The Martyrdom of Stephen
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THE BEGINNING OF MARTYRDOM
When you examine the history of the Christian church, there are many reasons why believers have been persecuted and even martyred for their faith. For instance, during periods of Roman persecution, it was commonplace for believers to be murdered for refusing to acknowledge Caesar as Lord. The Romans did not care in the slightest if people wanted to worship a messianic upstart that they, in turn, crucified. They only took issue when Caesar was not a part of your pantheon. You could worship any number of ridiculous gods so long as you acknowledged the lordship of Caesar. And since Christians only have one Lord, they were killed in droves and significantly persecuted.
Now, as we have noted in previous articles, the most violent period of Christian persecution, when you look at it by the percentage of Christians murdered for their faith, overwhelmingly occurred in the first century at the hands of the bloodthirsty Jews. Long before Christianity reached a million people, or 2.4 billion for that matter, and long before it had spread throughout the Roman world, which occurred around the 3rd century AD, this messianic offshoot of Biblical, Old Covenant, Judaism called "the way" (Acts 9:2) began in Judea, and was heavily persecuted in Jerusalem, which is precisely what Jesus promised would happen (Matthew 24:9). That persecution began almost immediately and increased in intensity quite rapidly.
For instance, in Acts 2, the crowds mocked the disciples for speaking in various tongues at Pentecost. In Acts 4, the persecutions intensified, leading to their arrest and warning to never teach in the name of Jesus again. When they failed to heed the warning, they were arrested a second time in Acts 5, this time without warning or offer of release. It was at this point that an angel broke them out of prison, and they went back to the Temple Mount teaching, which led to a third arrest and their first series of violent beatings. By the time you get to Acts 6, one of the early deacons, a man named Stephen, is not only arrested for his faith in Jesus and not only beaten, but he becomes the first Christian to undergo the brutality of martyrdom. After Stephen was stoned, thousands upon thousands of Christians would be butchered in the first century by the Jews in various and sundry ways.
EVERYBODY NEEDS A RECAP
Now, if you have been tracking along with this series on the eschatology of Acts, you will remember where we have been. In week 1, I identified the need for an eschatological series in the Book of Acts. In week 2, we saw how Jesus' end-time Kingdom was inaugurated in heaven at His ascension. In week 3, we watched as significant eschatological passages from the Old Testament were fulfilled at Pentecost, bringing that heavenly Kingdom down to earth so that it exists in both places. Then, in weeks 4, 5, 6, and 7, we examined Peter's first eschatological sermon given in Jerusalem, which not only foreshadowed the awful doom of all those who reject Christ but also set forth the glorious Kingdom that would be inherited by all who love Christ. In week 8, we examined Peter's second eschatological sermon, which teaches how expansive Jesus' eschatological Kingdom will be on earth for the elect of God. And then last week, we witnessed how the Jews, unwittingly following the prophecy of Gamaliel, were found to be fighting against God and rejecting His Kingdom by rejecting and persecuting His Church. And, just like the messianic upstarts mentioned in Acts 5 (Theudas and Judas), the Jews would soon likewise perish at the hands of invading armies.
ACTS AND THE NEW EXODUS
In a sense, our time in the Book of Acts has been telling us the story of a brand new Exodus. A true and better deliverer than Moses has risen up in Christ, calling all of His people to leave their slavery to sin, be removed from the tyranny of the serpent king, and follow Him to a paradise land where they will be under the canopy of His covenant blessings forever. Like Israel, the early church was experiencing great fruitfulness and multiplication (Exodus 1:7; Acts 6:7). Like Israel, the people of the land were becoming jealous of them and were attempting to stomp them out (Deuteronomy 32:21; Acts 5:17). Like Israel, the early church was being led by the hovering fire and wind cloud of God's presence. And, in the same way, this growing expansive wandering people became too much for one man, Moses, to administrate faithfully (Exodus 18:17-21), so too, the early church took the advice of Jethro and divvied out the responsibilities to faithful men in the community so that the apostles could focus on the intercessory ministry of the Word and prayer (Acts 6:1-3). Some of these men were set apart as elders in the community (see Numbers 11:16 and Acts 14:23), while others were set apart, like the Levites, as deacons (Acts 6:5-6). Regardless of their position, everyone would come together to joyfully serve the living Christ (the cornerstone of the church) in seeing the Kingdom built up as the true end-time temple (1 Corinthians 3:16), built with living stones (1 Peter 2:5) that would fill the whole earth with God's glory.
