‘And they stoned Stephen, calling on the Lord, and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

But as they stoned him, Stephen looked up to heaven and prayed to ‘the Lord’, calling out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”. He had no doubt in his heart, only joy, and concern for those who were doing this to him. We can compare here Jesus’ own words on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luk 23:46). Stephen, exalted in spirit, wanted it known that he was going like his Master. The parallel is significant. It equates the Father and the Lord Jesus, both of Whom are seen as receiving the spirits of the godly when they die.

‘Lord Jesus.’ Thus use of Lord here is very significant. Throughout his speech ‘the Lord’ has been cited from the Old Testament and has meant Yahweh. Here he now refers the same title to Jesus. he has no doubt Whom the One He has seen really is.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Act 7:59. And they stoned Stephen, While they stoned Stephen, he prayed, and said, &c. Literally, They stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, &c. There is nothing for the word God in the original. A solemn prayer, like this to Christ, in which a departing soul is thus committed into his hands, is such an act of worship as no good man would have paid to a mere creature, Stephen here worshipping Christ in the very same manner in whichChrist worshipped the Father on the cross. This stoning seems to have been an act of popular fury, like the stoning of St. Paul at Lystra, ch. Act 14:19 and exceeding the power which the Jews regularly had. The Jews were more than once ready to stone Christ, not only when by their own confession they had not power to put any one to death, but when nothing had passed which had the shadow of a legal trial. How far they might now have formed those express notions of what the rabbies called the judgment of zeal, is uncertain; but it is plain they acted on that principle, and as if they had thought every private Israelite had, like Phineas, who is pleaded as an example of it, a right to put another to deathon the spot, if he found him in a capital breach of the divine law; a notion directly contrary to Deu 17:6 which requires at least two witnesses in capital cases, where there is a legal process. The manner of their stoning persons was this: a crier went before him who was to die, proclaiming his name, his crime, and those who were witnesses against him. When they were come within two or three yards of the place of execution, they stripped the criminal naked, except a small covering, for decency, about his middle. The place of execution, from which they threw down the malefactor, was above twice the height of a man, upon which he was made to ascend with his hands bound. When he was ascended, the witnesses laid their hands upon him, and then stripped off their upper garments, that they might be fitter for going through the execution. From that high place one of the witnesses threw down the criminal, and dashed his loins against a great stone, which was laid there for that very purpose; if that killed him not, then the other witness threw from thesame height a great stone upon his heart, as he lay on his back, and was stunned with the fall. If that dispatched him not, then all the people fell on him with stones till he died.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Act 7:59-60 . ] while he was invoking . Whom? is evident from the address which follows.

] both to be taken as vocatives (Rev 22:20 ) according to the formal expression (Gersdorf, Beitr. p. 292 ff.), with which the apostolic church designates Jesus as the exalted Lord, not only of His church, but of the world, in the government of which He is installed as of the Father by His exaltation (Phi 2:6 ff.), until the final completion of His office (1Co 15:28 ); comp. Act 10:36 . Stephen invoked Jesus ; for he had just beheld Him standing ready to help him. As to the invocation of Christ generally (relative worship, conditioned by the relation of the exalted Christ to the Father), see on Rom 10:12 ; 1Co 1:2 ; Phi 2:10 .

] namely, to thee in heaven until the future resurrection. Comp. on Phi 1:26 , remark. “Fecisti me victorem, recipe me in triumphum,” Augustine.

] the last expenditure of his strength of love, the fervour of which also discloses itself in the kneeling .

. . .] fix not this sin (of my murder) upon them . This negative expression corresponds quite to the positive: , to let the sin go as regards its relation of guilt, instead of fixing it for punishment. Comp. Rom 10:3 ; Sir 44:21-22 ; 1Ma 13:38 ; 1Ma 14:28 ; 1Ma 15:4 , al. The notion, “to make availing ” (de Wette), i.e. to impute , corresponds to the thought , but is not denoted by the word . Linguistically correct is also the rendering: “ weigh not this sin to them,” as to which the comparison of is not needed (Mat 26:15 ; Plat. Tim. p. 63 B, Prot. p. 356 B, Pol. x. p. 602 D; Xen. Cyr. viii. 2. 21; Valcken. Diatr. p. 288 A). In this view the sense would be: Determine not the weight of the sin (comp. Act 25:7 ), consider not how heavy it is. But our explanation is to be preferred, because it corresponds more completely to the prayer of Jesus, Luk 23:34 , which is evidently the pattern of Stephen in his request, only saying negatively what that expresses positively. In the case of such as Saul what was asked took place; comp. Oecumenius. In the similarity of the last words of Stephen, Act 7:59 with Luk 23:34 ; Luk 23:40 (as also of the words . with Luk 23:46 ), Baur, with whom Zeller agrees, sees an indication of their unhistorical character; as if the example of the dying Jesus might not have sufficiently suggested itself to the first martyr, and proved sufficient motive for him to die with similar love and self-devotion.

] “lugubre verbum et suave,” Bengel; on account of the euphemistic nature of the word, never used of the dying of Christ. See on 1Co 15:18 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1757
THE DEATH OF STEPHEN

Act 7:59-60. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 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.

OF all histories, that of the Christian Church is the most interesting, and particularly that part of it which is recorded by the inspired writers. There we behold every thing portrayed with perfect fidelity; nothing is concealed, nothing exaggerated. The writers appear unconcerned about any thing but the truth itself; from which they leave all persons to draw their own conclusions. Large sums of money arising from the sale of different estates were lodged in the hands of the Apostles for the use of the Church; and in a very little time they began to be suspected of partiality to the natives of Judea, in preference to the Jews of foreign extraction. This they relate with perfect indifference, together with the method adopted by them to prevent the distraction arising from too great a multiplicity of concerns. Then having told us who were chosen by the Church to superintend their temporal concerns, they proceed to detail the history of one whose piety was most distinguished, and whose end was most glorious; and who, as being the first martyr in the Christian Church, was to be an example for the imitation of Christians in all future ages.
In relation to this history of Stephen, there are two things which we propose to notice;

I.

The occasion of his death

Being endowed with very eminent gifts, he maintained a controversy with the most learned Jews of different countries; and so confounded them with his arguments, that they had no alternative, but to acknowledge their errors, or to silence him by force. To this latter method they had recourse: they seized him, and brought him before the council, and accused him of blasphemy, that he might be put to death. In the chapter before us is contained his defence; which so irritated and inflamed them, that it stirred them up in a violent and tumultuous manner to take away his life. Let us consider distinctly its most prominent parts:

1.

The statement

[A superficial reader would scarcely see the scope and bearing of Stephens argument: but the argument will be found plain and clear, if only we bear in mind what the accusation was. He was accused of blasphemy against Moses, and against the temple, and the law, because he had declared that the Lord Jesus would execute his judgments on the whole nation. For these declarations he had abundant warrant, from the prophecies contained in the Jewish Scriptures [Note: For the destruction of Jerusalem, see Jer 7:4; Jer 7:7-14; Jer 26:6-9; Jer 26:12; Jer 26:18. And for the change of the customs, i. e. of the law itself, see Isa 65:16; Isa 66:19-21.] nor can we doubt but that, if he had been permitted to proceed in his argument without interruption, he would have proved every part of his assertions in the most convincing manner. But, as soon as they discerned the precise scope of his argument, they shewed such impatience as constrained him to break off abruptly in the midst of it. He had shewn them, tham Abraham was chosen of God whilst he was yet an idolater in an idolatrous land; that he and his posterity served and enjoyed God, long before the law was given by Moses; that Moses himself was rejected by the people whom he was sent to deliver; that he also had directed the people to look for another Prophet who should arise after him, and whom they must obey at the peril of their souls. He then shewed, that whilst the temple was yet in all its glory, and its services were performed with the strictest regularity, God had spoken of the temple in the most disparaging terms, as unsuitable to the majesty of Him who filled heaven and earth [Note: Isa 66:1-2.].

Here the drift of his discourse began to appear: the people saw that their temple and its services were not necessary to the enjoyment of Gods favour, and that they could afford no security to those who were disobedient to his word. Here therefore they manifested their wrathful indignation: which obliged him to drop the prosecution of his argument, and to proceed to]

2.

The application of it to their hearts and consciences

[Nothing could be more temperate or cautious than the foregoing discourse. But when Stephen saw the inveteracy of their prejudices, he changed his voice, and addressed them with an energy and fidelity that became a servant of the living God. They had indeed in their flesh the seal of Gods covenant; but they were uncircumcised in heart and ears, and resisted the Holy Ghost, who both by his word and influence strove to bring them to a better mind. They professed to venerate the prophets; but they were following the steps of their forefathers, who had uniformly persecuted those whom God had sent to instruct and warn them: yea, they had been the betrayers and murderers of their Messiah himself: and though they pretended a great regard for the law, and professed to be actuated by a zeal for its honour, they had never been truly observant of its commands.
Such is the character of persecutors in general: they are full of pride and wrath, and are so blinded by prejudice as to be incapable of seeing the wickedness of their own hateful dispositions. Their zeal for Gods honour is a mere pretence, a cover, and a plea for their own malignity. Look at them in every age, they all are actuated by the same spirit, and all tread in the same paths. Doubtless in addressing them we should first try what argument and persuasion will do; and we should exercise much patience towards them: but when we find that they shut their ears and harden their hearts against conviction, we should not be afraid to exhibit their conduct in its true light, or to set before them the judgments which they are bringing on their own souls.]

