Good afternoon, all.

There are those who clearly don't want to believe that the impression I've presented of John 20:22 is correct. In order to provide such with further fodder for rumination, the following comments are drawn from several of the better exegetical commentaries on the Gospel According to John. I present such for your prayerful consideration.

Having commissioned them Jesus bestows on them the equipment they will need for the discharge of their commission. He breathed and said "Receive the Holy Spirit". It is perhaps significant that there is no "on them" in most MSS (cf. Schonfield: "he expelled a deep breath"). John is not writing as though there were a series of gifts made to individuals. Rather he speaks of a collective gift made to the church as a whole. "The gift was once for all, not to individuals but to the abiding body" (Westcott). There is possibly a recollection here that the primary meaning of the word we render "spirit" is "breath" or "wind". But the important thing is not this, but the presence of the Holy Spirit within them. The relation of this gift to that made on the day of Pentecost is obscure. Some scholars hold that the two are incompatible ... The circumstances of the two gifts are completely different. And, whereas that in Acts 2 is followed immediately some very effective preaching, no sequel to this gift is narrated. It is the teaching of the New Testament that "there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit" (1 Cor. 12 : 4), and that the problem is likely to be solved along these lines. It is false alike to the New Testament and to Christian experience to maintain that there is but one gift of the Spirit. Rather the Spirit is continually manifesting Himself in new ways. So John tells us of one gift and Luke of another. Dr Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, New International Commentary on the New Testament pp. 846, 847.

The description of Jesus' breathing the Spirit uses the Greek word enephysesen ("he breathed", from emphysaō), the word that describes God's "breathing" into Adam the "breath of life" (pnoen zoes) so that Adam becomes "a living being" (psychen zosan, Gen 2:7 LXX). The account of the creation of humankind in Genesis becomes, in turn, the template for the description of God's breathing life into the desiccated bones of the people of Israel (Ezek 37:9; cf. 1 Kgs 17:22; Wis 15:11). Since in both Hebrew and Greek,the same words can mean "spirit" and "breath" (ruach, pneuma), when God "breathes" into someone, God infuses "spirit" ... Having been cleansed by Jesus' word (15:3) and having been given the life-giving Spirit, the disciples extend the blessings of Jesus' salvific work into the world: "If you forgive [aphete] the sins of any, they are forgiven [aphenotai]; and if you keep [kratete] the sins of any, they are kept [kekratentai]." Professor Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary, New Testament Library pp. 421 - 423.

ἐνεφύσησεν (D sin pesh, correctly interpreting, add αὐτοῖς) ... Λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον. The first word is significant. Cf. gen. 2.7, ἐνεφύσησεν [sc. ὁ θεὸς]  εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν. Ezek. 37.9, ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων πνευμάτων ἐλθὲ καὶ ἐμφύσησον εἰς τοὺς νεκροὺς τούτους. Wisd. 15.11, ἠγνόησεν τὸν πλάσαντα αὐτὸν καὶ τὸν ἐμπνεύσαντα αὐτῷ ψυχὴν ἐνεργοῦσαν καὶ ἐμφυσήσαντα πνεῦμα ζωτικόν. That John intended to depict an event of significance parallel to that of the first creation of man cannot be doubted; this was the beginning of a new creation. At the same time, the language of inspiration is not inappropriate to the Hellenistic philosophical apostle; see on v. 21. For the Johannine teaching on the the Holy Spirit see Introduction, pp. 74-7, and on 1.32f.; 3.5; 4.24; 7.37ff.; 14.16 among other passages. It had been promised that the Spirit would be given after the glorification of Jesus (7.39; 16.7) and there can be no doubt that this is the gift intended. On its relation to the ascension see on v. 17. It does not seem possible to harmonize this account of a special bestowing of the Spirit with that contained in Acts 2; after this event there could be no more "waiting" (Luke 24.48f.; Acts 1.4f.); the Church could not be more fully equipped for its mission. The existence of divergent traditions of the constitutative gift of the Spirit is not surprising; it is probable that to the first Christians the resurrection of Jesus and his appearances to them, his exultation (however that was understood), and the gift of the Spirit, appeared as one experience, which only later came to be described in separate elements and incidents. Professor C.K. Barrett, the Gospel According to John, pp. 474, 475.

