Acts 7:54

54-60. The exasperation of the Sanhedrim was the more intense, from the fact that the denunciation hurled upon them was not a sudden burst of passion, but the deliberate and sustained announcement of a just judgment. They had not been able to resist, in debate, the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke, and now their efforts to convict him of crime had recoiled terribly upon their own heads. They had no course now left them, but the usual resort of unprincipled partisans when totally discomfited, and to this they rushed with fearful rapidity. (54) " When they heard these things, they were exasperated, and gnashed their teeth upon him. (55) But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, (56) and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. (57) Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord, (58) and cast him out of the city, and stoned him. And the witnesses laid off their garments at the feet of a young man called Saul. (59) And they stoned Stephen, calling on the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. (60) And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul was consenting to his death. "

This was a strange way for a court to break up; the whole body of seventy grave rabbis, whose official duty it was to watch for the faithful and regular proceedings of law, leaving their seats, and rushing with the wild mob, amid hideous outcries and tumultuous rage, to the sudden execution of a prisoner absolutely untried and uncondemned. But the maddest pranks ever played upon this mad earth are witnessed when wicked men set themselves in uncompromising opposition to God and his holy truth. So uniformly has this been true in history, that, at the present day, when such opposition is to be sustained, whether on great or insignificant occasion, no well-informed man expects aught else than disregard of all the rules of justice and propriety. If the infuriated scenes which have been enacted under such circumstances, in the history of Christianity, could be dramatically represented, the performance might be appropriately styled, The Madman's Drama.

The vision witnessed by Stephen, while the Jews were gnashing their teeth upon him, need not be understood as the real opening of the heavens, so that the things within them could be seen by the human eye, but only a representation to his eyes, such as those granted to John in the isle of Patmos. It was vouchsafed both for his own encouragement in the hour of death, and that the remembrance of the words in which he described it, and the hue of countenance with which he gazed upon it, might remain indelibly impressed upon the minds of those who were present. There was at least one in the audience upon whom, we have reason to believe, this impression was deep and lasting. The young man Saul never forgot it; but, long afterward, when bending under the weight of many years, he makes sad mention of the part he took in these dreadful proceedings.

The death of Stephen was an event of most thrilling interest to the young Church, and well deserves the large space allotted to it by the historian. The disciples had embarked, with all their interests, both temporal and eternal, in the cause of one, who, though he proved himself mighty to deliver, while present with them, had now gone away beyond the reach of vision, and no longer held personal converse with them. They had struggled on faithfully thus far, and, amid many tears, some stripes, and much affliction, they had still found a deep satisfaction of soul in his service. It was demonstrated that their faith could sustain them in life, even amid very bitter trials; but it was not yet known how it would sustain them in the hour of death. No one of their number had yet tried the dread reality, and no man can now tell how much their spirits may have wavered in the prospect, and inclined backward toward the faith of their fathers, distrustful of the new arm of salvation. How great the strength, therefore, and how sweet the consolation imparted to every heart, when the first who died was so triumphant in the pangs of death! After witnessing the scene, they could go onward in their tear-dimmed course of suffering, without one fear or care for that within the grace, or beyond it. At the late day in which we live, which has been preceded by the happy death of millions of Christians, and which is often yet made deeply glad by their triumphs in the trying hour, we are not able to appreciate the eagerness with which the first disciples drank in the consolations of this glorious death. It was a fortuitous and most fitting preparation for the fiery ordeal through which the Church were immediately afterward called to pass.

We omit any notice of the part taken by Saul in this shocking tragedy till we come to comment on the ninth chapter, where his career becomes the leading theme of the historian. [87]