This accusation brought against Jesus at his trial is echoed at Stephen’s trial before the Sanhedrin, and so leads us back to his long speech in Acts 7. It has often been noted how Stephen’s death, the first martyrdom, in several respects echoes the death of his Lord and Saviour, Jesus. Like Jesus, he was taken “outside the city” to his death (7.58); his prayer “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” recalls Jesus’ final words (Luke 23. 46); and his shouting out “with a loud voice” (cf. Matt 27.46, Mark 15.34): “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (v.59) recalls Jesus’ prayer to his Father in Luke 23.34. Less often noticed is how Luke has set up this parallel at the end of chapter 6. Stephen, too, was a victim of “false witnesses” (v. 13), who said: “We have heard him saying that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy (‘kataluo’) this place”. It seems that Stephen had been reflecting on Jesus’ words, and concluded that the Temple was no more a permanent part of God’s plan for his people than the Tabernacle had been, since “God does not live in buildings made-by-human-hands”. We know that Paul (then known as Saul) was a witness of Stephen’s death (7.58), so he probably heard his speech as well, and our final instance of ‘cheiropoietos’ comes from his lips, as recorded by Luke. In his sermon to the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on the Areopagus at Athens, Paul, taking as his starting-point the altar he had seen in the city with the inscription “To the unknown god”, preaches to them the God of creation: “The God who made (‘poio’) the world and everything in it, being from the beginning Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell (‘katoiko’) in temples made-by-human-hands as though he needed anything from us, since it is he who gives to the whole of his creation life and breath and everything”.
We can now return to the building of Solomon’s Temple as a replacement for Moses’ Tabernacle. This Temple was twice as big and many times more splendid than the Tabernacle, but still presents us with the same paradox. God promised Solomon (1 Kings 6.13) “I will live among the Israelites” in the Temple he was building; but even as Solomon was uttering his prayer of dedication at the opening ceremony of the finished work, he was struck by the realisation that his magnificent building was far too small for such a great God: “But will God really dwell (‘katoiko’, LXX) on earth ? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you, how much less this Temple I have built.” (1 Kings 8.27). Not only was God too great to dwell in this Temple, he was also too holy to dwell with men. Here there is a striking parallel with what happened at the dedication of the Tabernacle at the end of Exodus (40. 34-5). Then, the cloud of God’s glory filled the Tent of Meeting so that not even Moses could enter; now, when the priests had finally installed the Ark of the Covenant in the sanctuary of the Temple, “the cloud filled the Temple of the Lord, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the Temple” (8. 10-11). Once again, there seems to be, if we may speak of God in such human terms, a tension within the Godhead between his heart, which longs to be with his people, and his eyes, which are “too pure to look on evil”
(Hab 1.13) – between the God who is love and the God who is light.
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