Acts 7:2–53

Accused in this way, Stephen answers the high priest's question, "Are these things so?" God had brought out their forefather Abraham, but He never actually gave him possession of this land. Why then boast of it so much? They boasted loudly of Abraham and of God's dealings in a merely natural way. Clearly they were not in communion with God, or even with Abraham.

We know that he and his family were serving other gods in that land beyond the Euphrates (Joshua 24:2). They were caught up in the idolatry that had already swallowed the whole land, and there grace met him. He was not the heir of privilege. For him the glory did not live in any place made with hands. It was apart from the world — the world in which that revelation made him a pilgrim from then on. God called him out of the land of his birth and from his kindred, and the land He called him to was unknown. Faith was a necessity to him in every way — slow as he might be, and was, to cut the ties of nature, which were only a hindrance to him.

"The God of glory" is no mere Hebrew idiom for "glorious God." From the very beginning it directs the heart to One altogether above the world. He is above it in Himself and in His purposes, whatever His ways may be meanwhile on the earth.

Abraham is living in great Ur of the Chaldees. Archaeological discoveries make it plain that this was a splendid city of wealth and learning in those far-off days. Men there were still making themselves "a name" and displaying their glory. In the middle of all this magnificence, the God of glory appears before him. God presented Himself to him marked by the glory that belongs to Him.

"The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia." What unanswerable evidence of sovereign grace! To overlook it springs from a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from a living God. It hardens the soul in self-sufficiency, so that His voice becomes distasteful, disliked, and dreaded. Yet had they not often heard and read Joshua's testimony? … It was many centuries before the law and far away from Canaan. It was before he lived in Haran, in Mesopotamia — a place infamous as the mother of idolatries.

His story in Genesis begins with God's word to him: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1). According to Acts 7, these were the words with which "the God of glory" appeared to him. The revelation and the renunciation were cause and effect. The second was possible in the strength and joy of the first. The glory of Ur of the Chaldees faded before the God of glory. In eagerly stretching out his hands towards the one, Abraham turned his back on the other. This was, as we may call it, Abraham's conversion. Abraham decisively "turned to God from idols," and there is no true conversion without this.

Here then we discover what distinguishes this call from every other call: it comes from God — the God of glory. It is the glory of the One who appears to Abraham that gives such importance to the call, and gives faith its authority and power to answer it.

Even Abraham, blessed as he was, moved slowly in the path of faith at first. He did not leave Mesopotamia to live in Canaan all at once. Before that he lived in Haran. He got out of his land, but not so quickly "out of his kindred." So there was a remarkable delay in coming into the land God was to show him.

"The God of glory" is not simply a Hebrew way of saying "glorious God." From the very start it turns the heart toward One who is entirely above the world. He is above it in Himself and in His purposes, whatever His ways on earth may be in the meantime. "Your fathers lived on the other side of the river long ago, Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods" (Joshua 24:2). It was in sovereign grace that God appeared like this. Even the line of Shem — Abraham's father and relatives — were idolaters. Grace gives what is good; it does not find it. And the God of glory did not only appear. He appeared to Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia. Abraham was then at the furthest point of distance from "the land," and in idolatrous company.

There are two aspects of the call, both clearly set out in the history of Abraham. We read in Hebrews 11:8 that "he was called to go out," which refers to the world he was to leave behind. Then we read, "he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance." Here the new world he was called into is in view. Stephen also points to these two aspects of Abraham's call.

From there God, in supreme grace, calls him to come into a land where He would guide him, welcome him and provide for him. Note the word "Come" in Acts 7:3, as in Genesis 7 — not "go."

God's ties up to now had been made by natural order, by family blessings and inheritances. Abram is called out of all this — not only out of evil things. This was God's way of breaking the link with idolatry. The word is not, "Correct your ways in the country where you were born," but "Go out … to the land that I will show you."

In Abraham's case God called him literally to leave the country of his birth, his relatives and his father's house. For the Christian the call does not take this literal form, but we are no less called to be morally apart from country, relatives and father's house. And if we are morally apart, the political, social and even family circle may push the Christian out. That happened to the blind man in John 9. In any case, the moment comes in our history when we have to decide. Which comes first: the mighty call of God, or the pressing claims of country, relatives, and father's house?

The land to be shown in due time was as yet unknown, so that he was thrown back on simple-hearted confidence in God. He went out in submission to God's promise, not knowing where he was going. God would show the next step when Abraham took the first. He did not ask, "Where?" He trusted God completely. So his faith was unmixed with calculations of self, resting only but fully on the word of the One who loves and never deceives.

Even Abraham, blessed as he was, moved slowly on the path of faith at first. He did not leave Mesopotamia and settle in Canaan all at once. Before that he lived in Haran. He got out of his land, but not so quickly out of his kindred, so there was a striking delay in coming into the land God was going to show him.

An ancient city in Mesopotamia. Terah and his family moved there from Ur of the Chaldees. Abraham stayed there on his way to the land of Canaan, until his father died... It appears in its Greek form as CHARRAN in Acts 7:2, 4... The name means 'road' in Accadian. It was probably so called because the caravan routes of Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia crossed there.

He sets out, but he takes Terah, his father, with him, and goes and lodges in Haran (he could not carry Terah with him into the land of Canaan). Now God had called Abram, but not Terah. He left everything except Terah, and entered into possession of nothing. But he tried to carry something with him which was not of God, and he could not. It is not until after Terah's death that he removes into Canaan, to where God had called him.

Just so it happens to a heart which has not understood that it must give itself wholly to God. It gives up a great deal for duty, it receives nothing. When the question is of following God, it keeps something for itself. Still, grace acted towards Abraham.

Stephen says that the God of glory appeared to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran... The effect of this was that he left his country, and possibly many of his relatives. But his father went with him, along with Sarah and Lot, and they settled in Haran... Then it seems God called him to get out from his country, kindred, and father's house, and come into a land that He would show him (Genesis 12:1). The effect of this call was that he departed out of Haran. Stephen confirms this when he says, "after his father died, God removed him from there into this land." This shows beyond question that God acted a second time.

Genesis 11:32 states plainly that Terah died in Haran aged 205 years. Genesis 12:4 states just as plainly that Abram left Haran aged 75, with Terah already dead (see Acts 7:4) — not 135, as we should have expected. So Terah's family began when he was 70, but Abram was not born till Terah was 130. Abram is named first in Genesis 11:26 because Terah's other children mattered little compared with him. These things should teach us that God is concerned with moral and spiritual matters, not with dates.

He was not the heir of privilege. For him the glory did not live in any place built by human hands. It was outside the world, and by that revelation he became a pilgrim in the world from then on. From the land of his birth God called him out, and from his kindred; and the land to which He called him was one unknown. Faith was a necessity for him at every point. He was slow to cut the ties of nature, but those ties were only a hindrance to him. After his father was dead, God removed him to the land which was to be his own.

For though he went out of his land, he did not get out of his kin, but dwelt with his father in Haran till Terah died. Then only God removed him into the land in which the Jews gloried as their dwelling.

God had brought out their forefather Abraham, but He never actually gave him possession of this land. Why, then, boast of it so much? Those who, according to nature, boasted loudly of Abraham and of God's dealings were clearly not in communion with God, or even with Abraham.

Accused in this way, Stephen answers the high priest's question, "Are these things so?" In his wonderful speech (Acts 7) he sets before them the main facts of their history. They bear on God's dispute with the Jews at that moment. God had brought out their forefather Abraham, but He never actually gave him possession of this land. Why then boast so much about it? By natural descent they boasted loudly of Abraham and of God's dealings. Yet they were clearly not in fellowship with God, or even with Abraham.

Abraham was a pilgrim and a stranger in Canaan, and this by divine design. The Jewish boast was far from the mind of God, which Abraham enjoyed by faith. Faith brought him out of the land of the Chaldeans; but what was he in Canaan? "By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land... For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations" (Heb. 11:8-10). The Jews, like unbelievers at all times, stand not on faith but on tradition and outward privilege. Abraham lived on promise and walked by faith, not by sight.

God then brings Abraham into Canaan. What is there for him there? Nothing yet to be possessed. The Canaanites are there, enemies all around in this land of promise. He has only his faith for his pains, not a place to set his foot on that properly belonged to him.

Also, God gave him no actual possession in the land, though He promised it to him. He was a pilgrim — another healthy lesson for those who claim to be sons of Abraham. God's sovereign wisdom is impressed on us too in His promising the land to Abraham's offspring at a time when he had no child. So Abraham should not judge things by the narrow view of his present situation. Israel was failing in this too when Stephen spoke.

But what about the law? Did that make any difference? None whatever, as regards God's gift and promise. Four centuries before the law came, God Almighty settled and established the great transaction with Abraham His friend — settled and established forever. So nothing can touch it. God set no legal conditions for Abraham. All was pure and absolute grace. God gave the land to Abraham by promise, and not by law in any shape or form.

It is completely wrong to say that God did later give him a possession in Canaan — the piece of land he bought from Ephron as a burial place (Gen. 23:17). God's gift is absolute and future. Buying a burial place from the Hittite confirms this; it does not weaken it. For who that owned this land, or any land, would think of buying his own property? There he lays his dead in ground so plainly not his own that he has to buy it for the purpose — the pledge to faith that he will have it another day.

Abram and his offspring will have the promise in the day when glory is to dwell in that land (Ps. 85)... Then the children of Abraham — not by nature only but by grace also — will enter on the promised inheritance. Abraham himself will be there in resurrection glory. This happens when Jesus is revealed from heaven, and there come the times of restoration of all things, which God spoke of through His holy prophets long ago.

The true man of faith cannot find a home on earth because "the Canaanite" is there. By and by it will not be so, for "all that offends" will be gathered out of the kingdom, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. 11:15).

Stephen's words are a loose quotation of Genesis 15:13-14, with a few words more or less from Exodus 3:12 in place of the closing phrase. The God of glory thought of His people in Egypt and in the wilderness, before the holy place or even the law. He will never give Israel up until He has made good His promise, guaranteed when Abraham had no child... For as with the father, so with his seed. Abraham lived as a stranger in Palestine, and his descendants were first seen as slaves in a foreign land. This lasted no brief moment. In round numbers 400 years (strictly 405) passed from the birth of the child of promise until God judged the nation that held them in slavery.

Genesis 15:13 and Acts 7:6 say nothing about Egypt: "Your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs." God said this to Abraham. It may cover the whole period from the birth of Isaac to the Exodus, which on this reckoning was four hundred and five years. That agrees with the round number of four hundred years. Exodus 12:40 is worded differently: it counts four hundred and thirty years for the time the children of Israel lived in Egypt. It is better to take those four hundred and thirty years as covering the stay of Abraham after the promise, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.

Their slavery was in no way accidental. God had foreseen it, and even foretold it to Abram while he still had no child (Genesis 15:13-16). God was training a people destined for a high position. Part of that training was to live in a foreign land and suffer there four hundred years. God rules everything so completely that Satan could not hold the people one day beyond the appointed time.

God promised Abraham this very furnace of affliction in the vision of Genesis 15. This iron furnace represents God, along with the lamp, as it passes between the pieces of the sacrifice. It was the necessary means to bring them out for the inheritance He promised them. It is His way to make them the people He wants them to be. God pledges to them that they shall have this fiery furnace, and Pharaoh was the instrument in God's hand for it.

At no time was there a clearer proof of God's interest in them than during those centuries, and during the deliverance that followed, filled with miracles and still more glowing prophecies. It was a time remarkable in every way, in Egypt and in the wilderness alike. Yet none of it happened while they were settled in the land of promise. Never was there a more awful display of His displeasure, or of the blows His wrath brought on their oppressors. Never was there a more wonderful witness in the past that He had taken Israel as His own people, redeemed from the world's slavery.

God did not promise immediate great blessing. He promised instead that Abraham's offspring would go into slavery and suffer oppression for four hundred years. So there would be long suffering before exaltation... Israel should never have forgotten what this meant, and we today should take its lessons to heart. We must expect suffering before exaltation.

The word itself can carry either sense. Between people it means an arrangement, especially of property by a will. In the things of God it means a covenant, and that is the usual sense in the Greek Old Testament and the New Testament. The context decides it with certainty… Acts 3:25 and Acts 7:8 are just as plain for "covenant," and there all the English versions are correct.

God makes His covenants from Himself, without consulting man… Covenants like this take the form of an unconditional promise. God's covenant with Abraham was such a promise: first about his natural descendants, Genesis 15:4-6; then about his seed, Christ, Genesis 22:15-18. He also gave him the covenant of circumcision, Genesis 17:10-14; Acts 7:8 — a seal of the righteousness of faith. Romans 4:11.

Abraham is near a hundred years old, "his body now dead," with nothing more to expect from it. Right there God steps in as the "Almighty" God. He renews His assurance of what He will do, at the very point where Abraham can do nothing… So where is the law? Where is all the work of man that Israel trusted in, in a covenant given to a man with a "body now dead"?

Its sign was not to be in the clouds for every eye to see, but in the flesh. On the flesh it waged all-out war, declaring it unclean and sentencing it to death. It did not simply demand purity. It set out death, a picture of Christ's death for His own, who by nature were as unclean and ungodly as anyone else. It was not of Moses but of the fathers, as the Lord told the Jews (John 7:22).

God then gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision (v.8), to be applied to his descendants. It was a sign that no promise of God could apply to man as he is in the flesh. The flesh must be cut off, to have no part in God's counsels. Yet in Stephen's time the Jews were boasting in the mere rite of circumcision, and so standing against what it meant.