3.

The confirmation of it by an actual vision of Christ himself

[They were sufficiently irritated by this reproof; they were cut to the heart, even as if they had been sawn asunder [Note: .]; and they gnashed upon him with their teeth. But the preacher, being filled with the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly to heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God: and, being favoured with this vision, he declared to his persecutors what he saw. One might have hoped that this at least would have made them pause; but it inflamed even unto madness: They cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him.

Here we see how inveterate is that prejudice which instigates men to oppose religion: nothing can satisfy them; nothing can convince them: and the stronger the evidence adduced for their conviction, the fiercer will be their rage against their monitors and reprovers.
We have here also a striking instance of that hypocrisy which usually characterizes the persecutors of religion. They would not stone him in the city, because God had ordered that blasphemers should be put out of the camp before they were stone [Note: Lev 24:14-16; Lev 24:23. See also 1Ki 21:13.]: and they took care that the hands of the witnesses should be first upon him [Note: Deu 17:6-7]: but they had not hesitated to suborn false witnesses against him; nor did they scruple to put to death a man whom, they could not convict of any crime. Thus the murderers of our Lord would not venture to put into the treasury the money which Judas had returned, though they had been forward enough to give it him as the price for his Masters blood: thus also it is in every age; the haters of God will stop at nothing to accomplish their wicked purposes; but they will strain out a gnat at the very time that they are swallowing a camel.

Here also we see how God supports his faithful servants. If he leave them in the hands of their enemies as it respects the body, he will supply them with consolations to support the soul. Stephen knew before that Jesus was at the right hand of God: but when he saw him there, and saw him standing there, ready to succour his oppressed servant, and to avenge his cause, his mind was fortified, and death was divested of all its terrors.]

Such was the occasion of Stephens death. We now proceed to notice,

II.

The manner of it

Violent as were the proceedings of his enemies, he was all composure. Behold,

1.

His faith

[He knew in whom he had believed, and that He was able to save him to the uttermost. He knew that the soul, when liberated from the body, would continue to exist; and that its felicity consisted in communion with Christ. To Christ therefore the blessed martyr now addressed himself in prayer, and committed his soul into the Saviours hands. This was as solemn an act of worship as he could offer; for it was precisely the same as that which Christ himself had offered to his Father with his dying breath, when he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Yet this act of worship was paid by Stephen to Christ, at the very time when he beheld the Fathers glory, and at the very time that he was full of the Holy Ghost. How evident is it from hence that Christ is God equal with the Father! and how evident that a prospect of dwelling for ever in his presence will disarm death of its sting, and support the soul under the most cruel sufferings!

This is the faith which we should cultivate: this view of Jesus as an almighty and all-sufficient Saviour will quicken us to every duty, and strengthen us for every trial, and make us victorious over every enemy. Though appointed as sheep for the slaughter, we shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved us.]

2.

His love

[In exact conformity to his Saviours example, he died praying for his murderers; Lord lay not this sin to their charge! This shews how far he was from feeling any thing of resentment in the rebuke which he had before given them: and it shews that the utmost fidelity to the souls of men will consist with the most fervent love towards them. Well had this holy man learned the precepts of his Lord. O that we also might obtain the same grace to bless them that curse us, and to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us! This is the test of real love. To love them that love us, is nothing: the vilest publicans will do that: but to love our enemies, to feel for them rather than for ourselves, to be tenderly concerned for them at the very moment that they are venting their utmost rage against us, and to be more anxious for the welfare of their souls than for the preservation of our own lives, this is Christian love; this is that love which is the fruit of the Spirit, the image of God, and the earnest of heaven in the soul. Possessed of such a spirit, we need not fear what man can do unto us; for even the most violent death will be to us only as reclining on a bed to sleep. Stephen, with this grace in his heart, and this prayer upon his lips, fell asleep.]

Here then let the world judge;

1.

Whether there be not an excellency in true religion?

[We acknowledge that many heathens have shewn a wonderful composure in death, yea, and a joyous exultation in it also: but then they have been borne up by pride and vanity, and the hope of mans applause: no instance ever occurred of such an end as Stephens, except among the worshippers of Jehovah. Nothing but divine grace can give such meekness and fortitude, such faith and love, such tranquillity and joy. as Stephen manifested in that trying hour. On the other hand, divine grace will produce these things wherever it reigns in the soul: in proportion to the measure of any mans grace will be his proficiency in these virtues. Compare then the spiritual man with one who is yet under the influence of his corrupt nature; compare, for instance, the mind of Paul after his conversion to the faith of Christ, with its state whilst he was keeping the raiment of Stephens murderers. Such a comparison would in one instant convince us, that there is a wonderful efficacy in the Gospel of Christ, and that a person under its full influence is as superior to others as the solar light is to the twinkling of the obscurest star.]

2.

Whether the true Christian be not the happiest man?

[On the one side are proud and persecuting zealots; on the other are the meek followers of a crucified Saviour. Look at the frame of their minds; the one all rage and violence; the other all sweetness and composure. Let any man, with the Bible in his hand, survey that scene which we have just contemplated; and say, Whether he would not infinitely prefer the state of Stephen with all his sufferings, to that of his persecutors satiated with his blood? A man through cowardice may draw back from sufferings; but no man can doubt which of these parties was in the more enviable state: and how much less could he doubt it if he were to survey them in their present state; the one exulting in his Saviours bosom, and the other receiving the just recompence of their sins? O let all, whether oppressors or oppressed, contemplate this, and then make their election, Whose they will be, and whom they will serve.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God , and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

Ver. 59. And they stoned Stephen ] Bembus wrote a dainty poem concerning Stephen, and therein hath this verse, much admired by Melancthon.

” Ibat ovans animis, et spe sua damna levabat. “

He saw heaven through that shower of stones. Becket’s friends advised him to have a mass in honour of St Stephen, to keep him from the hands of his enemies. He had so, but it profited him not.

Lord Jesus, receive, &c. ] Luther’s last prayer was this, “My heavenly Father, thou hast manifested unto me thy dear Son Jesus Christ. I have taught him, I have known him; I love him as my life, my health, and my redemption, whom the wicked have persecuted, maligned, and with injury affected: draw my soul to thee.” After this he said, “I commend my spirit into thy hands, thou hast redeemed me, O God of truth,” &c.

Lord, lay not this sin, &c. ] Ne statuas. Set it not upon their score, or account. St Augustine is of opinion that this prayer of St Stephen’s was of avail for St Paul’s conversion. He stood when he prayed for himself, he kneeled when he prayed for his enemies; to show (saith one) the greatness of his piety, and of their impiety, not so easily forgiven. He was more sorry for their riot than for his own ruin.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

59. ] The attempt to escape from this direct prayer to the Saviour by making the genitive, and supposing it addressed to the Father, in the face of the ever-recurring words (see Rev 22:20 especially), and the utter absence of any instance or analogy to justify it, is only characteristic of the school to which it belongs. Yet in this case it has been favoured even by Bentley and Valcknaer, who supposed to have been omitted in the text, being absorbed by the preceding – . But if any such accus. had been used, it would certainly have been .

