Acts 7:44

Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, even as he appointed who spake unto Moses, that he should make it according to the figure that he had seen. Which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered on the possession of the nations, that God thrust out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David; who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house.

According to the figure that he had seen ... This is additional inspired testimony regarding the "pattern," here called "a figure," that Moses had received from God and according to which he was commanded to "make all things" (Hebrews 8:5). The immense importance of understanding that God has given a pattern which men must follow if they would please their Creator is fully disclosed under the heading, "All Things According to the Pattern," in my Commentary on Hebrews, under Hebrews 8:5.

But Solomon built him a house ... When David's conscience was aroused because of the luxury of his cedar-paneled palace contrasted with the tent-shrine that housed the ark of the covenant, the prophet Nathan made it clear to David that God did not want any temple built by him, but promised that a "son of David would arise and build a house for God" (2 Samuel 7). Stephen's short reference to the temple of Solomon shows dramatically that the very temple itself was only a substitute for the greater temple of Christ himself, typical of the latter to be sure, and like the monarchy itself, allowed indeed of God; but still only a substitute for the real temple, which is Christ. This was the great message of the Christ that "One greater than the temple is here" (Matthew 12:6). (See John 2:20-22.) Stephen's argument, then, is simply that Christ is the true temple, that "in Christ," not in some building," men are called to worship God. This was a categorical refutation of the notion that he had blasphemed God (i.e., the temple) by repeating the prophecy of Jesus that the Solomonic-Herodian temple would be destroyed. They, the Sanhedrinists, were blaspheming God by rejecting God's true temple, Jesus of Nazareth!