This is the longest address in the book of Acts and one of the most important. In it, Stephen reviewed the history of Israel and the contributions made by their revered leaders:
Abraham (Acts 7:2–8), Joseph (Acts 7:9–17), Moses (Acts 7:18–44), Joshua (Acts 7:45), and David and Solomon (Acts 7:46–50). But this address was more than a recitation of familiar facts; it was also a refutation of their indictments against Stephen and a revelation of their own national sins. Stephen proved from their own Scriptures that the Jewish nation was guilty of worse sins than those they had accused him of committing. What were these sins?
They misunderstood their own spiritual roots (vv. 1–8). Stephen’s address opens with “the God of glory” and closes with the glory of God (Acts 7:55), and all the time he spoke, his face radiated that same glory! Why? Because Israel was the only nation privileged to have the glory of God as a part of its inheritance (Rom. 9:4). Alas, the glory of God had departed, first from the tabernacle (1 Sam. 4:19–22) and then from the temple (Ezek. 10:4, 18). God’s glory had come in His Son (John 1:14), but the nation had rejected Him.
Abraham was the founder of the Hebrew nation, and his relationship to God was one of grace and faith. God had graciously appeared to him and called him out of heathen darkness into the light of salvation, and Abraham had responded by faith. Abraham was saved by grace, through faith, and not because he was circumcised, kept a law, or worshipped in a temple. All of those things came afterward (see Rom. 4; Gal. 3). He believed the promises of God and it was this faith that saved him.
God promised the land to Abraham’s descendants, and then told Abraham that his descendants would suffer in Egypt before they would enter and enjoy the land, and this took place just as God promised. From the very beginning, God had a wise plan for His people, and that plan would be fulfilled as long as they trusted His Word and obeyed His will.
The Jews greatly revered Abraham and prided themselves in being his “children.” But they confused physical descent with spiritual experience and depended on their national heritage rather than their personal faith. John the Baptist had warned them about this sin (Matt. 3:7–12) and so had Jesus (John 8:33–59). The Jews were blind to the simple faith of Abraham and the patriarchs, and they had cluttered it with man-made traditions that made salvation a matter of good works, not faith. God has no grandchildren. Each of us must be born into the family of God through personal faith in Jesus Christ (John 1:11–13).
The Jews prided themselves in their circumcision, failing to understand that the rite was symbolic of an inner spiritual relationship with God (Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4; 6:10; Acts 7:51; Gal. 5:1–6; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11–12). Over the years, the fulfilling of ritual had taken the place of the enjoyment of reality. This happens in churches even today.
They rejected their God-sent deliverers (vv. 9–36). I have combined the sections dealing with Joseph and Moses because these two Jewish heroes have this in common: they were both rejected as deliverers the first time, but were accepted the second time. Joseph’s brethren hated their brother and sold him into servitude, yet later he became their deliverer. They recognized Joseph “at the second time” (Acts 7:13) when they returned to Egypt for more food. Israel rejected Moses when he first tried to deliver them from Egyptian bondage, and he had to flee for his life (Ex. 2:11–22). But when Moses came to them the second time, the nation accepted him and he set them free (Acts 7:35).
These two events illustrate how Israel treated Jesus Christ. Israel rejected their Messiah when He came to them the first time (John 1:11), but when He comes again, they will recognize Him and receive Him (Zech. 12:10; Rev. 1:7). In spite of what they did to His Son, God has not cast away His people (Rom. 11:1–6). Israel today is suffering from a partial spiritual blindness that one day will be taken away (Rom. 11:25–32). Individual Jews are being saved, but the nation as a whole is blind to the truth about Jesus Christ.
Before leaving this section, we must deal with some seeming contradictions between Stephen’s address and the Old Testament Scriptures.
Genesis 46:26–27 states that seventy people made up the household of Jacob, including Joseph’s family already in Egypt, but Stephen claimed that there were seventy-five (Acts 7:14; and see Ex. 1:1–5). The Hebrew text has seventy in both Genesis and Exodus, but the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) has seventy-five. Where did the number seventy-five come from in the Septuagint? In their count, the translators included Joseph’s grandchildren (1 Chron. 7:14–15, 20–25). Being a Hellenistic Jew, Stephen would naturally use the Septuagint. There is no real contradiction; your total depends on the factors you include.