"So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day" — the day of resurrection and its glory, and of that new standing which belongs to the believer by God's counsels of grace. In Genesis 15 Abraham believed God, who counted it to him as righteousness. He had also been called out, and he obeyed the call, set apart to Jehovah — both while still uncircumcised. But it was after his own circumcision, and in the full order of the covenant, that he became the father of Isaac.

Stephen draws marked attention to the covenant of circumcision that God gave to Abraham. He does not belittle an institution that the law itself took up… But the promise came long before the law. And Abraham, the father of the faithful, had enjoyed God's election and call even before circumcision. The truth is a whole. It only suffers when one part is misused to weaken or destroy another.

How does Stephen sum up the history of that early twelve? "And the patriarchs through jealousy sold Joseph into Egypt: and God was with him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions"… Yet which of the twelve was tried by his brothers as Joseph was? Who was plotted against as he was?

Did these twelve men prove to be the most exemplary and upright people? Far from it! As early as this in Israel's history we see signs of the great evils that would later take place. This cruel rejection of their own brother tells us that from the beginning that nation was no better than any other. The fathers of the nation cast out their brother because of envy. In the same way, the nation has cast out their promised Messiah when He came in grace. The same envy and hatred moved them.

The heads of the tribes of Israel show their evil state from the first. Nothing justly provoked them. There was only refusal to obey their father, hatred of their godly brother, and rebellion against the mind of God. They envied Joseph, and even when they gave up their plan to kill him, they sold him away into Egypt. Pride of position hates the faith that rebukes it. It hates the spirit of grace shown in deed and truth. It goes on to hostility beyond measure, more cruel than the world's.

Joseph was a beloved son, a God-fearing slave, a guiltless prisoner, and a wise deputy ruler. In every place and in every circumstance God was with him. Yet who of the twelve was so tried by his brothers? Who was so plotted against as he? Who seemed to suffer more in spite of — yes, because of — his spotless purity? Even so, in prison, "the LORD was with him, and whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed."

The Lord was with him when he gained his father's confidence and love. The Lord was with him when his faithfulness earned the envy and hatred of his brothers. Now Scripture says it with special force about a slave in a strange land… The Lord was with him all the more because the need was greater.

Who could forget the envy of Joseph's brothers! Yet it helped to fulfil the very hints of his greatness that had caused their envy. They sold him into Egypt. Did those standing before Stephen not remember their own thirty pieces of silver? Then came the famine, which forced his guilty brothers to turn to the one they had rejected and cast out… Man acted freely and, sadly, away from God. Even so, he carried out God's purposes as if he had aimed at them on purpose.

The patriarchs, moved with envy, hated and persecuted Joseph. But God was with him, and highly exalted him. In his exaltation Joseph sends a message to his brothers. He presents himself as their saviour and deliverer. So Joseph becomes a striking picture of Christ, their own Messiah. Out of envy the leaders of Israel handed Him over to be crucified. But God had exalted Christ to His own right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour. From that place of exaltation, through the Holy Spirit, came the offer of repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of their sins.

Stephen does not say a word about the Lord Jesus. Yet who could miss the parallel between the Just One and the innocent object of the patriarchs' jealousy? Could anyone doubt that this was the plain lesson of their own Scriptures, and no clever trick to serve a purpose?

A beloved son, or a God-fearing slave, a guiltless prisoner or a wise ruler — Joseph had God with him everywhere and in all circumstances. Yet who of the twelve sons of Jacob was so tried by his brothers? Who was so plotted against as he? Who seemed to fare worse despite his unstained purity — yes, because of it? Still, even in prison, "the Lord was with him, and whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed."

God visits the home of a heathen captain. He visits the household of a heathen king — yes, even his bedside. He makes the very dreams in the king's head serve the working out of His plans... How clearly God's providence comes out in this deeply interesting history of Joseph! Look for a moment into the dungeon of the captain of the guard. See a man there in irons, charged with a disgusting crime, the outcast and refuse of society. Then see him raised, almost in a moment, to the very highest position. Who can deny that God is in it all?

Their anger had sold Joseph into Egypt. God used their sin to make Joseph the great organiser of the day, saving countless lives. Nothing could excuse the terrible sin of Joseph's brothers against him. But it must have comforted their accusing hearts to find that God used the anger of man to praise Him.

He rose from the obscurity of the prison to the "favour" of Pharaoh, who set him over the land of Egypt and the king's house (Acts 7:9-10). But after all, this was only the favour of man. It cannot compare with the favour of God. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, the justified believer has gained a permanent right to that favour.

God was with the hated Joseph. Just as surely, He was with Jesus in all fullness. Jesus was the object of divine delight and the storehouse of wisdom for His glory. His troubles went deeper than any that ever came on anyone. When God brought Him out of them all, He highly exalted Him and set Him at His own right hand. But if it was not the kingdom of Israel, with Zion at its centre, this only confirms how fitting the type is... the despised and rejected One is exalted on His Father's throne, not yet on His own. He has all authority over a kingdom as wide as the world. Its form is quite special, and He received it when He was cast out, separated from His brothers. Of this, Joseph's exaltation by the king of Egypt is the striking shadow — made chief over Egypt and all his house.

Joseph was handed over to the Gentiles. Afterwards he became the highest man in the running of the kingdom, and the instrument of God's goodness and wisdom for the very brothers who had persecuted and sold him... such had been the features of their recent sin, and such would be the path of God in His grace. But they had no ear for Him yet.

Moved with envy, they rejected and sold him (v.9). Yet God preserved him and in fact exalted him to a place of great authority in Egypt. Could God not do the same (or something greater) with Jesus, whom Israel rejected?

They sold him into Egypt. (Did the men in front of Stephen not remember their own thirty pieces of silver?) But God was with him, despite those afflictions in the meantime. God so plainly delivered him out of them, and made him governor over all the land. Then came the famine, which forced his guilty brothers to turn for help to the one they had rejected and cast out. And this again led to the fulfilment of the prophecy given to Abraham. Man acted freely and, sadly, far from God. Yet he still worked out God's purposes, as if he had set out to bring them about.

It was a pathway of righteous suffering that led to glory. Once exalted, Joseph handed out, in the wisdom of God, what that same wisdom had raised him up to store in the days of plenty for the days of scarcity. Under the mighty hand of God, the scarcity pressed not only over all Egypt but over Canaan. There the heads of Israel tasted that cruel affliction, for they found no food. In God's providence they went to Egypt for grain.

It is called CHANAAN in Acts 7:11; Acts 13:19.

During the days of plenty the world paid little attention to Joseph. Of his brothers we hear nothing; they were completely indifferent to him. But when the shortage set in, need woke up. "The land of Egypt was famished" (v. 55), and starvation and death faced Jacob and his sons (Gen. 42:1-2). The need calls out a cry for bread. The Gentiles have to learn, and the brothers discover, that no one can meet the need except the one they once scorned and rejected.

Yet His grace can use famine and great distress of every kind for mercy and blessing. But to be blessed, the sinner must feel his evil state... Food for the inner man comes only from Him. The sons of Jacob found none in Canaan. Their father heard of food in Egypt — for the fulfilment of God's purpose — and sent them there. Joseph had provided for a famished world, and his heart longed to supply his father and his brothers, little as they knew who it was they had sold away there.

There is nothing that brings a man down like hunger. Neither a man's pride nor his family name can fill him in the day of hunger and need... Nothing brings a man down like soul-hunger. It is a great thing when that soul-hunger becomes urgent — when a man feels that he is a sinner, that he needs Christ, and that he must have Christ.

God's sovereignty again shone out in the great famine that drove Joseph's brothers to Egypt for food. In fact, God would yet bring Israel to such a state of desolation that they too would have to look for help. And they would find that help in none other than the Jesus whom they had crucified. Only at the second visit, after real distress and searching of soul, did Joseph make himself known to his brothers (v.13).

How often God chooses to use hardship for His own purposes and in His own ways, for the good of all — saints and sinners alike! So it is here. The pinch of want fell on Jacob and his sons; "for the famine was in the land of Canaan."

It was a pathway of righteous suffering which led to glory. Once exalted, Joseph gave out, in the wisdom of God, what that same wisdom had raised him up to store in the days of plenty for those in famine. Under the mighty hand of God, the famine pressed not only over all Egypt but over Canaan. There the heads of Israel tasted that cruel affliction, for they found no food, and in God's providence they sought grain in Egypt. This, "at the second time," gave occasion for their great discovery, and it did not come without self-judgment. Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and the line of promise was no longer a secret to Pharaoh.

Then came the famine which forced his guilty brothers to turn to the one whom they had rejected and cast out. And this again led to the fulfilment of the prophecy to Abraham. Man acted freely and, sadly, far from God. Yet he still worked out God's purposes, as if he were deliberately trying to achieve them.

He starts with the very beginning of the nation's existence, dating it from Abraham. He retells its history down to the days of Moses. He points out that twice over their ancestors made the great mistake of rejecting the instrument God had designed for their deliverance. First it was Joseph. Next it was Moses. Joseph's brothers sold into Egypt the one who turned out to be their saviour and deliverer… The mistake they made over Joseph they had repeated over Moses. What were they doing now? They were repeating that mistake.

The patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt because they were moved with envy. Matthew records Pilate's efforts to release Jesus, "for he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered Him up." It was the same with Moses. The words that made him flee — "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" — came from one of his own brothers, not from an Egyptian. The rejection came from among his own people, not from outside. So it had been with Jesus too.

Stephen does not say a word about the Lord Jesus. Yet who could fail to see the parallel between the Just One and the innocent object of the patriarchs' jealousy? Could anyone doubt that this was no clever device invented to serve a purpose, but the plain lesson of their own Scriptures?

…these events foreshadow what the prophets promise in God's name. A greater than Joseph was rejected by His brothers, and God exalted Him to sit at His own right hand with richer supplies for a famished world. He is about to make Himself known "the second time" to His brothers, with broken hearts and deep repentance.

Under the mighty hand of God, the famine pressed not only over all Egypt but over Canaan. There the heads of Israel tasted that cruel affliction, for they found no food. So in God's providence they sought grain in Egypt. This, "on the second visit," gave occasion for their great discovery. It did not come without self-judgment, when Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and the line of promise was no longer a secret to Pharaoh.

Not a word does Stephen say of the Lord Jesus. Yet who could fail to see the parallel between the Just One and the innocent brother whom Jacob's sons envied? Could anyone doubt that this was no clever device to serve a purpose? It was the undeniable lesson of their own Scriptures.

Scripture foreshadows Israel's wickedness through unbelief as plainly as it foreshadows Messiah's humiliation and rejection by His brothers. This was Stephen's point, and he could not help saying it if he cared for the Lord and for their souls. They might disdain it, but it was exactly the truth they needed then, as they do still.

The discovery did not come from any insight or shrewdness on the part of the brothers. It came entirely from Joseph revealing himself to them… What is more, Joseph revealed himself as the fruit of his love for them. That love was so real that he could not hold back any longer, and it moved him to tears.

But who can describe the scene where Joseph made himself known to his brothers, when they had come the second time? It is a chapter of great tenderness. Some day the Lord Jesus Christ, whom His brothers rejected and disowned, will come the second time. Israel in the end time will pass through deep anguish and searching of soul. When that reaches its climax, He will come, and those who pierced Him will look on Him.

Joseph was not only to be made known to his brothers, as we have seen. His relatives were now to be made known to Pharaoh as well. So he presents them to the king. They were shepherds, it is true, keepers of cattle from their youth, people the Egyptians detested. But what of that? "He is not ashamed to call them brothers." He owns them in front of the king. The king himself is of one mind with Joseph toward them. He owns them too, and honours them.

It was no new feature in their history. Their fathers had done the same as they were doing. Man is always resisting what God sends in blessing. Joseph and Moses had both been rejected — the two clearest pictures of the Lord Jesus. Their fathers despised and hated Joseph; they had done the same to Christ. God exalted Joseph; and Stephen's testimony was to Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And if Joseph sent and called his relatives in grace, did not, and will not, Christ do the same?

Now Stephen places special emphasis on the twelve sons of Jacob, the immediate father of the twelve tribes. Was their history a glorious, beautiful one? Far from it! If Israel wanted to boast, let them think about what their fathers did to their own brother Joseph. Moved with envy, they rejected and sold him (v.9). Yet God preserved him and in fact exalted him to a place of great authority in Egypt. Could God not do the same, or even more, for Jesus whom Israel rejected?

Food for the inner man comes only from Him. The sons of Jacob found none in Canaan. Their father heard of it in Egypt, and to fulfil God's purpose he sent them there. Joseph had provided for a starving world, and his heart longed to supply his father and his brothers, little as they knew who had sold him away there. They thought evil against him; but God meant it for good, to keep descendants for them on the earth and save their lives. How much more was this proved true in the One greater than Joseph!

The message that Joseph sends to Jacob is "Come down to me." Joseph is lord of all, with the riches of glory at his disposal for all. Yet only those who "come" receive the blessing. If all power is in his hands to bless, all grace is in his heart to attract to himself — the blesser. Joseph says in effect to his father, "I want you," for it is not only "Come," but "Come down to me."

It is God's register of Jacob and his house, "seventy" souls including Jacob, and Joseph with his two sons, "sixty-six" without these. The Septuagint, which Stephen quotes, speaks of seventy-five. It adds Manasseh's son Machir and his grandson Gilead. It also adds Ephraim's two sons, Shuthelah and Tahan, with Shuthelah's son Eran, or Edom. … Scripture reveals the interest God took in recording things little in man's eyes.