. . ] The same prayer in substance had been made by our Lord on the cross (ref. Luke) to His Father. To Him was now committed the key of David. Similarly, the young man Saul, in after years: , 2Ti 1:12 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Act 7:59 . . . .: imperf., as in Act 7:58 , “quia res morte demum [60] perficitur,” Blass. ., present participle, denoting, it would seem, the continuous appeal of the martyr to his Lord. Zeller, Overbeck and Baur throw doubt upon the historical truth of the narrative on account of the manner in which the Sanhedrists’ action is divided between an utter absence of formal proceedings and a punctilious observance of correct formalities; but on the other hand Wendt, note, p. 195 (1888), points out with much force that an excited and tumultuous crowd, even in the midst of a high-handed and illegal act, might observe some legal forms, and the description given by St. Luke, so far from proceeding from one who through ignorance was unable to distinguish between a legal execution and a massacre, impresses us rather with a sense of truthfulness from the very fact that no attempt is made to draw such a distinction of nicely balanced justice, less or more. The real difficulty lies in the relations which the scene presupposes between the Roman Government and the Sanhedrim. No doubt at this period the latter did not possess the power to inflict capital punishment (Schrer, Jewish People , div. ii., vol. i., p. 187, E.T.), as is evident from the trial of our Lord. But it may well be that at the time of Stephen’s murder Roman authority was somewhat relaxed in Juda. Pilate had just been suspended from his functions, or was on the point of being so, and he may well have been tired of refusing the madness and violence of the Jews, as Renan supposes, or at all events he may well have refrained, owing to his bad odour with them, from calling them to account for their illegal action in the case before us (see McGiffert, Apostolic Age , p. 91). It is of course possible that the stoning took place with the connivance of the Jewish authorities, as Weizscker allows, or that there was an interval longer than Acts supposes between the trial of Stephen and his actual execution, during which the sanction of the Romans was obtained. In the absence of exact dates it is difficult to see why the events before us should not have been transacted during the interregnum between the departure of Pontius Pilate, to answer before Tiberius for his misgovernment, and the arrival of Marcellus, the next Procurator. If this was so, we have an exact historical parallel in the illegal murder of James the Just, who was tried before the high priest, and stoned to death, since Ananias thought that he had a good opportunity for his violence when Festus was dead, and Albinus was still upon his road (Jos., Ant. , xx., 9, 1). But if this suggestion of an interregnum is not free from difficulties, we may further take into consideration the fact that the same Roman officer, Vitellius, prefect of Syria, who had caused Pilate to be sent to Rome in disgrace, was anxious at the same time to receive Jewish support, and determined to effect his object by every means in his power. Josephus, Ant. , xviii., 4, 2 5, tells us that Vitellius sent a friend of his own, Marcellus, to manage the affairs of Juda, and that, not content with this, he went up to Jerusalem himself to conciliate the Jews by open regard for their religion, as well as by the remission of taxation. It is therefore not difficult to conceive that both the murder of Stephen and the persecution which followed were connived at by the Roman government; see, in addition to the above references, Rendall’s Acts , Introd., p. 19 ff.; Farrar, St. Paul , i., p. 648 ff., and note, p. 649. But this solution of the difficulty places the date of Saul’s conversion somewhat late A.D. 37 and is entirely at variance with the earlier chronology adopted not only by Harnack (so too by McGiffert), but here by Ramsay, St. Paul , 376, 377, who places St. Stephen’s martyrdom in A.D. 33 at the latest. In the account of the death of Stephen, Wendt, following Weiss, Sorof, Clemen, Hilgenfeld, regards Act 7:58 b , Act 8:1 a , Act 8:3 , as evidently additions of the redactor, although he declines to follow Weiss and Hilgenfeld in passing the same judgment on Act 7:55 (and 56, according to H.), and on the last words of Stephen in Act 7:59 b . The second in 59 b , which Hilgenfeld assigns to his redactor, and Wendt now refers to the action of the witnesses, as distinct from that of the whole crowd, is repeated with dramatic effect, heightened by the present participle, ., “ruthless violence on the one side, answered by continuous appeals to heaven on the other”; see Rendall’s note, in loco. .: “calling upon the Lord ,” R.V. (“calling upon God ,” A.V.), the former seems undoubtedly to be rightly suggested by the words of the prayer which follow on the force of the word see above, Act 2:21 . , : a direct prayer to our Lord, cf. for its significance and reality, Zahn, “Die Anbetung Jesu” ( Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche , pp. 9, 288), Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity , lect. vii.; cf. Luk 23:46 . (Weiss can only see an imitation of Luke, and an interpolation here, because the kneeling, and also another word follow before the surrender of the spirit; but see on the other hand the remarks of Wendt, note, p. 196.)

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Acts

THE DEATH OF THE MASTER AND THE DEATH OF THE SERVANT

Act 7:59 – Act 7:60 .

This is the only narrative in the New Testament of a Christian martyrdom or death. As a rule, Scripture is supremely indifferent to what becomes of the people with whom it is for a time concerned. As long as the man is the organ of the divine Spirit he is somewhat; as soon as that ceases to speak through him he drops into insignificance. So this same Acts of the Apostles-if I may so say- kills off James the brother of John in a parenthesis; and his is the only other martyrdom that it concerns itself even so much as to mention.

Why, then, this exceptional detail about the martyrdom of Stephen? For two reasons: because it is the first of a series, and the Acts of the Apostles always dilates upon the first of each set of things which it describes, and condenses about the others. But more especially, I think, because if we come to look at the story, it is not so much an account of Stephen’s death as of Christ’s power in Stephen’s death. And the theme of this book is not the acts of the Apostles, but the acts of the risen Lord, in and for His Church.

There is no doubt but that this narrative is modelled upon the story of our Lord’s Crucifixion, and the two incidents, in their similarities and in their differences, throw a flood of light upon one another.

I shall therefore look at our subject now with constant reference to that other greater death upon which it is based. It is to be observed that the two sayings on the lips of the proto-martyr Stephen are recorded for us in their original form on the lips of Christ, in Luke’s Gospel, which makes a still further link of connection between the two narratives.

So, then, my purpose now is merely to take this incident as it lies before us, to trace in it the analogies and the differences between the death of the Master and the death of the servant, and to draw from it some thoughts as to what it is possible for a Christian’s death to become, when Christ’s presence is felt in it.

I. Consider, in general terms, this death as the last act of imitation to Christ.

The resemblance between our Lord’s last moments and Stephen’s has been thought to have been the work of the narrator, and, consequently, to cast some suspicion upon the veracity of the narrative. I accept the correspondence, I believe it was intentional, but I shift the intention from the writer to the actor, and I ask why it should not have been that the dying martyr should consciously, and of set purpose, have made his death conformable to his Master’s death? Why should not the dying martyr have sought to put himself as the legend tells one of the other Apostles in outward form sought to do in Christ’s attitude, and to die as He died?

Remember, that in all probability Stephen died on Calvary. It was the ordinary place of execution, and, as many of you may know, recent investigations have led many to conclude that a little rounded knoll outside the city wall-not a ‘green hill,’ but still ‘outside a city wall,’ and which still bears a lingering tradition of connection with Him-was probably the site of that stupendous event. It was the place of stoning, or of public execution, and there in all probability, on the very ground where Christ’s Cross was fixed, His first martyr saw ‘the heavens opened and Christ standing on the right hand of God.’ If these were the associations of the place, what more natural, and even if they were not, what more natural, than that the martyr’s death should be shaped after his Lord’s?

Is it not one of the great blessings, in some sense the greatest of the blessings, which we owe to the Gospel, that in that awful solitude where no other example is of any use to us, His pattern may still gleam before us? Is it not something to feel that as life reaches its highest, most poignant and exquisite delight and beauty in the measure in which it is made an imitation of Jesus, so for each of us death may lose its most poignant and exquisite sting and sorrow, and become something almost sweet, if it be shaped after the pattern and by the power of His? We travel over a lonely waste at last. All clasped hands are unclasped; and we set out on the solitary, though it be ‘the common, road into the great darkness.’ But, blessed be His Name! ‘the Breaker is gone up before us,’ and across the waste there are footprints that we

‘Seeing, may take heart again.’

The very climax and apex of the Christian imitation of Christ may be that we shall bear the image of His death, and be like Him then.

Is it not a strange thing that generations of martyrs have gone to the stake with their hearts calm and their spirits made constant by the remembrance of that Calvary where Jesus died with more of trembling reluctance, shrinking, and apparent bewildered unmanning than many of the weakest of His followers? Is it not a strange thing that the death which has thus been the source of composure, and strength, and heroism to thousands, and has lost none of its power of being so to-day, was the death of a Man who shrank from the bitter cup, and that cried in that mysterious darkness, ‘My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’

Dear brethren, unless with one explanation of the reason for His shrinking and agony, Christ’s death is less heroic than that of some other martyrs, who yet drew all their courage from Him.

How come there to be in Him, at one moment, calmness unmoved, and heroic self-oblivion, and at the next, agony, and all but despair? I know only one explanation, ‘The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’ And when He died, shrinking and trembling, and feeling bewildered and forsaken, it was your sins and mine that weighed Him down. The servant whose death was conformed to his Master’s had none of these experiences because he was only a martyr.

The Lord had them, because He was the Sacrifice for the whole world.

II. We have here, next, a Christian’s death as being the voluntary entrusting of the spirit to Christ.

‘They stoned Stephen.’ Now, our ordinary English idea of the manner of the Jewish punishment of stoning, is a very inadequate and mistaken one. It did not consist merely in a miscellaneous rabble throwing stones at the criminal, but there was a solemn and appointed method of execution which is preserved for us in detail in the Rabbinical books. And from it we gather that the modus operandi was this. The blasphemer was taken to a certain precipitous rock, the height of which was prescribed as being equal to that of two men. The witnesses by whose testimony he had been condemned had to cast him over, and if he survived the fall it was their task to roll upon him a great stone, of which the weight is prescribed in the Talmud as being as much as two men could lift. If he lived after that, then others took part in the punishment.

Now, at some point in that ghastly tragedy, probably, we may suppose as they were hurling him over the rock, the martyr lifts his voice in this prayer of our text.

As they were stoning him he ‘called upon’-not God , as our Authorised Version has supplied the wanting word, but, as is obvious from the context and from the remembrance of the vision, and from the language of the following supplication, ‘called upon Jesus , saying, Lord Jesus! receive my spirit.’

