Atti 7:59 Commento

When our Lord Jesus called his apostles out to be employed in services and sufferings for him, he told them that yet the last should be first, and the first last, which was remarkably fulfilled in St. Stephen and St. Paul, who were both of them late converts, in comparison of the apostles, and yet got the start of them both in services and sufferings; for God, in conferring honours and favours, often crosses hands. In this chapter we have the martyrdom of Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian church, who led the van in the noble army. And therefore his sufferings and death are more largely related than those of any other, for direction and encouragement to all those who are called out to resist unto blood, as he did. Here is, I. His defence of himself before the council, in answer to the matters and things he stood charged with, the scope of which is to show that it was no blasphemy against God, nor any injury at all to the glory of his name, to say that the temple should be destroyed and the customs of the ceremonial law changed. And, 1. He shows this by going over the history of the Old Testament, and observing that God never intended to confine his favours to that place, or that ceremonial law; and that they had no reason to expect he should, for the people of the Jews had always been a provoking people, and had forfeited the privileges of their peculiarity: nay, that that holy place and that law were but figures of good things to come, and it was no disparagement at all to them to say that they must give place to better things (v. 1-50). And then, 2. He applies this to those that prosecuted him, and sat in judgment upon him, sharply reproving them for their wickedness, by which they had brought upon themselves the ruin of their place and nation, and then could not bear to hear of it (Act 7:51-53). II. The putting of him to death by stoning him, and his patient, cheerful, pious submission to it (Act 7:54-60).

Then said the high priest,.... The Ethiopic version adds, "to him"; that is, to Stephen; for to him he addressed himself: or he "asked him", as the Syriac version renders it; he put the following question to him: are these things so? is it true what they say, that thou hast spoken blasphemous words against the temple, and the law, and hast said that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the one, and change the other? what hast thou to say for thyself, and in thine own defence? this high priest was either Annas, or rather Caiaphas; See Gill on Act 4:6.

So also Stephen had already put on the appearance of an angel, although they were none other than his human knees which bent beneath the stoning.

Now, then, the epistles of the apostles also are well known. And do we, (you say), in all respects guileless souls and doves merely, love to go astray? I should think from eagerness to live. But let it be so, that meaning departs from their epistles. And yet, that the apostles endured such sufferings, we know: the teaching is clear. This only I perceive in running through the Acts. I am not at all on the search. The prisons there, and the bonds, and the scourges, and the big stones, and the swords, and the onsets by the Jews, and the assemblies of the heathen, and the indictments by tribunes, and the hearing of causes by kings, and the judgment-seats of proconsuls and the name of Caesar, do not need an interpreter. That Peter is struck, that Stephen is overwhelmed by stones, that James is slain as is a victim at the altar, that Paul is beheaded has been written in their own blood. And if a heretic wishes his confidence to rest upon a public record, the archives of the empire will speak, as would the stones of Jerusalem. We read the lives of the Caesars: At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith.

With this strength of patience, Esaias is cut asunder, and ceases not to speak concerning the Lord; Stephen is stoned, and prays for pardon to his foes. Oh, happy also he who met all the violence of the devil by the exertion of every species of patience! -whom neither the driving away of his cattle nor those riches of his in sheep, nor the sweeping away of his children in one swoop of ruin, nor, finally, the agony of his own body in (one universal) wound, estranged from the patience and the faith which he had plighted to the Lord; whom the devil smote with all his might in vain.

Thus first Stephen, pressing on His footsteps, suffered martyrdom, being apprehended in Jerusalem by the transgressors, and being brought before the council, he was stoned, and glorified for the name of Christ, praying with the words, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."

"And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." This is meant to show them that he is not perishing, and to teach them.

O martyr, embark on struggles which will cause happy deaths, where punishment is glory and to fall is a rising, and by slaughter is born immortality embracing the rewards of everlasting life. Lo, to have merited thus to die was the beginning of a blessed life without end.

Therefore it is shown that the souls of the righteous no longer depart into Hades, as formerly, but are rather sent into the hands of the living God through our Savior Christ. [SAINT CYRIL ON "FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT."]

