Acts 7:48-60
Stephen’s Speech to the Sanhedrin
“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
“‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
Has not my hand made all these things?’
“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”
The Stoning of Stephen
When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
John 16:1-4
“All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.
The Fact That Divides
We’re continuing our journey through episodes in the book of Acts, and the incident between Stephen and the Sanhedrin was a clash of two groups of people. In fact, these are the only two groups of people into which humanity can fall: those who are Jesus’s people, and those who are not Jesus’s people.
So we are going to look at two things this morning: first, the fact that divides Stephen and the Sanhedrin; and secondly, the response that divides them.
The fact that divides Stephen and the Sanhedrin.
Our reading from Acts was recalling the end of a long sermon given by Stephen, recounting the whole history of God’s dealings with his people. And Stephen ends with a brazen condemnation of the Sanhedrin — that is, the religious leaders of the time. He says:
“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: you always resist the Holy Spirit!”
And the reaction of the Sanhedrin at this point is, understandably, fury. But then Stephen goes one step further when he looks up to heaven and says:
“I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
And when they hear this, the reaction of the Sanhedrin crosses over from fury to murder. Before, they were really angry. But now they have gone beyond anger. They are so overcome with rage that the only thing they can do is instantly kill Stephen.
So what is it about Stephen’s words that flips a switch in their hearts and minds? Let us look again at what he says:
“I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
Of course, the Son of Man is Jesus. And for Stephen, the fact that Jesus is standing at the right hand of God is the best possible news. It means that Jesus — in whom Stephen has put all his hope and all his trust — is not only utterly vindicated by God, but is reigning in power in heaven.
And this Son of Man language is also important because it reflects a prophecy from the Old Testament book of Daniel, in which Daniel sees God giving all authority in heaven and earth to this human-divine figure called the Son of Man. Stephen is saying: Jesus is that Son of Man. Jesus is the one who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. And for Stephen, this is amazing, because he has tied his entire identity — his whole life, with all its hopes and dreams — to whether Jesus really is who he claimed to be.
Imagine being so confident in a particular racehorse that you bet every single penny you own on that one horse. Nothing left in the bank. Nothing left in savings. You have staked everything on this one horse winning the Gold Cup. Now imagine the level of personal investment you would feel in whether that horse actually wins. You have bet your whole life on it. And now imagine the elation you would feel when you see that your confidence was well grounded — as the horse wins the race by a mile. That is the level of investment Stephen felt in Jesus.
So imagine how elated he felt when he saw with his waking eyes the fact that Jesus had won. And every true Christian feels this level of investment in Jesus. His people cannot be indifferent about his identity and victory. A true Christian is someone who has staked their whole life on whether Jesus really is who he says he is. So every Christian can feel elated at Stephen’s words of vindication.
But these words of Stephen are the worst possible news for the Sanhedrin. In the inverse way to Stephen, they have staked everything on Jesus not being who he says he is. If Jesus really is God’s judge, then they did the worst conceivable thing in killing him. If Jesus really is the Daniel Son of Man, then their whole religious system collapses. If Jesus’s followers are vindicated, then the Sanhedrin have been wrong their whole lives.
The response that divides Stephen and the Sanhedrin.
Now imagine with me a mother and her child. This mother pours her whole life into her child — all her time, effort, money, and reason for living. And then imagine that child becomes a teenager, runs away from home, and deliberately goes against everything the mother taught them. How can the mother not descend into the deepest kind of fury — the collapse of everything she has staked her whole life on?
For the Sanhedrin, if Stephen is right, the result is not simply an alternative or interesting worldview. The result is a complete negation and dismissal of everything they have built their lives upon.
But here is the thing. Remember at the start I said Stephen and the Sanhedrin represent the only two possible reactions to the news that Jesus reigns in heaven. Often, in our minds, we imagine a third category. We think to ourselves: “Well, those nasty, vindictive, fundamentalist Sanhedrin — I would never react like that. They are the baddies.”
But in reality, the Sanhedrin were in a better position than most people, because they rightly perceived the implications for them of the fact that Jesus reigns in heaven. That fact profoundly contradicts the foundation upon which most people build their whole lives.
Because if Jesus really is reigning in heaven, then there is a final judgement. And it will not be on the basis of good deeds versus bad deeds, but on the basis of whether we truly love him or not.
And if Jesus really is reigning in heaven, then he is what we should be living for — not our families, not our community, not even our church.
If we are making anything other than him the deepest reason for living, that is not simply mistaken. It is the deepest kind of rebellion against him.
So Jesus reigning in heaven was the fact that divided Stephen and the Sanhedrin. But their responses divide them too. Let us look at Stephen’s final response to his vision. His last words are extraordinary:
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
How on earth can Stephen say this of the people who are murdering him?
Well, if Jesus is the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father, then being lifted up into the closest proximity to God in heaven is not about whether you are a good person or a bad person. It is about having Jesus as your advocate. Stephen knows that his salvation is not because he is good, but because Jesus has had mercy on him. And so he can look even at those who are stoning him to death and pray that they too might receive Jesus’s mercy.
But conversely, for the Sanhedrin, if Jesus the Son of Man really is standing at the right hand of the Father, then proximity to God is not about being good or bad, but about having Jesus as your advocate. And for them, as we have seen, this is the worst possible news.
Because they have spent their whole lives trying to climb the ladder — trying to draw near to God through their own efforts, through being good, and most importantly, through being better than other people.
So, when Stephen challenges this, they have a choice. Kill their own self-identity and let Stephen and Jesus be right — or kill Stephen and let their own self-identity be right.
And each one of us faces exactly the same choice. We cannot become true followers of Jesus until we have killed our own sense of self-identity: all the things we are proud of; all the things we have built our lives upon; our deep-down sense that we are decent, respectable people. If that makes us uncomfortable, then that is probably a good thing. Because the Holy Spirit may well be working in us, helping us to lay our whole lives at the foot of the cross.
And if you can say: “I have been through the discomfort of killing my self-identity. I have staked my whole life on Jesus.”, then praise the Lord. You too will one day see him, as Stephen did, ready to receive you into eternal bliss.