The real question is not about truth, but about the purpose and the manner of speaking. The original account speaks of 66 in one verse and of 70 in the next. In the first of those verses the Hebrew strictly means "belong to," rather than "with Jacob." The 70 are his house, including more. The Greek version that Stephen quotes includes five more, even though they were born in Egypt. This follows the well understood practice of treating parent and children as one.

Notice, though, that this count may not include Joseph and his sons. If it does not, that leaves room for nine more of the patriarch's "kindred." And kindred is not the same thought as those who "came out of his loins." We do not offer any firm solution to the difficulty. Nor is it needful to prove exactly how the list of seventy-five was made up. … Stephen was also full of the Holy Spirit. He was speaking before an assembly of Israel's teachers, who knew every detail of the history of Jacob. These and other considerations leave no room to question the truth of the martyr's statement.

And the fathers, with Israel their father, went down into Egypt. There, in long, repaying sorrow, they were to pay the penalty for their heartless wrong to their brother. God exalted him in the very place where Jew and Gentile had both put him to shame. He repaid that with nothing but grace to all, but especially to Israel.

It was plain how little they knew anything as they should. They had never yet thought of seeing the Christ in Joseph. They had never seen in the guilty fathers themselves the still guiltier murderers of the Lord of glory. Their ignorant boast was their shame.

God had brought out their forefather Abraham, but He never gave him this land to own. Why, then, boast of it so much? By natural descent they made loud boasts of Abraham and of God's dealings. Yet they were not in communion with God, or even with Abraham.

They valued their dead bodies and the burial places which held them. While they lived, they were content to live in Canaan without so much as a place to set their foot. But "they died in faith." God's promise had made over that land, that very land, to them, though they themselves were to be gathered to their fathers. That was the warrant for their dying in faith, in the sure and certain hope of a resurrection to the enjoyment of it. They would link their dead bodies with that land, though not their living ones.

The move of Jacob and his family to Egypt begins a new period in Israel's history. The nation grew there under intense pressure and slavery. Jacob himself died outside the land, but his body went back there for burial. This showed that God still considered it Israel's land.

The true solution is not Calvin's idea that "Abraham" is a wrong reading for "Jacob." It lies in the compressed way Stephen, like other Jews, referred to well-known facts. Abraham's grave was at Hebron, bought from Ephron the Hittite. Jacob bought ground at Shechem from the sons of Hamor. Everyone knew who lay in the first: Sarah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Ancient scripture tells us that Joseph was laid in the second, and Stephen shows here that his brothers were too. The difficulty comes from bringing both together, as Stephen did.

This is thought to clash with Genesis 33:19, which speaks of Jacob buying it. But nothing is said in that passage about a burial place: Jacob bought a piece of ground to spread his tent in. Bengel says of this alleged discrepancy in Stephen's address, that "the brevity which best suited the ardour of the Spirit gave Stephen good occasion, in the case of a fact so well known, to compress these details in the way he has done."

Is it not a safer conclusion that we may be ignorant of facts which, better known, would clear away this mist? Or that there is some peculiarity in the way of referring to things which Westerners are not used to, but which Jews understand without objection? … And one may question whether it would not be better, these things being so, to amend our manners instead of presuming to amend the text.

Prince of the Hivites and father of Shechem, from whose family Jacob bought a piece of ground in which Joseph was buried. Gen. 33:19; Joshua 24:32; Judges 9:28. He is called EMMOR in Acts 7:16.

The true solution is not Calvin's idea that "Abraham" is a wrong reading for "Jacob." It lies in the compressed way Stephen, like other Jews, referred to well-known facts. Abraham's grave was at Hebron, bought from Ephron the Hittite. Jacob bought ground at Shechem from the sons of Hamor. Sarah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried in the first. Since ancient scripture tells us that Joseph was laid in the second, Stephen shows here that his brothers were laid there too… The difficulty comes from bringing both together, as Stephen did.

A writer on inspiration points out the same system of combining incidents. Compare verse 43 of this speech with Amos 5:27. There "beyond Damascus" clearly refers to the Assyrians carrying off the ten tribes, while Stephen combines with it, in his own way, the carrying off of the two tribes to Babylon.

Leave the word "Abraham" out and all difficulty disappears: "Jacob died, as did our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that he had bought," and so on. Joseph was buried there, and Jerome states that Paula saw the graves of the rest.

Given the circumstances, the least worthy suggestion is that this blessed and mighty witness of Christ confused Hebron with Shechem, and Abraham with Jacob. That would be a mistake below the level of an ordinary Sunday-school child… One may ask whether it would be better to correct our own manners than to set out to correct the text.

The point seems to be that Abraham had it while Israel did not yet hold the land. Shechem is mentioned to show God's title over the whole land, for it was now the centre of the Samaritan religion. That point carried weight in Stephen's speech. So did his showing that the best and most blessed of their ancestors had nothing there at all except what they bought. They were still pilgrims and strangers, as the saints now were becoming through the Jews' rejection of Messiah.

While they lived, they were content to live in Canaan without owning so much as a foot of it. But "they died in faith." God's promise had handed that land, that very land, over to them, though they themselves would be gathered to their fathers (Gen. 15). That was the ground of their dying in faith, in the sure and certain hope of rising again to enjoy it… It did not matter whether their bodies lay in Machpelah or Shechem. Their bones were linked to the promised land either way.

The God of glory thought of His people in Egypt and in the wilderness, before the holy place or even the law. He will never give Israel up until He has made good His promise — the promise He guaranteed when Abraham had no child. God called Abraham alone, and blessed and increased him. How wrong they all were, then, to make so much of themselves and of their privileges, and so to slight His grace and Himself. … As Abraham went about as a stranger in Palestine, so his descendants first appear as slaves in a land not their own. This was no brief moment: in round numbers 400 years passed from the birth of the child of promise until God judged the nation that held them in slavery.

We find these two words, "growing and multiplying", used of the children of Israel. They occur in Stephen's address to the Jewish council. The sons of Jacob went down into Egypt, seventy-five people, and in a short space of time they grew and multiplied to a miraculous degree. This increase was so striking that it attracted the attention of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. He was alarmed, and he took drastic measures to stop the marvellous increase. That increase was God's gift to His chosen ones as the descendants of Abraham. God had promised that they would be as many as the stars in heaven and the sand on the seashore.

God, however, took them in hand and allowed them to feel the scorching heat of Egypt's furnace. "But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad" (Ex. 1:12). In that furnace of affliction they were welded together as a nation. They entered Egypt a feeble and divided family: they left it a compact and powerful nation.

It is always so. There is always war between God and the enemy. It rages most fiercely where His people are involved, and when a clear display of divine mercy is close at hand. God's approaching favour to Israel drew out the hostility of Satan. He stirred up a fitting tool for his malice in the ruler of the world of that day, "another king who did not know Joseph." … The order to destroy the boys failed. It failed not only through human pity, but through the fear of God. He honoured those who honoured Him, and He brought His enemies to nothing.

As the time drew near for this promise to be fulfilled, you might have expected the children of Israel to grow in might and power and prominence. But instead of rising, they stand at what is perhaps the lowest point of their national history. God had allowed them to become slaves under the tyranny of this king who did not know Joseph.

Here the people are in Egypt, waiting for God to carry out the promise He had made to Abraham. … Their position then is very much like ours today. A promise has been left us of entering into our heavenly part at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some have hoped that as this event draws near, a wonderful revival will take place among those who look for Him… But do we not rather see something different in places like the messages to the seven assemblies? The nearer we are to that moment, the more we need to hold fast His word and not deny His name… Like Israel here, we may find our liberties more and more restricted before we are taken out of this world.

The word expresses "a different kind." … In Egypt there arose a different king who did not know Joseph, Acts 7:18; this doubtless refers to one of a different dynasty.

As the years passed, a great change came over the whole situation. A new king rose up, who "did not know Joseph." This may not mean he was unaware that Joseph had existed. It may mean that he saw him as an intruder and an oppressor, and ignored him altogether.

The statement that he "did not know Joseph" is deeply significant. Joseph in Egypt was a type — a picture — of Christ in His earthly glory, and so not to know him is the mark of a moral state. Pharaoh in fact is the god of this world, and as such must of necessity be in opposition to the Lord's people.

That land was thus the ungrateful, the rebellious. She had departed from Joseph, and so from God Himself, from Him who had filled her storehouses with plenty, and her throne with honour and strength. Egypt was the world in miniature — the great deserter from its rightful Lord and gracious Benefactor. … Joseph's memory had been despised, and all that remained to Joseph was put to work at the brick kilns.

It is always so. There is always war between God and the enemy. Nowhere is it fiercer than where His people are concerned, and when a clear display of divine mercy is close at hand. God's approaching favour to Israel drew out the enmity of Satan. He stirred up a fitting instrument for his malice in the prince of the world of that day, "another king who did not know Joseph."

These verses are a compact summary of Exodus 1:7-20. That chapter gives the details of Pharaoh's cunning, aggressive and ruthlessly cruel efforts to crush them. God defeated those efforts just as strikingly, for, say or do what he might, "the people multiplied and grew very strong." The order to destroy the boys failed. It failed not only through human pity, but through the fear of God, who honoured those who honoured Him, and brought His adversaries to nothing.

Here we see grace in its first workings: a nation's small beginning in the seventy souls who came into Egypt with Jacob, set against their astonishing and unstoppable increase. Even the bondage they come into had already been announced to them. What seemed most against them was really the working out of the promise for them. The hand of power works in disguise, yet faith can see right through it. It is essentially the same story, whether told of the nation of Israel or of any of the Lord's redeemed.

He recites to the Jews a history they could not deny, a history they boasted in, yet it condemned them completely. They were doing as their fathers had done. Two people stand out in Stephen's account, in connection with the goodness of God towards Israel at this period — Joseph and Moses. Israel had rejected them both, handed Joseph over to the Gentiles, refused Moses as judge and leader. In cases the Jews could not deny or argue with, it was the history of Christ as well.

You might have thought that as the time drew near for God to keep this promise, the children of Israel would be growing in might and power and prominence. Instead, their national standing did not rise. They are seen at what is perhaps the lowest point in their national history. God had allowed them to become slaves under the tyranny of this king who did not know Joseph. They seemed so much at his mercy that he decided to wipe them out. He ordered every baby boy to be thrown into the river.

There is a clear double tyranny over the people. It guards against two dangers. Israel might rise to first place in the land, or they might escape altogether, and then the Egyptians would lose their labour. So the order went out to kill all their males. In this way the nation would stay in slavery, unable to escape, and would still supply slaves to do the work of the Egyptians. Their oppression and misery made them cry out loud in their distress. Meanwhile the faith of individuals who took hold of God and refused to obey the king's command shows how God works through His people when they count on Him.

It is always like this. There is always war between God and the enemy. It rages most fiercely where His people are concerned, and when a clear display of divine mercy is about to come. God's approaching favour to Israel drew out the hatred of Satan. He stirred up a fitting tool for his malice in the prince of the world of that day, "another king who did not know Joseph". These verses are a compact summary of Exodus 1:7-20. That passage gives the details of Pharaoh's cunning, aggressive and utterly cruel efforts to hold them down. God defeated those efforts just as plainly, for whatever Pharaoh said or did, "the people multiplied and grew very strong". The order to destroy the boys failed, not only through human pity, but through the fear of God. He honoured those who honoured Him, and brought His opponents to nothing.

The attempt to destroy all the male children comes next. Satan, who is a murderer from the beginning, showed his cunning and power in this way. He wanted to destroy the seed of Abraham so that the coming of the Promised One would be impossible. The murder of Abel was his first attempt. Here is an attempt on a larger scale, followed by many others. See Exodus 14; 2 Chronicles 21:4, 17; 22:10; Esther 3:6, 12, 13; Matthew 2, and others.

Then he starts at the very beginning of the nation's existence, dating it from Abraham. He goes over its history down to the days of Moses. He points out that twice over their ancestors made the great mistake of rejecting the one God had appointed for their deliverance. First it was Joseph. Next it was Moses… With these facts in front of them they might well pause. They might well consider carefully what they were doing, and where they might be drifting. The mistake they made over Joseph they had repeated over Moses. What were they doing now?

Their position at that time is much like ours today. A promise remains for us — we will enter our heavenly portion at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ… Like Israel here, we may find our liberties shrinking more and more before He takes us out of this world. The conflict between light and darkness goes on without a pause. The enemy will do his best to end all testimony to Christ in this world.

The enemy had raised up a suitable instrument, another king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Suffering became Israel's portion. The king aimed a deadly blow at the promise by striking at their babies... At that critical moment Moses was born, fair to God. A glorious career lay ahead of him, however dark its beginnings. He too came under the sentence of death, and after three months of care in his father's house, he was cast out like the rest.

This world offers different types of beauty. Saul was "handsome and tall; there was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he." Eliab also had a fine appearance that caught Samuel's eye. But such beauty by itself is worth nothing except in men's eyes. There is another beauty. In men of faith it may go together with outward beauty, and God values it as the reflection of character. It is the beauty of a pure soul or of simple faith. It is the shining out of a heart that shuts out evil and sin, a heart without deceit. This is the beauty of the little child Moses, of whom the Word says he "was exceedingly lovely," literally, "fair to God" (Acts 7:20).

