Acts 5:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And great fear came upon all the church All that had joined themselves to it were struck with a holy awe of God and his judgments, and with a great veneration of this dispensation of the Spirit, which they were now under. It did not damp or check their holy joy, but it taught them to be serious in the midst of it, and to rejoice with trembling. And all that laid their money at the apostles' feet, after this, were afraid of keeping back any part of the price. And upon as many as heard these things Who could not but acknowledge that it was the immediate hand of God by which both these persons died, and that he was just in this awful dispensation. Many, no doubt, were put into a consternation by it, and were ready to say, Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God and his Spirit in these his servants! As the word church (εκκλησια) now occurs a second time in this history, it may be proper to observe, that we have here a native specimen of a New Testament church; which is a company of persons called by the gospel, grafted into Christ by faith and the Holy Spirit, admitted into the society of Christians by baptism, animated by love, united by every kind of fellowship, and disciplined by the execution of a divine judgment on two unworthy members.