64 - Prosecution: Patriarchs, Promise, Prophecies and Prophets [B]

Prosecution: Patriarchs, Promise, Prophecies and Prophets. Acts 6:11-7:60

Acts 6:7 ^NASB "…and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith." This must have really begun to irritate the Sadducees. Most pf the priests came from the Sadducee Party. The Sadducee Party tended to dominate the Sanhedrin and it clearly had control of temple worship and all of the profit that they made. It wasn't a free market environment, it was collusion and in violation of the Mosaic Law as they were overcharging in the money exchange. It was a corrupt enterprise. But now there were a vast number of priests being saved and this is beginning to get very personal for the leadership of the Sanhedrin.

Stephen has a tremendous ministry that begins to be described in verse 8 and it is irritating to a number of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem who seek to get men to commit false witness, a violation of the tenth commandment. They are going to lie in court and are going to make certain claims. It is these claims that are very interesting. They claim that Stephen has committed blasphemy, i.e. that he is overturning or hostile to what God has said. Acts 6:11 ^NASB "Then they secretly induced men to say, 'We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and {against} God.'" That is their starting point.

Acts 6:12 ^NASB "And they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged him away and brought him before the Council." They are rabble-rousing among the crowds that have come to Jerusalem, but they are spreading lies and rumours among the people. These things happen all the time. We see a lot of it today with the Internet. There's a tremendous amount of gossip and slander that takes place through email, especially with regard to political things. It happens on both sides of the aisle and people are more concerned with just finding something to support what they believe rather than seeking truth, and they are willing to pass on any kind of lie, rumour or gossip just because it puts their opponent in a bad light. That is wrong. We sure make sure before we say anything or pass anything along that we have checked it out and made sure that it is indeed true. The "elders" here would refer to the leaders of the synagogues and the scribes would refer to those who were usually associated with the Pharisees and were responsible for copying and overseeing the duplication of the Old Testament Scriptures.

As a result of having stirred everybody up without any evidence they also set up false witnesses. Acts 6:13 ^NASB "They put forward false witnesses who said, 'This man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the Law." They say he doesn't stop speaking blasphemous words, and now it is not against Moses and God, it is "this holy place and the Law." So there are four things that he is charged with in terms of blasphemy: blasphemy against God, blasphemy against Moses, blasphemy against the Law (Torah), and blasphemy against the temple. The problem with this is that none of this rises to the level of a blasphemous charge. He doesn't say anything that is blasphemous. Numbers 15:30 ^NASB "But the person who does {anything} defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people." Blasphemy would be that which is bringing a false charge against God.

What we have here is a dynamic where spurious charges are being brought against Christians. This is nothing new; it has been a standard approach of Satan and the enemy down through the ages. This is one of the easiest ways to try to attack an enemy—ad hominen charges. People say, "Well look at that person, he is associated with so and so, therefore whatever he says is wrong." We constantly hear these kinds of false charges today.

It is interesting as we look at Stephen's response in chapter seven that Stephen does not give evidence of a man who is showing any disrespect at all for God, Moses, temple or Torah. He shows a tremendous amount of respect for God, and in the way he lays out his argument he shows and proves in the end that the leaders among the Jewish people have never honoured God. He cites evidence of their ongoing chronic idolatry and rejection of God and rejection of prophets. And this is substantiated from the Old Testament. This was said many, many times by writers of the Hebrew Scriptures giving evidence and indictments against the Jewish people for their rejection of God. This is clearly the reason that the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria in 722 and the southern kingdom was destroyed in 586 and the first temple was destroyed—it was because of idolatry. So Stephen is just repeating and reaffirming the indictment of the Old Testament. He isn't saying something new. Stephen is extremely respectful of God in his message. Neither is he antagonistic to Moses, but he is going to point out that Moses was a deliverer of the Jews from slavery in Egypt and that when Moses first came on the scene he was rejected by the Jewish people as their deliverer. They did not recognize him as the one God sent to deliver them and it was only the second time that Moses came that they recognized him as the deliverer that God had sent. And Stephen isn't showing any disrespect for the Torah but he is clearly affirming what the Old Testament Scriptures teach—that the Mosaic Law was temporary and was not designed to be permanent. He shows respect for the Torah and he shows respect for the temple.