"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" is a saying that teaches and shows them that he will not perish. "They were stoning Stephen." Since justification is accomplished by faith in Christ, and in Him human nature received innocence in abundance and granted us a new right, by virtue of which our souls no longer go to Hades, but, as before, are sent into the hands of the Living God, knowing this, holy Stephen said: "Lord Jesus! receive my spirit." And blessed Peter writes: "Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to Him, as to a faithful Creator" (1 Pet. 4:19).

Stephen, being permitted to answer for himself relative to the charge of blasphemy brought against him by his accusers, gives a circumstantial relation of the call of Abraham, when he dwelt in Mesopotamia, in Charran, etc., Act 7:1-8. The history of Jacob and Joseph, Act 7:9-17. The persecution of their fathers in Egypt, Act 7:18, Act 7:19. The history of Moses and his acts till the exodus from Egypt, vv. 20-37. The rebellion and idolatry of the Israelites in the wilderness, Act 7:38-43 The erection of the tabernacle of witness, which continued till the time of David, Act 7:44-46. Of the temple built by Solomon for that God who cannot be confined to temples built by hands, Act 7:47-50. Being probably interrupted in the prosecution of his discourse, he urges home the charge of rebellion against God, persecution of his prophets, the murder of Christ, and neglect of their own law against them, Act 7:51-53. They are filled with indignation, and proceed to violence, Act 7:54. He sees the glory of God, and Christ at the right hand of the Father; and declares the glorious vision, Act 7:55, Act 7:56. They rush upon him, drag him out of the city, and stone him, Act 7:57, Act 7:58. He involves the Lord Jesus, prays for his murderers, and expires, Act 7:59, Act 7:60.

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God - The word God is not found in any MS. or version, nor in any of the primitive fathers except Chrysostom. It is not genuine, and should not be inserted here: the whole sentence literally reads thus: And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! Here is a most manifest proof that prayer is offered to Jesus Christ; and that in the most solemn circumstances in which it could be offered, viz., when a man was breathing his last. This is, properly speaking, one of the highest acts of worship which can be offered to God; and, if Stephen had not conceived Jesus Christ to be God, could he have committed his soul into his hands? We may farther observe that this place affords a full proof of the immateriality of the soul; for he could not have commended his spirit to Christ, had he believed that he had no spirit, or, in other words, that his body and soul were one and the same thing. Allowing this most eminent saint to have had a correct notion of theology, and that, being full of the Holy Ghost, as he was at this time, he could make no mistake in matters of such vast weight and importance, then these two points are satisfactorily stated in this verse: 1. That Jesus Christ is God; for Stephen died praying to him. 2. That the soul is immaterial; for Stephen, in dying, commends his departing spirit into the hand of Christ.

DEFENSE AND MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN. (Acts 7:1-60) The God of glory--A magnificent appellation, fitted at the very outset to rivet the devout attention of his audience; denoting not that visible glory which attended many of the divine manifestations, but the glory of those manifestations themselves, of which this was regarded by every Jew as the fundamental one. It is the glory of absolutely free grace. appeared unto our father Abraham before he dwelt in Charran, and said, &c.--Though this first call is not expressly recorded in Genesis, it is clearly implied in Gen 15:7 and Neh 9:7; and the Jewish writers speak the same language.

calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, &c.--An unhappy supplement of our translators is the word "God" here; as if, while addressing the Son, he was really calling upon the Father. The sense is perfectly clear without any supplement at all--"calling upon [invoking] and saying, Lord Jesus"; Christ being the Person directly invoked and addressed by name (compare Act 9:14). Even GROTIUS, DE WETTE, MEYER, &c., admit this, adding several other examples of direct prayer to Christ; and PLINY, in his well-known letter to the Emperor Trajan (A.D. 110 or 111), says it was part of the regular Christian service to sing, in alternate strains, a hymn to Christ as God. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit--In presenting to Jesus the identical prayer which He Himself had on the cross offered to His Father, Stephen renders to his glorified Lord absolute divine worship, in the most sublime form, and at the most solemn moment of his life. In this commitment of his spirit to Jesus, Paul afterwards followed his footsteps with a calm, exultant confidence that with Him it was safe for eternity (Ti2 1:12).