Acts 5:11

‘ And great fear came on the whole church, and on all who heard these things.'

Meanwhile the news of what had happened spread around, and the whole church were filled with awe and with the recognition that they must not treat God lightly, and many unbelievers heard, and they were made to think again about their lives. In their deaths Ananias and Sapphira would achieve far more than in their lives. They had sought credit for themselves. Instead all the credit went to God.

‘The whole church.' This is the first mention of ‘the church' in Luke and it simply signifies the whole body of believers within the covenant, the covenant community.

Note on ‘the Church'.

Here in Acts 5:11 we have the first mention of ‘the church' by Luke (in the Greek text). The word generally means a gathering or an assembly, but in Biblical use refers to a body of people seen as a whole because they saw themselves as within God's covenant, who would regularly gather together to join in united action, and came under the same overall leadership. It was used of ‘the congregation (church)' of Israel in the Greek Old Testament (LXX). In Acts 7:38 it similarly refers to the ‘congregation' of Israel. The same is true of Matthew 16:18 where the ‘new' congregation of Israel must be in mind, the body of those who would respond to Christ and obey Him. ‘The church' is regularly elsewhere seen as the new Israel (compare Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:11). Here in Acts 5:11 it means the whole body of people who had responded to Christ and believed in Him, which is one of its commoner meanings in the New Testament. It can also refer to such a body of people in one particular locality, thus we find ‘the church which was in Jerusalem' (Acts 8:1; Acts 11:22). When it is used we must therefore often ask, what locality are we in? That will then tell us which part of ‘the church' is being spoken of. Mention of ‘the churches' in the plural signifies a number of such bodies in different areas or cities (Acts 9:31). In Acts 11:26 ‘the church', unqualified, meant in context such a body of people in Antioch, because it was said in Antioch. In Acts 14:23 there is mention of ‘every church', that is, a number of groups that had been established each a ‘body' in its own locality, yet not necessarily all meeting together in one place. In Acts 20:28 it is ‘the church of God' and means the whole body of Christ's people but especially as connected with those addressed. Thus it can mean the whole body of Christ's people in totality, or the part of that body which is a body in a particular place.

But to say that "When Luke speaks of 'the church' with no qualification, geographical or otherwise, it is to the church of Jerusalem that he refers," is not strictly correct. In those cases we only actually know that it means the church in Jerusalem when the context makes it clear. As we saw the same use could be found at Antioch.

End of note.