An agnostic scientist once asked author Dorothy Sayers to write a letter to his scientific organization setting forth her reasons for believing in the Christian faith. The letter he received back was not at all what the scientist had expected. It read:

“Why do you want a letter from me? Why don’t you take the trouble to find out for yourselves what Christianity is? You take time to learn technical terms about electricity. Why don’t you do as much for theology? Why do you accept mildewed old heresies as the language of the church, when any handbook of church history will tell you where they came from? Why do you balk at the doctrine of the Trinity—God, the Three in One—yet meekly acquiesce when Einstein tells you that E=MC2? I admit you can practice Christianity without knowing much theology, just as you can drive a car without knowing much about internal combustion. But when something breaks down in the car, you humbly go to the man who understands the works; if something goes wrong with religion, you merely throw the works away and tell the theologian he is a liar. Why do you want a letter from me? You will never bother to check on it or find out whether I’m giving you personal opinions or Christian doctrines. Go away and do some work on your own and let me get on with mine.”

From God Still Speaks in the Space Age,

Acts 6:8–15

And Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen and of the Cyrenians, and of Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, arose and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. Then they secretly instigated men, who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.” And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

Peter was commissioned as the apostle to the circumcision or to the Jews. The testimony of Peter is coming to an end in the book of Acts, and the testimony of the apostle Paul to the Gentiles is beginning to open up. So we’re seeing the end of Peter and the beginning of Paul and the bridge in the middle is Stephen.

Peter ministered to Jerusalem Jews. Paul ministered to Gentiles. Stephen filled the bridge in the middle. He ministered to Jews, but they were Jews in Gentile places, or Grecian Jews, scattered Jews, Hellenist Jews, so he’s very much a bridge. Stephen is also a bridge between Peter and Paul because Peter’s ministry dominated Jerusalem. Paul’s ministry went to the world.

Stephen was the catalyst that sent the church from Jerusalem into the world and he did it very indirectly. He did it by being martyred, for when Stephen got killed persecution broke out and the result of persecution was the scattering of the church and the scattering of the church had as its result the evangelization of Judea and Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth, the Great Commission.

In consequence of the death of Stephen, the church was thrown out of Jerusalem, which is exactly what God wanted to happen anyway because Jerusalem was done at that point.

The people who had been favorable all of a sudden turned hostile and killed Stephen, which might indicate that God had accomplished His purpose for the moment. It seems that Stephen was used by God to get the church out of Jerusalem.

The spirituality of the man goes without saying at this point. It’s assumed by the fact that the church chose him and these men had to be of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit, and full of wisdom. And so we find that when the body went to look for seven men out of the thousands and thousands of Christians Stephen was one of them.

Full of faith, means to be filled up. filling in the spiritual realm, has to do with domination or control. When it says he was full of faith it means that, that which totally controlled him was faith.

If you study his sermon in Chapter 7 it tells you everything he believed in, basically. First of all he believed that God ruled history. The whole 7th Chapter is his great sermon on how God rules history.

Now he knew that the only person controlling his life was God. He absolutely believed it so he did whatever God told him to do and didn’t worry about dying.

But you see Stephen bet his eternal destiny on God and didn’t worry about it. He believed

These religious leaders couldn’t handle Stephen. They couldn’t resist him. One spirit-controlled mind was more than a match for the group of minds. They couldn’t handle him, so they hired false witnesses. That’s nothing new. They did the same at Jesus trial. What did they accuse Jesus of? Blasphemy the same thing all over again. They accused him of blasphemous words against Moses and God.

Stephen Died For Telling the Truth

They accuse Stephen of saying, “This Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, the temple in Jerusalem, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.” Did Jesus say that he would destroy the temple?

Does any of this matter? Should you care about why Stephen died?

Stephen died for the truth. In fact, he chose to go on speaking this truth when he knew that it would cost him his life. He chose to die rather than not speak about Jesus’ destruction of the temple and his changing the customs of Moses. And verse 10 says that Stephen spoke with wisdom and with the Spirit. So he was no fool to choose to die for this truth.

The Jewish leaders killed for this truth. They saw it as so threatening that it was better to kill a good man than to let this truth about the destruction of the temple be spread.

Did Jesus say that he was going to destroy the temple?

Matthew 26:61 and Mark 14:58 tell us that at Jesus’ trial false witnesses lied against him.

Matthew 27:40 and Mark 15:29 tell us that the crowds who passed by the cross “You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself!

If you are the Son of God, come down from this cross.”

Most importantly, John 2:19 tells us when Jesus actually spoke this. He had just driven the sellers out of the temple. And the Jews asked him, “What sign have you to show us for doing this?” And Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They replied, “It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” John comments, “But he spoke of the temple of his body” (John 2:21).

Jesus says, “You destroy the temple, and I will build it again in three days.” But since we know that destroying the temple referred to his death and we also know (from John 10:18) that he was laying down his own life voluntarily, it is very likely that he would also say, “I will destroy this temple, and in three days build it again”—which is what he was accused of saying.

What did Jesus Mean?

Did he simply mean that he would die and then rise again, that his body would be destroyed and then raised up in three days? If that’s all that he meant, then why did he refer to himself as the temple?

