The Trial Of Stephen, Part 1

The Trial of Stephen, Part 1

Acts 7:1–8 NKJV

Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”

And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years. ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’ Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.

In our last study, we covered the things which led to the arrest of Stephen. We do not know exactly what he told his fellows in the Greek-Speaking synagogue in Jerusalem. But we are told that he was full of the Holy Spirit. He was full of faith and power. Many mighty works were done by the Spirit through his hands. We know that he bore a strong spoken witness to Jesus in addition to these works. He got into disputes with them, and the arguments of his fellow Jews could not stand up to what we said. What he did say and do did stir up rage which led to his arrest and trial before the Sanhedrin. Here, Stephen would speak to the charges which were laid against him. In particular, we saw that on of the charges of the witnesses was that he allegedly spoke against the Temple. He was also accused of speaking against the Jewish nation.

The Spirit caused the Sanhedrin and whatever spectators there were to pay close attention instead of acting out in rage. They saw the face of Stephen as the face of an angel. Everyone wanted to know what Stephen would say. So, Stephen was assured a hearing of what he was about to say. The rage would return later, but Stephen provided a very logical and comprehensive defense of the faith, what in theological terms, and apology. But this was not what we think of when we use the word apology. We think that an apology is publicly showing remorse for what one had done to offend someone else. The Sanhedrin might have accepted this sort of apology. Their interest in the matter was to end the Jesus movement as expeditiously as possible. They had seen how much trouble had come from the crucifixion of Jesus which had only caused the Jesus movement called “the Way” to grow all the more. We can see a parallel to this with Martin Luther. They saw the fires which had come from the burning of John Hus a hundred years earlier. They would have preferred a public recantation, after which the monk, Martin Luther would be silenced by having him confined to his monastic cell under a strict order of silence. We also see it in the way Peter, John and the other Apostles were treated before the Sanhedrin, first with threats not to teach and preach in the name of Jesus, and then beatings with threats of further punishment.

If the Sanhedrin was expecting Stephen to apologize for offending his fellow Jews and promise to behave, they were sorely disappointed. If Stephen was looking to get out of his predicament, he certainly would not have answered the charges in the way he did. We have talked about how the ministries of the Apostles and Deacons in the Book of Acts parallel that of the life of Jesus. The true disciple will be treated in similar matter to the way Jesus was treated. This is a kind of backward typology in which the experiences of the Apostles point back to the ministry and suffering of Christ. The Old Testament has many types which are fulfilled in the life,ministry, death and resurrection of Christ. So whether the typology points back or forward to Christ, it is centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ, which is proper. Like Jesus, he was tried before the Sanhedrin. Like Jesus, he was more interested in proclaiming the truth. He was using the opportunity to witness just as Jesus would witness to Pilate. We think of Jesus who had everything in this life to lose and nothing to gain seemed more concerned with the soul of Pilate than His own life. (see my sermon: “Did Jesus try to Save Pilate?” in this sermon archive. What is true for the witness of Jesus and Stephen, our witness to the hostile world is not to save our lives in this world. We have an eternal hope and life which extends beyond this age. Instead, we need to witness to the truth of the Gospel in the hope of winning our adversaries.