But being full of [the] Holy Spirit, having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw [the] glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
Stephen stands on trial before the leaders of his nation. As their rage boils over, heaven opens to him. The verse sets two pictures side by side: a man full of the Spirit, and a Man in the glory of God.
One writer sets Stephen against his accusers in a single line. What Stephen saw with his eyes, we hold by faith:
Nowhere does a more blessed picture of the Christian appear. The Jews resisted the Holy Spirit; he was full of Him. He fixed his gaze on heaven, as we should, and he was allowed to see with his own eyes what we can only see by faith: the glory of God, and Jesus at His right hand.
The contrast is not between religious men and irreligious men. Both sides were religious:
Here we see what religion without Christ produces. These men claimed to be the guardians of religion and the guides of the people, but this turned out to be religion against Christianity. In them we see a terrible display of a godless, Christless religion; in Stephen we see a lovely display of true Christianity. They were full of religious hatred and rage; he was full of the Holy Spirit. They ground their teeth; his face was like the face of an angel. What a contrast!
Having the Spirit is one thing. Being full of Him is another — and one writer says this is not reserved for martyrs:
One writer has said, "To have the Holy Spirit is one thing; to be filled with the Holy Spirit is another. When He is the one source of my thought, I am filled with Him. When He has possession of my heart, there is power to silence what is not of God, to keep my soul from evil, and to guide every act of my life and walk" (J.N.D.). So, full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen looks up to Christ in glory. He does not see that glory with his natural eyes; he was full of the Holy Spirit. But let us remember that this is not limited to Stephen, for the Apostle says, "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image."
Stephen sees the glory of God, and in that glory a Man. One commentator sets this beside an earlier vision given to the prophet Ezekiel:
Ezekiel had seen "the likeness of a throne" and "the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it" (Ezek. 1:26). But Stephen saw no mere "likeness" or "appearance." He saw the MAN Himself, standing at the right hand of God. Jesus, once crucified, is now the Man of God's right hand. He is the mighty Executive, the One through whom God will govern the universe!
The same point is put more simply elsewhere: heaven's glory and the Person there cannot be separated.
It is the Person of Jesus in the glory of God that holds the eye and the heart of Stephen. Even as the words of eternal life were inseparably bound up with the Person of the Son in Manhood, so now is the glory of God indissolubly bound up with the Son of God at God's right hand.
Here Christ does not sit. Commentators differ on why. One reads His standing as a posture of waiting:
Here He does not sit, because, until the Jews had refused the testimony of His glory, the Saviour was still expecting to come back, in keeping with what Peter had said in his address. As soon as Stephen is killed, this testimony ends. With a single soul in heaven, the gathering of the spirits of the redeemed begins.
Another writer weighs the options, and ends with a personal one:
In Acts 7, we read that the Lord was standing. Perhaps He was about to sit down, since He had entered heaven not long before... Or perhaps He is said to be still standing because He was waiting for His people to change their mind, so that He could come back. In any case, He is the Son of Man at the right hand of God, and Stephen sees Him standing there — no doubt to receive him at his martyrdom.
The vision does not lift Stephen out of the trial. It changes how he stands inside it:
There we see a man in the most terrible circumstances: enemies rushing at him, death staring him in the face. Yet those circumstances do not touch him or control him at all. Heavenly things control him completely. He looked up into heaven and saw Jesus. Earth was rejecting him, as it had already rejected his Lord. But heaven was open to him, and as he looked up into that open heaven he caught some of the rays of glory shining in the face of his risen Lord. He did not only catch them; he threw them back into the moral darkness around him.
- Filled — having the Spirit is one thing. Being full of Him is another: He is the one source of your thought, and He has possession of your heart.
- Fixed — a filled man looks up. Stephen's gaze into heaven is what our gaze should be. It is not a special case for martyrs.
- Focused — he saw no mere likeness. He saw the Man Himself: Jesus, once crucified, now at God's right hand.
- Waiting — why is He standing? Some writers say He was still waiting for His people to change their minds. Others say He stood to receive His dying servant.
- Reflected — the glory he looked at came back out of him. He caught the rays shining in the face of his risen Lord, and threw them back into the darkness around him.
and said, Lo, I behold the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.
Stephen has just finished his defence, and the council is enraged. Instead of arguing further, he tells them what he can see above their heads. His words raise three questions. What does an opened heaven mean? Why call Jesus "the Son of Man"? And why is that Man standing, not seated?
