Acts 7:42 - Meaning and Application

Two things stand out in these verses.

First, Stephen rebukes them for the idolatry of their ancestors. God gave Israel over to that sin as a punishment for turning away from him early on, when they worshiped the golden calf. This was one of the worst judgments that could fall on them, just as God gave the Gentile world over to a mind that rejected him. When Israel clung to idols, first to the golden calf and later to Baal-peor, God said, “Leave them alone; let them go on” (Acts 7:42). He had warned them against such worship and given them good reasons to avoid it, but when they insisted on it, he gave them up to their own stubborn desires. He withdrew his restraining grace, and then they followed their own plans and became shockingly devoted to idols.

Stephen supports this by quoting Amos 5:25. He does this because it is less offensive to tell them their true character and coming judgment from an Old Testament prophet, one they should have respected. The prophet first rebukes them for not offering sacrifices to God in the wilderness: “Did you offer me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness?” No, they did not. During that whole time, sacrifices to God were interrupted, and they did not even keep the Passover after the second year. God showed patience with them in that unsettled time, but they responded badly when they later offered sacrifices to idols, even though he had spared them from offering to him. This also corrects their pride in the customs Moses gave them, and their fear that Jesus would change those customs. Right after they received them, those customs were set aside for forty years, which shows they were not essential in the way they imagined.

Second, Stephen answers the charge that he spoke against the temple, the holy place, in Acts 7:44-50. They accused him of saying Jesus would destroy the temple, and Stephen is saying, in effect, “What if I did say that?” The glory of the holy God is not trapped inside this one building, so his honor can remain untouched even if the temple is destroyed. Before Israel had any fixed place of worship, the patriarchs, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, worshiped God acceptably at altars beside their tents, out in the open. The God who was worshiped without a holy place in those early days can still be worshiped if this place falls.

The holy place itself began as a tabernacle, a movable tent. That shows it was never meant to last forever. If the tabernacle could give way to the temple without shame to God, then the temple can also give way to something greater. The same pattern applies now, as the material temple gives way to the spiritual one, and later the spiritual temple will give way to the eternal temple. The tabernacle was also a “tabernacle of witness,” a sign of better things to come, pointing to the true tabernacle the Lord pitched, not man (Hebrews 8:2). Its real glory was that it pointed ahead to the temple of God opened in heaven (Revelation 11:19), to Christ dwelling among us, “tabernacling” on earth (John 1:14), and to his body as the true temple.

The tabernacle was built exactly as God commanded Moses on the mountain, which shows clearly that it was meant to point beyond itself. Because its origin was heavenly, its purpose and meaning were heavenly too. So it was no loss to its honor to say that this temple made with hands would be destroyed to make room for another temple not made with hands. That was the charge against Christ (Mark 14:58), and it was the same charge now being brought against Stephen.

Finally, that tabernacle was first set up in the wilderness. It did not belong naturally to this land, which they thought should keep it forever. Their fathers brought it into Canaan, the land that had once belonged to the Gentile nations, before God drove those nations out. In the same way, God may set up his spiritual temple in places now held by the Gentiles. The tabernacle came in with Joshua, and it is best to read it that way here and in Hebrews 4:8, to avoid confusion.

Yet by naming Joshua here, which in Greek is Jesus, Stephen may be hinting at something deeper. Just as the old Joshua brought the people into that outward, symbolic tabernacle, so the new Joshua, Jesus, would bring the true tabernacle into the Gentiles’ possession.

That tabernacle remained for many years, even until David’s time, more than four hundred years later, before anyone thought of building a temple (Acts 7:45). David found favor with God, and he wanted this further favor too, the chance to build a house for God, a fixed and settled dwelling for the Shechinah, that is, the visible signs of God’s presence, among the people (Acts 7:46). Those who have found favor with God should be eager to promote his kingdom among people.

God cared so little about a temple, or about that holy place they were so jealous for, that when David asked to build one, God refused. He was in no hurry for a temple, as he told David (2 Samuel 7:7). So it was not David, but his son Solomon, who built God a house years later. Even before any temple stood, David had rich fellowship with God in public worship, as his Psalms show.

God has often made clear that temples built by human hands do not please him, and they cannot add anything to his fullness and joy. When Solomon dedicated the temple, he admitted that God does not live in temples made by hands. God does not need them, is not helped by them, and cannot be confined to them. The whole world is his temple, because he is everywhere present and fills it with his glory. So why would he need a temple in order to show himself?

The false gods of the nations did need temples made by human hands, because they were gods made by human hands (Acts 7:41). They had no other place to show themselves except in their own shrines. But the one true and living God needs no temple. Heaven is his throne, where he rests, and the earth is his footstool, over which he rules (Acts 7:49-50). So what house could anyone build for him that would compare with what he already has? What is the place of his rest? What could he need a house for, either to rest in or to reveal himself in? Has not his hand made all these things?

These works of God show his eternal power and divine nature (Romans 1:20). They show themselves so clearly to all people that those who worship other gods have no excuse. And as the world is God’s temple, where he makes himself known, so it is also the temple where he is worshiped. The earth is full of his glory, and so it is his temple (Isaiah 6:3). The earth is, and will be, full of his praise, and all the ends of the earth will fear him (Psalm 67:7; Habakkuk 3:3). For that reason, it is his temple.

So it was no insult at all to this holy place, however they may have taken it, to say that Jesus would destroy this temple and set up another one, into which all nations would be admitted (Acts 15:16-17). And this would not have seemed strange to anyone who understood the Scripture Stephen quoted, Isaiah 66:1-3. That passage shows God’s relative disregard for the outward form of his worship, and it clearly foretells both the rejection of unbelieving Jews and the welcome of Gentiles who are humble and contrite into the church.