But [Stephen], being
full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of
God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the
heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. (Acts 7:55-56)
Acts 7:55-56 is a text that Latter-day Saints
often appeal to in order to support our belief that God the Father is embodied.
For a discussion, see:
Lynn
Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
Commenting on Stephen’s vision, Brittany
E. Wilson wrote that:
The culminating
vision of the Stephen episode—Stephen’s vision after his speech—is by far the
most visually oriented divine appearance in Luke-Acts, largely because there is
no mention of divine speech. Stephen’s vision is also unusual because it is the
only time in Luke-Acts when God offers a glimpse into heaven. Here God does not
descend from heaven to earth but allows Stephen to see into heaven from
earth. Within the narrative logic of the story, Stephen’s vision functions
as a stamp of divine approval: his ability to see God affirms what Stephen has
just said in his speech and confirms his innocence in the face of false
charges. But no divine words are actually uttered; instead, the narrator
describes in third-person discourse the nature of what Stephen sees, and then Stephen,
in first-person discourse, directs our attention to this sight, using the word ιδου (“Behold!”) to grab
our attention and to bring the scene into strikingly vivid terms.
The vision begins when
Stephen becomes filled with the Holy Spirit and gazes into heaven (Acts 7:55).
(Note, though, that Luke does not use the term “vision” here.) When Stephen
looks heavenward, Luke tells us that he sees “the glory of God and Jesus standing
at the right of God” (7:55). Right away, three things should stand out to us.
First, Luke reintroduces the notion of God’s visible “glory” (δοξα), circling back to
the outset of Stephen’s speech, where he describes the God who appeared to
Abraham as “the God of glory [δοξης]” (7:2), as well as to the birth
narrative, where we first see God’s “glory” (δοξα) shining around the
shepherds (Luke 2:9). Second, Luke uses anthropomorphic language to describe
this heavenly scene: we find the image of Jesus standing to the right of God,
implying that God occupies heavenly space and is a concrete presence next to
which Jesus can stand (And notice that the text says to God’s “right” and not God’s
“right hand, as in many English translations [which demonstrates that
translations do sometimes insert corporeal anthropomorphisms, even if they are
meant idiomatically]).
Third, this spatial, anthropomorphic
description is reminiscent of the heavenly throne-room scenes found in Isa 6,
Ezek 1, and other instances where God’s glory, or fiery form, is in a heavenly throne
room (e.g., 1 En. 14:20-22). The picture of Jesus standing at God’s right
evokes this common trope and makes us wonder if we are to see a veiled version
of God’s “cosmic body” in this scene. Of course, Luke does not include the term
“throne,” and he interestingly depicts Jesus standing (not sitting), a posture
that perhaps mirrors Jesus’s exalted state, his role as judge, or his status as
a member of God’s heavenly court. But the fact that Stephen has just quoted Isa
66:1, where he identifies heaven as God’s throne (Acts 7:49), not to mention Luke’s
references to God exalting Jesus to his right that he draws from enthronement psalms
(Acts 2:33-35; 5:31; cf. Pss 110:1; 118:16), suggests that we are to read Stephen’s
vision in light of heavenly throne-room scenes.
After this description
by the narrator, Stephen himself brings his heavenly vista before our eyes,
while also proving an interpretation of what he sees, when he says; “Behold! I
see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right of God!” (Acts
7:56) (Compare the narrator’s account and Stephen’s interpretation: “gazing
into heaven, he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right of God”
[7:55] // “Behold! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the
right of God!” [7:56]). Instead of saying that he sees God, Stephen uses a
circumlocution, saying that he sees “the heavens opened,” which is, again, a
standard apocalyptic image used to convey the bestowal of divine revelation.
Even though we as readers know that Stephen sees God’s glory, he seems reticent
to share this God sighting with his interlocutors. He then identifies Jesus as “the
Son of Man,” another standard apocalyptic image, drawn especially from Dan 7
(Dan 7:13; cf. Ps 110:1; Luke 22:69), and he retains the sense that Jesus is
standing at God’s right. By recounting his vision, though, Stephen in effect
seals his fate, for his description of this vision serves as the impetus of his
death. The Jewish council members are angry after Stephen’s speech (Acts 7:54),
but after his vision, they rush him, drag him out of the city, stone him, and
kill him (7:57-60). In his work on visions in Luke-Acts, John Miller notes that
the entire episode involving Stephen underscores the rejection of God’s will
despite revelatory visions both past and present (Miller, Convinced That God
Had Called Us, 181). God’s will (and God’s hidden form, I would add) is revealed
in visions, but the recipients have to be open to seeing the visions. Closure
to such visions has occurred in Israel’s past and continues, Luke maintains,
during Stephen’s own time.
In sum, Luke
indicates that seeing God is important, even if God’s form is wrapped in
ambiguity. (Brittany E. Wilson, The Embodied God: Seeing the Divine in
Luke-Acts and the Early Church [New York: Oxford University Press, 2021], 91-93)
With respect to Wilson’s reference to God’s
“cosmic body,” note the following and the third type of body Mark S. Smith
believes God has in the Old Testament:
[Mark S.] Smith
argues that God has three different types of bodies in the Hebrew Bible: one
that is human in scale and manifest on earth in a material sense (as in
Genesis), a second that is a superhuman-sized body manifest on earth but often
luminous and not physical or fleshy (as in Exodus and Isaiah), and a third that
partakes of a bodily form, though the nature of its physicality remains
unclear, and is manifest in the cosmic realm (as in the later prophets . . . “
(Smith, Where the Gods Are, esp. 13-30). (Ibid., 9)