The heavens open only a few times in Scripture, and always in connection with Christ. One writer traces that sequence and shows where it leaves the believer.
He came down as Son of God in supreme love to die for us. He has gone up in righteousness, raised from the dead and glorified in heaven. The believer who is filled with the Spirit and suffering for His sake sees Him there. Once the heavens opened on Him here as He received the Holy Spirit and was acknowledged Son of God. One day He will come out from the opened heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords to judge the living. The Christian's place and privilege lies between these two, and Stephen shows it here in its fullest light.
The striking part of the sight is not the glory, but who stands in it — a Man.
Stephen looked steadily up into heaven, and saw the Son of Man standing at God's right hand — a Man in heaven, seen by a man on earth! What an immense step! It is a great blessing to have Christ in heaven, to see Him there, and to share a living link with Him in that glory.
One writer names this pairing as the mark of the present age:
So we have the unique character of the present day — Man in heaven; God on the earth. This belongs to Christianity alone. For his own encouragement and comfort he had seen "the glory of God and Jesus" — a living, blessed Man at the centre of the glory of God.
Stephen does not say "Jesus" here; he uses the title the Lord had used of Himself before this same council.
Of this One Daniel had written, and he had seen Him in vision (Dan. 7:13). David too had sung of Him in the Psalms (Ps. 8)... Power belongs to the crucified One, and as Son of Man He will one day use it... Many members of the council were likely present when the Lord Jesus declared that He was the Son of Man (Luke 22:69-71). They had a part in judging Him worthy of death for it. Now Stephen tells them to their face that he could see the One who had once stood at their bar standing at the right hand of God. The inference was plain — a child could draw it. Their guilt was undeniable.
Elsewhere Scripture says Christ sat down at God's right hand. So why does Stephen see Him standing? One writer finds two different truths in the two postures:
Our Lord sat in relation to the finished work of redemption. The work was done. His standing, as Stephen saw Him, sets out a very touching truth — that the Lord lingered over His ancient people in wonderful grace.
The sight also carried a personal message for Stephen:
This told the martyr what the ladder had told the patriarch. At that very moment, he and his circumstances were the thought and object of heaven.
Looking up did more than comfort Stephen. It reshaped him into the likeness of the One he was looking at.
Strife and noisy uproar surrounded him like a wall of fire. None of it could turn his eye or heart from that blessed One who filled them... But this is not all. He does not only look; he becomes like the One into whose blessed face he looks. That One said, "Father, forgive them." Stephen too says, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
Only Stephen saw this, but what he saw belongs to every believer.
Meanwhile heaven stands open for the believer on earth. He may never see it as Stephen did, but it is no less his portion by faith. And the Lord Jesus receives our spirits above at death as surely as He did Stephen's.
- Opened. Heaven opened over Christ when He received the Holy Spirit. It will open again when He returns to judge. Stephen's vision places the Christian between those two moments.
- Occupied. The open heaven shows a Man at the centre of God's glory. Man in heaven, God on earth — that pairing makes this age unique.
- Named. "Son of Man" is the title the council had condemned Him for claiming. Hearing it from Stephen settled their guilt beyond argument, and it points to the day He will use the power that belongs to Him.
- Standing. He sat down because redemption was finished. He stood because He still lingered over His ancient people in grace — and because Stephen was heaven's concern at that moment.
- Reflected. Looking at that face made Stephen like it. The words from the cross came back from the stoning-ground, and faith may look at the same sight today.
And they cried out with a loud voice, and held their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord;
Stephen has just told the council that he sees heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at God's right hand. Their answer is a shout, hands over the ears, and a rush at him.
Stephen had already charged them with murder, and they had endured it. So why did his word about Christ in glory break them?
Stephen 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 direction of angels. Their gnashing teeth showed that law-breaking was far more serious in their eyes than shedding the blood of the Pretender of Nazareth — for that is what, in their unequalled moral corruption, they judged Him to be… It is enough. They stop their ears, shouting for the life of the man who had testified that their slaughtered Victim was standing at the right hand of God! 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 slain was in the glory of God — that was the signal to take his life.
Covering the ears is not a reflex of shock. It is a decision about what they will allow themselves to hear.
See how Israel treats the testimony of the Spirit to a glorified Christ… Their thoughts towards the glorified Christ were no different from when He was among them in lowliness and meekness. They have no desire to hear of Christ's glory, so they stop their ears. They protest loudly against the witness to His glory, and they are fully united in their wicked desire to be rid of him. How clearly they had made their mind known: "We do not want this man to reign over us."
