Acts 7:51-60
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. 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: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
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, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, 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. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 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.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The picture of the martyrdom of Stephen is full of exquisite beauty.
THE EDITOR: In the forty-nine verses that preceded this passage, Stephen had calmly recited the history of the Jews from God’s calling of Abraham to the building of Solomon’s temple. But then, with these final words, the tone of his speech suddenly changes; Stephen now accuses them plainly and directly of their crimes against God, His Holy Spirit, and His Son; and by the power of the Holy Spirit, these words cut them to the heart. Undoubtedly, this is a New Testament “Thus saith the Lord,” moment; and at this very moment, Stephen “being full of the Holy Spirit,” sees the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Note: Those that are full of the Holy Ghost are fit for anything, either to act for Christ or to suffer for Him. And those whom God calls out to difficult services for His name, He will qualify for those services, and carry them comfortably through them, by filling them with the Holy Ghost, that as their afflictions for Christ abound, their consolation in Him may yet more abound, and then “none of these things move them.” Now here we have a remarkable communion between this blessed martyr and the blessed Jesus in this critical moment.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: A vision of his Lord was granted to him in the hour of his suffering and death. This vision of Christ seems to have shut out the brutality of the mob from the eyes of Stephen, and he saw the mob only in its folly and sin.
MATTHEW HENRY: He sees Christ is for him, and then no matter who is against him.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Other martyrs, when called to suffer the last extremities, had extraordinary assistances of a similar kind; or frail mortality surely could not have endured the torments under which they rejoiced; sometimes they preached Christ to the conversion of the spectators—occasionally even of their guards and tormentors.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Let Readers notice how Stephen speaks of Christ in His Mediator character and office—and I beg you not to overlook the Lord’s posture of standing, as if in readiness to receive Stephen to His arms, and to execute judgment upon His enemies.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: He saw His Lord, not sitting, but standing, thus fulfilling one aspect of His great priesthood.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): This is very significant. We are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews that when Jesus “had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,” Hebrews 1:3; but here, as Stephen looked up, he saw the Lord standing. What does it mean? It is just as though the blessed Lord in His great compassion for Stephen had risen from His seat and was looking over the battlements of Heaven to strengthen and cheer the martyr down on earth.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Stephen saw Him ‘standing,’ as if He had risen to His feet to see His servant’s need and was preparing to come to his help. What a rush of new strength for victorious endurance would flood Stephen’s soul as he beheld his Lord thus, as it were, starting to His feet in eagerness to succour! He looks down from amid the glory, and His calm repose does not involve passive indifference to His servant’s sufferings. Into it comes a full knowledge of all that they bear for Him, and His rest is not the negation of activity on their behalf, but its intense energy—Stephen’s vision brought together the glorified Lord and His servant, and filled the martyr’s soul with the fact that He suffered with those who suffered for His sake. That vision is a transient revelation of an eternal fact. Jesus knows and shares in all that affects His servants.
MATTHEW HENRY: He stands ready to receive him and crown him, and meanwhile to give him a prospect of the joy set before him—this was intended for Stephen’s encouragement.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Stephen “knew in whom he had believed,” and that “He was able to save him to the uttermost.” He knew that the soul, when liberated from the body, would continue to exist.
THOMAS COKE: That Stephen was fully confident of this is evident from his resigning up his soul to Jesus with the same confidence, and almost in the same words, with which Jesus gave up His soul to God the Father. The last words of our Saviour were, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!” Luke 23:46. Stephen, in the extremity of his sufferings, called upon God, and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” He died with these, and the following words in his mouth, “crying again with a loud voice,—Lord, lay not this sin to their charge!” In which he expressed as much charity to men, as in the other sentence he did faith in Christ…It has been well observed that Christ is generally represented sitting, but now as standing at God’s right hand—Stephen saw Him risen up from His throne, as if He was coming to be avenged of His enemies, and to welcome this martyr to immortal bliss.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people,” Isaiah 3:13. Both expressions show indignation and resentment; He rises up out of His place, and stands up in defence of His cause, and avenges Himself on a wicked ungrateful people.
THE EDITOR: But at this time our Lord answered Stephen’s intercessory prayer for those who were murdering him. No fire fell upon them instantly from heaven, and Christ’s judgment was stayed. But there will certainly come an appointed day, when Jesus shall stand up again to judge these people for their sins, of which, through the accusation of Stephen, the Holy Spirit had convicted their hearts—and also for their unrepentant rage, which added sin to sin.
JOHN GILL: Then “He shall stand upon the earth,” Job 19:25; for it is expressly said, that when He shall come, and all the saints with Him, “His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives,” Zechariah 14:4—where He often was in the days of His flesh, and from whence He ascended to heaven, Luke 21:37; but He did not appear here at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem; wherefore this must refer to a time to come; and seeing it is certain that He will come down from heaven in like manner as He went up, it seems very probable that He will descend upon that very spot of ground from whence He ascended.
CHARLES SIMEON: Soon will that Saviour who once died upon the cross come again in His glory to judge the world. Then will He bestow on them that recompence of reward, to which, whilst suffering for His sake, they had looked forward.
MATTHEW HENRY: When followers of Christ are for His sake “killed all the day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter,” does this separate them from the love of Christ? Does He love them less? Do they love Him less? No, by no means; and so it appears by this narrative.
