The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 211

Ver. 15.-The logic of htave11ly lustre. "And all , , , Efl.W his face ae it bad been the face of an angel." The two occasions of the mention of Stephen have already apprisec. us of an exceptional spirituality marking his character, and it cannot but be that the exceptional splendour and luminousness of his countenance here spoken of are more or less connected with that fact. The hour of martyrdom is drawing on apace for Stephen, and be is already raised to that little company which numbered in it- Moses in one of the most critical portions of his history (Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30; 2 Cor, iii. 7), and Jesus himself (Matt. xvii. 2; Luke ix. 29) on the Mount of 'l'ransfiguration. It is being given to Stephen to ripen into an" angel of God" even on earth. The fact of the distinct record of Stephen's appearance now justifies our paying even some additional attention to what in itself would naturally have ·attracted our interested inquiry. The interest gathers round this central inquiry-Why was such special and such peculiar kind of distinction vouchsafed. to Stephen? "His face was as it had been the face of an angel." l. .A. HIGHLY SPIRITUAL FORCE OF CBABA<l'l'EB MARKED HIM AS AT LEAST FIT OBJECT OF THIS LUSTRE. It is not open to us to say that this was the cause in any sense, 'but much less the one canse, of the lustre with which the countenance of Stephen shone. But we must remark on it as showing the presence of one essential condition. In a biography almost as brief (omitting his defence) as that of Enoch, three things are reitera.Lcd, intimating to us the highly developed spirituality of Stephen. 1. He was "full of faith." Every true disciple of Jesus Christ must, no doubt, be "rooted in" faith. Be must "know whom he believes." But to be "full of faith " probably signifies something beyond this. A man may truly have faith, and if he have it he will live and "walk" by it, yet may be the very man who will need to have full allowance made for him as respects the distinction of faHh and sight. Not just so the man who is "full of faith." For him faith has come to be such an "evidence of things not seen," and such an embodied "substance of things hoped for," that his "conversation is in heaven" already, and his countenance more really fitted to shine witb celestial radiance. In fact, we may rest assured there is a great difference between even a very genuine possession of faith and a being "full of faith." The former is true of very many who are exceedingly far removed from the latter. That faith which scripturally and apostolically postulates the distinction of sight has in its fulness the power to efface the very distinction itself has made, and throws two worlds into one. We do not at all doubt it was so now with Stephen, who for the fulness of faith now lived and thought, spoke and worked, "as seeing him who is invisible" (Heb. xL 27) ; and that was in itself the earnest of a. radiant connteuance. 2. He was "full of the Holy Ghost." It must be allowed on all hands that this fact justifies us much more in an affirmation of the presence now of something in the nature of a predisposiog qualification. In the modern Church the work and the fruit of the Spirit is grievously underrated. Hence its weakness, hence its want of enterprise, hence its comparative deadness. We have ample Scripture warrant for distinguishing degrees in the Spirit's operation; nor can we forget how, while to others according to measure the gifts of the Spirit are vouchsafed, of One it is said, "God giveth not the Spirit by measure" to him (John iii. 34). How intensely full was St. John of the Spirit, when as he rather puts it, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day" (Rev. i. 10) ! What the c0unter,ance of St. J oho then was we know not, nor was there one to see it and tell us; but we are in no ignore.nee of what his rapt state of mind was, and to what the Spirit exalted him. It is not, therefore, the unwarranted thing to think that the Spirit's force in the nature of the man in whom he largely dwells should betoken itself in p~ysioal en. VL 1-16.] 'fHE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 20'1