Daily Thoughts from Acts: I See the Heavens Opened (Acts 7:54-60)

Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed 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, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.  (Acts 7:54-60 ESV)

The anger and emotion of this moment must have been overwhelming and terrifying, but Stephen is captured by a vision so compelling that he cannot help but speak of it.  He sees Jesus standing, not sitting, at God’s right hand.  Jesus is up on his feet ready to receive his servant.  And even as he is dying Stephen’s expectation is that his spirit will go to be with Jesus as soon as his body ceases to live.  As Jesus did on the cross, Stephen asks for forgiveness for the perpetrators of the crime.

The Sanhedrin, supposed to be a sober court of judgment, let’s self-righteous rage take control, throwing decorum and justice out the window.  Though they are not empowered to impose the death penalty, they know that mob violence will accomplish what they have wished they could do all along…destroy this Jesus movement.

The persecution that began as an arrest and warning, then a beating, has now come to martyrdom.  And Saul, an avid Pharisee and despiser of Christians, will be launched into seeking out and purging as many Christians as he can.  By watching everyone’s garments he is stepping into his calling as a destroyer of the Way.  He undoubtedly was present in the courtroom, listening to Stephen, someone from his own synagogue who has been infected, as he sees it, with this unorthodox faith.

Why does Jesus give Stephen this vision of himself at God’s right hand?  It is a testimony of his love for his servants and of his desire to give them what they need in the moment, especially what they need to face death as his followers.  Precious in his sight is the death of his saints (Psalm 116:15).  It is obvious that no one else can see what Stephen sees.  The Lord does not choose to give anyone else the vision.  It is for Stephen alone.

Couldn’t the Lord Jesus have saved Stephen’s life by letting everyone else see him standing in heaven at the Father’s right hand?  Of course.  But there is a degree of proof that the Lord will not give to those whose resistance to truth is so absolute.  Though the religious leaders had seen Jesus perform miracle after miracle, they asked Jesus for a miracle and were told that only the sign of Jonah would be given them, that is, his resurrection from the grave after three days.  And that miracle they also denied.  They made the guards lie about Jesus’ disciples stealing his body.  When we reject the truth God offers us He begins to hide Himself as judgment on our hardness of hearts.  We don’t want to believe.

God could overwhelm us with divine manifestations that demand faith, but that would compromise the voluntary nature of our belief, and He won’t do that.  That would be equivalent to making someone agree to your agenda without changing the way they feel about it in their heart.  Like the child made to sit at the dinner table, they could say, “I may be sitting on the outside but I’m standing on the inside.”  That is not the kind of relationship God is looking for, nor the kind anyone wants with Him.

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.” ― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life