Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain those who announced beforehand concerning the coming of the Just One, of whom *ye* have now become deliverers up and murderers!
Stephen has just walked his judges through their own national story. Now he stops telling it and starts accusing: the men on the bench become the men on trial. He brings two charges. Your fathers hunted the prophets. You went further — you handed over and killed the One those prophets pointed to.
By the time Stephen reaches this verse, the trial has turned around.
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 question expects one answer: none. Israel did long for the promised kingdom, so why did it treat God's messengers this way?
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.
It costs nothing to honour prophets who are already dead. One writer contrasts that honour with what faith really does.
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 calls Jesus "the Righteous One." Older translations say "the Just One." Moments later he sees something that settles the title.
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.
This verse is one count in a longer charge. One writer sums up the whole speech.
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.
Why does Stephen now call them murderers? One writer traces the change to what happened after the cross.
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."
- Resisted — one refusal runs through the whole story. God draws near through His messengers, and guilty man will not have Him at any price.
- Persecuted — the prophets held God's light against man's will, and Israel hated them for it. Stephen's question needs no answer.
- Announced — the prophets pointed forward to the Righteous One. Israel wanted the kingdom without the King, so it killed the messengers first.
- Murdered — law broken, prophets killed, Christ crucified, the Spirit resisted. These four counts make this chapter a turning point.
- Vindicated — the One they murdered stands at God's right hand. That settles His title "Righteous." Honouring dead martyrs while resisting a living witness is no defence.
who have received the law as ordained by [the] ministry of angels, and have not kept [it].
Stephen ends his defence with a charge, not a plea. The people who prized the law above everything were the very people who broke it. His last words name the honour God gave them and the failure that followed. That charge stung his hearers more than the charge of murder did.
The verse ends a chain of accusations. One writer lists the whole sequence and its result:
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.
The law did not reach Israel by human arrangement. One writer draws out where it came from, and why Israel's failure was so serious:
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."
Who delivered the law says something about Israel's standing with God:
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.
Stephen turns Israel's boast in the law against them. Receiving a law from God is not the same as keeping it:
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?
Stephen had already told them they had betrayed and killed the Righteous One. That charge they could take. The charge of breaking the law was the one they could not take. The contrast shows what they valued most:
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.
The angels at Sinai gave Moses' message enormous weight in Jewish eyes. The One who came later looked far less impressive:
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.
- Given. The law came to Israel through angels, and so from God Himself — not from human wisdom. That is why breaking it was so serious.
- Distant. Those same angels showed the gap. God did not speak face to face; He spoke through representatives.
- Unkept. Holding a divine law and disobeying it turns the boast into the verdict. An unkept law can only condemn.
- Exposed. The charge of murder they could bear. The charge of law-breaking made them gnash their teeth — and exposed their true priorities.
- Surpassed. Angels gave the law huge weight in Jewish eyes. The Son who came in humility stands above every one of them.