There was no basis at all for these charges against Stephen. The problem is that they have deified Torah and temple so that in an idolatrous manner they have rejected both the teaching of God and the teaching of Moses. And this is basically the argument that Stephen is going to bring against them. When he comes to the forefront here he is going to respond to their charge but he is not going to respond by simply presenting a defence of what he is said, he is going to turn it into an offensive manoeuvre; he assaults them on the basis of their history. He completely turns it against them and presents a case against them. So it is an indictment of the Jewish leadership at this time and their failure to honour God and Moses and their failure to respect what the Old Testament taught about the temple and the Torah. He follows a tradition of the prophets. If we go through the Old Testament we will notice that the role of the prophet from Moses down through Malachi is to challenge the behaviour of the Jewish people on the basis of their covenant responsibilities toward God as spelled out in the Mosaic Law.

The Mosaic demanded on the people their exclusive loyalty to God and spelled out what that behaviour would appear to be and what it would look like. And when they violated that, when they were in rebellion against God, when they were idolatrous, when they failed to apply the Law, then God would send a prophet who was His representative to bring an indictment against them. This is how Stephen is functioning. It is the longest speech/sermon recorded in Acts and it is the only sermon in Acts where there is no clear gospel presentation. The purpose for this message was not to present the gospel but to present an indictment against the Jewish people.

It is important to understand what has been going on in Acts. In Acts we are in a transition period in history—from the Jews to the Gentiles, from the temple to the church. What happens in Acts is that at the beginning the focus is on Jews in Jerusalem and the church is exclusively a Jewish church made up of Jewish believers up to this point. And there is yet a grace offer to all of the Jewish people to turn and accept Jesus as the Messiah. This is the thrust of Peter's message in Acts chapter two, Peter's message in chapter three, the focal point of the preaching of the apostles and of the seven throughout this period, and yet there has been a continued rejection of this message. So now there is going to be an indictment. God has extended grace to this generation again, the same generation that just two years earlier had crucified Jesus the Messiah, and now there is going to b another indictment from Stephen and there is going to be the same response from the leaders of the people.

Several sources have estimated that around 30-35 per cent of the Jewish people at the time of Jesus and the early first century accepted Jesus as the Messiah. That is a huge number, but it wasn't represented among the religious leadership which was in a power struggle.

When Peter sets his message up the first thing he does is focus on Abraham. Then he focuses on Joseph who is mentioned five times from verse 9 to verse 18. Starting in verse 20 he begins to focus upon Moses and he does so down through verse 43 and then he begins to talk about the tabernacle which was done away with and replaced by the temple. So if the tabernacle was replaced by the temple why can't God do away with the temple and do something else? That is his line of argumentation.    

What does he says about Abraham? God called out Abraham as an act of divine love. What he is saying is the core foundation of Torah Judaism was God's love and grace was the foundation relationship with the Jewish people. The core value in their religion was God's love and grace. But where does the Torah come in? The Torah doesn't come in for 450 years. Circumcision was the sign for the Abrahamic covenant but the Law doesn't come in for 450 years, so that is a secondary idea. God has 450 years of dealing with the Jewish people—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph—long before there was ever a Torah. When does the temple come along? About 970 BC, another 500 years after the Torah. So what Stephen is arguing here is the foundation of real biblical religion for the Jewish people is the love of God and the grace of God, not the Law, not circumcision, not Moses, and not the temple. They have idolized those aspects and created a false god out of those things. This is what is going to end of angering them.

Acts 7:2 ^NASB "And he said, 'Hear me, brethren and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, [3] and said to him, 'LEAVE YOUR COUNTRY AND YOUR RELATIVES, AND COME INTO THE LAND THAT I WILL SHOW YOU.'" It's a free gracious act, there's no condition set upon this. God said He had a gift for Abraham. He was going to give Abraham this piece of land, so Abraham had to get himself up and over there because the only we he was going to enjoy that land was if he went to it. There is no legalistic condition. [4 ] "Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, {God} had him move to this country in which you are now living. [5] But He gave him no inheritance in it…"  He now emphasises the fact that he never owned a square inch of property other than what he bought to bury Sarah and himself in. He never owned real estate that was promised by God, but God gave him this promise that He would give him this land. So0 we have a foundation here of promise.

This argument is subtle. What He was going to show is that Abraham was given a promise. He was given a far promise which is, you are going to own the land and are going to have an inheritance forever in the land. And He has given a near promise, and that promise/prophecy is that Abraham's descendants were going to leave this land and be slaves in Egypt for about 400 years, and then God was going to bring them back to this land. The fact that God brought them back to the land and that part of the promise proved to be literally true was to be evidence that if God could do that in the near fulfilment He would also give them the land in perpetuity in a far fulfilment. And the point that Stephen is making to the Sanhedrin is that what the Jewish people did again and again and again was to reject that God could ultimately fulfil that promise and to reject the God who gave that promise. They weren't faithful to the covenant. There was always a remnant that was but for the most part he was saying that they Rejected Joseph, they rejected Moses, they rejected the promise, they defiled the temple time and time again by putting idols in the temple and that they are all under indictment.

