The Consistent Rebellion Text: Acts 7:51-53
Introduction: The Sermon's Serrated Edge
We come now to the climax of Stephen's sermon, and it is a climax that gets him killed. Up to this point, Stephen has been giving a history lesson. He has been recounting the story of Israel, from Abraham, to Joseph, to Moses, to David. To the casual listener, it might have sounded like a patriotic speech, a rehearsal of their greatest hits. But Stephen was not just recounting history; he was building a case. He was carefully selecting his material to show a consistent pattern, a pattern of God's faithfulness and Israel's unfaithfulness. He showed how God was always moving, always working outside their cherished institutions, appearing to Abraham in Mesopotamia, working through Joseph in Egypt, and speaking to Moses in the wilderness. God cannot be put in a box, not even a gold-plated one like the Temple.
And now, after laying this long foundation, Stephen turns from historian to prosecutor. The sermon, which had been a slow, steady march through the Old Testament, suddenly pivots and becomes a direct, piercing, and lethal indictment. He drops the narrative and makes the application, and the application has a serrated edge. He looks the members of the Sanhedrin, the highest religious authorities in the land, right in the eye and tells them that they are just the latest iteration of a long line of rebels. They are their father's sons in all the wrong ways.
This is not how you win friends and influence people. This is not how you get invited back to preach again. This is how you get stoned. But Stephen was not trying to save his own skin; he was full of the Holy Spirit and was speaking the truth of God without compromise. He knew his audience of one was standing to receive him into glory. He shows us that faithful preaching is not always about building bridges; sometimes it is about drawing lines. And the line Stephen draws here is between the true people of God, who hear His voice, and the institutional imposters, who have the outward forms of religion but whose hearts are calloused and rebellious.
This confrontation is not just an ancient story. The same spirit of religious rebellion that Stephen confronted is alive and well today. It is the spirit that loves the traditions of men more than the commandments of God, that honors God with its lips while its heart is far from Him, that builds monuments to the dead prophets while persecuting the living ones. We must therefore listen to Stephen's indictment with open ears, asking the Spirit to show us if any of these charges stick to us.
The Text
“You men, stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. And which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the Law as ordained by angels, and yet did not observe it.”
(Acts 7:51-53 LSB)
The Enduring Rebellion (v. 51)
Stephen begins his direct assault with three rapid-fire charges.
"You men, stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you." (Acts 7:51)
First, he calls them "stiff-necked." This is not some random insult Stephen invented. This is covenantal language, pulled straight from their own Scriptures. It is what God called their ancestors after the golden calf incident. A stiff-necked ox is one that refuses to submit to the yoke. It fights the farmer's guidance at every turn. Stephen is telling these religious leaders that, for all their outward piety, they are rebellious and untamable. They refuse to bow their necks to the yoke of God's Word.
Second, he says they are "uncircumcised in heart and ears." This is a devastating charge. Circumcision was the physical sign of the covenant, the mark that set them apart as God's people. They were immensely proud of it. But Stephen, echoing Moses and Jeremiah, tells them their external surgery meant nothing because they lacked the internal reality. True circumcision is a matter of the heart, a cutting away of the foreskin of our pride and rebellion, making us tender and responsive to God. Their hearts were hard, and their ears were closed. They could hear the sound of Stephen's voice, but they couldn't receive the Word of God. The problem was not intellectual; it was moral. Their ears were clogged with the wax of their own self-righteousness.
These two conditions lead to the third charge: they "are always resisting the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts of sin, who illuminates the Scriptures, and who testifies to Christ. He had been speaking to Israel for centuries through the prophets. And now, He was speaking through the apostles and through men like Stephen. But at every point, they resisted. They pushed back. They stopped their ears. This resistance is not a passive thing; it is an active, willful opposition to the work of God. And notice the historical continuity: "As your fathers did, so do you." This is not a new problem. This is the family business. Rebellion is their heritage. They were not failing to live up to the glorious legacy of their fathers; they were living up to it perfectly.
The Persecution of the Prophets (v. 52)
Stephen then provides the historical evidence for his charge of generational rebellion.