I do not dwell at any length upon the fact that here we have a distinct instance of prayer to Jesus Christ, a distinct recognition, in the early days of His Church, of the highest conceptions of His person and nature, so as that a dying man turns to Him, and commits his soul into His hands. Passing this by, I ask you to think of the resemblance, and the difference, between this intrusting of the spirit by Stephen to his Lord, and the committing of His spirit to the Father by His dying Son. Christ on the Cross speaks to God; Stephen, on Calvary, speaks, as I suppose, to Jesus Christ. Christ, on the Cross, says, ‘I commit.’ Stephen says, ‘Receive,’ or rather, ‘Take.’ The one phrase carries in it something of the notion that our Lord died not because He must, but because He would; that He was active in His death; that He chose to summon death to do its work upon Him; that He ‘yielded up His spirit,’ as one of the Evangelists has it, pregnantly and significantly. But Stephen says, ‘Take!’ as knowing that it must be his Lord’s power that should draw his spirit out of the coil of horror around him. So the one dying word has strangely compacted in it authority and submission; and the other dying word is the word of a simple waiting servant. The Christ says, ‘I commit.’ ‘I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again.’ Stephen says, ‘Take my spirit,’ as longing to be away from the weariness and the sorrow and the pain and all the hell of hatred that was seething and boiling round about him, but yet knowing that he had to wait the Master’s will.

So from the language I gather large truths, truths which unquestionably were not present to the mind of the dying man, but are all the more conspicuous because they were unconsciously expressed by him, as to the resemblance and the difference between the death of the martyr, done to death by cruel hands, and the death of the atoning Sacrifice who gave Himself up to die for our sins.

Here we have, in this dying cry, the recognition of Christ as the Lord of life and death. Here we have the voluntary and submissive surrender of the spirit to Him. So, in a very real sense, the martyr’s death becomes a sacrifice, and he too dies not merely because he must, but he accepts the necessity, and finds blessedness in it. We need not be passive in death; we need not, when it comes to our turn to die, cling desperately to the last vanishing skirts of life. We may yield up our being, and pour it out as a libation; as the Apostle has it, ‘If I be offered as a drink-offering upon the sacrifice of your faith, I joy and rejoice.’ Oh! brethren, to die like Christ, to die yielding oneself to Him!

And then in these words there is further contained the thought coming gleaming out like a flash of light into some murky landscape-of passing into perennial union with Him. ‘Take my spirit,’ says the dying man; ‘that is all I want. I see Thee standing at the right hand. For what hast Thou started to Thy feet, from the eternal repose of Thy session at the right hand of God the Father Almighty? To help and succour me. And dost Thou succour me when Thou dost let these cruel hands cast me from the rock and bruise me with heavy stones? Yes, Thou dost. For the highest form of Thy help is to take my spirit, and to let me be with Thee.’

Christ delivers His servant from death when He leads the servant into and through death. Brothers, can you look forward thus, and trust yourselves, living or dying, to that Master who is near us amidst the coil of human troubles and sorrows, and sweetly draws our spirits, as a mother her child to her bosom, into His own arms when He sends us death? Is that what it will be to you?

III. Then, still further, there are other words here which remind us of the final triumph of an all-forbearing charity.

Stephen had been cast from the rock, had been struck with the heavy stone. Bruised and wounded by it, he strangely survives, strangely somehow or other struggles to his knees even though desperately wounded, and, gathering all his powers together at the impulse of an undying love, prays his last words and cries, ‘Lord Jesus! Lay not this sin to their charge!’

It is an echo, as I have been saying, of other words, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ An echo, and yet an independent tone! The one cries ‘Father!’ the other invokes the ‘Lord.’ The one says, ‘They know not what they do’; the other never thinks of reading men’s motives, of apportioning their criminality, of discovering the secrets of their hearts. It was fitting that the Christ, before whom all these blind instruments of a mighty design stood patent and naked to their deepest depths, should say, ‘They know not what they do.’ It would have been unfitting that the servant, who knew no more of his fellows’ heart than could be guessed from their actions, should have offered such a plea in his prayer for their forgiveness.

In the very humiliation of the Cross, Christ speaks as knowing the hidden depths of men’s souls, and therefore fitted to be their Judge, and now His servant’s prayer is addressed to Him as actually being so.

Somehow or other, within a very few years of the time when our Lord dies, the Church has come to the distinctest recognition of His Divinity to whom the martyr prays; to the distinctest recognition of Him as the Lord of life and death whom the martyr asks to take his spirit, and to the clearest perception of the fact that He is the Judge of the whole earth by whose acquittal men shall be acquitted, and by whose condemnation they shall be condemned.

Stephen knew that Christ was the Judge. He knew that in two minutes he would be standing at Christ’s judgment bar. His prayer was not, ‘Lay not my sins to my charge,’ but ‘Lay not this sin to their charge.’ Why did he not ask forgiveness for himself? Why was he not thinking about the judgment that he was going to meet so soon? He had done all that long ago. He had no fear about that judgment for himself, and so when the last hour struck, he was at leisure of heart and mind to pray for his persecutors, and to think of his Judge without a tremor. Are you? If you were as near the edge as Stephen was, would it be wise for you to be interceding for other people’s forgiveness? The answer to that question is the answer to this other one,-have you sought your pardon already, and got it at the hands of Jesus Christ?

IV. One word is all that I need say about the last point of analogy and contrast here-the serene passage into rest: ‘When he had said this he fell asleep.’

The New Testament scarcely ever speaks of a Christian’s death as death but as sleep, and with other similar phrases. But that expression, familiar and all but universal as it is in the Epistles, in reference to the death of believers, is never in a single instance employed in reference to the death of Jesus Christ. He did die that you and I may live. His death was death indeed-He endured not merely the physical fact, but that which is its sting, the consciousness of sin. And He died that the sting might be blunted, and all its poison exhausted upon Him. So the ugly thing is sleeked and smoothed; and the foul form changes into the sweet semblance of a sleep-bringing angel. Death is gone. The physical fact remains, but all the misery of it, the essential bitterness and the poison of it is all sucked out of it, and it is turned into ‘he fell asleep,’ as a tired child on its mother’s lap, as a weary man after long toil.

‘Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.’

Death is but sleep now, because Christ has died, and that sleep is restful, conscious, perfect life.

Look at these two pictures, the agony of the one, the calm triumph of the other, and see that the martyr’s falling asleep was possible because the Christ had died before. And do you commit the keeping of your souls to Him now, by true faith; and then, living you may have Him with you, and, dying, a vision of His presence bending down to succour and to save, and when you are dead, a life of rest conjoined with intensest activity. To sleep in Jesus is to awake in His likeness, and to be satisfied.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

calling upon. There is no Ellipsis of the word God. See Revised Version. Stephen called upon and invoked the Lord.

spirit. App-101.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

59.] The attempt to escape from this direct prayer to the Saviour by making the genitive, and supposing it addressed to the Father,-in the face of the ever-recurring words (see Rev 22:20 especially), and the utter absence of any instance or analogy to justify it,-is only characteristic of the school to which it belongs. Yet in this case it has been favoured even by Bentley and Valcknaer, who supposed to have been omitted in the text, being absorbed by the preceding -. But if any such accus. had been used, it would certainly have been .

. .] The same prayer in substance had been made by our Lord on the cross (ref. Luke) to His Father. To Him was now committed the key of David. Similarly, the young man Saul, in after years: , 2Ti 1:12.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Act 7:59. , Lord Jesus) Stephen still confesses His name.

, laying down [resting on his knees]) He was not able to do so previously: yet he was able to pray, being more unimpeded in mind than in body. At the same time the knees being laid down, so as to kneel, more properly accords with his intercession for the sin of his enemies.- , with a loud voice) with boldness of speech; in order that those raising the tumult might hear.-, Lord) He calls the same Jesus, Lord. Dying persons ought to invoke Him.-, sin) It is not inconsistent with maintaining patience to call sin, sin.-, he fell asleep) A mournful but sweet word. This proto-martyr had (strange to say) all the very apostles as his survivors.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

God

Omit God. Lit. And were stoning Stephen as he was invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, give welcome unto my spirit.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

Faithful unto Death

They stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 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.Act 7:59-60.

When we read St. Lukes Gospel and the Book of Acts we are constantly finding history presented in pictures which live in the imagination and which have been reproduced on the canvas of our great artists. This story of the martyrdom of St. Stephen is one of them. It has been regarded all through the Christian ages as a theme of never-failing and most touching interest. But it is more than this. It has been represented by Christian Art in devotional pictures more frequently perhaps than any subject not immediately connected with our blessed Lord. The few words in which St. Luke has recorded it are full of suggestiveness. In the vision, for instance, which was vouchsafed to nerve Stephen for his doom, we are told that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God; whereas elsewhere in Scripture our Lord is described as sitting. This, however, is not the posture in which we should wish to find one to whom we went for help in time of trouble and distress. It was doubtless for this reason that when the veil was drawn, Jesus was manifested to His faithful servant as standing, as One who has risen from His seat and is stretching out a helping hand to him in the crisis of his need. The Church of England has been careful to preserve this beautiful idea in one of her most beautiful Collects: Grant, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth for the testimony of Thy truth, we may steadfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors, by the example of Thy first martyr, Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to Thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for Thee, our only Mediator and Advocate.

