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.