These events are clear allusions to the original Exodus and help us understand why God is going to destroy the first-century Jews. Instead of being the chosen people of God, who with tender hearts followed His chosen deliverer, they grumbled like their ancestors before; they turned on God's deliverer and not only threatened to kill Him like Moses but shamefully succeeded. For their covenant crimes, killing God's one and only Son (Acts 2:36), God would do to them what He did to the original wilderness generation, allowing their dead bodies to litter the wilderness ground after a period of forty years (Numbers 14:33; Matthew 24:28, 34).
Amid that Exodus context, God began to raise up faithful men out of that crooked and perverse generation (Deuteronomy 32:5; Acts 2:40). As in the original Exodus, where Caleb and Joshua were set apart for their faithfulness and were allowed to enter the Lord's good land (Numbers 32:12), seven men were appointed to the office of deacon because of their faithfulness to God. And like Caleb and Joshua, they would not die in the Old Covenant sands with the rest of the rebels; they would lead God's people like Joshua into the New Covenant paradise that we call the Kingdom of God (or the age of the church).
One of them named Stephen, after they laid hands on him and installed him to the office of deacon, was said to be like Joshua, full of faith and serving God in the power of the Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy 34:9). According to the text, he was doing signs, wonders, and miracles just as Moses did of old (Deuteronomy 34:10; Acts 6:8). When the people of Judah turned on him and threatened to kill him, he broke out in one of the great sermons of the New Testament, mirroring the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. In that sermon, he walked the crowds through the noteworthy events of the Exodus and showcased how they had the same heart as the stiff-necked people of old (Acts 7). Just before his Spirit-wrought message, the people noted that his face was shining like the face of an angel, which is the same phenomenon that happened to Moses (Exodus 34:29-35; Acts 6:15).
In almost every paragraph of the book of Acts, Exodus themes are present. And this, of course, is not by accident. God is alerting us that the same kind of people who rejected Him before will reject Him again. They will be given a window of forty years to repent. And because of their unfaithfulness, they will likewise perish.
BACK TO THE STREETS OF JERUSALEM
As Stephen stood before the angry crowd, whipped into a kind of frenzy that is standard these days in our "mostly peaceful protests," Stephen opened his mouth and beautifully articulated the history of Old Covenant Israel. He went through most of their early existence, explicitly focusing on the call of Abraham, the deliverance from Egypt, and the wilderness generation led by Moses to the edge of the promised land. Upon hearing this familiar tale, one can assume there may have been a few hearty "amens" and even a couple silent head nods. The men of Israel were well accustomed to hearing their ancient story, and Stephen was certainly telling it well. There may have even been a few in the crowd wondering what all the controversy was about. If the crowd was a little fired up, Stephen was about to let loose the gas.
That flamethrower came near the end of his message when He jarringly compared his interlocutors with the wicked and adulterous generation who died in the days of old. Things got especially hot when he told them that they were guilty of killing the Prophet Moses, who said he was coming (Deuteronomy 18:18), who is also known by Isaiah as Righteous One in chapter 53. Stephen told them:
"You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. 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; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it." - Acts 7:51-53
Here, Stephen keeps the Exodus flames rolling, first calling his contemporaries a generation of stiff-necked people, then proclaiming they were uncircumcised of heart, which chides them for discarding the dead foreskin of their body but not putting away the rotting flesh of their souls. These are particularly fiery names to call them since it was Moses who first nick-named that generation by these words in the wilderness generation 1500 years prior (Deuteronomy 10:16). By all accounts, it seems like the Jews were picking up what he was throwing down, which is why the text tells us they gnashed their teeth at him like the tormented and mangled souls in hell do toward the God they have eternally despised.
MEANWHILE… BACK UP IN THE HEAVENS
Meanwhile, back up in the heavens, while the rabid crowds salivated for Stephen's blood on earth, the lowly deacon looked up into the sky and beheld the risen Christ! Instead of seeing Jesus seated on His throne, at the right hand of God, He saw the King of kings and the Lord of glory standing at the alert.
This is the remarkable account that Luke tells us:
But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." - Luke 7:55-56
THE STANDING OF CHRIST
Not only does Acts 1-7 contain vivid and explicit references to the Exodus (as shown above), but it is also littered with clear and unmistakable references to eschatology. This is especially clear in the stoning of Stephen, where several eschatological themes come together. For instance, there are only three times in the Bible where Jesus stands in heaven, and every one of them is an eschatological event.
The first occurs in Daniel 7 when the heavens are opened up. Daniel sees in the night visions, one like the Son of Man who rides upon the clouds and comes up from the earth up to the Ancient of Days who dwells in heaven (Daniel 7:13a). Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 24:30 and Caiphas at His trial that they would witness this very event in their lifetime (Matthew 26:64). Then, a mere forty days after Jesus' resurrection, He ascended into heaven on a cloud (just like He and Daniel said He would), leaving His disciples standing, gazing at the clouds, watching with astonishment, and paralyzingly fixated on what was happening before their very eyes (Acts 1:11).
