Verse 1. The high priest demanded an answer from Stephen, which brought out Israel's condemnation. Stephen, in answering, unfolded parts of their history, which showed God's grace to them, and their resistance of it.
Joseph and Moses were rejected, so that God's purposes should be worked out. The law was given and broken; the golden calf set up; and Israel carried to Babylon. The tabernacle was given till David, then the temple was built, but it could not contain God in it. The prophets were despised, persecuted, and slain; and he concludes: "Ye stiff-necked, 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 showed before 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."
This convicting testimony cut them to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. Their guilty consciences break out in violence against God's witness.
"But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand Of God."
What calmness of spirit is seen in his behavior! What faithfulness to tell out the truth as led by the Holy Spirit. He had no thought or: his danger, for his eye is fixed on Jesus in the glory of God; and his testimony is so plain and convicting they could not deny the facts.
As he gazed into the opened heavens, he 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, while he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 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.
It was Jesus, and the glory of God, which satisfied his own heart, but his testimony was to the opened heavens, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, rejected on earth, and glorified in heaven. We see Him there now seated, until His foes become His footstool (Psa. 110 and Heb. 10). In the meantime the Holy Spirit has come down, gathering the members of His body on earth.
"And we, by faith, in heaven behold
Jesus, the Christ, our Lord."
Here the Lord is seen standing till His rejection by the Jews was fully come. As soon as i Stephen was slain, this testimony is ended, and Stephen's spirit is with the Lord in glory, and the Lord is seated on the Father's throne.
"For Stephen, heaven is opened, and Jesus is seen in divine glory; and this is what forms his soul in such a beautiful way into the likeness of Jesus. As He prayed for His enemies, so also Stephen prays for his. As the Lord commended His spirit to the Father, so Stephen says 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' The view of Jesus transforms the heart into His likeness.
"That which was seen by Stephen is the object of faith for us, made clearer by what happened to him."
Saul was implicated in Stephen's murder (verse 58).