Stephen's Trial & Death (part 1)

“Look,” he said. “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” – Acts 7:56 (NET)

With these words, Stephen fell into a high degree of disfavor with the men to whom he was speaking. Stephen, of course, the man often referred to as the first Christian martyr, was speaking to the Jerusalem council. He had been arrested because some men, who “were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke” (6:10), convinced others to accuse Stephen of “speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God” (6:11b). With this, “they incited the people, the elders, and the experts in the law” (6:12a), so he was seized and brought before the council. Clearly, there was a desire for Stephen to suffer the same fate of the Jesus of whom he spoke.

When asked by the council to answer the charges against him, Stephen, in the grand tradition of the prophets of old, recounted the history of Israel, beginning with Abraham. In what would have been a recognizable fashion to the assembled hearers, Stephen retraced the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the exodus, the golden calf, Joshua, David, and Solomon, demonstrating the supreme importance of Israel’s historically-based self-understanding of themselves as the covenant people of the Creator God. He closed his dissertation by saying, “You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors did! Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! You received the law by decrees given by angels, but you did not obey it” (7:51-53).

Not unexpectedly, “When they heard these things, they became furious and ground their teeth at him” (7:54). As Luke tells this story, it is almost as if he wants to give us the impression that these men were responding to the words of Stephen in the manner of beasts. Then, Stephen, having “looked intently toward heaven” where he “saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (7:55), went ahead and made an addendum to his dissertation by saying “Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” This further enraged his hearers, so much so that, in the manner of wild animals, “they covered their ears, shouting out with a loud voice, and rushed at him with one intent” (7:57). That one intent, of course, was slaughter, which is made clear by the following verse, which tell us that “When they had driven him out of the city, they began to stone him” (7:58a), with this resulting in his death.

Why did they respond with such beastly fury? What was it that Stephen had said that could cause them to respond in such a way? Certainly, this was not the first time that somebody had been critical of the council. Were they upset because he had referred to them as murderers and betrayers? Not likely. In their minds, in his reference to Jesus, Stephen was merely referring to a blasphemer with whom they had summarily and properly dealt, so they were not, in fact, murderers and betrayers. Sure there was a pernicious and damaging rumor making its rounds that he had been raised from the dead; and though this was of some concern to them (which is demonstrated by the fact that Stephen was brought before the council in the first place), the leaders of the people were confident that Jesus had not been the “Righteous One” of whom Stephen spoke, simply because He had been crucified by the Romans (rather than overthrowing and driving out the Romans), with things in Israel continuing as they had for quite some time.

Now, one such as Stephen could have certainly argued that Jesus did not have the opportunity to drive out the Romans (though this had clearly not been His goal), as He had been sent to His death by the very men who would now claim that He could not have been the Messiah because He was crucified by the Romans, dying at their hands rather than driving them out. Such an argument, however, would be beside the point, and rejected out of hand. Had He truly been the Messiah---the long awaited Righteous One and embodiment of Israel’s God---He would not have allowed Himself to be crucified, so the fact that He was, regardless of who instigated the proceedings that resulted in crucifixion, clearly demonstrated that He was not the Messiah. Even if He had been raised from the dead, the thinking would go, His death by crucifixion and the fact that Rome was still in power over the land and people of God, would trump that fact, continuing to prove that He was, in fact, not the Messiah. Yes, such thinking could very well have been much self-delusion, as an ongoing attempt to justify themselves and excuse their having brought about the death of the One that might very well have been the Messiah, but at this point, there could be no back-tracking.

Yet with all that under consideration, the anger was there, and it was real, and it resulted in Stephen’s death. Indeed, this was not the first time that somebody had spoken to the council in such a way, and it was not the first time that such speaking had resulted in the speaker’s death, as we shall see.