⁵⁴Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. ⁵⁵But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; ⁵⁶and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” ⁵⁷But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse.

The one whose face they saw as that of an angel (Acts 6:15) now becomes, as it were, the persona of the devil. The Sanhedrin went berserk at Stephen’s grand finale. In modern terms, he dropped the mic—that was what he had to say, and he was finished. He had denounced them completely. The imagery Luke uses to describe them confirms Stephen’s picture of them as “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in their heart and ears” (Acts 7:51). They began “gnashing their teeth at him.” One pictures wild animals growling, baring their fangs, chomping at the bit, so to speak, to have at him. It would not be too far a stretch of the imagination to think of them hurling the worst possible invectives at him as they began to shout him down. But it was not just words, for God was about to intervene in a way that would make things very clear.

Stephen was under the control of (“full of”) the Holy Spirit; God was preparing him for his martyrdom. God reveals a vision only he could see (his detractors apparently could only hear what he said; there is no indication that they saw what he was seeing). We see here the example of the first martyr looking beyond his present circumstances to the place of God’s glory.

Is it not interesting that when the Lord taught the disciples how to pray, he began, “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name” (Matt. 6:9)? Stephen was living out this prayer as he looked into heaven and “saw the glory of God, and Jesus . . .” Not everyone who faces persecution will see a vision, but we can all look to heaven in faith and focus on things of God that are above and greater than the things we face here and now.

Stephen could not help but exclaim about what he was seeing. The boldness of the Spirit was not something he had to work at, but it came from his connection with God through his gazing into heaven and dwelling on the Lord’s glory. The trigger inciting the Sanhedrin at this point was the pinnacle of the affirmation of God’s full and complete acceptance of Jesus Christ. This is the One whom the Sanhedrin, and all who followed them, rejected along with all of Jesus’ followers and their message of Christ! Jesus was standing at God’s right hand! At this proclamation the people raged, rushing to Stephen to murder him.

Lord, help me look to Your glory that I might not fear anything here on earth.