Stephen concluded his defense by indicting his accusers. They had brought charges against him, but now he brought more serious charges against them.
In his first speech to the Sanhedrin, Peter had been quite brief and forthright (4:8-12). He had presented Jesus as the only name by which people must be saved (4:12). In his second speech to that body, Peter had again spoken briefly but more directly (5:29-32). He had charged the Sanhedrin with crucifying the Prince and Savior whom God had provided for His people (5:30-31). In this third speech before the Sanhedrin, Stephen spoke extensively giving even more condemning evidence. The Sanhedrin was guilty of unresponsiveness to God's word and of betraying and murdering the Righteous One (v. 52).
7:51 By rejecting Jesus the Sanhedrin was doing just what their forefathers had done in rejecting God's other anointed servants, such as Joseph and Moses. They were "stiff-necked,"a figure of speech for self-willed. Moses used this expression to describe the Israelites when they rebelled against God and worshipped the golden calf (cf. Exod. 33:5; Deut. 9:13). While Stephen's hearers had undergone physical circumcision, and were proud of it, they were uncircumcised in their affections and responsiveness to God's Word. They were resisting the Holy Spirit rather than allowing Him to control (fill) them. They were similar to the apostates in Israel's past (cf. Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16) whom former prophets had rebuked (cf. Jer. 4:4; 9:26).
7:52 The Sanhedrin members were behaving just as their forefathers had. Note that Stephen had previously associated himself with "our fathers"(vv. 2, 11-12, 15, 19, 39, 44-45), but now he disassociated himself from the Sanhedrin by referring to "your fathers.""Our fathers"were the trusting and obeying patriarchs, but "your fathers"were the unresponsive apostates. The Jews' ill treatment of their prophets was well known and self-admitted (cf. 2 Chron. 36:15-16; Neh. 9:26; Jer. 2:30). They had consistently resisted God's messengers to them, even killing the heralds of God's Righteous One (cf. 3:14; 1 Kings 19:10, 14; Neh. 9:26; Jer. 26:20-24; Luke 6:23; 11:49; 13:34; 1 Thess. 2:15; Heb. 11:36-38). Stephen said the Sanhedrin members were responsible for the betrayal and murder of that one, Jesus.
7:53 Their guilt was all the greater because they had received God's law, which angels had delivered (Deut. 33:2 [LXX]; cf. Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2), but they had disobeyed it. They were the real blasphemers (defiant sinners). Stephen, as an angel (cf. 6:15), had brought them new insight, but they were about to reject it too.
The primary theme of Stephen's speech is that Israel's leaders had failed to recognize that God had told His people ahead of time that they could expect a change. They had falsely concluded that the present state of Judaism was the final stage in God's plan of revelation and redemption. We too can become so preoccupied with the past and the present that we forget what God has revealed about the future. We need to keep looking ahead.
"He [Stephen] saw that the men who played a really great part in the history of Israel were the men who heard God's command, Get thee out,' and who were not afraid to obey it [cf. vv. 3, 15, 29, 36, 45]. The great men were the men who were prepared to make the adventure of faith. With that adventurous spirit Stephen implicitly contrasted the spirit of the Jews of his own day, whose one desire was to keep things as they were and who regarded Jesus and His followers as dangerous innovators."336
A second related theme is that Israel's leaders had departed from God's priorities to give prominence to secondary issues for their own glory (the Holy Land, Moses, the temple). We also can think too highly of our own country, our leaders, and our place of worship. Another related theme, the theme of Israel's rejection of the Lord's anointed servants, also runs through Stephen's speech. Jesus was another of God's anointed servants. The Jews had dealt with Him as they had dealt with the other anointed servants whom God had sent them. They could expect to experience the consequences of their rejection as their forefathers had. We need to observe the pattern of humiliation followed by glorification that has marked the careers of God's servants in the past and to anticipate that pattern in our own careers.
". . . it [Stephen's defense] is not designed to secure Stephen's acquittal of the charges brought against him, but to proclaim the essence of the new faith. It has been well said that, although the name of Christ is never mentioned, Stephen is all the while preaching Jesus'. He is demonstrating that everything in Israel's past history and experience pointed forward to God's culminating act in his plan for the redemption of the world in sending the Christ. The witness of Abraham, Joseph, Moses and David in one way or another underlined the transitory nature of existing Jewish institutions and the hollowness of Jewish claims to have the monopoly of the way to salvation. The presence of God could not be restricted to one Holy Land or confined in one holy Temple, nor could his Law be atrophied in the ceremonialism of the Sadducees or the legalism of the Pharisees."337
Stephen's speech demonstrated remarkable insight, but this was more than mere human genius because the Holy Spirit was controlling (filling) Stephen (6:5, 10). While it is easy to overstate Stephen's importance, He seems to have understood the changes that would take place because of the Jews' rejection of Jesus. He did so earlier and more clearly than some of the other leaders of the Jerusalem church such as Peter (cf. ch. 10). He appears to have been an enlightened thinker whom God enabled to see the church's future in relationship to Israel as few did this early in the church's history. Many Hebrew Jewish Christians--who still observed the Jewish hour of prayer, feasts, and temple ritual--probably did not appreciate this relationship. Stephen was in a real sense the forerunner of Paul who became the champion of God's plan to separate Christianity from Judaism.
"So he [Stephen] perceived, and evidently was the first to perceive clearly, the incidental and temporary character of the Mosaic Law with the temple and all its worship. This was the first germ of doctrine which S. Paul was afterward to carry out to its full logical and far-reaching consequences, viz. the perfect equality of Jew and Gentile in the church of God . . .
"S. Stephen then is the connecting link between S. Peter and S. Paul--a link indispensable to the chain. Stephen, and not Gamaliel, was the real master of S. Paul. . . . For the work' of Stephen lasts on till chapter xii (see xi 19), and then it is taken up by his greater pupil and successor--Paul."338
