The question arises because of the
apparent contradiction between what happened on the day of Pentecost
when the disciples were baptised with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:
5; 2: 3, 4, 17, 33), and the Lord’s action five weeks earlier when
He breathed into His disciples and said “Receive [the] Holy Spirit”
(John 20: 22).
Scripture is its
own interpreter, and in John 7: 39, the writer comments that “But
this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him
were about to receive; for [the] Spirit was not yet, because Jesus
had not yet been glorified”. When did the disciple’s position of
being “about to receive” end? Clearly when Christ was glorified.
Take another passage: “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from
with the Father, he shall bear witness concerning me (John
15: 26). How is the Spirit sent by the Lord from with
the Father? Clearly by the Lord going away to the Father (see John
16: 10 etc.). Again, what will the Holy Spirit “bear witness
concerning me” (John 15: 26)? The answer is, “having come, he will
bring demonstration to the world … of righteousness, because I go
away to [my] Father” (John 16: 8, 10). The Spirit will bear witness
to the Man now in the glory, vindicating the divine testimony to
Jesus of Nazareth. Putting all this together, it is clear that the
Holy Spirit was not sent (and therefore not received) until Jesus
was glorified.
So when was Jesus
glorified? On the day of His resurrection, He tells Mary “Touch me
not” (aptomai—that
is, do not try to hold me down here) “for I have not yet ascended
to my Father” (John 20: 17; comp. John 6: 62). Elsewhere we learn
that after “being seen by them during forty days” (Acts 1: 3), He
“was taken up” (v2)—that is, ten days before Pentecost. The
conclusion is inescapable that the Holy Spirit was not
received in John 20.
What then does John
20: 22 (“Receive [the] Holy Spirit”) refer to? It has just been
demonstrated that these words cannot mean that by breathing into the
disciples, the Lord had imparted to them the Holy Spirit at that
time. The fact is, I may be told to receive someone long before they
arrive. Thus there is no reason why the Lord’s words cannot simply
be anticipative of what was to follow at Pentecost (as
is much in John’s Gospel—for example, eating the Lord’s flesh in
John 6 was something the disciples could only come into afterwards).
Why then, the striking action of breathing into the disciples, as if
something were imparted there and then—for
the Lord clearly intended His action to convey something? The
disciples would have been familiar with Gen 2: 7 where “Jehovah
Elohim formed Man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul” (see also
Job 27: 3; 33: 4). It is not difficult to conclude that in His
parallel action in John 20 the Lord was asserting deity—that “I and
the Father are one” (John 10: 30). But He was doing so as a
Man (comp. John 5: 26). If in Gen. 2: 7, Jehovah breathed
into “The first man Adam” so that he “became a living soul” (1 Cor.
15: 45), in John 20: 22, “the last Adam” comes into view as “a
quickening spirit” (1 Cor. 15: 45). Now in 1 Cor. 15, the context is
the Lord raising the dead—which is clearly not the case in John 20,
even though the Lord Himself is there as risen from the dead. What
then are we to make of an action that symbolises the giving of life
coupled with the instruction “Receive [the] Holy Spirit” (John 20:
22)? Indeed, why not simply say ‘receive life’?
In Gen. 2: 7, the
effect of the divine breath was that man “became a living soul”—that
is, he received a life suited to this earth. In 1 Cor. 15: 45, our
bodies will be energised and transformed in resurrection so that we
are suited to the scene of glory which we will then occupy. In John
20 the point of the Lord’s outbreathing was in view of the apostle’s
future service as sent of the Father (see vs. 21, 23). The words are
“as the Father sent me forth, I also send you” (v21). How was the
Lord sent? As a man anointed of the Holy Spirit: “And John bore
witness, saying, I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove from
heaven, and it abode upon him. And I
knew him not; but he who sent me to baptise with water, he
said to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and
abiding on him, he it is who baptises with [the] Holy Spirit” (John
1: 32, 33). Hence the disciples were to be animated (made alive) at
Pentecost in the Lord’s service by the Holy Spirit—not only as
abiding “with you” (as in the Gospels, because the Spirit was in
Christ, and Christ was with them) but “in you” (John 14: 17). Then
they would have literally received, the One “whom the world cannot
receive” (v17).
Of course, one
apostle (Thomas) was absent in John 20: 22. There he is really a
type of the unbelieving Jews, but personally he had a
part in the apostolic service that John 20: 22 has in view. That in
itself is proof that the Lord’s words and action are symbolic
of a future reality.