It means that when he was born there was an expression in his face that faith read. "Beautiful to God" is the word. There was a certain beauty in him that awakened the faith of Amram and Jochebed, and they obeyed it. Was there not a beauty in the face of the dying Stephen? Should not his murderers have obeyed it? They stand in moral contrast to Moses' parents. Under the finger of God they saw the purpose of God and hid the child.

Here we have a remarkable simplicity of faith in Moses' parents, which acts on grounds that to most would seem slight enough — the beauty of the child. God still answers it, for it was faith in Him; and how largely He answers, for this is Moses the deliverer! Is there not here one of the natural signs of the mind of God, which we are so unskilled at finding? The poor and unlearned perhaps read such signs best, and people easily confuse them with mere superstition... but God makes no mistake, and wherever faith is, He will honour it.

Such is God's valuation of the actions of the father and mother whose natural affection for this son given to them rose up against the king's decree. They recognised that they owed loyalty to an earthly ruler. But by faith they acknowledged a higher loyalty to their God, and this proud tyrant was accountable to Him too. Trusting in God, they were able to rise above the fear of man that brings a snare... and they hide their child from the tyrant and a hostile world.

The providence of God raised up a fitting instrument for His merciful purpose. But even Moses had to learn dependence on Him, and that neither the advantages of his person, nor his training in Egypt's wisdom, nor the court influence of Pharaoh's daughter, could achieve that purpose to His glory... But no: that would have been man's method and the world's wisdom, to the credit of Moses' genius and prudence, and in no way a foreshadowing of Christ.

Moses, as we have seen, was by birth exposed to the death sentence that lay on the sons of Israel in Egypt. Faith saw him "fair to God," but that did not exempt him. And what do we learn of the One whom Moses pictured? Every moral beauty shone out from that blessed One's wonderful Person, to the full delight of the Father's heart. Yet neither His own people nor the world at large saw any beauty in Him. There was no room for Him in the homes or the hearts of men.

The enemy had raised up a suitable instrument, another king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Suffering became the portion of Israel, and a deadly blow was aimed at the promise in the person of their babies. The king's command was to expose them so that they would not survive. At that critical moment Moses was born, beautiful in God's sight, with a glorious career ahead of him, however dark its beginnings. He too came under the sentence of death. After three months of care in his father's house, he was cast out like the rest. But we have the highest authority for saying that his parents hid him for those three months "by faith," whatever their natural affection (Hebrews 11:23). "They were not afraid of the king's edict."

Who would have thought it? The man who had said, "If it is a son, you shall kill him," and again, "Every son that is born you shall cast into the Nile," had one of those very sons in his own court — and such a son. The devil's own weapon defeated him. He was using Pharaoh to frustrate the purpose of God. And God used that same Pharaoh to nourish and bring up Moses, who was to be His instrument in overthrowing the power of Satan.

From that time Pharaoh's daughter claimed the child, "and he became her son." She raised him from infancy to manhood as her own son. And what was the result? By the age of forty he was within direct reach of the throne of Egypt, with every prospect of taking it. Pharaoh had no son, and Pharaoh's daughter had no children. If she died, her adopted son would without doubt have come to the throne of Egypt and ruled the leading nation in the world at that moment.

While they had faith they hid him — they kept their beautiful child. At the end of three months they cast him out; they "could hide him no longer." Had they not come to the end of their faith?… But a home in Pharaoh's house is not presented to us as an answer to faith… One sees the desire of the heart granted — the child's life; but see what the mother loses. She is a hired nurse to Pharaoh's daughter. When the child is grown she loses him, and another woman names her child and has him for her son.… Faith was powerful as long as faith was there. When faith was gone, God's mercy was there, and it showed more clearly than in the day of faith.

Providence had placed him in a distinguished position, unsought and unexpected. Educated to match it, he was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and mighty in words and deeds. Why not use his ability and his wisdom? Why not use the influence his high rank gave him, and his nearness to the most princely people in the realm? Why not wisely and thankfully turn such obvious gifts of providence to the service of God's people?… But no! Faith at once disposes of all such reasoning built on providences.

But no: this would have been man's method and the world's wisdom, to the praise of Moses' genius and prudence, and in no way a foreshadowing of Christ.

Stephen said: "Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds." This tells us that he was what the world would call a man of genius. Many men are good talkers — they have gifts of speech, but are hardly men of action. Other men show their ability in what they do. Their actions are wise and powerful, but their powers of speech are small. The man who shines in both areas is a rarity.

Moses was plainly a very clever man. He was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and the Egyptians were not fools. It would puzzle our builders to do what they did — to put up the Pyramids… He was a scientific, accomplished, intellectual man; but more than that, "he was mighty in his words and deeds."… That man had everything in his favour. He had the world before him. He was not only the king's favourite, and the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, but was within reach of the throne.

Nature would say, What a fitted, prepared instrument God now has at hand! But this is exactly the thought that falls short of the mind of God. He will not, and does not, accept the qualifications of Egypt. He sends Moses to school (as we would say) for forty years. There he is fitted and prepared and qualified for the work God has for him to do. God's instruments must learn in God's school. There is no buying rank in His army; everyone must rise from the ranks.

All this learning was of no use to him as the deliverer God chose. It was of no use to him as the king in Jeshurun (a name for Israel), guiding the course of the people of God in the wilderness. The "wisdom of Egypt" would have been baffled to make a way through the Red Sea, and had no resource at all to meet the demands of the wilderness. Egypt's learning could not have provided the ability to bring water out of the rock or provide the manna to meet the needs of that vast host in the wilderness.

No one can deny that Moses was capable of rightly judging the situation. He was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. Yet he looked, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. His eye was on the kingdom of God. He waited for the Messiah. He knew that the purposes of God centre in Christ, and that Israel was their inner circle on earth. So his affections were not with the court of Egypt, nor on the most brilliant future it could open to a man of his energy.

Knowing something of human nature in ourselves, we think it was not that he had really lost his powers of mighty speech. Instead, the forty years of discipline in the desert had completely broken his self-confidence. But he had also become taken up with himself, and so he was unwilling to answer God's call and commission.

Few of us have had an education like this, but then very few are needed for such great work. The point here is not secular education, but ability for the particular service God has appointed for us… It does not matter how clever we are by nature. If God is not using us, our efforts will be in vain. Nor does it matter how simple we may be. If God uses us, we will do His will. The question is, Are we using what God has given us to serve Him?

It is claimed that Acts 7:23, 30, 36 mentions three separate periods of forty years, and that only the last appears in the books of Moses. But turn to Exodus 7, and we are told that "Moses was eighty years old… when they spoke to Pharaoh" (v. 7). These eighty years agree exactly with Stephen's account. Moses was forty when it came into his heart to visit his brothers, and he spent forty years after that in Midian. Stephen makes the age of Moses one hundred and twenty years altogether. Deuteronomy 31:2 and 34:7 say he died at the age of one hundred and twenty. Now, where is there any discrepancy?

Then he went out from the palace and looked at the burdens of his brothers among the brick-kilns (Exodus 2:11). This was the second stage in his life of devotion and single-heartedness, while he was still in Egypt and everything outside him was against him. "It came into his heart," we are told, to do this (Acts 7:23). And it is good, and the fruit is pleasant, when affection is the parent of service.

In all the forty years he had been moving in the court of Pharaoh, it now appears that he never forgot that those despised slaves were his brothers. One may imagine him looking round at the glitter of that court and at those who moved in it. In his heart he was thinking, "these are not my brothers."… We find that the word visit comes from the same root as the word for oversight. It seems as though he was already overseeing his own district, the future sphere of his service.

But divine providence is no guide for faith; nothing but the word is. Providence brought him in, and from there faith led him out. "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter… He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward" (Hebrews 11:24-26).

This was zeal for his brothers, but it was "not according to knowledge." God's time had not yet come for judging Egypt and delivering Israel, and the intelligent servant will always wait for God's time. Moses "had grown up." He was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." And further, "he supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand." All this was true. Yet he ran ahead of the time, and when someone does this, failure must be the result.

So Moses was an outcast for many long years. His own unworthy brothers drove him out as much as the angry king of Egypt did. They loved him less the more he loved them. They forgot the promised deliverance, and they set no value on the man who gave up everything for their sake. Israel denied the one who was in that day the type of the Holy and Righteous One. It was nothing new.

All of this is personal history. Yet Stephen plainly uses it as a type of Christ. When Christ presented Himself to His own people as their Deliverer, they rejected Him. Indeed, the flight of Moses into the land of Midian is a marked type of where our Lord stands now toward Israel and the world… But, like Moses, our Lord will return to deliver His people on earth, just as Moses returned from Midian and led Israel out.

Holiness toward God always means separation from evil. It also means standing with His people, in heart and in the way you live. But now faith is tested, and its path never runs smooth for long. … Hating unrighteousness, he punished the oppressor of his brother. He took no thought of what it would cost him.

The Spirit could not blame the love that moved the hand of Moses. But neither could He justify the act. God has left it there, as He always knows how to do. He leaves what came from Himself to tell its own story. What did not come from Himself stands before the spiritual judgement of those who trust Him. Any other book would offer some kind of apology here, or even a long argument, to clear God of all share in what was far from His own holiness.

He had learned the wisdom of Egypt, but not yet the wisdom of God. He showed zeal for his brothers, but it was not according to knowledge. He attempted a deliverance before the time. Yet it was an action of faith.

"Mighty in deeds," and acting for the people of God too — but acting in his own natural strength, not as one sent by God. That explains what followed. Moses was thinking about how Moses was going to deliver the people. … God had to teach him that He accepts service only in the power and strength that come from Himself, not in the strength or wisdom of Egypt.

Before, when he went out in his own natural strength, the failure he met hit him hard. Now he has learned how small he is, and he says, "Who am I?" And it is always so. When a believer senses that God has sent him on a mission, he always feels the deepest humbling of spirit. God may bring this about through painful discipline of soul, but the aim of His training is to break down self-confidence.

The people had no readiness of heart. They gave no generous response to the devotion that would have served them, and they saw nothing of the mind of God at all. They drove their appointed deliverer out among strangers. Israel was now doing the same to One who had come down from a far more wonderful height. God had borne witness to Him beyond anything ever given before, and He had come to bring a much mightier deliverance.

So too with Moses. The words that made him flee — "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" — came from one of his own brothers, not from an Egyptian. The rejection came from among his own people, not from outside. So it had been with Jesus too.

God had sent conviction into Moses' heart both of sin and of righteousness. He saw how far Pharaoh's palace stood from the rest of God. He heard and understood the word of promise. God had made it known to him — we are not told how — that Israel was His people. He also made known that the day of their deliverance was near, and that He would keep His word of promise by Moses' own hand.

This was zeal for his brothers, but it was "not according to knowledge." God's time had not yet come to judge Egypt and deliver Israel. The servant who understands God will always wait for God's time. Moses had grown up. He was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." And "he supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand." All this was true. Yet he ran ahead of God's time, and when a man does that, failure must be the result.

"Mighty in deeds," he acted for the people of God. But he acted in the energy of the flesh, not as one sent by God, and that explains what followed. Moses was thinking about how Moses would deliver the people... But no — "they did not understand." Moses had another lesson to learn. God had to teach him that He would be served only by the power and strength that come from Himself, not by the strength or wisdom of Egypt... When a person acts in the energy of the flesh, there is always disappointment and surprise when our efforts fail.

They had fallen, not only in their circumstances, but in their souls. Faith was at work in very few of them, so few expected a deliverer or valued a man who had faith in God. They were dark and dead toward God. They felt how hard men can be. The hope God had given to Israel had almost vanished from their souls. They expected no deliverance close at hand, yet they should have been looking for it. The fourth generation was already running its course. In that generation, as the Lord had said, this long-afflicted people were to leave a judged Egypt and come into the promised land again.

His brothers, however, did not understand, because they did not share his faith. So they rejected him as their deliverer. They wanted to keep going their own wrong way... In Acts 7, God leads Stephen to make these points clear. He shows that when the Jews rejected the Lord Jesus, they were doing again what their fathers had done with Moses — but on a far more serious scale. In the Lord Jesus there was not the slightest element of imperfection. In Moses there was distinct failure. His desires were right: his action wrong.

He left the palace and, perhaps, the throne, and came to his own to take up their cause. It all points to Him who left the glory and came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. When Moses came the first time to his brothers to deliver them, "they did not understand." But they understood when he came the second time. In the same way Israel will understand when He who is greater than Moses comes the second time.

The word is aposato = driven away. You can see its force in Acts 7:27, "thrust him away." It means complete refusal.

It was the unworthy dealing of his brethren which broke up all hope for the present. The man who was in the wrong was also the one with the bitter feeling — as is always the case. Moses loved both men and would gladly have made peace between them. Yet it was the wrongdoer who taunted him with the words, "Who made you a ruler and a judge?" The Israelite's own proud spirit was quick to read pride into others… Moses had certainly been hasty, and the Lord judged it. But he was right in the main. So the Lord left the completing of Israel's deliverance not to another, but to him, when the right time came.

Moses was not understood when he took a stand with Israel against their oppressors. He was not understood either when he tried to restore or build unity among Israelites. All they could see was selfish motives. The man who wronged his neighbour pushed Moses away with the cutting words, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" He then asked whether Moses would kill him as he had killed the Egyptian. That warned Moses that his killing of the Egyptian was known, and that Egypt's authorities would hear of it… Israel was not ready to be delivered for another forty years, and Moses had to learn on his own what would fit him for public service.

