Acts 7:52
Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
Stephen charged Israel's rulers that as their fathers had persecuted and slain the prophets who foretold the coming of the Just One, so they themselves had betrayed and murdered Him, continuing the same rejection of God's messengers and of the fulfillment they announced. The Just One is Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Son of God, whose advent, rejection, suffering, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension the prophets had shown beforehand. These words were the Spirit-led climax and last testimony of Stephen's defense, spoken when he knew his voice would soon be silenced forever. In them he declared the rulers stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, always resisting the Holy Ghost as their fathers had done, so that possessing the law did not mean keeping it. Prophecy had marked out the manner of His coming in humility and poverty to be rejected, despised and slain, exactly as He came though contrary to expectation, so that all who wished to believe had sufficient ground for faith.
Stephen's Final Testimony
Acts 7:52 belongs to Stephen's defense, delivered as a student of the prophecies and the law who ably defended the truths he preached. It is God's rebuke spoken through Stephen to the Jewish rulers after they despised the evidence from God shining in his face as the face of an angel, showing the same hatred against Christ's followers that they had shown against the Son of God. In that rebuke they were charged as stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, always resisting the Holy Ghost exactly as their fathers did.
The verse marks an abrupt break from rehearsing Israel's history to accuse the judges in the council hall, forming the climax of the testimony. Tumult and resistance in their faces, and the priest tearing his robe after the teaching that Jesus Christ fulfills the prophecies and that God does not dwell in temples made with hands, signaled that Stephen would soon be silenced. Turning upon his infuriated judges in the midst of his sermon, he charged the present generation with doing as their fathers did.
It was given as a Spirit-led last testimony by the dictation of the Holy Ghost, spoken amid growing opposition when Stephen knew his death was near and his voice would soon be silenced forever. Its time and setting give the words their full force, as final testimony spoken as he saw the people resisting his message.
The verse places Stephen's death in the history of persecution against God's messengers, at whose stoning Saul stood by consenting without throwing the stones. Saul was a rabbi and statesman educated by Gamaliel and a member of the Sanhedrin, very zealous for the suppression of Christianity, and after Stephen's death he made havoc of the church until he was stopped on his way to Damascus. Not content to leave the people of God undisturbed, he went on persecuting Jesus' followers, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples and seeking letters to bind men and women of the Way.
Israel's Repeated Rejection
Israel's fathers persecuted the prophets and slew those who foretold beforehand the coming of the Just One, and the leaders standing before Stephen continued that same pattern by betraying and murdering Him. The charge turns abruptly from rehearsing Israel's history to accuse the judges themselves, making the betrayal and murder of Jesus the climax that applies the history to the present generation. In this way the rejection of Jesus is placed in a recurring history of resisting God's messengers, rejecting both the prophetic message and its fulfillment in the Just One, who is Jesus Christ.
The words mean the rulers were stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, always resisting the Holy Ghost exactly as their fathers did. Their fathers had shown that resistance by persecuting the prophets and slaying those who foretold the coming of Jesus Christ the Just One, and they themselves had shown it by betraying and murdering Him after despising the evidence from God shining in Stephen's face and showing the same hatred against Christ's followers that had been shown against the Son of God. Their claim to possess the law did not mean they kept it, but was joined to the same failure to keep the law and the same pattern of rejecting God's messengers.
The people Stephen confronted were guilty of a greater sin and culmination, for they betrayed and murdered the very One those persecuted and slain prophets had announced, whose coming includes His advent, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. Their profession of zeal for God and their honoring of the temple did not make their rejection service to God, but exposed the contrast between outward honor and inward resistance to God's Spirit. It revealed the same rebellious spirit that opposes God's will while resisting God's Spirit.
The stoning and beating and slaying of God's chosen centuries ago was the working of a persecuting principle and spirit that remains the same even when the outward character of persecution changes with the times. God's servants have always suffered reproach under that spirit, yet God's great work still moves forward amid persecution, imprisonments, stripes and death.
Christ the Promised Just One
The Just One is Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Son of God, the promised one whose coming the prophets announced beforehand. Those prophets who foretold His coming were persecuted and slain, and those who heard Stephen had betrayed and murdered the very one thus announced, rejecting both the prophetic message and its fulfillment.
His foretold coming embraces His advent and rejection, His suffering and crucifixion, and His resurrection and ascension. Prophecy not only predicted that He would come but described the manner of His coming, and Christ came exactly as prophecy marked out, even though He did not come as expected. That prophecy foretold a Saviour coming in humility and poverty to be rejected, despised, and slain, contrary to Jewish expectation, so that those who wished to believe had sufficient grounds for faith by referring to it. His coming called the attention of all men to His Father, taught repentance toward God, and reconciled man to God.
Christ Himself spoke through the prophets and patriarchs from the days of Adam onward, so the Scriptures revealed the Messiah's identity and mission. He is the key unlocking the Old Testament and giving access to its rich treasures. Without Him the Passover cannot be explained, the brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness cannot be understood as a symbol of Jesus lifted up on the cross, and all religious services and ceremonies are valueless if the Saviour they represent is rejected.
The charge is part of Stephen's vindication from prophecy, proving from Moses and the prophets with inspired proof that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God. Stephen presented those prophetic evidences in the synagogue and died to vindicate that cause. Paul, who had earnestly disputed against Stephen in that same synagogue, after his own wonderful experience fearlessly proclaimed the same cause there, repeating Stephen's prophetic evidences with yearning for his brethren and former associates. Though the leaders had called Stephen's words blasphemy, Saul later recognized that Stephen's accusation was true and that Jesus was the promised Messiah.