The breathing alludes back to the wind of 3:8, linking it with the image of regeneration by the Spirit in that context (3:3-6). Even if the punctilliar force of the aorist were pressed, it would not imply that the gift was solely for the apostles present, although the gift may be unrepeatable, but, rather, that the gift was imparted on this occasion once for all to be available hereafter to the rest of the church. The imperative may, however, connote that the although the gift is freely offered to all, it must be embraced by those who would accept the offer.

This passage combines two of the central aspects of the Spirit's work that appear elsewhere in John and various early Jewish sources, both purification or rebirth (Gen 2:7) and empowerment. Most scholars concur that when Jesus breathes on the disciples, John is alluding to the creative, life-imparting acts of God in Gen 2:7; Jesus is creating a new humanity, a new creation. Although the verb for "breathe" here is a rare one, it occurs in Gen 2:7 and Ezek 37:9 as well as quotes of it in Philo and Wis 15:11. Similar images appear elsewhere in early Jewish texts, but many depend on Genesis (such as Wis 15:11; 4 Ezra 3:5-7) or simply reflect common language in the milieu (cf. perhaps 2 Kgs 4:34) ... 

Genesis 2:7 was naturally conected with Ezek 37:9 in later midrash and Jewish artwork, and Ezek 37:9 was explicitly understood to refer to the resurrection of the dead. Given John's earlier treatment of rebirth imagery (3:3-5) and his linking of water (3:6) and wind (3:8) images of the Spirit (cf. Ezek 36-37), it is likely that he recalls here the regenerating aspect of the Spirit of purification. Jesus had promised that his return to them alive would bring them new life as well (14:19) ...

For John, all those who believe are to "receive" the Spirit after Jesus' glorification (7:39), so the experience depicted here for the disciples functions proleptically for the whole church. The language of "receiving the Spirit" (also 14:17; cf. 1 John 2:27) accords with the early Christian tradition, normally for the experience of new relationship (Romans 8:15; 1 Cor 2:12; 2 Cor 11:4; Gal 3:2, 14) or empowerment for mission (Acts 1:8) temporally at (Acts 10:470, or theologically implicit in (Acts 2:33; 19:2), conversion, although in the early church's experience it may have applied to a post-conversion experience in some cases (Acts 8:15, 17) ... "Receiving" the Spirit here also refers to the beginning of an indwelling (14:17, 23) and hence implies a fuller inspiration than that reported among the biblical prophets. Professor C.S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 2, pp. 1204-1206.

If this community is to function in the way just described, then the gift of the Spirit is essential. Human beings in themselves are not capable of of manifesting God's presence and doing God's will as Jesus did. Indeed, without the Spirit there is no spiritual life (3:3, 5). But Jesus now has been glorified, so the Spirit can be given (7:39; see comment on 16:7). At this point the life that has been in Jesus in his union with God is now shared with the disciples. This new state of affairs, described in the farewell discourse and hinted at already by the risen Christ (v. 17), begins to take effect among the disciples. They have been reunited with Jesus and now are given his very life by the Spirit--not only reunited with him, but beginning to be united to him. The word used for breathed on (emphysaō) is the same word used in the Greek Old Testament to describe God's action when he formed man from the dust of the ground and "breathed into him the breath of life" and the man became a living being (Gen 2:7; cf. Wisdom of Solomon 15:11; also Ezek 37:5-10, 14) ...

This imparting of the Spirit is clearly a climactic moment in the Gospel. Precisely because it is climactic one wonders how it is related to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2). On the assumption that both John and Luke are describing the one giving of the Spirit a number of scholars think the accounts reflect different theological emphases ... Others would embrace a view condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 553, namely, that the imparting of the Spirit in John in symbolic of the later experience at Pentecost ... Yet another position is that the two accounts describe two different events, though there is much variety in how the differences are understood (cf. Brown 1970:1038; Beasley-Murray 1987:381). Dr R.A. Whitacre, John, Inter Varsity Press New Testament Commentary, pp. 480, 481.

Blessings,

Ian