Reading Exodus, we get the impression that his main motive was the anger of Pharaoh. Acts 7:29 casts a different light on it. "Then Moses fled at this saying" — the saying of the wrongdoer — "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" So it was rejection by his own people that cut him to the quick. Forty years later they all had to discover that it was GOD who made him a ruler and judge over them. For the time being, though, they had lost him.

In Acts 6 and 7, Stephen was the last great witness. He summed up their history: they had rejected every deliverer God ever sent. They had sold Joseph into Egypt. They had asked Moses, "Who made you a ruler and a judge?" They had killed the Just One, as their prophets had foretold. And now they resisted the Spirit of God! A broken law, stoned prophets, a slain Christ, and a resisted Spirit closed the tale.

The world sentenced Moses to death, and he was taken out of it. Then he had to take his place as a man rejected by his own people. Otherwise he would not be a true picture of the Deliverer here. The world casts him out, and his own people reject him, as they rejected our Lord… They say, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" and Moses fled into Midian, rejected by his own people. It is in that character that we have to do with the Lord Jesus Christ now.

The man who did wrong to his neighbour — it is always so — resented the love that sought their good, and pushed Moses away. He did worse still. "Who," said he, "made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?"

Stephen made it very plain that the Jewish rulers of his day were repeating the sin of their forefathers in a worse form... So too with Moses. The saying that made him flee, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" came from one of his own people, and not from an Egyptian. The rejection came from among his own people, and not from outside. So it had been with Jesus too.

All they could see was selfish motives. The man who did wrong to his neighbour shoved Moses away with the cutting words, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" His next words asked whether Moses would kill him as he had killed the Egyptian. They warned Moses that his killing of the Egyptian was no secret, and would not stay hidden from Egypt's authorities. He fled the country and became a stranger in a strange land for no short time.

True, at first they rejected his authority. The wrongdoer "thrust him away, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" But we also read, "This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?'—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush."

The people had no readiness of heart. They made no generous response to the devotion that would have served them. They saw nothing of the mind of God at all. They drove out their appointed deliverer to live among strangers. Israel was doing the same thing now to One who had come down from a far more wonderful height, with witness from God beyond anything ever given before, and who came to carry out a much mightier deliverance. But the warning was plain. The Moses they now boasted in had been an outcast for forty years, cut off from the people who still had to admit that God really had raised him up to be their ruler and their judge.

The time of deliverance had not come. So far Moses was mistaken. He had not yet fully judged himself; without realising it, he was off his guard in using his strength in words and deeds. The people had to sink lower — they had to cry to God under their bitter burdens... Moses thought his own people would understand that God was giving them deliverance through him. But they did not understand. And this is a far more searching trial than any fear of Egyptian anger.

Moses stepped in, and the immediate result was his flight from Egypt and forty years in Midian. Reading Exodus, we certainly get the impression that the main motive with him was the anger of Pharaoh. Acts 7:29 casts a different light on it: "At this retort Moses fled" — the retort of the wrongdoer, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" So his rejection by his own people was what cut him to the quick. Forty years later they all had to discover that it was GOD who made him a ruler and judge over them, but for the time being he was lost to them.

The sharpest wound, like the lowest blow, comes from God's people: when man rules among them and not God, Satan works underneath it all and at his worst.

Yet it was all useful discipline for Moses. He must learn of God alone in the wilderness. The wisdom of Egypt must be, as it were, unlearned: God does not choose to honour it for His deliverances. The wisdom He uses must come down from above.

Moses needed forty years at the back of the desert to fit him to lead God's people out of Egypt and through the wilderness. No doubt God used his education in Egypt in forming the vessel for His service, but the forty years were needed to empty the vessel of what had filled it during its forming. It was the same with Saul of Tarsus. He needed three years in Arabia to be emptied of what he had picked up in the schools of this world, and then filled in the school of God.

Moses spent forty years in the wilderness doing, as it were, nothing. Then in Exodus 3 God says to him, "Come, I will send you." Moses answers, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Now that God is sending him, he feels the weight of that responsibility deeply, and he shrinks from it. Before, he went out in the energy of the flesh, and the failure he met bitterly disappointed him. Now he has learned his own insignificance, and he says, "Who am I?"

Moses had to flee from his brothers. They would have valued his using the world's influence for them, but cared nothing for his going down in love to share their affliction. No fact marks the difference more clearly than this: he called his son Gershom, "a stranger," while Joseph called his eldest Manasseh, "forgotten." Moses had in no way settled down in Midian. His affections were with his poor brothers, and he looked for the day when deliverance would come for them by his hand.

The "stranger" son does not become a resident of the land where he is born. These things should need no interpreter for any of our hearts. May God only grant that we be more Gershoms in the land of Midian — strangers in a world where, if Christ can find a bride, He cannot find a home.

He goes over the nation's history from its beginning with Abraham down to the days of Moses. He points out that twice over their ancestors made the great mistake of rejecting the instrument God had designed for their deliverance. First it was Joseph. Next it was Moses... With these facts in front of them they might well pause and weigh what they were doing, and where they might be drifting.

The hour of Messiah's rejection is only the occasion for a higher glory and a closer relationship with those who meanwhile believe. It is like the stranger in the land of Midian, who becomes the father of two sons. He did not have them in Egypt, with the sons of Israel around him.

When the conquest of Canaan was the question, what could encourage more than a man with his sword drawn, the captain of the Lord's army? When the work was to bring the people through a wild, howling desert, what sign could fit better than a bush blazing yet never burning up? And more than the sign itself, there was "the favour of Him who dwells in the bush."

"And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, 'I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned'" (Ex. 3:2-3). This was truly "a great sight" — a bush burning, yet not burnt. The palace of Pharaoh could never have offered such a sight. But it was a gracious sight as well as a great sight. It showed clearly the condition of God's chosen people. They were in the furnace of Egypt, and the Lord reveals Himself in a burning bush. But as the bush was not consumed, neither were they, for God was there.

May we not turn aside at times to gaze more closely at His person, while we trace the acts of His life, or the secrets of His love and truth? It is part of the obedience of faith to do so… The sight Moses turned to look at was great and mysterious too. Yet with bare feet he could still look and listen. Had he not done so, he would have gone away with no blessing. But he listened, until he found that the "I AM" was in the bush, and that "the God of Abraham" was there too. A strange place for such glory to make its home! But so it was.

God says at the bush, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." But if He stood in that relationship to them then, they must exist for Him to be so. He could not be the God of the dead — dead in the sense the Sadducees meant, where the dead no longer exist at all. They must be alive in some sense, alive to Him, and so they are.

Before redemption, even a saint trembled when brought into God's presence. His voice does declare Him the God of promise, the God of the fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Even so, "Moses trembled, and did not dare to look." Until redemption, peace is impossible.

What a difference it must make to anyone to deal with God personally and directly. God assures him that this is his God — the God of his fathers — and this once bold man trembles before Him. Later God used Isaiah to tell us the man He will look to: one who trembles at His word (Isa. 66:2). Forty years have taken Moses from boldness to trembling, and now he is fit to go out in God's service.

Notice the force of his quoting the call to take off his sandals. Holy ground is where God shows Himself. It was not Jerusalem only. That is how the Lord settled it with Moses in Midian, and later with Joshua when he crossed the Jordan. Their making an idol of the temple courts was out of place.

Stephen speaks of the "Angel of the Lord," who appeared to Moses from inside a bush. But in Exodus 3 that very Angel becomes, a moment later, God Himself, saying, "I am the God of Abraham," and so on. No mere angel could make the place too holy for Moses to stand on with his shoes still on. No mere angel could be too much for his eyes to look at. That would be giving the glory of God to another.

Moses was told to unloose his sandals from off his feet, and heard the divine voice say, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. It was for the fathers' sakes, to whom He had pledged His promise and whose God He was. But He had also heard His people's cry under bitter oppression, and came down to deliver them. They indeed groaned and sighed because of the bondage; but they had not the faith to cry to Him. Yet their cry came up to God.

The words the Lord spoke to Moses are the expressions of His sovereign grace. What had they earned? What could they do to secure His intervention? Nothing whatever. They were in Egypt, a crowd of miserable slaves, given more or less to idolatry, a sinful people. It was grace which looked upon them and heard their cry. It was grace which came down to deliver them.

Before redemption, even a saint trembled in God's presence. His voice declares Him the God of promise, the God of the fathers Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Even so, "Moses trembled, and did not dare to look." Until redemption, peace is impossible.

God's presence was bound to have this effect on the heart, while He was not yet known as the Justifier. The moment it becomes a question of appearing before God, conscience speaks up and bears witness that we are sinners.

Notice the force of Stephen quoting the command to take off his sandal. Holy ground is wherever God reveals Himself. It was not merely Jerusalem. So the Lord decided with Moses in Midian; so afterwards with Joshua when he crossed the Jordan. Their idolising of the temple courts was out of place.

The Lord Jesus quoted these words, and with them He silenced the unbelieving Sadducees, who rejected the teaching of the resurrection (Matthew 22:31-32).

God says at the bush, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." If He was their God then, they must exist for Him to be so. He could not be the God of the dead — in the Sadducee sense of death, the non-existent. They must be in some sense alive, alive to Him, and so they are.

This once bold man trembles in the presence of God. Later God used Isaiah to tell us the sort of man He will look to — one who trembles at His word. Forty years have taken Moses from boldness to trembling, and now he is fit to go out in God's service. We can be sure that when God uses a man who trembles at His word, mighty things will happen.

Notice the force of Stephen quoting the call to take off the sandal. Holy ground is where God shows Himself. It was not only Jerusalem. So the Lord settled it with Moses in Midian, and later with Joshua when he crossed the Jordan. Their treating the temple courts as an idol was out of place... The case of the Jews who falsely charged Stephen with blasphemous words against the holy place was even more desperate and groundless... The only holy place God owns now, as faith too accepts, is above where Christ is.

But God must remind him how holy His presence is. "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." This is the first lesson everyone who comes near God must learn: to recognise His holiness. True, He is a God of grace, of mercy, and love. But He is all these because He is a holy God... Our feet must be bare. We must remember how holy the God is with whom we have to do. Without that we can never receive the gracious messages of His mind and will.

The place of God's presence is holy, and only bare feet may walk there. God lives among His people, and His presence gives their assembly a character of holiness. That holiness is the basis of every holy affection and every holy activity. The character of the dwelling place takes its stamp from the character of the Occupant.

Before redemption, even a saint trembled when God brought him into His presence... "Moses trembled and did not dare to look." Until redemption there can be no peace... From the very start God declares that His holiness must never be violated. It is no less so when God calls Israel under Joshua to a fight with no compromise against the Canaanite living in the land... The same opening warning comes first in both pictures: redemption carried out for His people, and war against Satan in their midst.

Shoes appear as early as Exodus 3:5, when God told Moses to take off his sandals, because the ground he stood on was holy, for God was there (Acts 7:33). God said the same to Joshua (Joshua 5:15). It showed that man had no welcome yet into the presence of God. He had no standing there yet, whatever goodness and kindness God might show him. Under grace he gains a standing: the prodigal received shoes, and he was welcome and at home.

Grace brings us into the place of holiness, and into joy in God's holiness. There the soul learns its deepest lessons about what sin is. It sees not only its own nothingness, but how opposite to God it is. There it learns that salvation must be grace from first to last... The moment God rescues us from the world, He brings us to stand in the place of holiness, and He deals with us accordingly.

First, God reveals His name: "I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham," and so on (v. 32). Second, His grace: "I have seen, I have seen the afflictions of my people," and so on (v. 34). How blessed to be sure of this: not one sorrow of His people, not one groan, escapes His full knowledge. Then we get the formal commission: "And now come, I WILL SEND YOU into Egypt."

He had also heard His people's cry under bitter oppression, and came down to deliver them. They did groan and sigh because of the bondage; but they did not have the faith to cry to Him. Yet their cry came up to God. He heard their groaning, and remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. They had forgotten that covenant, long sunk in the darkness and idol worship of their cruel masters.

Here the absolute, free, unconditional grace of the God of Abraham shines out in all its own brightness. Nothing holds it back — not the "ifs" and "buts," not the vows, resolutions, and conditions of man's legal spirit. God had come down to show Himself, in sovereign grace, to do the whole work of salvation, and to keep His promise made to Abraham and repeated to Isaac and Jacob. He had not come down to see whether the subjects of His promise were in such a condition as to deserve His salvation. It was enough for Him that they needed it.

"To deliver" was true as well. But the literal wording says far more. It gives not just relief from the oppressor's hand, but the positive purpose — and what can surpass that? If this is often overlooked, in teaching and in practice, that makes it all the more important to insist on… Here it is God taking Israel out for Himself… For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.

"Come now therefore, and I will send you" (Ex. 3:10). God's moment has arrived. Earlier Moses wanted to go without waiting for God's time, but now he is about to hesitate. God does not say "Go" but "Come." It is with Him, in His company and fellowship, that Moses is sent.

Third, He told Moses that he was to be the servant. He was commissioned to face the mighty king, Pharaoh, and deliver the children of Israel out of his hand… What he had tried to do in his own wisdom and strength, and failed to do, he is now to do in the wisdom and power of God.

God had seen the affliction of His people, and the time had come for Him to deliver them. Now He was sending Moses to do it — the same Moses whom Israel had refused forty years earlier, saying, "Who made you a ruler and a judge?" The same thing can be said of Israel's refusal of the Lord Jesus. He will yet be their welcomed Deliverer.

