5. Third opposition (6:8-8:4)

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. The Sadducean aristocracy had opposed the Christian community because its witness to the Resurrection implied that God had overthrown their actions, and the popular response threatened their control of the status quo. Now the synagogue, the focus of the Pharisees' power and authority, becomes the source of opposition (6:8-15). Also, rather than individual incidents of opposition, the opposition becomes a programmatic attempt, under Saul, to eradicate the Christian community.

Aside from Stephen’s irrefutable witness in ministry and his unassailable integrity in debate (6:8-10), which parallels that of the apostles, a new element emerges here. The issue now is the relationship of the Christian experience to the law and OT cultus: Moses and God/the holy place and the law (vv.10-14). If the Christian proclamation is true, if God is acting in a new way to create a new covenant community, what are the implications for the faithful observance of the Law of Moses and the sacrificial system of the temple? Some Jews began to realize that the Christian claim to be the fulfillment of the promises of the old covenant might undermine the whole structure of the old covenant community as they knew it.

Stephen’s defense (7:1-53) takes three lines. First, with respect to the significance of the temple, Stephen illustrates from the Jewish scriptures that the God of the old covenant is not confined to any one special place but is a God who dwells in the midst of the covenant people. Second, the old covenant people have a long history of refusing to heed God’s agents and of slaying them. Third, the old covenant people also have a long history of rebellion against the Law of Moses. His conclusions are that God does not dwell in the temple of Jerusalem (vv.47-50) and that the Jews are resistant to God, both refusing to listen to God and to consecrate themselves to obedience (v.51). Moreover, the Jews are closed to the indwelling presence of God in the Holy Spirit, all of which can be seen clearly in their rejection and murder of God’s Righteous One (v.52).

If Stephen’s “defense” does nothing to endear him to his opponents, the witness of his presence does even less. His radiant appearance (6:15) and this claim to a vision of God and Jesus (7:55-56) leave them no choice. A witness whose testimony can be either refuted or rejected can be treated with contempt and thus discredited. But a witness whose very being and life manifest the incarnation of his testimony must be eradicated (vv.57-58). Even in death, however, the power and reality of Stephen’s relationship with God is proclaimed as he prays for his executioners (vv.59-60). What an insurmountable dilemma for religious authorities who attempt to deal with God’s breakout from their systems and structures. Threats do not work; punishment fails; trials boomerang, and the accusers become the accused; and even execution provides another manifestation of the unavoidable reality of God’s escape.

Such an agonizing dilemma must have tortured Saul, the prosecutor at whose feet the executioners laid their garments as required by the law. Obsessed with his zeal for the law (22:3; 26:9-11; Gal 1:13-14; Php 3:6), Saul becomes the leader of a general program to eradicate the Christian community (8:1-3), seeking out the community as it gathers as a house of teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer.

The very persecution that sought to eradicate the Christian movement, however, becomes the impetus for its expanded witness and outreach far beyond Jerusalem and even Judaism (8:4). It was as if Saul tried to extinguish a fire by stomping on it, only to scatter the flaming embers far and wide. Up to this point, the Christian movement had been confined within Judaism, particularly the racially “pure” Jews of Jerusalem and its environs. Even the Christian Jews had difficulties when Hellenistic Jews whose cultic purity was questionable joined the community. As a result of Saul’s persecution, however, the Christian outreach now begins to move toward the outer fringes of Judaism.