In glory He stands

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.

Acts 7:55

Stephen began his sermon before the Sanhedrin with the account of how God began His covenant with His people in the call of Abraham. “The God of glory appeared to our Father Abraham” (Acts 7:2). And as Stephen ended his message and an enraged mob swallowed him up, carried him outside Jerusalem, and stoned him to death as the first Christian martyr, Stephen, like Abraham encountered the glory of God as Jesus stood in vindication of him.

Stephen’s short sermon is filled with the glory of God as he recounts Israel’s history of rejection of the God of glory. There is glory at Abraham’s call. There is the glory of God at the burning bush in the call of Moses. There was the glory of God at Sinai in the giving of the Law. God’s glory was known first in a tent in the wilderness where Israel worshiped, later in a temple that Solomon built. 

Yet in every instance, the people of Israel resisted God’s glory. They rejected patriarchal salvation in Joseph. They rejected a deliverer in Moses. They rejected God’s Law to worship a golden calf. They rejected the prophets, killed them, and worshiped the Baals. And finally, they rejected Jesus when God sent His Son to them.

It was this litany of rejection that was the theme of Stephen’s sermon and the crowd was enraged to the point where they rejected God again. And His glory shows up. They again turned against the glory of God. The fact that Jesus stood at God’s right hand to defend and receive Stephen shows that this was no petty religious disagreement. Once again, in a historically significant event, Israel was turning against the God Who had promised them Himself as their possession.

O God of glory,

I call on You now. Be the glory I may see! Jesus, be all I want and worship. I receive Your salvation. I believe Your Word. I know that You stand for me. May I never wander into rejection of You, my glorious God!

Amen