So Moses, commissioned now by God, returns to Egypt and begins again the work he had attempted forty years before — but this time God is using him, whereas before he seemed prepared to do it himself. He does not return as a ruler and a judge, but as a ruler and a deliverer (v. 35). Nor does he think this time he will do it by his own hand. He knows now that it will be by the hand of God in the power of His angel. At his first attempt he killed one Egyptian and partly delivered one Israelite. How long would he have taken to deliver the nation by his own efforts, killing one Egyptian at a time and delivering one Israelite?

The same God was now at work. He brought Moses by providence into the house of Pharaoh's daughter, and He brought him out of it by faith. Even then He did not use him for the deliverance of His people, though he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. First Moses had to unlearn man as well as himself. He had to come to know, alone in the wilderness for forty long years, what God is. Then, and only then, was he fitted by God to be a ruler and a deliverer.

The angel of Jehovah who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush reveals His name. It shows that the Angel of Jehovah is God. He calls Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob… The words Jehovah spoke to Moses are the expressions of His sovereign grace. What had they deserved? What could they do to secure His intervention? Nothing whatever. They were in Egypt, a crowd of miserable slaves, given more or less to idolatry, a sinful people. It was grace which looked on them and heard their cry. It was grace which came down to deliver them.

He starts at the very beginning of the nation's existence, dating it from Abraham. He goes through its history to the days of Moses. He points out that twice over their ancestors made the great mistake of rejecting the instrument God had designed for their deliverance. First it was Joseph. Next it was Moses… The mistake they made with Joseph they had repeated with Moses. What were they doing now? They were repeating that mistake.

That generation denied Him, saying, "Who made you a ruler and a judge?" Even so, God raised Him to be a more blessed Redeemer, and a more glorious Ruler of the kings of the earth. God has appointed Him to be Judge of the living and the dead. He will also fulfil every hope of Israel according to the prophets.

He left the palace, and perhaps the throne, and came to his own to take up their cause. It all points to Him who left the glory and came to His own, and they did not receive Him. When Moses came the first time to his brethren to deliver them, "they did not understand" (Acts 7:25). But they understood when he came the second time, as Israel will understand when He who is greater than Moses comes the second time.

Nobody denies that Moses stands in the front rank of great and good men. But God is the one who made His presence unmistakable and respected. He worked mainly through Moses, though sometimes without him, across that long stretch of wilderness patience and power, rich in wonders and full of instruction... What could Moses have done in the desert without God for one day, let alone forty years?

Stephen goes on with the story of how a commission came from God to that rejected man. It was sealed with the broad seal of wonders and signs. In that day those signs proved his commission to another generation. Now no miraculous signs could prove it, however far they went beyond the old ones.

Then Stephen recalls the history of Moses, who turned his back on all the glory of Egypt to help his own people whom he loved. But Israel thrust him away. They refused the one God had sent to be a ruler and a deliverer. In the wilderness they would not obey him. In their hearts they turned back to Egypt. So again they resisted the man God was with.

In his address Stephen had pointed out that Joseph's brothers refused him, yet he became their saviour, and in the end they all had to bow down to him. He also reminded them that Israel rejected Moses at first, yet he became both ruler and deliverer of Israel. Now he testifies to a similar but far greater thing about Jesus. The Just One whom they had murdered is to become their Judge — and at last, for those who receive Him, their great and final Deliverer.

He starts at the very beginning of the nation, dating it from Abraham, and goes through its history down to the days of Moses. He points out that twice over their ancestors made the great mistake of rejecting the instrument God had appointed for their deliverance... So in rejecting Moses, they rejected God as well. With these facts in front of them they might well stop and think carefully about what they were doing, and where they were heading.

God brought the Israelites out of Egypt by great signs and wonders. For forty years He fed them and cared for them tenderly on their wilderness journey. Yet they made no progress in the knowledge of God. They never showed the slightest sign of thankfulness for the deliverance He had given them when they were slaves in Egypt, or for the countless mercies they received daily from His hand.

Turn to Exodus 7 and we are told that "Moses was eighty years old... when they spoke to Pharaoh." These eighty years agree exactly with Stephen's account. Moses was forty years old when it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel, and he spent the next forty years in Midian... So Stephen makes the age of Moses one hundred and twenty years in all. Deuteronomy 31:2 and 34:7 say that he died at the age of one hundred and twenty. Now where is there any discrepancy?

The difficulties and disagreements of the most celebrated Rabbis show what a stumbling stone the true Christ, the Lord Jesus, is to unbelieving Israel… The theory of Aben Ezra and others, that Joshua is meant, is completely untenable. Joshua only supplemented Moses' work, and in little more than one direction. In no adequate way does he stand out as the prophet raised up from his brothers like Moses. So some of the most distinguished Jewish teachers try to read this single prophet as a whole line of prophets! That is as contrary to the usage of the language as it is to the facts of their history… Moses stood as a mediator whose words the people had to hear on pain of death. That was what marked him out. In the highest degree it is true of none but the Messiah.

There is one special prediction of the lawgiver. Both Peter (Acts 3:22-23) and Stephen (Acts 7:37) quote it. It foretells the coming of a Prophet like him, to whom they were to listen. And the likeness he means, which Deuteronomy 34:10 explains, waited for its fulfilment — the coming of Christ. In fifteen centuries no prophet in Israel, however eminent, ever thought of claiming this special distinction for himself: being known by God face to face. The mediator of the old covenant and the Mediator of the new are the only ones of whom that has been true.

A caution may be needed here about what that raising up refers to. It clearly does not point to the Resurrection, but to the Lord's first coming to earth. This fits the words just quoted from Deuteronomy 18:18: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet," and so on.

God told the people to hear Him as the promised Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15). They had been afraid of the voice of divine majesty, which spoke in fire and storm from the smoking mountain where the law was given. So God promised to raise up One "from among their brothers," who would speak in divine grace… All through John's Gospel we find Him speaking as "that Prophet." He could say, "The Father who sent Me has Himself given Me a commandment — what to say and what to speak"; and "What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told Me."

The privilege granted was immense — not only in works at that time, but in words of God given to man permanently from then on… It was an unspeakable gift. Yet it is even more characteristic of the One greater than Moses. His coming was followed by a fresh, complete, and final revelation of divine grace and truth. Indeed Moses' own prophecy, quoted in verse 37, prepared the way for new communications carrying a still higher sanction. In vain, then, would Jewish unbelief idolise the servant in the sight of his Master.

Moses stands here as mediator, between the angel of Jehovah on one side, and "our fathers" on the other. Reading "church" here suggests thoughts and associations that are altogether misleading. The children of Israel are meant in their collective capacity. It has no bearing at all on what the New Testament calls the church of God, the body of Christ. The church belongs to the great secret that the apostle was sent to reveal — hidden from ages and generations, but now made known to the saints.

The expression in Acts 7:38, "the church in the wilderness," means the whole congregation, the mass of Israel. Most of their bodies fell in the wilderness. Can you call that "the church of God"? There were only a few believers among them. The sound of the word deceives people here. The very same word describes the confused crowd in Acts 19 that would have torn Paul to pieces. If you translated it there like Acts 7, you would get the "church in the theatre," and the blunder is obvious.

The way God gave the law showed how far the people stood from Him. It came through the arrangement of angels. It was an angel that appeared to Moses in the burning bush. It was Jehovah, no doubt, but Jehovah through a representative, and that representative was an angel. It was also an angel at Sinai, Jehovah speaking by angelic means. So Stephen tells the Jews that they had received the law by the arrangement of angels, and had not kept it. An angel was a poor representative of God. It was not God Himself drawing near to them in someone they could trust, but a being they did not know and always feared.

The privilege was immense — not only in the works of that time, but in the words God gave to man from then on, in permanent form. It was not just that the angel spoke to Moses. He "received living oracles to give to us" — a gift beyond words. It marks the One greater than Moses even more, and after Him came a fresh, complete and final revelation of God's grace and truth.

The apostle Paul calls the Old Testament scriptures as a whole "the oracles of God" (Romans 3:2). Stephen says that Moses received "living oracles" — not dead legends — to give to God's people.

This was the same Moses, he says, who was with the assembly in the wilderness. Through him, at Mount Sinai, they received the living oracles, the ten commandments. How had Israel responded to him then? At the very time Moses was receiving the two tablets of stone on the mountain, Israel was refusing him again. They demanded that Aaron make them gods of some sort that they could see.

If the fathers treated Moses like this, is it surprising that their children did not receive the Messiah? Moses had prophesied of Him, and Moses himself was a striking picture of Him. Their fathers of old thrust Moses away from them. What then of that far more honoured Prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, whom they had just handed over to be condemned and crucified?

Are the saints waiting patiently for Christ, dependent on Him and subject to Him who has gone on high? Or do they act as if they do not know what has become of Him? Do they let His word and Spirit lead them? Or have they set up calves of gold, idols to go before them, rejoicing in the works of their own hands?

He starts at the very beginning of the nation, with Abraham, and goes through its history to the days of Moses. Twice over, he points out, their ancestors made the great mistake of rejecting the instrument God had designed to deliver them. First it was Joseph. Next it was Moses. Joseph's brothers sold into Egypt the one who turned out to be their saviour and deliverer. His own people refused Moses in the land of Egypt. In the wilderness they thrust him from them, and turned back in heart to Egypt... In rejecting Moses they were rejecting God.

And how did the children of Israel treat one so plainly honoured in that day? "They would not be subject" to him. The fathers treated Moses like that. Was it surprising that their children did not receive the Messiah he had prophesied about? Moses himself was a striking picture of Him. ... Their fathers of old thrust Moses from them. What then of that Prophet, honoured beyond all comparison? He was mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and they had just handed Him over to be condemned and crucified. Their hearts were gone from God and turned to Egypt. Their appeal to Aaron made that plain, and so did his shameless agreement to it. Was it any less true now, when they chose a robber over "the Anointed of the Lord"?

Yet let us not suppose that either Aaron or Israel intended to abandon Jehovah. It is no stretch to imagine how indignant they would be at such a charge. To Israel's mind the calf stood for Him who is invisible. Aaron applied that image to Jehovah in so many words. People say this of all images: "a help to devotion," "a symbol of the unseen," and in this sense, the God who had brought them out of Egypt! But none the less had they really returned in spirit to paganism. They had "in their hearts turned back again into Egypt."

Still, almost as soon as they reached the wilderness, Egypt took on a new character in their eyes. The wilderness is the place where earth has nothing and heaven supplies everything. Egypt had been the land where they were oppressed and the place where God's judgment fell. Now they saw it as something else... The reason for all this is obvious and instructive. To walk with God in a wilderness needs faith. It needs that spirit of dependence which only faith can give. But being satisfied with the supplies of Egypt is something the senses grasp easily. So whenever their situation called for faith — and faith was not there — they "in their hearts turned back again into Egypt."

It needed a heart weaned from Egypt's influences to enjoy bread from heaven. The people despised it, called it light food, and lusted for flesh. So they proved how little their hearts had left Egypt, or wanted to walk in God's law. "In their hearts they turned back again into Egypt." But they never got back there. In the end they were carried away beyond Babylon. This is a solemn and healthy lesson for Christians. Those redeemed from this present world must walk with God in thankfulness of heart. They must be satisfied with His provision for the redeemed in the wilderness. If not, they are in danger of falling into the snare of Babylon's influence.

Joseph's brothers sold into Egypt the one who turned out to be their saviour and deliverer. His own people refused Moses in the land of Egypt. In the wilderness they pushed him away and turned back in heart to Egypt. But more. They called Aaron to make gods for them. God then gave them up to serve the host of heaven. So in rejecting Moses, they also rejected God.

And how did the children of Israel treat a man so highly honoured in that day? They "refused to obey him." If the fathers treated Moses like that, is it surprising that their children did not receive the Messiah? Moses had prophesied of Him, and was besides a striking picture of Him. Their hearts had left God and turned back to Egypt. That was plain enough then from their appeal to Aaron, and from how shamelessly he gave in. But was it any less true now, when they preferred a robber to "the Anointed of the Lord"? "They cried out again, 'Not this man, but Barabbas!' Now Barabbas was a robber" (John 18:40).

The people do not mean to disown Moses. They fully recognise him as the man who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt. But he was not there for them to see. This was their need — some present, visible prop to lean on, so that they no longer had to depend on what they could not see. They said to Aaron, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us." Their desire was urgent, and they would satisfy it at any cost. Without a murmur they bring their golden ornaments to Aaron... One step away from the fear of God can lead to harm beyond measure.

Make us gods! A god made by man is not as great as the man who made it. An idol, an image, is contemptible in the light of divine glory. Make us gods! Aaron himself had defeated the gods of mighty Egypt with the rod of Jehovah. He had stood by Moses on the memorable day when Moses called their calf-gods "the abomination of the Egyptians."

But unbelief craves a present and visible guide. "Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Israel was rebellious when Moses was on high; and so is the Jew now that Christ is gone to heaven. But is it only the Jew? Does the Gentile stand in the truth? Only by faith can he stand, as the apostle declares.

Those who took the Christian name grew weary of depending on an exalted but absent Lord. They stopped waiting for His return from heaven... Refusing to submit to Him soon bred distance from Him, and the heart turned back toward the world — the very world that grace calls people out of, to God. By nature men are even more idolatrous than sceptical. Unbelief is the mother of both these enemies of God and His truth. Men love to have gods to go before them. The true Deliverer becomes tiresome, and so He soon drops out of mind: "we do not know what has become of him."

