What is the context?
The council responds to Stephen’s accusation with fury. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, sees God’s glory and Jesus standing at God’s right hand. He describes the Son of Man in that place of authority.
The people cover their ears, rush at him and drag him outside the city to stone him. The witnesses leave their garments with a young man named Saul. It is a brief introduction to someone who will have a much larger part in the story.
Stephen’s final words are prayers. He asks the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit and asks that this sin not be held against those killing him. Luke describes his death as falling asleep. His witness ends in trust and a prayer for his enemies rather than a demand that they suffer with him.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians commonly read the vision as confirmation of Jesus’s authority with God and Stephen’s confidence in Him at death. Commentators explain the standing differently: Wesley on verse 56 sees Jesus ready to receive him, while Calvin on verse 56 understands both standing and sitting at God’s right hand as expressions of Christ’s power and kingdom.
Wesley’s note on verse 59 also understands the prayer directed to Jesus as worship of Him. Calvin’s discussion of that verse emphasizes Stephen’s faith in entrusting his spirit to Christ and his love in praying for his enemies. Neither emphasis requires imagining that Stephen feels no pain or that Luke has supplied every detail of his thoughts.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
At His own hearing, Jesus speaks of the Son of Man at God’s right hand in Luke 22:69. Stephen’s vision presents the rejected Jesus in that place of authority. The verdict of the people killing the witness does not overturn the Lord’s place before God.
Stephen’s entrusting of his spirit recalls Jesus’s prayer to the Father in Luke 23:46. His prayer for his attackers also follows Jesus’s instruction in Matthew 5:44 to love enemies and pray for persecutors. The witness follows his Lord in both trust and mercy at the point of death.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.