Acts 7:38 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

This is he, that was in the church— When this clause is quoted, as it has been by some great men, to prove that Christ was the person who brought Israel out of Egypt, gave them the law, conducted them through the wilderness, &c. (which is undoubtedlymost true)the argument drawn from this passage is certainly inconclusive: for he—ουτος — here evidently answers to the word ουτος, Acts 7:36 and to the words ουτος ο Μωυσης, Acts 7:27 and the following clause, which expresses his being with the angel, plainly proves that angel to be a different person. The doctrine itself, that Christ was the God of Israel, the angel or messenger who appeared to Moses, is a great and certain truth, capable of being evinced from many passages both of the Old and New Testament; and from the passage before us in particular, though not from the clause. The word εκκλησια, rendered church, would more properly be rendered here assembly, as it is Acts 19:41 because it refers not to their being incorporated into one church, in the appropriate sense of that word, but to their being assembled round the mountain on the solemn day, when the law was given. See Exodus 19:17; Exodus 19:25.