Acts 7:48

Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands; as saith the prophet, The heaven is my throne, And the earth the footstool of my feet: What manner of house will ye build me? saith the Lord: Or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?

Stephen summed up his argument by this appeal to the prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 66:1f), which set forth the impossibility of Almighty God's actually dwelling in any house made by human hands. The great temple of the Jews had become in time a house of thieves and robbers; and, although God indeed had allowed it through the ages as typical of the greater temple yet to be revealed in Christ, it was never anything except a makeshift. Needless to say, such sentiments as these were enough to release the savage fury of the whole Sanhedrin against anyone who might dare to utter such thoughts. The fact that Isaiah had said the same thing in their sacred scriptures made no difference; they were experts at rationalizing the scriptures they did not like.

The teaching in view here is fundamental to Christianity. It is not in any house, but "in Christ," that one may receive all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). There is no indication in Stephen's oration that he anticipated anything other than the condemnation of his hearers, his purpose not being to "defend" himself in any practical sense, but to preach the truth "in Christ."

It was too much for the secular Sanhedrinists that the meek and lowly Jesus should represent himself as the long expected Messiah; but that his followers should begin preaching the "spiritual body" of the risen Lord as the true temple of God, that was enough to send them into a frenzy of vicious hatred, releasing the full savagery of their carnal passions against the Christians. There was simply no way that they could accommodate to such teachings. It was in the contemplation of this that their rejection of Christ and Christianity became final and irrevocable. Stephen read the situation of the Sanhedrinists at a glance and pronounced the judgment of the Holy Spirit against them.