“And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22).
RECEIVE THE SPIRIT
The Spirit of Christ is important for each believer. Jesus gives us a dramatic picture of what receiving the Spirit meant for the disciples and for us too.
The Greek word for breath is pneuma which means, “a current of air, i.e. breath or a breeze”. Jesus breathed on the disciples showing what was soon to happen, and that the Spirit who was going to come to them on the day of Pentecost was sent by Christ, and was the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God: and here we see a little of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Jesus performed the drama of breathing on them to show what was soon to come. Jesus then explained what would happen in words: “For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5).
All believers have the Holy Spirit: “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (Rom 8:9). But as growing believers in Christ we can also experience the baptism of the Spirit too. We see this when Peter and John went to Samaria to help the new believers there: “When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 8:15–16).
We see that “The Spirit gives life” (John 6:63), life that grows, we need the Holy Spirit in our lives, growing in the fruit and gifts of the Spirit.
Where there’s no Spirit there’s no life.
“Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all” (Hab 2:19). There is no breath in an idol.
We know that God alone can form the spirit of a man. “The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person” (Zech 12:1). Yet we read in Revelation 13:15 that the false prophet “had power to give life unto the image of the beast”. So the life or breath within the image, is not put there by God, but signifies an evil spirit who has projected itself into this apparatus that deceives the people.
This is not the spirit that we receive. Yet, for a time many people will be deceived. But those with the Spirit of God within them, are watchful and keep the oil for their lamps full, they are not taken in by worldly schemes inspired by a foul spirit.
“With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him” (Dan 11:32).
The Holy Spirit is able to keep us all on course, resisting the evil and growing in goodness.