This was not the first time the nation turned on someone God sent. The shut ears close a pattern rather than start one.
Stephen, the last great witness, summed up their history as the rejecters of every deliverer God had ever sent. They had sold Joseph into Egypt. Of Moses they had asked, "Who made you a ruler and a judge?" They had slain 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. As they "stopped their ears and rushed together at him," they were like the "deaf adder that stops its ear" at the voice of charmers, no matter how well they charm (Ps. 58).
This was a court, yet the verse describes a stampede.
Like others since their day, when faced with an answer they could not refute they turned to force. They seem to have given him no time to think. They hurried Stephen off to execution… As far as we read, no one pronounced a sentence. In a state of frenzy they had their way. They stoned Stephen, and the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. By the law the witnesses were to throw the first stone at the criminal (Deut. 17:7). This was not overlooked at that moment.
These were not thugs. They were the most respected religious body in the nation, and that is the point.
None are so cruel, and so without restraint, as those who have the highest religious prestige and reject the testimony of God. That rejection is their guilt, and it is His rejection of their claims. So it was then in the great council of Jerusalem. Like their ancestors, they always resisted the Holy Spirit. Stephen, "full of the Holy Spirit," rebuked their present state, however decent it looked, as worse than all the past. More than that, he testified to such grace and glory in Jesus on high as God had never announced before.
This refusal ended one story. But the same scene names the man God would use next.
In the murder of Stephen the nation of Israel rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and it sealed their doom. But in wonderful grace the Lord took up Saul of Tarsus, at whose feet the murderers laid their clothes. He was to carry on the testimony of the Holy Spirit to a Christ rejected on earth and glorified in heaven.
- Hearing — They could bear the murder charge. What they refused to hear was that the Man they killed now stands in God's glory.
- Choosing — Stopped ears are not ignorance but will. They had no desire to hear of Christ's glory, and they united to get rid of the witness.
- Repeating — They sold Joseph, refused Moses, stoned prophets, killed the Just One. Now they resisted the Spirit; the shut ear closed a long tale.
- Raging — They could not answer him, so they turned to force. No one passed a sentence — only a frenzy that still kept the letter of the law about witnesses throwing the first stone.
- Overruling — Their answer sealed the nation's doom. Yet the young man minding the coats became the next carrier of the testimony they silenced.
and having cast [him] out of the city, they stoned [him]. And the witnesses laid aside their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul.
Stephen has just told the council that he sees the Son of Man standing at God's right hand. The answer is a rush of hands, a road out of the city, and a pile of stones. In the middle of the violence, one small detail shapes the rest of the book: a young man is holding the coats.
The law had rules for a death sentence. One writer points out which rule survived the frenzy and which did not.
Like others since their day, when they could not answer him they turned to force. It seems they gave him no time to think. They hurried Stephen off to execution. No sentence, as far as we read, was pronounced. In a state of frenzy they had their way. Stephen was stoned, the witnesses laying down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. By the law the witnesses were to cast the first stone at the criminal (Deuteronomy 17:7). This was not overlooked at that moment.
Stephen dies outside the city. Others in Scripture died outside too — and so did his Master.
Outside the camp the blasphemer was to be stoned (Numbers 15:35-36). Beyond the walls of Jezreel Naboth was murdered (1 Kings 21:13). Outside Jerusalem Stephen was martyred (Acts 7:58). Outside the gate the Lord Jesus suffered. So those who confess Him were urged to go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. But in doing that they turned their backs on Judaism with all its hopes, its earthly position, and its ritual.
The garments came off for a practical reason. Where they landed shows where Saul stood.
They stoned him. The witnesses, who said he was blaspheming, took off their garments to free their arms for throwing the stones. But they did not want their garments kicked about. So they laid them down "at the feet of a young man named Saul." He did not rush into the crowd to fling stones, but he consented to the deed. He said in effect: "Let that man die. He says he has seen Jesus the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, which is completely impossible. I consent to his death."
Holding the coats did not make him a bystander. Another writer places him inside the crime.
In that guilty scene was one man no less dark and furious than the rest: Saul of Tarsus. He would later be the witness of the very Jesus whom he was then persecuting in Stephen's person. He did not only look on; he took the part given to him here with those who stoned Stephen.
This refusal reached further than Stephen's own death.