Acts 7: suggests that Jacob was buried at Shechem, but Genesis 50: states that he was buried in the cave of Machpelah at Hebron, along with Abraham, Isaac, and Sarah (Gen. 23:17). It was Joseph who was buried at Shechem (Josh. 24:32). It is likely that the children of Israel carried out of Egypt the remains of all the sons of Jacob, and not just Joseph alone, and buried them together in Shechem. The “fathers” mentioned in Acts 7: would be the twelve sons of Jacob.
But who purchased the burial place in Shechem— Abraham or Jacob? Stephen seems to say that Abraham bought it, but the Old Testament record says that Jacob did (Gen. 33:18–20). Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 23:14–20). The simplest explanation is that Abraham actually purchased both pieces of property and that Jacob later had to purchase the Shechem property again. Abraham moved around quite a bit, and it would be very easy for the residents of the land to forget or ignore the transactions he had made.
They disobeyed their law (vv. 37–43). Stephen’s opponents had accused him of speaking against the sacred law of Moses, but the history of Israel revealed that the nation had repeatedly broken that law. God gave the law to His congregation (“church”) in the wilderness at Mount Sinai, His living Word through the mediation of angels (see Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19). No sooner had the people received the law than they disobeyed it by asking Aaron to make them an idol (Ex. 32), and thereby broke the first two of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1–6).
The Jews had worshipped idols in Egypt (Josh. 24:14; Ezek. 20:7–8), and after their settlement in the Promised Land they gradually adopted the gods of the pagan nations around them. God repeatedly disciplined His people and sent them prophets to warn them, until finally He carried them off to Babylon, where they were finally cured of idolatry.
Acts 7: should be compared with Romans 1:24–28, for all of these verses describe the judgment of God when He “takes His hands off” and permits sinners to have their own way. When Stephen quoted Amos 5:25–27, he revealed what the Jews had really been doing all those years: in outward form, they were worshipping Jehovah, but in their hearts, they were worshipping foreign gods! The form of the question in Acts 7: demands a negative reply: “No, you were not offering those sacrifices to the Lord!”
In this day of “pluralism” of religions and an emphasis on “toleration,” we must understand why God hated the pagan religions and instructed Israel to destroy them. To begin with, these religions were unspeakably obscene in their worship of sex and their use of religious prostitutes. Their practices were also brutal, even to the point of offering children as sacrifices to their gods. It was basically demon worship, and it opened the way for all kinds of godless living on the part of the Jews. Had the nation turned from the true God and succumbed to idolatry, it could have meant the end of the godly remnant and the fulfillment of the promise of the Redeemer.
God’s law was given to the Jews to protect them from the pagan influence around them, and to enable them to enjoy the blessings of the land. It was the law that made them a holy people, different from the other nations. When Israel broke down that wall of distinction by disobeying God’s law, they forfeited the blessing of God and had to be disciplined.
They despised their temple (vv. 44–50). The witnesses accused Stephen of seeking to destroy the temple, but that was exactly what the Jewish nation did! Moses built the tabernacle and God’s glory graciously dwelt in the Holy of Holies (Ex. 40:34–38). Solomon built the temple, and once again God’s glory came in (1 Kings 8:10–11). But over the years, the worship at the temple degenerated into mere religious formality, and eventually there were idols placed in the temple (2 Kings 21:1–9; Ezek. 8:7–12). Jeremiah warned people against their superstitious faith in the temple and told them that they had turned God’s house into a den of thieves (Jer. 7:1–16).
Had the nation heeded their own prophets, they would have escaped the horrors of the Babylonian siege (see the book of Lamentations) and the destruction of their city and temple. Even Solomon recognized the truth that God did not live in buildings (1 Kings 8:27), and the prophet Isaiah made it even clearer (Isa. 66:1–2). We really make nothing for God, because everything comes from Him, and how can the Creator of the universe be contained in a man-made building (Acts 17:24)? The Jewish defense of their temple was both illogical and unscriptural.
They stubbornly resisted their God and His truth (vv. 51–53). This is the climax of Stephen’s speech, the personal application that cut his hearers to the heart. Throughout the centuries, Israel had refused to submit to God and obey the truths He had revealed to them. Their ears did not hear the truth, their hearts did not receive the truth, and their necks did not bow to the truth. As a result, they killed their own Messiah!
The nation refused to accept the new truth that God was revealing from age to age. Instead of seeing God’s truth as seed that produces fruit and more seed, the religious leaders “embalmed” the truth and refused to accept anything new. By the time Jesus came to earth, the truth of God was encrusted with so much tradition that the people could not recognize God’s truth when He did present it. Man’s dead traditions had replaced God’s living truth (see Matt. 15:1–20).