John 20:22

Ver. 22. The endowment in view of this sending. As there is properly only one mission, there is also only one force for fulfilling it that of Jesus, which He communicates through His Spirit.

The words: Having said this, serve, like John 20:20, to connect the following act with the preceding words. There are two extreme opinions as to the value of the act described in this verse. According to Baur, Hilgenfeld and Keim, the evangelist transfers to this day Pentecost as well as the ascension (John 20:17). But the: I ascend of John 20:17 could not have been accomplished in the course of this day; for John 20:20 proves that Jesus did not yet have His glorified body. But it is from the Father that He is to send the Spirit (John 7:39, John 16:7). Moreover, the absence of the article before πνεῦμα ἅγιον, Holy Spirit, shows that the question here is not yet of the sending of the Paraclete promised in chs. 14-16. Hence others Chrysostom, Grotius, Tholuck have concluded that there was a purely symbolic act here, a sensible pledge of the future sending of the Spirit. But this sense is incompatible with the imperative λάβετε, receive! You shall receive would be necessary. This expression implies a present communication. The question here is neither of a simple promise nor of the full outpouring of the Spirit. Raised Himself to a stage of higher life, Jesus raises them, as far as He can do so, to His new position. He associates them in His state as raised from the dead, just as later, through Pentecost, He will make them participate in His state as one glorified. He communicates to them the peace of adoption and the understanding of the Scriptures (Luke 24:45); He puts their will in unison with His own, that they may be prepared for the common work (John 20:21).

Some commentators Reuss, for example see here an allusion to Genesis 2:7: “ The Lord breathed into the nostrils (of man) a breath of life. ” But the thought of Jesus seems to me to refer rather to the future than to the past. This preparatory communication will necessarily make them understand, when the wind of the Spirit shall blow, that this wind is nothing else than the personal breath of their invisible Master.