So he goes through the circumstances with the promise to God and the promise that God would give him this land: "… not even a foot of ground, and {yet,} even when he had no child, He promised that HE WOULD GIVE IT TO HIM AS A POSSESSION, AND TO HIS DESCENDANTS AFTER HIM." But in the short term [6] "But God spoke to this effect, that his DESCENDANTS WOULD BE ALIENS IN A FOREIGN LAND, AND THAT THEY WOULD BE ENSLAVED AND MISTREATED FOR FOUR HUNDRED YEARS." And then quoting from Genesis chapter fifteen God said: "AND WHATEVER NATION TO WHICH THEY WILL BE IN BONDAGE I MYSELF WILL JUDGE,' said God, 'AND AFTER THAT THEY WILL COME OUT AND SERVE ME IN THIS PLACE." There was a clear prophecy there that God would provide deliverance. As a sign of this God gave them the covenant of circumcision.

Stephen is going to talk about key individuals now. Why did he talk about Abraham? Because the call of Abraham shows the real core of Jewish religion: the grace of God and the love of God. So why does he bring in Joseph and Moses? What do they have in common? They are both deliverers that God sent to Israel. They both show up twice. They show up initially; they are rejected by the rest of the Jews. The Jews reject them the first time and they accept them the second time. What is the pattern? Jesus shows up as the Messiah. He is rejected the first time but He will be accepted the second time. It fits the pattern.

Stephen now turns to Joseph. Acts 7:9 ^NASB "The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. {Yet} God was with him." This is a pattern guys, we become envious of other people and we reject God's provision. He is indicting them for carrying out that pattern. [10] "and rescued him from all his afflictions, and granted him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and all his household"—in a position where he can deliver his family in a time of world-wide famine. 

Acts 7:13 ^NASB "On the second {visit} Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family was disclosed to Pharaoh." This time the brothers are elevated to a position of privilege because they are relatives of Joseph. But then in verse 18, "…THERE AROSE ANOTHER KING OVER EGYPT WHO KNEW NOTHING ABOUT JOSEPH. [19] It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants and they would not survive." So now there is the circumstance where this Pharaoh is passing a decree that all the Jewish male babies have to be put out to die. In violation of that when Moses was born his family kept him in secret for three months. God in His providence saw that he would be adopted into the royal family.

We are told some things in this section that we don't learn in Exodus. Acts 7:22 ^NASB "Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds." He was one of the most educated individuals possible in the ancient world. But somewhere along the line Moses seems to be aware of who he is—that he is Jewish, not an Egyptian, and this could conceivably be because he was circumcised. He came to understand that there was a difference and that he wasn't like the Egyptians and he began to identify himself with his people.

Acts 7:24 ^NASB "And when he saw one {of them} being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian." There is a sense in which he knows that he is to be their deliverer but he doesn't know how to do it the right way. What people don't understand is that a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong. Moses does things the wrong way and is eventually going to be run out of Egypt. [26] "On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, 'Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?' [27] But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, 'WHO MADE YOU A RULER AND JUDGE OVER US?'" They don't recognise him as the deliverer, they reject him as a deliverer, and Moses ends up fleeing, spending another forty years in basic training by God.

Then one day when he is out with the sheep in the wilderness of Mount Sinai he saw a burning bush. That is not anything unusual. But this bush didn't get consumed, and that is what caught his attention. He decided to check it out and when he did God began to speak to him and identified Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Acts 7:32 ^NASB " 'I AM THE GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM AND ISAAC AND JACOB.' Moses shook with fear and would not venture to look. [33] BUT THE LORD SAID TO HIM, 'TAKE OFF THE SANDALS FROM YOUR FEET, FOR THE PLACE ON WHICH YOU ARE STANDING IS HOLY GROUND.'" Now it is not in the land of Israel. Holy land is any land where God's presence is on the ground.  [34] "I HAVE CERTAINLY SEEN THE OPPRESSION OF MY PEOPLE IN EGYPT AND HAVE HEARD THEIR GROANS, AND I HAVE COME DOWN TO RESCUE THEM; COME NOW, AND I WILL SEND YOU TO EGYPT." We are going to do the right thing now at the right time and in the right way.