One of the pictures which Tintoret conceived most rapidly and painted with passionate speed is his picture of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. It is in the great Church of St. George at Venice. Entirely ideal, it shares in the weakness which sometimes belonged to this artists work when he was painting what was impossible. Not one of the stones which lie in hundreds round the kneeling figure of the martyr has touched him; he is absolutely unhurt. It would have suited Tintorets character far more to have filled the air with a rain of stones, and to have sent the saint to the ground with a huge mass crashing on his Shoulder. And he could have done this without erring against our sense of beauty if he had chosen. But he was ordered otherwise; and we have now from his hand the Spiritual idea of martyrdom, not the actual reality.

The picture somewhat fails, because he wished to do it otherwise; but the kneeling figure, with clasped hands and face upturned in ecstasyits absolute forgetfulness of the wild cries and the violence of death, its rapturous consciousness of the glory which from the throne of God above strikes upon the faceis a concentration of all the thoughts which in many ages have collected around the idea of the sacrifice of life for the love of truth conceived of as at one with the love of Christ.

But this is not all that was represented on the canvas of this thoughtful and imaginative painter. Tintoret, who knew his Bible well, knew that Stephen had won his martyrdom by bold speaking, and that though he prayed for those who slew him, he had not been patient with their blindness to good. So there is in the whole picture a sense of triumphthe triumph and advance of Christianity. Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the note. The glorious group above in Heaven is dominant. We see the future joy of the martyr in the triumph flashing from the face of Stephen, and the circle of the witnesses seated around in light seem to form an aureole round the dying figure. Not a stone touches the martyr. Nothing is fairer, nothing more victorious than his face.1 [Note: Stopford Brooke.]

This is the only narrative in the New Testament of a Christian martyrdom or death. As a rule, Scripture is supremely indifferent as to what becomes of the people with whom it is for a time concerned. So long as the man is the organ of the Divine Spirit he is somewhat; as soon as the Spirit ceases to speak through him he drops into insignificance. So this same Acts of the Apostles kills off James the brother of John in a parenthesis; and his is the only other martyrdom that it concerns itself even so much as to mention. Why, then, this exceptional detail about the martyrdom of Stephen? For two reasons: because it is the first of a series, and the Acts of the Apostles always dilates upon the first of each set of things which it describes, and condenses the others. But more especially because, if we come to look at the story, it is not so much an account of Stephens death as of Christs power in Stephens death. And the theme of this book is not the acts of the Apostles, but the acts of the risen Lord in and for His Church.

I

Stephens Life

i. The Deacon

1. Stephen was originally a Hellenistic Jew. The Hellenistic Jews were made up, partly of men of purely Gentile parentage who were proselytes to the Mosaic Law, and partly of Jews, who, by long settlement in foreign lands, had adopted the language and manners of Greek civilization. To say that a man was a Hellenist proved nothing as to his descent; but it showed that he accepted the religion of Israel, while yet he used Greek speech and followed Greek customs. Stephens name, although Greek, does not exclude the possibility of his having been a Jew by birth; and he is said to have had a Syriac name of the same meaning.

2. Of his conversion to the Faith of Christ we know nothing; he is first mentioned when he was chosen one of the seven Deacons. The Church of Jerusalem in the earliest Apostolic age had a common fund, into which its members at their conversion threw their personal property, and out of which they were assisted according to their needs. The administration of this fund must have come to be a serious and complicated business within a few months from its establishment. And as the higher ministries of the Church were ordained, not with a view to carrying on a work of this kind, but for the conversion and sanctification of souls, it was natural that, with the demands upon their time which the Apostles had to meet, the finance and resources of the Church should occasionally fall into confusion. So it was that, before many months had passed, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrewsthat is, of the Hellenistic against the Jewish convertsbecause their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Probably these widows or their friends may have been somewhat exacting. But the Apostles felt that their time ought not to be spent in managing a bank. The Twelve, who were all in Jerusalem still, assembled the whole body of the faithful, and desired them to elect seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom, to be entrusted, as Deacons, with the administration of the funds of the Church. Seven persons were chosen; and at their head Stephen, described as a man full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. These seven were ordained by laying on of the Apostles hands; and the result of this arrangement was that the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great Company of the (Jewish) priests were obedient unto the faith.

3. Of St. Stephens exertions in the Organization and direction of the public charity we hear nothing; although we may be sure that this was not neglected. We are told, however, that he was full of faith and power, and that he did great wonders and miracles among the people. No details are given, but his miracles must not be forgotten in our estimate of the causes of his success. His chief scene of labour seems to have been in the synagogue, or group of synagogues, of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia. The Libertines were Jews who had been taken prisoners, reduced to slavery, then enfranchised by the Roman general Pompey. Many of them had recently been banished from Rome, and would naturally have had a synagogue to themselves in Jerusalem. At least one synagogue would have belonged to African Jews from Cyrene and Alexandria; and two or three others to the Jews of Cilicia and Asia Minor. These were a very numerous class, and among them the future Apostle of the Gentiles was at this date still reckoned an enthusiastic Pharisee. It was among these Jews from abroad that Stephen opened what we should call a mission; he had more points of contact with these men of Greek speech and habits than had the Twelve. He engaged in a series of public disputations; and although he was almost unbefriended, and represented a very unpopular cause, his opponents were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit with which he spake.

4. But the victory which his opponents could not hope to win by argument, they hoped they might win by denunciation and clamour. They persuaded some false witnesses to swear that in their hearing Stephen had spoken blasphemous words against Moses and against God. They combined against him the jealousy of the upper classes and the prejudices of the lower; and they brought him, on trial for blasphemy, before the highest Jewish courtthe Sanhedrin.

ii. Before the Sanhedrin

1. And all that sat in the Council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel (Act 6:15). There is one question which we all want to have answered, and it is this: How came Stephen to he thus self-possessed before the frowning Sanhedrinfearless before an excited multitude in his home-thrusts of truth, brave in the crisis of trial, forgiving at the moment of death? Men are not born thus. As we mentally put ourselves into his circumstances, and try to realize each rapidly succeeding danger, our hearts fail within us, and we feel that no physical courage, no hardihood of mere natural bravery, could sustain us here. There must have come some supernatural change upon him, to have induced at once this undaunted fortitude and this superhuman tenderness of love. Was it a miraculous bestowment, limited in its conferment to the first ages, and to some specially selected and specially missioned men? or is it within the reach and enjoyment of believers in Jesus now? These are questions which are interesting to us, as we dwell upon the developments of holy character presented in the life of Stephen.

2. How are we to account for this boldness? The secret of all the heroism and of all the loveliness is in the delineation of the man. He was a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. He did not leap into this perfect balance of character in a momentspringing at once full-armed, as Minerva is fabled to have sprung from the brain of Jupiter. There was no mystic charm by which the graces clustered round him; he had no mystery of soul-growthno patented elixir of immortal ripening which was denied to others less favoured. He had faith; it was the gift of God to him, just as it is the gift of God to us. He had the indwelling of the Holy Ghost; which has been purchased for us in like manner by the blood-shedding of our Surety. The only difference between ourselves and him is that he claimed the blessings with a holier boldness, and lived habitually in the nearer communion with God. There is no bar to our own entrance into this fulness of privilege; the treasury is not exhausted; the Benefactor is not less willing to bestow. His ear listens to any prayer for the increase of faith. He waits to shed forth the richer baptisms of the Holy Ghost upon all those who ask Him for the boon.

3. It is not then in physical endowment that we are to find the source of this moral courage. Some of the men who could lead the van of armies in the fieldwho could fix the scaling-ladder against the parapet and be the first to scale the wallwho could climb the rugged slope that was swept by the bristling cannonhave displayed the most utter cowardice when a moral duty has been difficult, when some untoward disaster has surprised them, or when they have had to maintain the right against the laugh of the scorner. Sometimes, indeed, those who have been physically timid, and who have shuddered sensitively at the first imagined danger, have been uplifted into the bravery of confessorship when the agonizing trial came.

The Sister knew that the whole place was given over to evil purposes. She knew that no help would be given from inside. In case of violence it would be necessary for her to descend to the streets. She was not afraid, but she was conscious of apprehension and a vague alarm. However many policemen may walk the streets outside, it is no easy matter for a woman to face one of these pandars in the seclusion of his own establishment. But Sister Mildred is a saint, and there is no courage like the courage of the saint.1 [Note: Harold Begbie, In the Hand of the Potter, 188.]