Israel took the worship of the calf from their old masters, the Egyptians. That remarkable people were generally clean, even in their idolatry. Israel adopted Apis, the bull, who represented Osiris. To tell the truth, at first glance there seems little harm in it. People more respectable than Israel had worshipped at his shrine for centuries, with no visible harm. Where was the sin? Aaron might think. It was a clean and useful animal, and it represented the valuable principle of Prosperity. Yet God looks down out of the heavens full of anger. He deals with His own people differently from the rest of the world: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities."

reason: "blessing" loses original's "sanctification"; 46-word sentence split Call the sin holy, and the abomination will be held in religious awe. They dedicated the image to God — the God who had commanded them to make no image and to bow down to no image. Calling the festival by Jehovah's name did not change what it really was.

The spirit of false worship is to rejoice in the work of one's own hands — "they made a calf... and rejoiced in the work of their own hands." But in true worship, God Himself is the glory of the worshipper. It is in Him that the soul makes her boast.

It is governed by sight instead of faith, for Israel said, "Make for us gods who will go before us" (40). And it rejoices in its own works instead of the work of God, for after making an idol they "rejoiced in the works of their own hands" (41).

The people are clearly taught that in making any image and bowing down to it, they lowered and corrupted themselves. So when they made the golden calf, the Lord said to Moses, "Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves." It could not be otherwise. The worshipper must be lower than the object of his worship. So in worshipping a calf, they put themselves below the level of the beasts that perish.

This has been called Israel's original sin... First of all, it is the first action of the people recorded after they solemnly agreed to the covenant in Exodus 24. It was their first move on the new footing, in their new standing as a people "under the law." Then, that blow was aimed at the very throne of God itself. It went straight against the first item of the law they had pledged themselves to obey: "You shall have no other gods before me." Again, original sin is besetting sin — the first swing of the pendulum, deciding all the swings to come.

It is said of the people when they made the golden calf, "they rejoiced in the work of their own hands." The Galatian error — adding the law to Christ — is the same in principle. It is what the human heart naturally feels, as though people could serve God with their hands, as if He needed something. The apostle knew of no middle way between the grace of God in Christ and idolatry.

The 'calf', the abomination of Egypt, did not satisfy Israel. They craved objects higher than the works of their own hands, whatever charm that has for man's vain heart. Once they yielded to the snare, Israel had to outdo Egypt. So "God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven." Idolatry that grovels in the dust still reaches for higher things, and puffs itself up with its heavenly imaginations. Stephen is not the authority for so withering a charge, but Amos (Amos 5:25-27). These words stand in the prophets' Book. Would an Israelite contradict them too, or charge Scripture itself with saying blasphemous things about Israel?

They fell away from God until God gave them up. The words come three times: God gave them up to impurity (v. 24); God gave them up to shameful passions (v. 26); and, because they did not want to keep God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind (v. 28)… To be given up is the act of God in judicial judgment. He gave up the Gentiles in this way, and we see what man became. We also know that when the Jews had fully rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit, God gave them up, for the present, as a people.

When the Spirit of prophecy announced their coming captivity, He does not go back to the wicked kings of Israel, nor to the shameless sons of David who ruled Judah. He goes back to the idolatry in the wilderness — at the very time when Israel openly honoured the tabernacle of Jehovah and the priesthood of Aaron. But all that time God saw how hollow the animals and sacrifices they brought in His name were. In their hearts, in secret, they carried the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Raiphan.

As to their idolatry, I doubt whether Israel offered God a single sacrifice through all the wilderness years, apart from the official ones… They likely kept the official sacrifices up, or could have; and on the whole, what they did offer they claimed was for the Lord. When they made the golden calf, Aaron announced, "Tomorrow is a feast to Jehovah."

God's judgment is sure, even if it seems to sleep. Long afterwards the prophet Amos passes sentence for the sin committed in the desert. Whatever made the sin worse later on, it is the first sin that decides. Evil never gets better and never works itself out. It easily can grow worse, and it always does… Patience may go on for ages, in ways that faith admires; but judgment, however long delayed, is certain.

By nature people are even more idolatrous than doubting. Unbelief is the mother of both these enemies of God and His truth. People love to have gods that go before them. They find the true Deliverer tiresome, and He soon slips out of mind: "we do not know what has become of him." Is not the wilderness history prophetic?

The name of a god in Acts 7:43, which Israel had worshipped (but some Greek manuscripts read Rephan). Stephen was quoting Amos 5:25-26 from the Septuagint, which has Raephan. In the Hebrew the name of the god is Chiun, but why the translators changed the name is not known.

When the Spirit of prophecy announced their coming captivity, He does not go back to the wicked kings of Israel. Nor does He go back to the shameless sons of David who ruled Judah. He goes back to the idolatry in the wilderness. On the outside, at that very time, they honoured the tabernacle of Jehovah and the priesthood of Aaron. But God saw all along how hollow their offerings and sacrifices in His name were. In their hearts, out of sight, they took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Raiphan. They had made these forms to worship them.

Worshipping God by the ritual of the law was no security against idolatry. Stephen proved it from the words of Amos the prophet. Amos goes back to the days of Moses in the wilderness. There he finds the sin that carried them off, after long patience, to the lands of captivity. "The holy place and the law" did nothing for God's glory then, and they do nothing now. This was his answer to their boast, and his defence against their accusation.

Man, unbelieving man, is so quick to abandon the living God. He does it despite the daily standing witness of His power and grace. He does it despite the solemn judgments God sends before all eyes from time to time. He is just as quick to take up the idolatry that he had known, only a short time before, to rule the high and mighty, the refined and learned — the world, in short, where he himself had been a slave… The calf, the abomination of Egypt, did not satisfy Israel either. They craved objects higher than the works of their own hands, whatever the charm of those works to man's vain heart. Once they yielded to the snare, Israel had to outdo Egypt. So "God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven."

The prophet reminds them when and where their idolatry began: in the wilderness… Stephen says beyond Babylon, and so it turned out, perhaps to mark it off from the Babylonian captivity. Such was the result of the old sin in the wilderness. No doubt that sin was worse at the end. The dark stream kept gathering more water as it flowed… Still, God always goes back to the source. At last He declares that the final blow came because of the first departure.

The failure in the wilderness is connected here with the Babylonian captivity, though a great number of years came in between. The whole thing failed there. Babylon was the necessary result of that failure in the wilderness.

The Israelites had not worshipped Jehovah for forty years in the wilderness; but they had carried symbols of Molech and Chiun (or Remphan) and worshipped them. The root of their idolatrous course was that they had never in heart made a clean break from Egypt.

Stephen has well answered their accusations against him concerning Moses. Now in verse 44 he addresses their charge concerning the holy place. This began with the tabernacle that God ordered Moses to make precisely according to His plain directions. The tabernacle remained as God's dwelling place among His people when Joshua led them into the land, and until the days of Solomon.

How much more guilty were those who knew far better! They stood in a national relationship with God as His own special and favoured people. They even had the tent of the testimony itself — a witness for Him and against their ways. They carried it through the wilderness from father to son, and then into the good land, where God used Joshua to drive out the old pagan peoples so that Israel could have it. In this way they added open hypocrisy to their greedy idolatry. No corruption is worse than the corruption of God's own people, and so His discipline matches it: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).

The expression "the tabernacle of your Molech," Amos 5:26, is quoted in Acts 7:43-44. The Israelites had not worshipped Jehovah for forty years in the wilderness; but they had carried symbols of Molech and Chiun (or Remphan) and worshipped them. The root of their idolatrous course was that they had never in heart made a clean break from Egypt.

It goes by several names: the "tabernacle of testimony, or of witness," the "tabernacle of the congregation," or "tent of meeting." It was the place Jehovah recognised. There He lived among His people and met them. There, away from the world outside, He made His will known. Moses had to make it after the pattern God showed him on the mountain. When it was finished, Moses testified that it had been built just as the Lord commanded. Notice this: God left none of its details to Moses' own cleverness. Moses only had to carry out his instructions.

God kept the pattern of the tabernacle on high, in heavenly glory. Moses went up the mountain and spent forty days with God. The people thought he was going to get the law. Not that alone. He had gone to get God's mind and to see lovely pictures of Christ. He received the tablets of stone. But far better than that, he saw many shadows of Christ… Do we want to learn anything about God's dwelling place? We are asking here about the Church, and men are great church-makers. Then we must be sure our eyes are on the heavenly pattern.

The writer has now affirmed that the true tabernacle exists in heaven. How did he know that? He tells his readers, quoting from Exodus 25:40: "See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain" (Hebrews 8:5). This statement had very likely been overlooked… and Stephen, in his speech (Acts 7:44), points to the same scripture.

Stephen does not deny this at all. He insists that the tent of the testimony was made just as God appointed, by His word through Moses, and according to the model Moses had seen above… But he insists just as strongly on what the Jews were blind to, as the prophet Isaiah said. The Most High does not live in places made by human hands, except in a figurative sense… So when they misused and twisted the outward form, He handed it over to the Chaldeans, as He would later hand it to the Romans.

Two parts of the New Testament follow the Septuagint exactly, even where it differs sharply from the Hebrew. These parts are Stephen's speech in Acts 7 and the Epistle to the Hebrews... In each of them the name Jesus turns up in an awkward way. Stephen's speech mentions the "tabernacle of witness, which our fathers brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles." And in Hebrews 4 we read, "If Jesus had given them rest." In both of these places Joshua is the one meant. Jesus is only the Greek form of that name, and it is the form always used in the Septuagint.

How much more guilty were those who knew far better! They stood in a national relationship with God as His own special and favoured people. They even had the tent of the testimony, a witness for Him and against their ways. They carried it from father to son in the wilderness, and then into the good land. There God, through Joshua, drove out the old heathen inhabitants so that Israel could have the land. In this way they added gross hypocrisy to their greedy idolatry. No corruption is so serious as the corruption of God's people, and so God's discipline falls on them in proportion.

The tabernacle was only a movable tent. There the Lord lived as between curtains and walked as in a tent. In infinite grace He refused to enter His rest while His Israel travelled from one nation to another people. But the temple was fixed. Once Israel had come into the land of their covenant, and all their enemies were subdued, the Lord would enter into rest among them.

Stephen speaks of the tabernacle continuing until the days of David. David wanted to build a temple, but God did not allow him. He had reserved that honour for Solomon. This was a reminder to the Jews that they did not always have a temple. Was it of greater importance than the God who had brought Israel out of Egypt? Indeed, Israel seemed to think that God was confined to their temple!

Joshua is a type of Christ risen, but still the actual leader of his people in the conflict of taking possession of what is theirs. So it is with Christ as He dwells in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is Christ in us, by the Holy Spirit, leading us with divine energy to take hold of all that is given to us. It is ours, and yet we have to take hold of it and plant our foot on it... Our inheritance is in Christ, but our enjoyment of that inheritance is by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.

Stephen, far from denying it, insists that God appointed the tent of the testimony by His word through Moses, according to the model seen above. Their fathers received it from those before them and brought it with them when they entered into the possession of the nations driven out before them. It stayed so until the days of David, whose son built the house for the God of Jacob. But he insists just as strongly on what the Jews were blind to, as the prophet Isaiah said: the Most High does not live in places made with hands, except in a symbolic sense... So when they abused and perverted the outward form, He gave it up to the Chaldeans, as He would again to the Romans.

Stephen says the tabernacle continued until the days of David. David wanted to build a temple, but God did not allow him to do it (2 Sam. 7:5-7); God had kept that honour for Solomon. This reminded the Jews that they did not always have a temple. Was the temple more important than the God who had brought Israel out of Egypt? Israel seemed to think that God was confined to their temple!

In the days of David (2 Sam. 7:1-17), the favour God showed him worked in the heart of the king. David asked to build a house for the LORD. The answer he got was that the LORD would make him a house, and that his son Solomon would build a house for His name — as Stephen recounts here.

Jacob's God is the God of perfect grace — of a mercy that is true, and that takes no account of what its object deserves. It flows in full stream, with blessing that has no limits, over every obstacle that human stubbornness or any other evil can put in its way.

David said, "I will build God a dwelling place." When he said this, it was a mistake, but it came out of love, and the Spirit always notices the heart's affections. (Ps. 132) The heart's desire was to be near His dwelling place — to build one for Him; but the truth is that His own hands will make Himself a dwelling place. It was a flawed thought, though not a wrong one… Until the true Solomon builds, God goes from tent to tent, until He builds a house… In the meantime we are "being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."

The Lord dealt with David like this not so much to stop him from doing good, but to give him something better. Take a heart that is turned towards God, wanting what agrees with His mind. If He takes away a thought of ours, it is always to carry out a higher purpose of His own.

All this points to God's purpose to bless man, a purpose to be completed by the man of God's own right hand… In the promise, David himself — a blessed saint and servant of God as he was — could only be a picture of the One who was coming… How gently and graciously God turned David away from his plan, by setting His own thoughts and purpose before him. If it is a question of building God a house, God must be the builder (Eph. 2:20-22; Heb. 3:3-6). Otherwise man's building ends in ruin!

David the king found favour in the sight of God (Acts 7:46), and so did Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:28, 30). But these were exceptional cases. As the New Testament reveals it, standing in the favour of God is not the privilege of a few. All who are justified have it alike.

Stephen speaks of the tabernacle continuing until the days of David. David wanted to build a temple, but God did not allow him to do this (2 Sam. 7:5-7), having reserved this honour for Solomon. This was a reminder to the Jews that they did not always have a temple. Was it of greater importance than the God who had brought Israel out of Egypt? Indeed, Israel seemed to think their temple could confine God!