Other than the two angels who came to earth that morning to rebuke the disciples for just standing there and cloud-watching, the rest of the angels in heaven and His Father (The Ancient of Days), received Him joyfully home to heaven, where He was presented before the hosts for His heavenly coronation and enthronement ceremony (Daniel 7:13b). Before He sat down to rule, He was given all authority by His Father and all dominion over every square inch of the cosmos (Daniel 7:14). When all of heaven rejoiced in the standing Lord, He then sat down to begin His never-ending rule. This is how Daniel 7 describes it:
"I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. "And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His Kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed. - Daniel 7:13-14
This occasion of Jesus' standing is fulfilled in His ascension into heaven.
The second occasion of Jesus standing occurs in Revelation, giving us the most spectacular view of this same heavenly setting, using the most grand and visionary language to paint the scene. In chapter 5, John tells us that a scroll was presented in heaven and that no one could open it because it was sealed with many seals. John the Revelator wept at this news, thinking that no one would be found worthy to open it. Yet, since there is only one scroll God commanded to be sealed up (which was the messianic prophecies of Daniel (Daniel 9:24; 12:4, 9) and since those scrolls were to be opened by the messiah in His messianic age, it should not be surprising that the messiah shows up in heaven, standing in Revelation 5, being the one who is found supremely worthy and ready to open the seals of the scroll. In Revelation, however, He does not appear as a "Son of Man," but as a Lamb who has been slain. For instance, John says this :
Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it, and one of the elders *said to me, "Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals." And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they *sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. - Revelation 5:4-9
With slightly different language, John and Daniel describe the same event. The Son of Man in Daniel 7 is the slain Lamb of Revelation 5. His presentation in front of the hosts of heaven in Daniel 7 is His approach to the throne of God in Revelation 5. And while Daniel foresaw this messianic figure being cut off from the land of the living (Daniel 9:26), John added necessary detail to the prophecy, showing that it was none other than Jesus Christ, the righteous one who was slain by crucifixion, who would be the one to appear victoriously in heaven. And while Daniel authored the confusing scroll that God commanded to be sealed unto the end, it was the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the victorious Lamb who was slain, who would be found worthy to open it. This opening in Revelation 5 corresponds to the same event Daniel describes, where the Son of Man is presented before the Ancient of Days and given an eternal Kingdom to reign over. This is precisely what happens when the Lamb approaches the throne, grabs the scroll, and opens it. Notice what John says:
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." - Revelation 5:11-13
Thus, in the first two instances of Jesus standing in heaven, we have seen that they both refer to the same event, and both heavily depend upon Daniel 7 for their interpretation. When Jesus ascends as Son of Man, He appears as the risen victorious Lamb, standing in the throne room of heaven as the author of our salvation, ready to receive the dominion, authority, and Kingdom that His obedience has earned Him.
Thus, when Stephen looks up into heaven and sees Jesus standing, we should not conclude that Jesus is taking a well-deserved stretch break. No! Furthermore, and more seriously, we should not conclude that He has been sitting down to rule, but now that they are killing Stephen and things might be getting a little too far out of hand, He stands up in order to take a more active approach. No. No. No. Nor should we conclude that Jesus was somehow ready to return to earth, standing up for the final time before His rapture, only for Him to go back and sit down again for some reason. Hell no.
CONCLUSION
Jesus was standing in heaven because when He arrived it broke out in celebration to greet Him. Then, He was presented to the ancient of days for His coronation. Then, as the Lamb who was slain, He was given the scroll of Daniel to open from the right hand of God, guaranteeing His ownership and victory. And before He sat down to reign with all authority, power, and dominion, He allowed Himself to be seen by Stephen, standing in all His authority and power, the newly inaugurated King of glory, who will watch as Stephen dies and then sit down on His throne to reign in a Kingdom that will put all violence, sin, and misery eventually to death.
That day, when Stephen saw the risen, standing Christ, He was given a hopeful glimpse that would sustain him through every blow of stones striking against his body. In that moment, He saw a demonstration that the Lord reigns. And that gave our brother courage to take every strike all the way to the bitter end.
We know from Acts that He has come into His Kingdom. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. And while this martyrdom of Stephen in Jerusalem kickstarted one of the worst periods of persecution and martyrdom the church has ever seen, the standing Christ reminds us that evil did not win, Christ's Church was not be defeated, and that we must march on in our battles today, knowing that we are gaining ground. Glory hallelujah!
