Acts 7:59, commentary and pictures

As he is cast outside the city and crushed by stones, Stephen calls upon God in prayer to Jesus, entrusting his spirit and soul to Him to receive. Just before, heaven is opened to him and he sees the glory of God with Jesus standing at the right hand of God as if risen to sustain His servant in martyrdom. Amid the agonies he kneels and prays even for those killing him that the sin not be laid to their charge, and then dies as one falling asleep with his face calm and shining. Jesus alone can keep and care for the soul, which is too precious to entrust to angels or any other power, and is to be committed to Him in faith every day. His steadfast faith, prayer, and glorified face leave a lasting witness that remains in Saul's mind, shakes prejudice, and helps prepare and lead to his conversion.

Setting of the Stoning

Stephen is cast out of the city and stoned, while priests, rulers and mob stop their ears, cry out loudly, rush upon him with one accord gnashing their teeth like wild beasts, and the accusing witnesses cast the first stones after laying their clothes at the feet of Saul. While being killed his face stays calm and shines with angelic light, he shows no fear, the earthly scene fades from him, and he expects this death. Just before, heaven is opened to him and he sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, as if just risen from His throne and ready to sustain His servant about to suffer martyrdom for His name. Christ appears to him in heaven standing ready to sustain him as he faces death for Christ and for his faith. His vision of God's glory and testimony that he sees the Son of man standing at God's right hand is rejected by the crowd, who will not endure his description and turn to stone him rather than turning from his witness to Christ.

Amid the agonies of the cruel death he calls upon God in prayer to Jesus, commending his spirit to Him even as his divine Master prayed for those killing Him. His murderers mock his words as they kill him. Immediately after commending his spirit he kneels and prays aloud for those killing him, asking that the sin not be laid to their charge, and then he dies, described as falling asleep. His killing is unlawful, with no legal sentence passed, because Roman authorities are bribed with large sums to make no investigation of the case. They make no special effort to stop the stoning and the cruel work that follows, but secretly aid it in order to conciliate the Jews and secure their favor.

He is the first Christian martyr, stoned to death after his opponents fail to overcome his arguments and choose to silence his witness by killing him. He is condemned to stoning by the Jewish Sanhedrin. He is stoned at a definite spot in Jerusalem where his blood is shed. The time and setting of his address before the people who condemn him matter for its full significance.

Saul is present at the trial and death, a young man who has disputed with Stephen, consents to his death, and keeps and guards the garments of those who stone him. At that time Saul is educated by Gamaliel, a rabbi and statesman and member of the Sanhedrin, and is very zealous for the suppression of Christianity.

Prayer Commending His Spirit

While being stoned he calls upon God, entrusting his spirit and soul to the Lord Jesus and asking Jesus to receive him. As he yields up his life amid the stoning he commits himself to Jesus in prayer.

Jesus alone is able to keep and care for the soul, which is too precious to entrust to anyone else, not to angels or any other power. Believers are therefore to commit their souls to Him in faith and trust every day.

He offers this prayer on his knees while being stoned, calling upon God for the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. His kneeling is an example proving that kneeling is the proper position always when offering prayer to God, in both public and private worship. This act of bowing down shows dependence upon God.

Faithfulness in Martyrdom Death

Stephen remained faithful through death, steadfast in divine power and sustained by a power higher than any earthly power. His steadfastness witnesses to God's faithfulness, abiding presence, and sustaining grace in trial. The sign of God's favor on his face and the glory and light of heaven resting on him remained in the minds of all who witnessed it. His face was radiant with heaven's glory as he was killed, and his prayer, his soul-piercing words, and the signet of God upon him made a deep impression that stayed in memory as testimony to the truth he proclaimed.

His death was triumphant, in faith, constancy, and glorification. He won the first martyr's crown in the kingdom of glory amid the persecution and killing faced by those who believed Jesus was the Anointed One. His enemies could kill his body, but they could not take away his hope or eternal life. He was stoned because he faithfully preached Christ and Him crucified. He testified in the Spirit's power that Jesus is the Son of God, but his hearers rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit through him and continued in rebellion against God.

The priests and elders could not answer his words of truth, so they silenced his witness with stones rather than arguments from Scripture. His death sealed that testimony. He vindicated from prophecy that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God and the promised Messiah foretold in rejection, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. His testimony that the priests had condemned as blasphemy was truth and verity, confirmed by his sight of the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.

Witness to Saul and Others

Stephen's faith and constancy to the end, his prayer as he was stoned, his piercing words, and the glory resting on his face left a deep and lasting impression on all who watched and remained in their memory as testimony to the truth he had proclaimed. His dying testimony bore on priests and rulers as well, for they recognized that their treatment of him had damaged their cause in the eyes of the people. For a time on that account they refrained from arresting the apostles.

That witness stirred doubt in Saul about the rightness of opposing the followers of Jesus, shook his prejudice, and stayed in his mind to help prepare him to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. The faith and steadfastness seen in the martyrdom, with the sign of God's favor on Stephen's face, helped bring Saul the persecutor to Jesus and to conversion. What looked like a triumph for evil God overruled to advance the gospel.

At first Saul was persuaded by the priests and rulers to regard Stephen as a blasphemer and Jesus whom Stephen preached as an impostor. As a man of decided mind and strong purpose he then became bitter in opposition to Christianity and voluntarily engaged in its persecution. That persecution was fierce and cruel, seizing believers even in their houses, dragging holy men before councils, and handing them over for imprisonment and death for no offense except faith in Jesus. The killing itself was without legal sentence, because the Roman authorities were bribed to make no investigation of the case and made no special effort to stop the work, secretly aiding it to conciliate the Jews and secure their favor.

