The Gospel Explained, Part 2 – Acts 7:17-43
Main Idea: The Gospel’s greatest good is not to produce an easy life but one that is conformed to the image of Christ.
The Gospel According to Moses | Acts 7:17-34
As we saw in the first seventeen verses in Acts chapter 7, Stephen’s sermon addresses two charges brought up against him by the Sanhedrin. First, Stephen had been accused of opposing the customs of the law given to Moses (Acts 6:11). Second, he had been accused of disrespecting the temple and its practices by following the teachings of Jesus (Acts 6:13b-14). Stephen’s response so far has been to trace the history of redemption from Abraham to Joseph and the patriarchs (Acts 7:1- 17), showing that God had never been bound by a specific bloodline or people group. God revealed Himself to Abraham while he was still a pagan worshipper in Mesopotamia (Ge.12:1-2) and worked mightily through Joseph while he was in Egypt (Gen. 37-50). By explaining God’s history of redemption to the highest court in Judaism, Stephen knew that the stakes could not have been higher. To be convicted of blasphemy led to the punishment of being stoned to death (Lev.24:16), and Stephen was undoubtedly aware of the possibility of being executed by the Sanhedrin. However, like all faithful believers in Jerusalem, preaching the Gospel was not optional for Stephen. As a believer and direct assistant to the apostles, Stephen continues his sermon by bringing up Moses and the law into his explanation of the Gospel according to the Old Testament.
The accusation that he spoke against Moses is the primary reason why Stephen’s sermon focuses on the life of Moses. Stephen begins not by speaking against Moses but by countering the Sanhedrin’s false understanding of what Moses represents: a foreshadowing of the One who would come and lead God’s redeemed people out of a much greater Exodus: the bondage to sin (Deut. 18:15; Hosea 11:1; Matt. 2:13-15; John 5:46; Acts 3:17-26). The parallels between Moses and Christ are staggering. At the time Moses was born, the current Pharaoh began to deal shrewdly with the Hebrews due to their great number (Ex. 1:8-10). The best way to contain their growth was to murder all Hebrew male infants in the land of Egypt (Ex.1:22). Pharaoh did exactly what King Herod would do at the time of the Messiah’s birth thus fulfilling God’s promise of sending a deliverer to free His people from their bondage to sin (Hosea 11:1: Matt.2:13-15; John 5:46). Stephen saw Moses as an outstanding man (v.20-22), which shows the extraordinary hand of God’s providence through his deliverance at birth, his rescue and adoption by Pharaoh’s daughter, and the provision of a magnificent journey from bondage to slavery to freedom in God’s land.
Like Abraham and Joseph, the story of Moses is marked by rejection, “But when Moses was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand” (v.23-25). By saving the Hebrew man, Moses believed his people would understand his act of deliverance, but the reality was that they did not. Like the patriarchs rejected Joseph, so did the enslaved Hebrews reject Moses, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us?” (Ex. 2:14). Israel’s foolish rejection of Moses served to lengthen their time in bondage by forty years. During this time, Moses lived among the Midianites in a region of the Arabian Peninsula east of the Red Sea where Abraham’s descendants of his second wife, Keturah, had settled (Gentile territory). Just like He did with Abraham, God appeared to Moses in Gentile territory, but His presence had made the place holy, “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord: ‘I am the God of your fathers. Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (v.30-34). Israel’s history is not only a history of disobedience but also of misunderstanding. Spiritual pride coupled with spiritual ignorance is the very cause for which many have rejected all the deliverers God has sent leading up to Christ.
To Ponder:
In what ways does God’s covenant with Moses foreshadow the coming of Christ and the establishment of the New Covenant?
What does Moses’s interaction with God in the burning bush teach us about the significance of God’s presence and holiness among people?
What are the biblical parallels between Jesus and Moses, and how is Jesus greater than Moses?
II. The Gospel According to the Law | Acts 7:35-43
The transition from Moses to the law is simple since the two of them are closely associated. In verses 35-38, stresses the theme of rejection to which the history of Israel’s journey testifies. God’s choosing of Moses as redeemer and deliverer of Israel did not depend on their initial rejection of him, “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’–this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt, the Red Sea, and the wilderness for forty years” (v.35-36). When God spoke to Moses out of a burning bush, He revealed Himself to Moses as both a unique and personal God (Ex. 3). Since then, God spoke to Moses face to face (Num. 12:8), and he became a forerunner of Christ, whom the Jews also rejected when God raised a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:18; Acts 7:52). Acts 7:39-41 recounts how the Israelites turned to idolatry when Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the tables of the law from God Himself. The Ten Commandments was a set of legal commandments as part of the Mosaic Covenant that ultimately functioned as a mirror that reflects God’s holy standards against man’s sinful nature. As a prophet of God, while Moses was receiving God’s law–the very law on which the Sanhedrin prided itself on upholding–the people were already breaking the first commandment while they waited for Moses to return from Mount Sinai (Ex. 20:3-4; 32:1-6). Their rejection of Moses overlapped their rejection of the law.
In verses 42-43, Stephen cites the prophet Amos, as he continues reminding the Israelites of their history of rejecting God’s messengers and turning to false Gods, “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-gold–your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord of hosts” (Amos 5:25-27). Throughout his book, Amos attacks two major areas of sin commonly indicted by the prophets: idolatry and social injustice. Israel’s root problem, like all human race, was its drive to reject God rather than submit to Him. Although, during the time of Amos, Israel maintained the ritual formalities of the law (Amos 4:4), idolatry, disobedience, and injustice were commonplace. Finally, God revealed through Amos that the heart of the issue was not external but internal, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land–not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11). Confirming what Stephen exposed to the Sanhedrin, “God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven” (v.42). The explanation given by Stephen represents not only a set of facts that had already happened in Israel’s history but a reality that continues to affect all who reject God, as Paul describes in Romans, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done (Rom. 1:24, 28).
The greatest proof of Jesus’ humanity and atoning work on behalf of sinful men is the fact that, on the cross, the Second Person of the Trinity experienced what all sinners experience: the turning away of God, “’Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” However, even though God had every right to destroy the nation that disobeyed Him, He remained faithful to His covenant. Jesus upheld the law throughout His life (Matt. 5:17- 19), showing He is the only one to obey the law to the letter, and because of His obedience to the law, those who are in Him no longer live under the law (Rom. 6:14). Sin is fully punished only in Christ; only Christ fulfills the requirements of the law. The entire Bible is about Jesus Christ: (1) the Old Testament reveals that He is coming, (2) the Gospels reveal that He came, (3) the rest of the New Testament reveals that He now reigns and will return to judge the living and the dead and take those whom He saves to be with Him for all eternity. Those who miss the point of the Gospel are the ones who seek joy and fulfillment in what God can give them rather than in who He is.
To Ponder:
What does Israel’s rejection of Moses and Christ reveal about the human heart’s tendency toward idolatry and rebellion against God?
How is Jesus greater than the temple, the sacrificial system, and the promise land in the Old Testament?
In your own words, how can you share the Gospel based on the life and ministry of Moses?