"And which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become" (Acts 7:52 LSB)
This is a rhetorical question, and the expected answer is "not a single one." The job of a prophet was to call the people back to covenant faithfulness, and the consistent response of the people was to get rid of the prophet. They stoned Jeremiah, sawed Isaiah in two, and ran Elijah out of town. The history of Israel is a history of persecuting the very men God sent to save them. Why? Because the prophets spoke the truth, and the truth exposed their sin. They preferred the comforting lies of the false prophets who promised peace and safety.
But Stephen sharpens the point. Their fathers did not just kill random messengers; "they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One." The entire Old Testament, the entire prophetic ministry, was pointing forward to Jesus Christ. The prophets were the advance team, preparing the way for the King. And by killing them, their fathers were demonstrating their hatred for the King who was to come.
Then Stephen brings the charge crashing down into the present moment. He says, in effect, "Your fathers killed the announcers, but you have outdone them. You have killed the main attraction. You have become the 'betrayers and murderers' of the Righteous One Himself." This is the ultimate expression of their stiff-necked rebellion. They did not just stumble into this. They were not ignorant bystanders. They were culpable, responsible betrayers and murderers. Stephen is holding up a mirror, and the reflection is hideous. He is stripping away all their religious pretensions and showing them their hands, dripping with the blood of their own Messiah.
The Hypocrisy of the Law-Receivers (v. 53)
The final charge exposes their ultimate hypocrisy. They prided themselves on being the people of the Law, but their relationship to it was a sham.
"you who received the Law as ordained by angels, and yet did not observe it." (Acts 7:53 LSB)
Stephen points out the immense privilege they had. They "received the Law as ordained by angels." The giving of the Law at Sinai was a terrifying and glorious event, attended by angels. This was a common Jewish belief, emphasizing the divine majesty and authority of the Torah. They were the custodians of the very oracles of God. They boasted in the Law. They studied the Law. They built fences around the Law. They made their phylacteries broad and their tassels long to show how much they loved the Law.
But there was a fatal disconnect between their profession and their practice. They received it, but they "did not observe it." They were hearers of the word, but not doers. This is the very definition of hypocrisy. They honored the Law with their lips, their libraries, and their liturgies, but they dishonored it with their lives. And the ultimate proof that they did not keep the law was that they had just murdered the one to whom the entire law pointed. The law commanded "you shall not murder," and they had murdered the Lord of life. The law was a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ, and when Christ came, they crucified Him. This is the final, damning piece of evidence in Stephen's prosecution. Their greatest point of pride was the very thing that condemned them.
Conclusion: The Unchanging Gospel for Stiff-Necked People
The response to this sermon was predictable. We are told they were "cut to the heart" and gnashed their teeth at him. This is the same phrase used on the day of Pentecost, but with a crucial difference. In Acts 2, they were cut to the heart and asked, "What shall we do?" Here, they were cut to the heart and stoned the preacher. The Word of God is a sharp sword. It never returns void. It either cuts for healing, leading to repentance, or it cuts for judgment, hardening the heart in rebellion.
It is tempting for us to read this and thank God that we are not like those Pharisees. But that would be to miss the point entirely. The temptation to be stiff-necked, to have an uncircumcised heart, to resist the Holy Spirit, is the default setting of every human heart, including our own. We can build our own religious systems, our own evangelical subcultures, our own clean-living clubs, and be just as resistant to the Spirit's conviction as the Sanhedrin was.
We resist the Holy Spirit whenever we refuse to submit to a clear command of Scripture. We are stiff-necked whenever we hear a sermon that convicts us of a particular sin, and we walk away unchanged, arguing with it in our heads. We have uncircumcised ears whenever we prefer the soothing platitudes of teachers who will tickle them over the hard truths of God's Word. We persecute the prophets when we marginalize, slander, or dismiss the voices God sends to challenge our comfort and our compromise.
The only cure for a stiff neck is to have it broken at the foot of the cross. The only way to have a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone is through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit they resisted. The good news is that the "Righteous One" whom they murdered is the very one who offers forgiveness for murderers. His blood, which was on their hands as a testimony against them, can be applied to our hearts as a cleansing from all sin.
Stephen's sermon is a call for us to examine ourselves. Are we merely custodians of the law, or are we keepers of it? Are we boasting in our religious heritage, our theological correctness, or our moral efforts, while resisting the present work of the Holy Spirit in our lives? The gospel comes to all of us, stiff-necked rebels that we are, and offers us a new heart, a new spirit, and the grace to bow our necks, at last, under the sweet and easy yoke of Jesus Christ.