The rejection of Stephen's testimony was a turning point in God's ways with Israel, and with man. The same principle had already come out at the death of Christ. After that, God never could bless the world directly. He could forgive guilty Israel if they repented, and send Christ back again, in answer to the prayer on the cross. This is just what Peter preaches in Acts 3. If the people were converted, so that their sins were blotted out, Jesus was ready to return... But now they refuse Stephen's testimony completely. They cast the witness of Christ's heavenly glory out of the city and stone him without mercy.
The verse ends with a name — and God was not finished with it.
Those who stoned Stephen laid down their clothes at the feet of the young man, Saul of Tarsus. In this way he became the formal witness of the last possible expression of man's enmity against Christ in the glory of God. But God, in infinite grace, took up this same young man. He made him the vessel of the testimony of the last and greatest possible expression of the love of God to the man who could only hate Him. That is why he speaks of himself as the chief of sinners. In him, "chief" as he was, God showed His whole long-suffering.
- Enmity. The council could not answer Stephen, so it answered with stones. No one passed a sentence, yet the witnesses still threw the first stones, as the law required.
- Outside. They put Stephen outside the city, where the blasphemer and Naboth also died — and where his Master suffered. That is the place those who confess Him are called to go.
- Consent. Saul threw nothing; he guarded the coats. Commentators read that as agreement with the verdict, not distance from it.
- Turning. Israel's refusal of the witness to Christ in glory marks a turning point in God's dealings with the nation.
- Grace. God took up the man who watched enmity at its worst and made him the carrier of His greatest love. That is why Saul later called himself the chief of sinners.
And they stoned Stephen, praying, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Stephen dies with a prayer, not a protest — the stones are falling, and he speaks not to his killers but to a Person in heaven. Two questions press on it. Why does he pray to the Lord Jesus and not to the Father? And what is he asking Him to do with his spirit?
Older English Bibles add a word here that the verse itself does not have. One writer weighs both additions:
There is no ground for the addition in the Authorized Version of "God", and a questionable need for that in the Revised Version of "the Lord". It was on the Lord that His dying servant called, as the blessed Lord dying commended His spirit to His Father's hands.
So the contrast is exact. The dying Lord gave His spirit into His Father's hands; the dying servant called on the Lord Jesus.
Some have argued that prayer belongs only to the Father. One writer answers with Stephen's dying words, and with other examples in the New Testament:
No Christian denies he should pray to the Father. But it is just as certain that Christians pray to the Lord. In fact, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus is, so to speak, a definition of a Christian in 1 Corinthians 1:2. Stephen called on the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit, and Paul asked Him to take away the thorn. A child prays to his Father, but the administration of the house is in the Lord's hands.
Another writer points to the man who prayed it:
It is hard to see how a man full of the Holy Spirit would be doing something that should now be forbidden.
Stephen's words echo the words of Jesus on the cross. Yet the two prayers are not the same:
They could not silence his confidence, his peaceful entrance into his place with Christ. … For Jesus could say, and He alone could say rightly, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" Jesus alone could fittingly say, "I commit my spirit." He who could lay down His life, and could take it again, could so speak to the Father. But the servant of the Lord could say, and rightly and blessedly, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
Even the order of the two prayers differs. Stephen prays for himself first, then for his enemies. Jesus prayed for His enemies first:
Stephen first says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he kneels down and prays for Saul and those who were stoning him, so setting his spirit free. Not so Jesus. First He says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." At the close of the cross He commits His spirit to His Father. The order is the other way round. Stephen was only a man — a blessed martyr indeed. Jesus was God's goodness made visible.
Stephen hands over the one thing his murderers cannot touch. He hands it to the crucified One, and a young man named Saul stands watching:
To the crucified One he committed himself in that solemn hour. The dying martyr prayed to Him who had not saved Himself from death. In quiet confidence he entrusted to His keeping his interests, his future, his spirit… And one who stood by was that young man named Saul. Years later, facing his own death, he could write: "I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me" (2 Tim. 1:12).
The prayer treats the spirit as separate from the body, and as going where stones cannot reach:
Have you learned with calm conclusiveness that if the believer's spirit is now delivered from the body, it is with Jesus? When Stephen followed the track of his Master, he did it in life and in death. If they were battering his body here, the Lord Jesus was receiving his spirit there.
One writer measures that state against the best of this present life:
To be with Christ is what leaving the body means. It is not sleeping — that would be far worse than what we now enjoy, while alive, in His love.
