Acts 7 is Stephen’s personal defense before the Jewish council (Sanhedrin). The end of Chapter 6 told us that he was being (falsely) accused of speaking against Moses, the Law, and by connection against God Himself. But in his defense, Stephen demonstrates from the Old Testament Scriptures that the Israelites had always rebelled against God, His law, and His anointed ones, including Moses and the prophets. And the current generation of Israel, embodied in the Sanhedrin, followed in that rebellion by rejecting Jesus – THE Anointed One or Messiah – who was the very fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Stephen appears to have understood that Christianity was truly distinct from Judaism, even earlier than some of his contemporaries in the Jerusalem church did. And for it, these Jewish leaders violently rejected Stephen’s message and immediately had him stoned to death. The Messiah, the one they supposedly longed for and who was predicted by the prophets, had come and was proclaimed to them by the apostles and now by men like Stephen – but they rejected the message and the messengers, just as they had rejected Jesus when He was among them in person.
But like Peter, Stephen knew that he had no other message to preach. As Peter declared (Acts 4:12): There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that is given among men by which we must be saved. It is important for us to remember this truth in our day where the mantra of multiculturalism grows ever stronger, and even increasing numbers of professing Christians believe that people of other religious faiths are “OK” because of their sincerity and their desire to live a good life, however they or their religious writings have defined it. But they need to hear the gospel, centered in the person and work of the Jesus of the Bible. And the Christmas season, when we celebrate the incarnation of the Son of God, provides a good opportunity to speak of Jesus: the only name under heaven that is given among men by which we must be saved.