Now Stephen skips ahead to the prophecy that Moses gives in verse 37, which is a quote from Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18 that the Lord will raise up a prophet like Moses. This is a messianic prophecy which looks forward to the fact that there will be a prophet like Moses who has this intimacy with God and that the people should listen to Him. This is not just any prophet but a unique prophet who will have a leadership role like Moses but will be greater.

Acts 7:38 ^NASB "This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and {who was} with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you. [39] Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt…" So why are you accusing me of blasphemy and not obeying when you are the heirs of those in the wilderness who wouldn't obey Moses and wouldn't obey God? You are just carrying on the family tradition of disobedience to God and rejecting His messengers. He begins to raise the indictment level against them. He points out now the episode of idolatry that occurred while Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Law from God. They are so impatient and their attention span on worshipping God is so short, and as soon as Moses is out of sight almost they enticed Aaron to make some idols for them to worship. What is Stephen pointing out here? He is pointing out that historically throughout the Old Testament period the Jewish people rejected the Torah, they rejected the mandate to worship God, and they were always antagonistic to Moses.

This is explained in vv. 42, 43 which is a quotation from Amos 5:25, 27: ^NASB "But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, 'IT WAS NOT TO ME THAT YOU OFFERED VICTIMS AND SACRIFICES FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS, WAS IT, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL? YOU ALSO TOOK ALONG THE TABERNACLE OF MOLOCH AND THE STAR OF THE GOD ROMPHA, THE IMAGES WHICH YOU MADE TO WORSHIP. I ALSO WILL REMOVE YOU BEYOND BABYLON.'" This was a reminder that they have committed idolatry throughout their history, this was a chronic problem, and God was going to bring judgment upon them. Jeremiah 32:35 is another indictment. ^NASB "They built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through {the fire} to Molech, which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." 2 Kings 23:10 ^NASB "He also defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire for Molech."

In the final stage of his argument Stephen goes through the issue related to the temple. He starts with the tabernacle in verse 44 ^NASB "Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed {him} to make it according to the pattern which he had seen." The point that he is making is that the tabernacle was temporary and was eventually replaced by the temple, and the temple was designed to be temporary also because God doesn't dwell in houses made by human hands. This isn't something new from Stephen, this is a quote from Solomon who built the first temple: 1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 6:16 both record this. So there is a quote here from Isaiah 66:1,2  ^NASB "Thus says the LORD, 'Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? For My hand made all these things'…" In other words, I don't need a house, the universe is my dwelling. So again, Stephen is showing great respect for the temple. He doesn't say anything negative about the temple, he just says it is not permanent.

Then he drives the point home. Acts 7:51 ^NASB "You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears…" That was a term used by Moses to refer to not physical circumcision but mental circumcision and has to do with a failure in their thinking to submit to the authority of God. This is seen in such passages as Leviticus 26:41. "… are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. [52] Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; [53] you who received the law as ordained by angels, and {yet} did not keep it." He has refuted their arguments and the reaction is that their emotions are so strong that they are gnashing their teeth. But in contrast, [55] "But being full of the Holy Spirit [a term for maturity], he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." The position of Jesus is seated, but He is standing to receive Stephen. [56] "and he [Stephen] said, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'" This term "Son of Man" is an term for the Messiah from Daniel chapter seven, and this just makes them even angrier.

Acts 7:57 ^NASB "But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse. [58] When they had driven him out of the city, they {began} stoning {him;} and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul." Saul was probably representing Gamaliel at these proceedings and we are first introduced to him here. This foreshadows the transition into what will come later on. [59] "They went on stoning Stephen as he called on {the Lord} and said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'" He is addressing Jesus because that is who he sees standing at the right hand of the Father. [60] "Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them!' Having said this, he fell asleep."

This begins to set up a transition. We are introduced to Saul who becomes the chief persecutor of the church in chapter eight. His conversion is in chapter nine. But this assault and execution of Stephen becomes the end of the first stage of the expansion of the church in the stage of their being in Jerusalem. After this there is going to be an expansion because now they have to leave Jerusalem because a huge persecution begins. Up to this point the Sanhedrin has just has had basically a hands-off policy, although they have been hostile; now they are hostile, aggressive, out to kill, slaughter, arrest and actively persecute all of the Jews who have accepted Jesus as Messiah. Remember the church is still Jewish at this time, it is not Gentile. They are assaulting other Jews, it is a spiritual civil war against those who have accepted Jesus as Messiah.