Afterward Saul remembered his part with horror, anguish, shame, and remorse, recognizing his guilt in allowing the persecution, consenting to and approving the martyrdom, and persecuting followers of Christ who were sustained by a power higher than any earthly power. Light clear but terrible broke upon his soul when Christ was revealed to him as come to earth, rejected, abused, condemned and crucified by those He came to save, then risen and ascended, and he recalled how through his instrumentality Stephen had been sacrificed and many worthy saints had met death. He remembered in particular the radiant face and heavenly glory amid the killing, that he had let malice and prejudice control him, and that he had guarded the executioners' garments.

Feeling accountable for Stephen's blood as a fearful stain resting upon him, Paul sought to vindicate the truth for which Stephen died by proclaiming to his Jewish brethren that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God, vindicated from prophecy. He was deeply anxious to wipe out the stain by remaining in Jerusalem to labor longer for them, boldly upholding the same truth that had cost Stephen his life, willing even to yield his own life rather than flee what looked to him like cowardice. The light on Stephen's face and his dying prayer of divine compassion had brought sharp conviction to the watching members of the Sanhedrin, including Saul, who later became a chosen messenger of Christ to Gentiles, kings, and Israel. Jesus chose Saul to preach and strengthen the church, more than filling the place Stephen had held.

The scene rose vividly before Paul in later years when he stood at the definite spot in Jerusalem where Stephen's blood was shed, bringing anxiety and remorse as it recalled his former life and bitter prejudice, filling him with sadness and with the question whether he was going forward to a similar fate. It came to mind again with special vividness when he himself was stoned at Lystra for his witness to Christ. There, bruised, battered, fainting, feeling his end had come, falling apparently dead and dragged insensible outside the city, the martyrdom of Stephen in which he had acted so cruel a part was brought vividly to his mind.

Gospel History and Mission

Stephen's stoning in A.D. 34 marks the Jewish nation's final rejection of the gospel and closes the prophetic seven-year period especially devoted to preaching to them. After Christ's crucifixion the gospel was carried to the nation in the Holy Spirit's power as a renewed call to repentance, salvation, and pardon for rejecting the Lord of glory, even for those who had taunted Him on the cross and abused Him in the judgment hall. That offer was the renewed invitation to come to the marriage supper because all things were ready, and it showed that even Christ's murderers could have been forgiven had they repented as Saul afterward did when Christ arrested him. Instead, enraged hearers scornfully and exasperatedly rejected that mercy, turning upon the bearers of the message with persecution, imprisonment, and murder, with Stephen put to death and other Christians suffering and being killed for their faith.

The persecution following his death drove and scattered Christ's followers from Jerusalem, and wherever they went they preached Christ, many believed and turned to the Lord, and the message of salvation went beyond the chosen people to the wider world and to new places. His death, together with the later death of James and the violence inflicted upon the witnesses God sent to call the people to repent, sealed the rejection of mercy and brought the foretold judgment in the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the nation. He fell at his work as one of the noble builders of Christ's church, a skillful architect building on the true foundation Christ Jesus while tearing down strongholds of bigotry, prejudice, and violence built on a false foundation. His death did not stop the building, for stone after stone was still added, the church increased amid terrible persecution, new workers on the wall took the place of the fallen, and what appeared a triumph for evil God used to advance the gospel.

He was stoned for preaching Christ and Him crucified in the face of opposition to the work of building God's church, while calling upon the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. His martyrdom proves that followers of Christ will often be sorely tried and afflicted, that entrance into the kingdom of God is through much tribulation, and that God leads His children through such trial to perfect trust, giving peace in Christ amid tribulation in the world.

Example for Later Believers

Entrusting the spirit to Jesus at death is an act of faith, for as he is stoned he calls on the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. That same trust is echoed when John Huss faces martyrdom, commending his spirit to Jesus because Jesus has redeemed him. His death by stoning at the hands of a Jewish mob became the pattern for murder intended years later, when the mob seized Paul in the Jerusalem temple and dragged him from the sacred enclosure into the court of the Gentiles to stone him to death. Those who stoned Stephen flung off their garments in excitement, and the mob against Paul repeated the action when they cried that he was not fit to live and threw dust into the air.

He was stoned because he would preach Christ and Him crucified, showing that those who connect closely with God may be sorely tried and afflicted rather than prosperous in the things of this life. His steadfastness in the might of divine power witnesses to the world of the faithfulness of God's promises and of His abiding presence and sustaining grace. Though the world cannot discern his moral value with God, he calmly reposes in God in the darkest hour, feeling that his Father is at the helm, and by the eye of faith looks beyond the things of time and sense to estimate the worth of eternal riches. Though unknown and unacknowledged by the world, he is enrolled as a citizen in the record books of heaven, with promise of an inheritance of greater value than any earthly riches, an inheritance that will satisfy the longings of the soul. An exalted greatness, an enduring eternal weight of glory, will be his final reward as one whom God has made heir of all things.

He is stoned to death at the instigation of the Sanhedrin while praying with divine compassion as he dies. The light of heaven on his face together with his dying prayer brings sharp conviction to the members of the Sanhedrin who watch. Among them is Saul, who later becomes a chosen messenger of Christ to Gentiles, kings, and Israel.