
The last thing we know of Stephen in this world, we shall
know this — that his
death was as though a “sleep,”
and his yielding to it as though he yielded to
Heaven’s gracious remedy for nature’s deepest need — sleep!
“He
fell
asleep “ — in
Jesus (I Thessalonians 4:14). “Well done, good and
faithful servant” — “faithful unto death.” And in death also faithful — a
faithful witness of the
Lord’s faithfulness to His own.
“He fell
asleep in Christ his Lord;
He gave to
him to keep
The soul
his great love had redeemed,
Then
calmly went to sleep.
And as a
tired bird folds its wing
Sure of
the morning light,
He laid
him down in trusting faith,
And
dreaded not the night.”
Noble Dying
Cries (vs. 59-60)
Some account may be given of the mode of securing death by
stoning. The
practice is first heard of in the deserts of stony
been suggested probably by the abundance of stones, and the fatal effect
with which they were often employed in broils among the people.
Originally the people merely pelted their victim, but
something like form
and
rule were subsequently introduced. A crier marched before the man
appointed to die, proclaiming his offence. He was taken outside the
town.
The witnesses against him were required to cast the first
stones. But the
victim was usually placed on an elevation, and thrown down from
this,
before he was crushed with the stones flung upon him. For full
details, see
Kitto’s ‘Bibl. Illus.,’ 8:63. It was the mode of execution usual for
the
crimes of blasphemy and idolatry (see Deuteronomy 13:9-10;
17:5-7).
Stephen’s dying cries should be compared with those of our
Lord Jesus
Christ, in order that the measures in which Stephen caught
the Christly
spirit may be realized.
DEAD TO THE
PRESENCE OF HIS FOES. In this we
learn the secret
of our elevation above the world, care, suffering, or
trouble. It lies in our
being so full of Christ and things
Divine as to have no room for them.
Our hearts
may be so full of God’s presence, and so restful in the assurance
of His acceptance and smile, that we may say, “None
of these things move
me.” (ch. 20:24) “If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans
8:31)
One of the
greatest practical endeavors of life should be to bring and to
keep Christ closely near to heart and thought. If outward
circumstances
reach to such an extremity as in the case of Stephen, we
shall then say
with him, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” (One of the prayers of my
life has been, “Lord,
help me to seek thee in times of happiness so when
times of
trouble come, that I might find thee precious to my soul!” – CY –
2016)
HIMSELF. Observe that:
Ø
His prayer indicates submissive
acceptance of the fact that he must die.
He
does not ask for any bodily deliverance, any miracle-working for
his personal release. Compare in this our Lord’s submission
when His
life came to its close.
Ø
His prayer indicates
superiority to bodily suffering. There is no
petition for relief from pain or even for speedy release.
Exactly
what was God’s will for him he would bear right through.
Compare
our Lord’s triumph in
sufferings calm and trustful. Stephen fulfilled his Lord’s words that
His
disciples should drink of the “cup” that He drank of.
Ø
And his prayer
indicates supreme concern, but absolute confidence
concerning his soul and his future. There is no tone of questioning;
with full faith in the Lord Jesus, he commends his spirit to
Him —
a last and unquestioning testimony to his faith in the living,
spiritual
Christ.
FOR HIS FOES, Compare our Lord’s words, “Father,
forgive them; for
they know not what they do.” In the older days of political execution by
the axe, the headsman used to kneel and ask the forgiveness
of the victim,
before proceeding to place his head upon the block. Stephen
knew how
blinded by prejudice and false notions of religion his
persecutors were, and
he gives a beautiful illustration of heavenly, Divine
charity in thus pleading
for his very murderers. One point should not be lost sight
of. Even in this
last word of the noble man he asserted his characteristic
truth once more.
The Lord
Jesus is living, and the exalted Savior, for He controls the
charging and the punishing of sin. “Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge”
— an unmeaning prayer if he had not fully believed that Jesus
had power
on earth to deal with, to punish, and to forgive sin. Note
the wondrous
` calmness and the exquisite tenderness of the words of the
narrative,
“He
fell asleep.” We hear the howlings of the
people, the whirr
and smash of the stones, but amid it all and “in the arms of Jesus,” the
saint and hero and martyr softly “falls asleep” — asleep
to earth, waking to
heaven and peace and the eternal smile of the LIVING
CHRIST, for whose
sake he died.
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