John 20:22

‘And when He had said this He breathed on them, and says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit”.

Jesus now in a very real act of power endues the Apostles with the Holy Spirit. It is a travesty to suggest that this incident was merely symbolic. John mentions no other and sees this as the moment of enduing. In his eyes it explained all that lay in the future. We note the close connection between breathing and the reception of the Holy Spirit. The receiving of the Holy Spirit is the reception of God-given life. But here the emphasis is on the fact that they receive this from Jesus.

Note On The Receiving Of The Holy Spirit.

There are no grounds for doubting that this was a genuine enduing with the Spirit before Pentecost. John mentions no other, and only Luke in fact mentions Pentecost (Acts 2). In Matthew what empowers is the presence of Jesus (Matthew 28:19). Pentecost was more an outward manifestation to the world of the fact that the great outpouring of the Spirit had come, although it was certainly a further enduing with power for future ministry (Acts 1:8). We would not take away any of Pentecost's importance. But Matthew speaks of Jesus as giving them His authority and being personally with them always (Matthew 28:19), and assumes that is enough, while the Marcan ending describes it in terms of Him commissioning them (Mark 16:15) followed by evidences of the power that He was giving them. Neither assume a knowledge of Acts or mention Pentecost and Mark was certainly written before Acts was known of. The stress is on the reception of power from Jesus.

Here the gift was made personally to His disciples, and in some ways was an even greater gift than Pentecost for it ‘opened their minds to understand the Scriptures'. It guaranteed them as the source of full truth (John 16:13). At Pentecost the gift was to the wider church and was more about empowerment for the future ministry (Acts 1:8). But here it was His very life-giving, empowering breath which entered them and they ‘received the Holy Spirit' in the fullest sense of the word as described in John 7:39. They were by this endued with special wisdom in fulfilment of the promises of Chapter s 14-16 (compare in Luke 24:45, ‘then opened He their mind that they might understand the Scriptures', which confirms an earlier enduing to Pentecost). From now on they were different men and spent much time in the Temple blessing God (Luke 24:53). Indeed a separate experience was later clearly necessary, for none but the disciples experienced this uniquely special blessing.

Are we to see this as indicating that they have not previously experienced the power of the Holy Spirit? Of course not. They had cast out evil spirits in the name of Jesus, and Jesus Himself had said that these were cast out by the Spirit of God (Matthew 12:28). This working of the Spirit was one evidence of God's Kingly Rule now present on earth. They had also previously been promised that God would give the Holy Spirit to those who asked Him (Luke 11:13), something clearly available at that time. They thus knew that His powerful working was then available to them. When Jesus sent out His Apostles to preach during His lifetime He had assured them that if they were brought up for questioning ‘the Spirit of His Father' would be their enabling when they made their reply (Matthew 10:20). Jesus' words to Nicodemus made clear that all who were His true followers had already been born anew of the Spirit of God (John 3:1). And so we could go on. So what Jesus was bestowing on them here was the Holy Spirit for a special purpose, for the fulfilling of their unique role as Apostles..

The action of Jesus in breathing on them could hardly fail to bring to mind the way that God breathed into man the breath of life (Genesis 2:7) (also brought out by the use of pnoe (‘breath') at Pentecost). That was the moment when man entered into possession of the old creation, this was the moment when the foundational new men entered into possession of the new creation. Jesus was in effect saying “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).

It was not the moment of their new birth. That had from the first been as necessary for them as for Nicodemus (John 3:6). Nor was it their first experience of the Spirit's power, for they had cast out evil spirits and healed with ‘power' given to them by Jesus (Matthew 10:1 with John 12:28), preaching on His authority (Luke 9:1), and had had available for them the Spirit's help (Luke 12:11; Matthew 10:20 - we have no reason to doubt that this applied to problems they faced in their ministry at that time). Rather it was the special empowering of the foundation members of the new people of God, their special empowering for the task to which they were now set aside, and the special and unique illuminating of the Apostles.

End of note.

“Receive the Holy Spirit.” Nothing could be plainer. At this moment they ‘received' the promised Holy Spirit. Compare John 7:37. There in John 7:39 they had been told that they would soon ‘receive' the Holy Spirit, He Who would flow through them like rivers of living water. Here, using the same word ‘receive' was now the fulfilment of that promise, the reception of that wonderful blessing of the outpoured Holy Spirit. Others would have to wait until Pentecost (Luke 24:4 probably has the wider group of disciples in mind), but this was the firstfruits and the disciples received Him there and then directly from the risen Jesus. He proceeded from the Son. But they too would receive further enduings as they needed them, and have a major role at Pentecost.