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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Acts 7:59 - 7:59
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calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, etc. - An unhappy supplement of our translators is the word “God” here; as if, while addressing the Son, he was really calling upon the Father. The sense is perfectly clear without any supplement at all - “calling upon [invoking] and saying, Lord Jesus”; Christ being the Person directly invoked and addressed by name (compare Act 9:14). Even Grotius, De Wette, Meyer, etc., admit this, adding several other examples of direct prayer to Christ; and Pliny, in his well-known letter to the Emperor Trajan (a.d. 110 or 111), says it was part of the regular Christian service to sing, in alternate strains, a hymn to Christ as God.
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit - In presenting to Jesus the identical prayer which He Himself had on the cross offered to His Father, Stephen renders to his glorified Lord absolute divine worship, in the most sublime form, and at the most solemn moment of his life. In this commitment of his spirit to Jesus, Paul afterwards followed his footsteps with a calm, exultant confidence that with Him it was safe for eternity (2Ti 1:12).