It is related that in the Duke of Wellingtons campaigns two officers were once despatched upon a Service of considerable danger. As they were riding together, the one observed the other to be greatly agitated, with blanched cheek and quivering lip, and limbs shaken as with a paralysis of mortal fear. Reining his steed upon its haunches, he haughtily addressed him, Why, you are afraid. I am, was the reply; and if you were half as much afraid as I am, you would relinquish the duty altogether. Without wasting another word upon his ignoble companion, the officer galloped back to headquarters, and complained bitterly that he had been ordered to march in the companionship of a coward. Off, sir, to your duty, was the commanders sharp reply, or the coward will have done the business before you get there.1 [Note: W. M. Punshon.]

II

Stephens Prayers

1. The two dying prayers of Stephen carry us back in thought to the prayers of our Lord at His crucifixion.

(1) Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.We are told in the sacred narrative that St. Stephen kneeled down while they were in the act of stoning him. The picture fills us with amazement. It is so unlike what we should have expected, that some have attempted to persuade us that this was not a voluntary or deliberate act of the martyr. We are not, it is said, to understand that it expresses the purpose of one who was resolved, despite all the violence to which he was subjected, to spend his last moments in a posture of calm resignation and prayer; that would have been next to impossible for any human being to do under such circumstances. He had no alternative; another crash of stones brought him upon his knees. But the Christian conscience will not readily consent to have such a beautiful feature in the scene explained away. It shows us the dying martyr gathering up his failing strength and all the energy of his expiring life for one last, one crowning act of homage to his Lord; and a record of it Stands on the sacred page, to teach us what the greatest saints have felt about the value of external forms or bodily postures in expressing the worship that is due from the creature to the Creator. Then let us hear his prayer: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. What an echo it is of his Masters dying words!Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Not the slightest thought of vengeance in the prayer, but an unreserved entreaty that their sins may never be remembered against them.

A generous prayer is never presented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious Visitation.1 [Note: Robert Louis Stevenson, The Merry Men.]

I saw an angry crowd

Gathered about a youth, that loud

Were crying: Slay him, slay,

And stoned him as he lay.

I saw him overborne by death,

That bowed him to the earth beneath:

Only he made his eyes

Gates to behold the skies,

To his high Lord his prayer outpouring,

Forgiveness for his foes imploring:

Even in that pass his face

For pity making place.2 [Note: Dante, Purg. xv. 106114, trans. by Dr. Shadwell.]

(2) Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.We need not dwell now upon the fact that here we have a distinct instance of prayer to Jesus Christ, a distinct recognition, in the early days of His Church, of the highest conception of His person and nature, so that a dying man turns to Him, and commits his soul into His hands. Passing this by, though not overlooking it, let us think of the resemblance, and the difference, between this entrusting of the spirit by Stephen to his Lord, and the committing of His spirit to the Father by His dying Son. Christ on the Cross speaks to God; Stephen, on his Calvary, speaks to Jesus Christ. Christ, on the Cross, says, I commit. Stephen says, Receive, or rather, Take. The one phrase carries in it something of the notion that our Lord died not because He must, but because He would; that He was active in His death; that He chose to summon death to do its work upon Him; that He yielded up his spirit, as one of the Evangelists has it, pregnantly and significantly. But Stephen says, Take! as knowing that it must be his Lords power that should draw his spirit out of the coil of horror around him. So the one dying word has strangely compacted in it authority and Submission; and the other dying word is the word of a simple waiting servant.

2. How was Stephen strengthened for the trial? What were the manifestations granted to him, and which sustained him through the bitterness of martyrdom? You find these recorded in the preceding part of the chapter: But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus Standing on the right hand of God. We may not pretend to explain what Stephen saw in seeing the glory of God. We can only suppose that, as with St. Paul caught up to the third heaven, it was not what human speech could express, for it is very observable that when he asserts what he saw he makes no mention of the glory of God, but confines himself to the opening of the heavens, and the manifestation of Christ at the right hand of the Father. It is not for us to speculate where the martyr is silent. We can only suppose that the glory of God that was shown to him was some special display of the Divine presence calculated to reassure the sufferer.

To stretch my hand and touch Him,

Though He be far away;

To raise my eyes and see Him

Through darkness as through day;

To lift my voice and call Him

This is to pray!

To feel a hand extended

By One who standeth near;

To view the love that shineth

In eyes serene and clear;

To know that He is calling

This is to hear!

3. The supreme thought which these prayers suggest is the great possibilities that lie in faith in Christ. We see the soul of the suffering disciple leaning on the Lord who had suffered. We see that the secret of strength in all trials lies in appealing to the love and power of the blessed Jesus. In the death-struggle St. Stephen had faith to hang upon his Lord, and his Lord bore him through the agonies of that hour. This is what we are most likely to think of in reading of the martyrs death. But was this the greatest proof of St. Stephens faith? Was his greatest trial in this world? Did it not lie beyond this world? The life was nearly crushed out of him. The pains of death were Coming thick and fast upon him. But was death the end? What was awaiting him after death? He was entering on the unseen state. All was dim, unknown, untried before him. And if his spirit passed away, to whom would it go? It must return to God, who gave it. It must go before God, meet Him, and give up its account to Him. It is such thoughts as these which add so wonderful a power and force to those words, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I know not where I go; all nature seems to open out into vast untried depths beneath me; take me, hold me in Thine everlasting arms; I am safe with Thee. I know not who may attack me, how the powers of evil may gather against me; take me, guard me. I know not how to meet the Judgment. I know only that I have been dear to Thee in this life. Thou hast loved me, died for me, kept me. Take me now; to Thee do I commit my cause; Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Here is indeed a strange, calm faith in the power of our blessed Lord to keep and bless the soul in that unseen world. One who could speak thus must have felt that our Lord had conquered in that world, as in this, and emptied it of its horrors. He looked, as it were, through the mist and darkness that was gathering around him; he pierced with the steady gaze of his mind through the veil that was drawn between him and the state on which he was entering, and there he saw his Lord waiting and ready for him. Or rather, with a surer faith, though he did not see, he felt certain that the Lord was King in that realm of the departed, and he was ready to pass into it, because he knew that the Lord had power to keep and uphold him there. It may be that we shall never know the full force of those calm words of St. Stephen till we are on the edge of that unseen world ourselves.

4. His faith was faith in Christ, in the crucified Lord Jesus Christ. Observe the words of the prayers. While they stoned Stephen St. Luke says, according to the Authorized Version, that he was calling upon God. In the original text the Person upon whom he called is not named. The Authorized Version has supplied what seemed to be wanting, God, intimating that it was the First Person of the Trinity. But the last Revisers have substituted The Lord, to indicate that it was the Second Person: and this is certainly more in accordance with the prayer that follows: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

The Revisers were anticipated in their interpretation by Bishop Cosin, who, in view of perpetuating another characteristic feature of St. Stephens martyrdom, has addressed his Collect to God the Son. With very rare exceptions (there are three others only in our Prayer Book) Liturgical Collects have always been addressed to the Father, because they form part of an office in which the Son joins with the Church in presenting to the Father the Memorial of His own Sacrifice. It seems, therefore, to introduce an incongruity to appeal at such a time to Him who is acting as Priest. It was for this reason that certain of the Early Councils directed that when we are officiating at the altar, prayer should always be addressed to the Father.1 [Note: H. M. Luckock.]

5. And now, one great lesson rises out of all that has been said. If God has given us but little clear knowledge of the state of the departed, if we have been obliged to guess at what passes in that State, and are not able to speak with absolute certainty, one thing at least is clear and certain. Every hope of the soul as it passes from the body centres in our blessed Lord. So then, if He is to be our hope and stay after death, He must be our hope and stay now. We must live in close, earnest, true communion with Him. We must live with Him as our Friend and Guide, our hearts inmost life. If we wish to feel that we can commit ourselves to Him, and lean upon Him, when our spirits shall have to venture forth at His call into the dim, uncertain, untried world beyond the grave, then we must familiarize ourselves now with His love, His power, His gifts, His might. If we hope to say with the calm, undoubting trust of St. Stephen, at that last moment, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, then we must learn such trust beforehand by commending our spirits to Him now.

Beloved, yield thy time to God, for He

Will make eternity thy recompense;

Give all thy substance for His Love, and be

Beatified past earths experience.

Serve Him in bonds, until He set thee free;

Serve Him in dust, until He lift thee thence;

Till death be swallowed up in victory

When the great trumpet sounds to bid thee hence.

Shall setting day win day that will not set?

Poor price wert thou to spend thyself for Christ,

Had not His wealth thy poverty sufficed:

Yet since He makes His garden of thy clod,

Water thy lily, rose, or violet,

And offer up thy sweetness unto God.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

III

Stephens Death

1. They stoned Stephen. Our ordinary English idea of the manner of the Jewish punishment of stoning is a very inadequate and mistaken one. It did not consist merely in a miscellaneous rabble throwing stones at the criminal, but there was a solemn and appointed method of execution which is preserved for us in detail in the Rabbinical books. And from it we gather that the modus operandi was this. The blasphemer was taken to a certain precipitous rock, the height of which was prescribed as being equal to that of two men. The witnesses by whose testimony he had been condemned had to cast him over, and if he survived the fall it was their task to roll upon him a great stone, of which the weight is prescribed in the Talmud as being as much as two men could lift. If he lived after that, then others took part in the punishment.

2. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. How absolute the triumph over the last enemy which these words express! When men court slumber, they banish from their hearts all causes of anxiety, and from their dwelling all tumult of sound; they demand quiet as a necessity; they exclude the light and draw the curtains close; they carefully put away from them all that will have a tendency to defeat, or to postpone the object after which they aim. But Stephen fell asleep under very different circumstances from these. Brutal oaths, and frantic yells, and curses loud and deep, were the lullaby which sang him to his dreamless slumbers; and while all were agitated and tumultuous around him,

Meek as an infant to its mothers breast,

So turned he, longing, for immortal rest.

The evident meaning of the words is that death came to him simply as a release from sufferingas a curse from which the sting was drawnso mitigated in its bitterness, that it was as harmless and as refreshing as sleep.

The image of sleep as a euphemism for death is no peculiar property of Christianity, but the ideas that it suggests to the Christian consciousness are the peculiar property of Christianity. Any of you that ever were in the Vatican will remember how you go down corridors with Pagan marbles on that side and Christian ones on this. Against one wall, in long rows, stand the sad memorials, each of which has the despairing ending, Farewell, farewell, for ever farewell. But on the other side there are carved no goddesses of slumber, or mourning genii, or quenched lamps, or wailing words, but sweet emblems of a renewed life, and the ever-recurring, gracious motto: In hope. To the non-Christian that sleep is eternal; to the Christian that sleep is as sure of a waking as is the sleep of the body. The one affects the whole man; the Christian sleep affects only the body and the connexion with the outer world.1 [Note: A. Maclaren, Last Sheaves, 248.]

There is none other thing expressed,

But long disquiet merged in rest.

He fell asleep. Repose, safety, restorationthese are the ideas of comfort which are held in the expression of the text. Take them, and rejoice in the majestic hopes which they inspire. Christ has died. He, dying, drew the sting from death; and, properly speaking, there has been no death of a believer since that day. What says the Scripture? He that believeth on Jesus, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never die. What fulness of consolation to those who are mourning for othersto those who are dying themselves! With the banner of this hope in hand, the believer may return with a full heart from the grave of his best beloved, giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, and may march calmly down to the meeting of his own mortal foe.2 [Note: W. M. Punshon.]

Sleep, little flower, whose petals fade and fall

Over the sunless ground;

Ring no more peals of perfume on the air

Sleep long and sound.

Sleepsleep.

Sleep, summer wind, whose breathing grows more faint

As night draws slowly nigh;

Cease thy sweet chanting in the cloistral woods

And seem to die.

Sleepsleep.

Sleep, thou great Ocean, whose wild waters sink

Under the setting sun;

Hush the loud music of thy warring waves

Till night is done.

Sleepsleep.

Sleep, thou tired heart, whose mountain pulses droop

Within the Valley cold:

On pains and pleasures, fears and hopes of life,

Let go thine hold.

Sleepsleep.

Sleep, for tis only sleep, and there shall be

New life for all, at day;

So sleep, sleep all, until the restful night

Has passed away.

Sleepsleep.1 [Note: S. J. Stone, Lullaby of Life.]

IV

The Result of Stephens Martyrdom

Such was the first martyrdom. How soon did the martyrs blood become the seed of the Church! He had met his death for declaring the universality of Gods Kingdom, that Christianity was destined to spread the blessing of salvation far beyond the Jewish race, even over the whole world; and his dying prayer was answered by the conversion of one, who, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, helped most to preach the Gospel to every creature which is under heaven. St. Augustine said, If Stephen had not prayed, Paul would never have been given to the Church (Sermo ccclxxxii., De sancto Stephano). It is true the answer was delayed. There are some, however, who believe that the effect was immediate, and that the wild fury of the persecutor, which broke out with such violence, was only a desperate attempt to stifle the convictions which arose in his mind. Painters have caught up this idea and expressed it by the strongest contrast between Sauls face and the faces of the others who witnessed the end. It may have been so; it may be that a foregleam of the coming dawn did touch him even then; but whether it came at once or only in after days, no one will think of denying that there is an eternal link between the martyrs prayer and the Apostles conversion.

Why was it that in the ten years after Livingstones death, Africa made greater advancement than in the previous ten centuries? All the world knows that it was through the vicarious suffering of one of Scotlands noblest heroes.

Why is Italy cleansed of the plagues that devastated her cities a hundred years ago? Because John Howard sailed in an infected ship from Constantinople to Venice, that he might be put into a lazaretto and find out the clue to that awful mystery of the plague and stay its power. How has it come that the merchants of our western ports send ships laden with implements for the fields and conveniences for the house into the South Sea Islands? Because such men as Patteson, the pure-hearted gallant boy of Eton College, gave up every prospect in England to labour amid the Pacific savages and twice plunged into the waters of the coral reefs, amid sharks and devil-fish and stinging jellies, to escape the flight of poisoned arrows of which the slightest graze meant horrible death, and in that high service died by the clubs of the very savages whom he had often risked his life to savethe memory of whose life did so smite the consciences of his murderers that they laid the young martyr in an open boat, to float away over the bright blue waves, with his hands crossed, as if in prayer, and a palm branch on his breast. And there, in the white light, he lies now, immortal for ever.1 [Note: N. D. Hillis, The Investment of Influence, 79.]

A patient minister was he,

A simple saint of God,

A soul that might no longer be

Bound to this earthly clod;

A spirit that sought for the purer breath

Of the land of life, through the gates of death,

The path all martyrs trod,

That lies through the night of a speechless shame,

And leads to the light of a deathless fame.

Stoned to his death by those for whom

His souls last prayer was sped

Unto his God, Avert the doom

That gathers oer their head;

And the stones that bruised him and Struck him down

Shone dazzling gems in his victors crown;

And as his spirit fled,

A light from the land where the angels dwell

Lingered saintly and grand where the martyr fell.

Tis but a history in these days

The cruel and final test

Of those who went lifes rugged ways

For faith they had confessed;

Yet the God who spake to the saints of old

Lacks not to-day in His mystic fold

Doers of His behest:

There are servants of men and saints of God

Who will follow, as then, where the Master trod.1 [Note: P. C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 45.]

Faithful unto Death

Literature

Brooke (S. A.), Short Sermons, 141.

Jerdan (C.), For the Lambs of the Flock, 404.

Liddon (H. P.), Christmastide Sermons, 157.

Luckock (H. M.), Footprints of the Apostles as traced by St. Luke, i. 195.

MCheyne (R. M.), Additional Remains, 189.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions, Acts i.xii. 226.

Moore (E. W.), Christ in Possession, 113, 124.

Punshon (W. M.), Sermons, i. 303.

Randall (R. W.), Life in the Catholic Church, 272.

Wordsworth (C.), Primary Witness to the Truth of the Gospel, 104.

Christian World Pulpit, xxiv. 99 (Stevenson).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

calling: Act 2:21, Act 9:14, Act 9:21, Act 22:16, Joe 2:32, Rom 10:12-14, 1Co 1:2

Lord: Psa 31:5, Luk 23:46

Reciprocal: Gen 35:18 – her soul Lev 20:2 – the people Lev 24:14 – let all the Num 14:10 – But all Deu 17:7 – of the witnesses 2Ch 24:21 – stoned him Psa 25:20 – O Psa 37:37 – General Psa 49:15 – shall Psa 73:24 – receive Hab 1:4 – for Mat 9:6 – that the Mat 23:34 – ye Mat 24:9 – shall they Luk 13:34 – killest Luk 21:16 – and some Joh 10:28 – neither Joh 10:31 – General Joh 14:3 – I will Joh 18:32 – the saying Joh 20:28 – My Lord Rom 1:7 – and the Lord 2Co 11:25 – once Phi 1:23 – with 2Ti 1:12 – which I Heb 11:37 – stoned Jam 2:26 – as 1Pe 2:23 – but 1Pe 4:19 – commit

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A LAST PRAYER

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

Act 7:59

The early martyrs were affectionately revered by the members of the early Christian Church because of their sincere and lasting devotion to the cause of their glorified Lord. Hence, among others, the anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, which occurred in the thirty-fourth year of the Christian era, was duly and meetly observed. Some have spoken of him not only as the first of Christian martyrs, but as the greatest of all Christian martyrs.

I. His character.He was a man of good repute. This is evident from the office he sustained in the Apostolic Church. He was elected to be a deacon in it; and, according to the Fathers, he held the primacy over the other deacons. He was also a man of strong faith. It is Divinely said that He was full of faith. This kept the eye of his soul fixed on Jesus, fitted him for earth, and matured him for heaven. He was likewise a man of deep piety. Luke affirms that he was full of the Holy Ghost. Full of light and love because full of Deity, his peace flowed like a river. He was a man of great courage. The advocacy of the truth as it is in Jesus exposed him to fierce persecution, but he stood up nobly for it. And when he exclaimed with rapture, Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God, they stopped their ears, and with one accord fell upon him, and cast him out of the city, stoned him.