I think the answer is that both for those who had ears to hear, and for those who thought this through after his resurrection like Stephen did. Jesus meant: When I die, the temple dies. When I am destroyed, the temple is destroyed. This whole system, all these sacrifices, all this blood flowing to make atonement for sins, all this priestly activity surrounding the holy place where God’s presence dwells, it all ends when I die. You destroy me and in dying I destroy the temple.

Jesus Takes the Place of Everything in the Temple

This is why the curtain in the temple tore in two as Jesus died. It was a token of destruction. Jesus himself was taking the place of everything in the temple. Jesus became our one and only high priest who lives forever to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). So the temple priesthood was “destroyed.”

Jesus offered himself and his own blood once for all to make an eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12, 25–28; 10:10–12). So all the animal sacrifices of the temple are “destroyed.”

When Jesus made himself the mercy seat of the temple (Romans 3:25), and made his own blood the blood of the covenant (Mark 14:24), the glory of God—the old shekinah glory of the temple—came down and rested on him and raised him from the dead (Romans 6:4). Peter says, “God raised him from the dead and gave him glory” (1 Peter 1:21). He is, as James says (2:1), “the Lord of glory.” And so the temple is no longer the place where you go to see the glory of God. Jesus is place. Destroyed and in three days raised up—Jesus is where you go to see the glory of God.

The temple in Jerusalem is “destroyed.” We have a new temple, a new priest, a new sacrifice, a new access to glory and fellowship with God. So when John the apostle has a vision of heaven in Revelation 21:22–23, he says, “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

Jesus meant when he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” was that he was taking the place of the temple by dying for sin once for all, and by rising from the dead to reign as the everlasting priest and Lord of glory. When I die, the temple system dies. And when I rise, I am the temple. I am the sacrifice for sins. I am the priest and go-between with God.

Stephen Understood Exactly What Jesus Meant

Stephen meant what Jesus meant when he carried this teaching on into the early church.
verse 14 seems to imply that Stephen was saying that the destruction is still future, but Jesus had said the destruction would happen immediately and the rebuilding would take place in three days.

Jesus meant that the basis of the Old Testament sacrificial, priestly, worship system, which focused on the temple, was destroyed when he died, it was destroyed the way a shadow is destroyed when the reality lies down on it and takes its place. Jesus removed the whole basis of the temple system by laying himself down as the reality that all the shadows were representing. In that sense the destruction was complete in three days, and he rose as the new temple for all who trust him.

Stephen had to deal with the dismantling of the old temple system and it did not happen overnight. It was happening gradually. This might help understand Acts 6:7 where it says, “A great many priests were obedient to the faith.” It could mean that some of the priests came to believe that they were out of a job. A great many priests came to believe that Jesus is the one and only high priest now, and will never die, and all Christians are priests in his service.

So what Stephen meant when he said that Jesus “will destroy” the temple, is that, just as Jesus took away the basis of the old system, so now he will go on to dismantle its practices until it is no more. Stephen and Jesus are in perfect harmony on this great issue. Jesus has destroyed it and will destroy it until it is clear to all that he alone is the one and only sacrifice for sins, the one and only high priest to God, and the one and only habitation of the fullness of the glory of God.

Luke Knew Jesus Was Changing Things

In Acts 15:1 he reports the controversy over circumcision. Some were teaching, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses (same word as in 6:14), you cannot be saved.” But the decision of the apostles was that this custom belonged to the old system (Acts 15:10–11).

Acts 10 where Luke tells us about the vision Peter had just before he was called to go minister to Gentiles—whom he considered unclean according to the Mosaic food laws. The vision showed “unclean” animals and a voice said, “Kill and eat.” And Peter said, “No, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean” (Acts 10:14). But the voice came back, “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” Jesus had already shown in Mark 7:19, the customs about unclean foods were being changed.

The False Witnesses

What he meant was that the witnesses were putting a false turn to a true statement. It is true that Stephen was saying that Jesus would destroy the temple and change some of the customs of Moses. But it is not true that this was “against this holy place and the law,”

What the false witnesses did not grasp, and most of the religious leaders, was that the kind of destroying that Jesus was doing was a fulfilling of everything that God and Moses promised in the law, the forgiveness of sins, a personal priestly advocate with God, and the presence and accessibility of his glory. Stephen was not against Moses and God. He was not against the temple and t he customs. He was for their fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah.

If the Messiah is coming down from heaven, with forgiveness and advocacy and glory, and the light of God shining upon him, then the first thing that will be seen is his shadow on the earth. And so it was in the sacrifices and priestly service of the old temple. But as the reality gets closer the shadow becomes smaller, and when the reality lands on its shadow, it swallows it up entirely and it is no more. But that does not mean that the reality was against the shadow, or that it blasphemed the shadow. It fulfilled the shadow. And in that sense destroyed the shadow.

This is what Stephen died for.

Do we understand the truth of Jesus work on the Cross enough to die for it? Is it that important to us?
Pray that God will help us understand it as clearly as Stephen, and that we will proclaim it, regardless of the cost.