In the days of David (2 Sam. 7:1-17), the favour God showed him worked in the heart of the king. He asked to build a house for Jehovah. But his answer was that Jehovah would make him a house, and that his son Solomon should build a house for His name, as Stephen here recounts.

Stephen closes his survey of Israel's history with the temple. It was the highest point of the nation's glory. But follow on in Solomon's history, and you see that all was still a shadow. The prayer of dedication, we may say, was still echoing around the hills of Jerusalem when Solomon fell into shameful sin and idolatry. Everything was only a picture. It still waited for the One to whom the full glory of God would be entrusted — the One who displayed God perfectly, absolutely and permanently, in heart, life and nature.

Here then, thought the Jew, Jehovah must restrict Himself to that magnificent palace of His holiness. For unbelieving man must have an idol somewhere... Superstitious praise of the temple takes glory away from the One who gives it all its distinctive grandeur. Jehovah did stoop to make it holy and to glorify it. The priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God. But Solomon himself, at that great dedication, had admitted that heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Him — much less the house he had just built!

He had shown that at every fresh step in the unfolding of His purposes of love, people met God with opposition. God sent Moses. He brought the people out of Egypt and settled them in the land. He established the tabernacle as a divine centre and set up the kingdom under David, and Solomon built a temple. Each step came after they had failed to enjoy what God gave before, and each step gave them fresh occasion to resist the Holy Spirit... The temple was built and Solomon's reign of glory began. Then a deeper falling away from God marked both king and people, and the darkness deepened until the nation was carried away to Babylon.

Solomon's Temple has gone, but a more wonderful thing has taken its place. The Church, made up of sinners drawn from among Jews and Gentiles, is now His Temple (1 Cor. 3:16); His house (1 Tim. 3:15); His habitation (Eph. 2:22). No mere glory cloud fills this; the Holy Spirit has come from heaven to form the building and to make His home in it. Every believer in Jesus is a "living stone" in God's "spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5).

Far from denying it, Stephen insists that the tent of the testimony was made as God appointed by His word through Moses, following the pattern Moses had seen. But he no less insists on what the Jews were blind to, according to the prophet Isaiah: that the Most High does not dwell, except figuratively, in places made with hands. For heaven is His throne, and the earth only the footstool of His feet. They exaggerated what they had done, and forgot that He made all these things, which far outdo any structure of man. So when they abused and perverted the outward form, He gave it up to the Chaldeans, as He would again to the Romans.

We are told that God dwells not in temples made with hands (Acts 7:48). The term "made with hands" occurs several times in Scripture, and always refers to what is material and carnal, in contrast to what is spiritual.

The best authorities — the oldest manuscripts (ℵ A B C D E), some cursive copies, and all the ancient versions except the Armenian — have no such addition as "temples." That word stands in the Received Text and in most of the later manuscripts.

It was not he nor Luke, but Isaiah who declared that the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands. Isaiah said it in full view of the "exceeding magnificent" temple that Solomon built.

Solomon himself, at that great dedication, had owned that heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Him — much less the house he had just built! And the prophet Isaiah spoke in the same way afterward, long before God allowed Babylon to burn and destroy the object of Israel's pride.

Can a trifling part of what His own hands have created contain God? Israel had already rejected and crucified the One who held undisputed rights over the temple. How can they speak so piously of the house while rejecting its true owner?

This passage entirely sets aside the thought of any special place of worship now. There really is no such thing.

God had a house until they sinned it away; but now God would have a house — the church, the habitation of God through the Spirit.

Let us remember that "the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands" (Acts 7:48). And let us remember what the prophet writes: "But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isa. 66:2).

They also charged him with speaking against "the holy place." But had they forgotten that the tabernacle had already given way to the Temple? And long after that Temple was built, God said through the prophet Isaiah that heaven, not a building on earth, was His real dwelling place.

Making a superstition of the temple takes away from the glory of the One who gives it all its grandeur. Jehovah did choose to make it holy and to fill it with glory. The priests could not stand to serve there because of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God. But at that great dedication Solomon himself admitted that heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Him. Much less the house he had just built!

Is God to be contained in a trifling part of what His own hands have created? The One who had undeniable rights over the temple had already been rejected and crucified by Israel. How can they speak so piously about the house while rejecting its true owner?

They exaggerated what they had done, and forgot that He made all these things, which far outdo any structure of man. So when they abused and perverted the outward form, He gave it up to the Chaldeans, as He would again to the Romans... The rejection of Joseph and of Moses pictured the rejection of the Lord Himself. Now God shows His rejection of the earthly house. Each one proves Israel's unbelief and rebellion against Him, and that is Stephen's argument throughout.

There was always a remnant preserved for God, and even in those times there were some to whom He could look. Let us notice their features: "he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word." The older wording "poor" does not refer to financial circumstances, but to humility of spirit. It speaks of deep need along with sorrow at the surrounding conditions.

This passage completely sets aside the thought of any special place of worship now. There really is no such thing. "The Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands... Did not my hand make all these things?" (Acts 7:48-50).

So Stephen pressed these very words home on them (Acts 7:48-50). It was not he, nor Luke, but Isaiah who said that the Most High does not dwell in temples made by hands. And he said it in full view of the magnificent temple Solomon built. Heaven is His throne, and earth is His footstool. What can man build that is good enough for Him to rest in? He needs nothing that human hands can supply. His own hand has made all these things, and next to them man's greatest efforts are tiny.

"The Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands." He also quotes their own scriptures to show it: "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or what is the place of My rest? Did not My hand make all these things?" Is God to be shut inside a tiny part of what His own hands have made? Israel had already rejected and crucified the One who held every right to the temple. How can they speak so reverently about the house while rejecting its true owner?

Superstitious praise of the temple takes away from the glory of the One who gives it all its grandeur. Jehovah did stoop to make it holy and to fill it with His glory, so that the priests could not stand to serve because of the cloud. The glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God. But Solomon himself, at that solemn dedication, admitted that heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Him — much less the house he had just built! The prophet Isaiah said the same thing later (Isaiah 66:1), long before God let Babylon burn and destroy the object of Israel's pride.

Still God had raised up David, and then Solomon built the house. Now they boasted in the house (see Jeremiah 7:4), as if simply owning these buildings guaranteed everything. In fact God dwelt in the highest heaven, far above the grandest buildings on earth.

It was right and godly to acknowledge the grace of Jehovah in stooping so low. It was presumptuous to limit His glory to the temple He chose as His dwelling. The Creator had made everything, and He stands far beyond measure above the universe. Seen from there, what was Jerusalem or the temple?

This passage entirely sets aside the thought of any special place of worship now. There really is no such thing... And again, "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything. He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything."

God cannot rest here, because He cannot rest where everything is not according to His mind and heart. But there everything will match Himself (Exodus 29, and later Solomon's temple, but see Acts 7:48). God had a house until they sinned it away. But now God would have a house — the church, the dwelling place of God through the Spirit.

Stephen had been reviewing the history of Israel under God's promises and revelations. He had shown that at every fresh step in unfolding His purposes of love, God met opposition. God sent Moses. He brought the people out of Egypt and set them in the land. He established the tabernacle as a divine centre, set up the kingdom under David, and Solomon built a temple. God took each step after they had failed to enjoy what He had already given, and each step only gave them a fresh occasion to resist the Holy Spirit.

"I have seen this people," said Jehovah to Moses at Mount Sinai, "and behold, it is a stiff-necked people" (Ex. 32:9)... But Moses, the mediator, skilfully turned this very fact into a plea: "If now I have found favour in Your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your inheritance" (Ex. 34:9). If Stephen repeated the word at the end of their history, the beginning of their history had already proved it true.

With all their self-satisfaction they were "stiff-necked" in heart and ears. The outward sign in the flesh only made their total lack of its spiritual meaning more glaring. The flesh was strong instead of being judged as evil.

God never designed it so, but circumcision became a merely formal act once the people ignored the covenant itself. God then speaks of Israel as having "uncircumcised hearts." Stephen charged the Jewish council with being "uncircumcised in heart and ears." Lev. 26:41; Acts 7:51.

It was themselves who were resisting the Holy Spirit, "you" above all. Without doubt, as already proved from Holy Scripture, their fathers had done so: this ought to have been a warning to them. Sadly, they also followed the same destructive course; and they did so "always."... They killed the prophets who announced the Messiah. In their own day they did worse than all before them: they handed over the Righteous One Himself and murdered Him.

Stephen begins there, and gives the whole history of Israel. He sums it up like this. They received the law by the arrangement of angels, and have not kept it. Their fathers persecuted the prophets, and killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One. And they themselves had now betrayed and murdered Him. You have there the law broken, the prophets killed, Christ crucified, and the Holy Spirit resisted. And so that chapter is the turning-point of Israel's, and indeed of man's history.

We know well that unconverted men do resist the Holy Spirit. It is the commonest thing possible where people know God's word. And it is not only resisting the word, but the Spirit, of God. That is why Stephen said to the Jews, "You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you." The Holy Spirit uses the word to touch the conscience, and whoever refuses this resists both the word and Spirit of God.

Stephen had been accused of speaking against Moses and against God, and also against the temple and the law. He is asked to answer these accusations… And before he finishes his testimony the accused becomes the accuser of the nation; the one to be judged becomes the judge.

The prophets dealt with the people's sin. They exposed it without fear, in the light of truth, righteousness, and God's judgment. At the same time they looked on to the kingdom of God, which would set aside all evil, and to the suffering Messiah, who would be exalted and lifted very high. The prophet held the light of God against the wicked will of man, and that light condemned it. This is what drew out the hatred of Israel. It made the prophet an object of dishonour and hostility, nowhere more than in his own country. God was brought near, and guilty man will not have God at any price… Whatever their thoughts later, their bitterest anger broke out against those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One. It was a kingdom they wanted, with ease and honour for themselves; not a King to reign in righteousness, and princes to rule in judgment.

For faith does not act by decorating tombs or putting up memorial tablets to the holy sufferers of days gone by. Faith walks and suffers reproach in the days that are now, if not worse persecution. It looks for heaven and glory only when Christ appears. Unbelief, on the other hand, seeks present satisfaction and credit by honouring those who no longer give a living testimony to their consciences. So it falls for the trick of the enemy. He builds ever higher that hypocritical temple of worldly religion, where those once despised and killed as martyrs now stand in a niche as idols.

Stephen now saw Him as the Son of Man, and in heaven, standing there in the place of honour — at the right hand of God. Power, then, belongs to the crucified One. … Now Stephen tells them to their face that he could see the One who once stood on trial before them. He is standing at the right hand of God. The inference was plain — a child could draw it. Their guilt was undeniable. The weighty charge he had just brought against them, of murdering the Righteous One, was only too true. Righteous He was. His presence in heaven proved it.

Stephen gives the whole history of Israel and sums it up like this. They received the law by the arrangement of angels, and have not kept it. Their fathers persecuted the prophets and killed those who told beforehand of the coming of the Just One. And of Him they themselves had now been the betrayers and the murderers — "you always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you." You have there the law broken, the prophets killed, Christ crucified, and the Holy Spirit resisted. And so that chapter is the turning point of Israel's history, and indeed of man's history.

Because of the intercession of Jesus on the cross, the nation of Israel was treated by God as someone guilty of manslaughter (Luke 23:34; Acts 3:17), God viewing the killing of Christ as a sin of ignorance. But when the testimony of the Spirit of God was rejected, the nation was no longer in ignorance; it was wilful in its guilt, so that Stephen says, "you have been now the betrayers and murderers" of the "Just One."

Stephen summed everything up when he said to the Jews, "Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?… you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it." They had broken the law, killed the prophets, killed the Just One (Christ), and resisted the Holy Spirit. All was over.

Israel received the law not as a code drawn up by human wisdom. It was administered by angels, and so came through them from God. That is what makes their failure to keep what was divine so serious. The allusion seems to be to Deuteronomy 33:2: "The LORD came from Sinai… He came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at His right hand."

The way God gave the law showed how far the people stood from Him. It came by the ministry of angels. An angel appeared to Moses in the burning bush. It was Jehovah, no doubt, but Jehovah acting through a representative — and that representative was an angel. It was also an angel at Sinai, Jehovah speaking by angelic means.

And what was their glorying in the law but a vain and empty boast? They received it, no doubt, with the most solemn ceremony at Sinai… A law that is not kept can only condemn the guilty. What blindness to brag about a law they did not obey! But it is always so, when someone without faith in the Saviour pretends to honour God… If we do not profit by His grace, what remains but His judgment?

He accuses the Jews, his persecutors, of having betrayed and murdered the Just One. This they can bear. But then he adds that they had not kept the law they received by the ministry of angels. Their gnashing teeth declared how much more serious law-breaking was in their eyes than shedding the blood of the Pretender of Nazareth — which, in their unequalled moral corruption, is what they considered Him to be… That they had murdered Him did not stir them; that they had broken the law made them gnash their teeth. But that the One they had killed was in the glory of God — that was the signal for his life to be forfeited.

Every Jew knew that angels played a very large part in the giving of the law through Moses, though Exodus says little about them. The words of Stephen in Acts 7:53 show this… In the minds of the people, this display of angelic power gave great authority to Moses and to the law he brought them. And now the Divine Spokesman appears among men. Yet to them He is only Jesus of Nazareth, a humble and despised Man… So it became vitally important to insist on the true glory of His person — above all angels beyond measure.