II. His martyrdom.The tragic punishment they inflicted upon him was one legally denounced against notorious criminals. This was the punishment of a blasphemer, and to this awful kind of death St. Stephen yielded himself. Yet how fiendish the conduct of the men who accomplished it! But this death, albeit inhuman and diabolical, was met with prayer. No better proof could be given of the power and goodness of the religion of Jesus Christ. Death, though it came to Stephen in this merciless way, was but a sleep. This beautiful representation is indicative of rest and peace. Stephen had done his work, had accomplished his warfare. Absent from the body, he was present with the Lord.

Illustration

If you are faithful witnesses, you cannot hope to escape the stones. That is the last resource of the enemy. If he cannot refute you, he has a much shorter methodhe will stone you. That is a short and easy way of getting rid of awkward truthsstone the man who preaches them. That is what has been done thousands of times since St. Stephens day. There are many ways of pelting people without resort to the actual brickbats. Words spoken and written sometimes hit harder than stones. Take care how you shrink back when you begin to feel the stones. After all, you will not have so bad a time as Stephen. Hard words break no bones, though they may break hearts sometimes, and in this way test us nearly as severely. But Christianity has wrought a wonderful change since St. Stephens day. It is not so easy, in England at any rate, to stone people for their faith; but still, if you mean to be faithful to Christ, you will come in for a twentieth-century edition of the stones.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

9

Act 7:59. Stephen was calling upon God while the Jews were hurling stones at him. Receive my spirit shows Stephen had an inner being that was not within reach of these murderers. (See Mat 10:28.)

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Act 7:59. And they stoned Stephen. Twice the writer of the Acts tells us this,a remarkable repetition in a history usually so sparing in its details. It would seem to point (as perhaps also does the tense of the Greek verb used here) to a somewhat lengthened duration of the agony. No mortal injury was probably inflicted for a time; so they kept on stoning the martyr, who in the cruel storm was all the while

Calling upon GOD. In the original we have simply , invoking or calling upon. The word to be supplied is evidently the Lord, from the next clause, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. This is better than supplying God, as in the English Version, which slightly confuses the reader. Stephen here prays with his latest breath to Jesus, and all attempts to explain this momentous fact away are utterly useless. This is allowed now by the best critics of the various schools,De Wette, Meyer, Ewald, Lange, Alford, Gloag, etc.

The martyrs last cry was a prayer to our Lord, moulded upon two of the seven sayings of the Redeemer on the cross. But while the dying prayer of Jesus was addressed to His Father, Stephen, in his supreme agony, turns to Jesus; and to Jesus as King of the world of spirits, he commends his parting soul, to Jesus as Lord of all he prays for pardon on his murderers. Commenting on this primitive instance of prayer being offered to the Crucified, Canon Liddon well says, Dying men do not cling to devotional fancies or to precarious opinions: the soul in its last agony instinctively falls back upon its deepest certainties (Divinity of Christ, Lecture vii.). St. Augustine points to the striking fulfilment of Stephens prayer for his enemies, in the conversion of one of the chiefest of them: If Stephen had not prayed, never would the Church have possessed Paul.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. The holy deportment of this humble saint at his death; he prays.

Learn hence, That good men should shut up their lives with prayer, and die with prayer in their mouths. Our Saviour did so; his first martyr here did so. St. Stephen imitated the death of Christ, and he imitated Christ in his death: turning from malicious men to speak unto a merciful God in prayer. They stoned Stephen, calling upon God.

Observe, 2. The object of his prayer, or whom St. Stephen prays to, Jesus Christ: He doth not say, “O blessed Virgin! O St. Thomas! O St. Bridget! intercede with my Saviour for me.” But he directs his supplications immediately to Christ, saying, Lord Jesus! From whence we may strongly infer the divinity of Christ. Prayer is an act of religious worship, and he that is the proper object of religious worship must be God: Noen must be the object of my prayer, but he that is the object of my faith. How shall I pray to him, in whom I have not believed?

Observe, 3. The subject of his prayer, or what he prays for, his soul. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; he doth not say, Lord Jesus, save my life, which is in so much danger of being taken away; O, deliver me from the hands of my persecutors, and bring me off safe! Not a word like this; but let it go well with my soul: Lord, receive my spirit.

Learn thence, That the godly man’s care, living and dying, is for his soul; because this is the principal and immortal part, because this is the greatest talent that ever God put into our hands, and because the happiness and eternal welfare of the body depends upon the blessed condition of the soul: If the soul be happy, the body cannot be miserable.

Observe, 4. The sweet surrender, the willing and cheerful resignation which the good man makes of his soul into the hands of Christ; Lord Jesus receive my Spirit.

1. The godly man’s spirit or soul is his own, he has not sold it to sin, nor pawned it to Satan, nor exchanged it for the world; but he has reserved it for Christ, who redeemed it for him.

2. Receive.

Learn hence, It is the duty and disposition of a gracious person, to resign up his soul willingly and cheerfully into Christ’s hands, whenever God calls for it; his soul is surrendered by him, not extorted from him. The knowledge that a good man has of Christ’s love and care, of his faithfulness and power, encourages him to this resignation, Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed it, Psa 31:5 And surely he that redeemed it will not hurt it.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Act 7:59-60. And thus they stoned Stephen Who, during this furious assault, continued with his eyes fixed on the heavenly glory, of which he had so bright a vision, calling upon God The word God is not in the original, which is literally, invoking; and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit For Christ was the person to whom he prayed: and surely such a solemn prayer addressed to him, in which a departing soul was thus committed into his hands, was such an act of worship as no good man could have paid to a mere creature; Stephen here worshipping Christ in the very same manner in which Christ worshipped the Father on the cross. And he kneeled down, &c. Having nothing further relating to himself which could give him any solicitude, all his remaining thoughts were occupied in compassion to these inhuman wretches, who were employed in effecting his destruction. Having, therefore, as we have reason to suppose, received many violent blows, rising as well as he could upon his knees, he cried, though with an expiring, yet with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge With severity proportionable to the weight of the offence, but graciously forgive them, as indeed I do from my heart. The original expression, , has a peculiar emphasis, and is not easy to be exactly translated, without multiplying words to an improper degree. It is literally weigh not out to them this sin; that is, a punishment proportionable to it; alluding, it seems, to passages of Scripture where God is represented as weighing mens characters and actions in the dispensations of his justice and providence. This prayer of Stephen was heard, and remarkably answered, in the conversion of Saul, of whose history we shall shortly hear more. When he had said this Calmly resigning his soul into the Saviours hand, with a sacred serenity, in the midst of this furious assault, he sweetly fell asleep Leaving the traces of a gentle composure, rather than a horror, upon his breathless corpse.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

See notes on verse 54

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

59. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. This is another one of the innumerable Scriptures which knocks the bottom out of soul-sleeping, proposing to brutalize you by taking away your immortal soul and humbugging you with the silly delusion that you consist only of this material body, making even heathens blush for shame; for, walking in the light of nature and the Holy Spirit, without the precious Bible, even they believe in the souls immortality. Here we know that Stephens immortal spirit was a distinct unity, existing independently of his body, because it left his body under the rock-pile and went up to live with God in heaven, like the disembodied spirit of every dying saint.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 59

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. The example of Stephen, in addressing his dying prayer to Jesus Christ, has had deservedly great influence, as evidence of the light in which the person of the Redeemer was then regarded.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

Stephen called upon the Lord (Gr. epikaloumenon), as Peter had exhorted his hearers to do for deliverance (Act 2:21). Stephen died as Jesus did, with prayers for his executioners being his last words (cf. Luk 23:34; Luk 23:46; cf. 2Ch 24:22; Luk 6:27-28). However, Stephen prayed to Jesus whereas Jesus prayed to His Father. Luke probably wanted his readers to connect the two executions, but they were not exactly the same. Some commentators have argued that Luke presented Stephen’s execution as a reenactment of Jesus’ execution. [Note: E.g., Charles H. Talbert, Luke and the Gnostics, p. 76.]

"Between Stephen and Jesus there was communion of nature, there was communion of testimony, there was communion of suffering, and finally there was communion of triumph." [Note: Morgan, p. 142.]

Stephen’s body, not his soul, fell asleep to await resurrection (cf. Act 13:36; Joh 11:11; 1Th 4:13; 1Th 4:15; et al.).

"For Stephen the whole dreadful turmoil finished in a strange peace. He fell asleep. To Stephen there came the peace which comes to the man who has done the right thing even if the right thing kills him." [Note: Barclay, p. 62.]

"As Paul is to become Luke’s hero, in that he more than any other single man was instrumental in spreading the Gospel throughout the Gentile world, so Stephen here receives honourable recognition as the man who first saw the wider implications of the Church’s faith and laid the foundations on which the mission to the Gentiles was built." [Note: Neil, p. 105.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)