Stephen’s Final Indictment

First-century Jewish leaders were not completely ignorant of the facts of biblical history. They knew that Abraham was a great hero of the faith, for instance, and so they insisted that they followed in his footsteps (John 8:39). Moreover, they knew the history of opposition to the prophets from the people of God, and they had vowed not to likewise reject the Lord’s messengers. They even went so far as to say that if they had lived during the era of the old covenant prophets, they would have followed them faithfully and not taken part in killing them (Matt. 23:29–30).

Yet what the Jewish leaders thought they were doing was far different from what they actually did. That was the real point of Stephen’s speech to the Sanhedrin. His long rehearsal of the history of Israel and its opposition to God and His prophets (Acts 7:1–50) did not serve to tell the Jewish leaders things that they didn’t know. Instead, Stephen’s aim was ultimately to identify the Jewish leaders not with their faithful forefathers but with those who disbelieved God and His prophets. We see this clearly in today’s passage, wherein Stephen notes that the Jewish leaders continually resisted and persecuted the prophets. They even went a step further in killing the “Righteous One”—Jesus Christ—whom the prophets foresaw. In so doing, they did not keep the law that they professed to follow. They violated it in spirit and in letter even while thinking themselves more faithful than others (vv. 51–53).

The parallels between those who opposed God in the long history of old covenant Israel and the Sanhedrin are plain. In earlier generations, the Judahites refused to believe that God could destroy the temple and Jerusalem; thought that their possession of those things secured God’s favor; and persecuted Jeremiah, who taught them otherwise (Jer. 7:1–4; 38). Similarly, the Sanhedrin persecuted Jesus and Stephen for talking about the fall of the temple (Acts 6:8–15). Earlier generations rejected Moses, even though God sent him to deliver Israel from Egypt, and they broke the law of Moses with their idolatry (7:17–43). Similarly, the Sanhedrin rejected Moses’ law and Moses’ teaching of Jesus, the coming Prophet whom God sent to save sinners, evidenced by their killing our Lord (vv. 50–53). In sum, although they thought themselves most faithful to the Lord, the members of the Sanhedrin opposed God and His ways. Stephen was not guilty of blasphemy; they were.