Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 7:48

"Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in [houses] made with hands; as saith the prophet," — Acts 7:48 (ASV)

However, the Most High does not dwell in temples.—The sequel shows the impression these words made on the hearers. Stephen had attained to the truth that, though proclaimed before, had been practically dormant. This truth dismantled the idea of any exclusive holiness in the Temple, and therefore placed its downfall among the chances and changes that might be involved in God’s chastisement of the people, and His education of humanity.

The inference that we have seen reason to draw regarding the probability of some connection, direct or indirect, between Stephen and the Samaritans (see Notes on Acts 7:16 and Acts 6:5), suggests that we may trace here something like an echo of the teaching of our Lord in His dialogue with the woman of Samaria (John 4:21–23). It is a fact of singular interest to note how one who now listened to these words as applied to the Temple of the God of Israel, afterwards embraced them in all their fullness and used them as his text in asserting the truth they embodied against the temples of Zeus and Athena (Acts 17:24).

As the prophet says.—The truth that Stephen asserted had been uttered in the very dedication prayer of the Temple (1 Kings 8:27). The builder of the Temple himself had felt that it witnessed not to a localized but to a universal Presence. But he turns to what might seem to his hearers an even higher authority—to the great prophet (Isaiah 66:1–2), who was preeminently the preacher of good news, and who had closed his mission by proclaiming the truth that, whatever glory and greatness might attach to the Temple in Jerusalem, the prayer of one who was poor and of a contrite spirit was equally acceptable wherever it might be offered.

The words were full of deep meaning in themselves. They were even more significant because they showed that Stephen's thoughts had turned to that great conclusion of a great prophetic work. Consequently, he must have been led to that wider vision of the future: a time when all nations and tongues would be gathered to see the glory of the Eternal. This vision also encompassed the work of Israel—especially of those like himself belonging to the Dispersion—in declaring His glory to the Gentiles, and the acceptance of Gentiles, too, as priests and Levites in the true Temple (Isaiah 66:21). Here also, we may see him as anticipating the widest and highest teaching of St. Paul.