- He turned — the stones were falling, and Stephen's last words went up to heaven, not out at his killers.
- He called — the extra word "God" is not in the text. Stephen called on the Lord Jesus, and calling on that name marks out a Christian.
- He committed — he entrusted his spirit, his future and his interests to the crucified One, who had not saved Himself from death.
- He resembled — his two prayers mirror his Master's. Yet only Jesus could lay down His life and say "I commit my spirit"; the servant could only ask to be received.
- He arrived — the stones broke his body, but Christ received his spirit that same hour, awake and at home with Him.
And kneeling down, he cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And having said this, he fell asleep.
Stephen spends his last breath on the men who are killing him. His final act is not a protest but a prayer for their forgiveness. Two questions press on the reader. How could a dying man ask that his killers be spared? And what came of that prayer?
His first prayer had been about himself; this one is about the men throwing the stones. One writer notes his posture and the volume of his voice. He hears words that do not sound like a man under law, and he marks out who Stephen prayed to.
He surely knew the Old Testament well, yet he did not speak like a saint under law. On his knees, in prayer, and in a voice loud enough for those around to hear, his last words were a prayer for the men who had rushed him to his end: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." Then came silence, the silence of death. He fell asleep. Like his Master he prayed for his enemies, and like Him he trusted himself to One in heaven. The Lord committed His spirit to His Father; Stephen committed his to his Saviour and Lord.
Jesus prayed from the cross for those who crucified Him, adding that they did not know what they were doing. Stephen leaves those words out. One writer explains why.
This was the first thought of Stephen's heart. How precious the grace that shone next, as he knelt and cried out "with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them." He does not say now what the Lord said before He died: "for they know not what they do." The Twelve, and he himself, to name only the leaders, had laid that sin fully on their conscience. This was the practical grace of a Christian: doing good, suffering for it, bearing it patiently, and praying earnestly that the Jews who had done this evil might be forgiven.
Stephen commits his spirit first, then prays for his killers. On the cross the order runs the other way. One writer finds Christ's supremacy in that difference.
Stephen first says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and then kneels down and prays for Saul and those who were stoning him, so setting his spirit free. Not so Jesus. First He says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), and at the close of the cross He commits His spirit to His Father. The order is reversed. Stephen was only a man — a blessed martyr, but only a man. Jesus was divine goodness made visible: as Man He was perfect in dependence before God, and He was also God fully revealed to man.
Stephen had just been looking into heaven at Jesus. What he saw shaped what he said.
In Stephen it produced a thorough, practical likeness to Christ… He bears witness to his Master. He forgets himself and his danger, and never thinks of what it may cost him. The Holy Spirit filled him with Christ to the exclusion of care for his life, or what should follow. Christ was the only object before him. He was like Christ in confession, and like Him in suffering too… What a picture of a life shaped like Christ's in grace! He looked up to the Lord with perfect confidence and gave his spirit into His hands. And he prayed hard for the men who were stoning him to death.
Saul was there that day, among the men Stephen prayed for. Writers trace a line from this prayer to his conversion.
To the Lord he committed his spirit, and taking the attitude of prayer, he asked mercy for his murderers. Who could have expected such an astounding answer? His exalted Lord gave it in the conversion of Saul, the chief murderer. The answer to the Lord Jesus' prayer from the cross for His murderers came when the gospel went out, beginning at Jerusalem. The answer to Stephen's prayer came in the conversion of Saul. Acts 22:20 shows that Saul himself never forgot it.
A mob batters a man to death, and the record calls it sleep. One writer is careful to say what is asleep here.
Stephen fell asleep, we read in Acts 7:60, but we know from 2 Corinthians 5:8 and Philippians 1:23 that he was with Christ. From man's point of view he slept, because his body was still, unconscious of everything happening around it… Stephen's body was still and motionless. He slept. But he was with Christ, to whom he had committed his spirit.
- Look — Stephen's eyes were on Jesus in glory. That sight produced "a thorough practical likeness to Christ" in him.
- Kneel — he knelt to pray and spoke loud enough for his killers to hear. His last words were for them, not against them.
- Grace — he did not repeat "they know not what they do." These men had heard their sin named. He asked forgiveness for them anyway.
- Answer — Saul stood among the men Stephen prayed for, and writers read his conversion as the reply to this prayer.
- Sleep — his body lay still and motionless. He himself was with Christ, into whose hands he had committed his spirit.