When He had said thisThis phrase follows Jesus' post-resurrection appearance to His disciples. The context is crucial as it occurs after His crucifixion and resurrection, marking a pivotal moment in Christian theology. Jesus had just reassured His disciples with peace and commissioned them, indicating the beginning of their mission to spread the Gospel. This moment is a fulfillment of His promise to send a Helper, as mentioned in
John 14:16-17.
He breathed on them
The act of breathing on the disciples is symbolic and reminiscent of God breathing life into Adam inGenesis 2:7. This signifies a new creation, where the disciples are being spiritually renewed and empowered for their mission. The breath of Jesus here is a precursor to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, as described inActs 2. It also connects toEzekiel 37:9-10, where the breath brings life to dry bones, symbolizing spiritual revival.
and said,
Jesus' words are authoritative and transformative. His speaking is an act of divine will, emphasizing the power and intentionality behind His actions. In biblical tradition, God's words are creative and life-giving, as seen inGenesis 1, where God speaks creation into existence.
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
This command is both a promise and an empowerment. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, essential for the disciples' understanding, guidance, and strength in their forthcoming mission. This moment is a foretaste of the full indwelling of the Spirit that would occur at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit's role is to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8) and to guide believers into all truth (John 16:13). This act fulfills Old Testament prophecies, such asJoel 2:28-29, about God's Spirit being poured out on all people.
Persons / Places / Events
1.
Jesus ChristThe resurrected Lord who appears to His disciples, offering them peace and commissioning them for their mission.
2.
The DisciplesThe followers of Jesus who are gathered together in a locked room, fearful of the Jewish leaders, and who receive the Holy Spirit from Jesus.
3.
The Upper RoomThe location where the disciples are gathered, symbolizing a place of fear transformed into a place of empowerment.
4.
The Breathing of JesusA symbolic act reminiscent of God breathing life into Adam, signifying the impartation of spiritual life and empowerment.
5.
The Holy SpiritThe third person of the Trinity, given to the disciples to empower them for their mission and to guide them in truth.
Teaching Points
Empowerment for MissionJust as the disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry out their mission, believers today are called to rely on the Spirit for strength and guidance in their own lives and ministries.
The Breath of LifeThe act of Jesus breathing on the disciples signifies the impartation of spiritual life. Believers are reminded that true life and vitality come from the Spirit of God.
Peace and PresenceJesus' presence brings peace to the fearful disciples. In the same way, believers can find peace in the presence of Christ, even in times of fear and uncertainty.
The Role of the Holy SpiritThe Holy Spirit is essential for understanding and living out the teachings of Jesus. Believers are encouraged to cultivate a relationship with the Spirit for wisdom and discernment.
New CreationReceiving the Holy Spirit marks the beginning of a new life in Christ. Believers are called to live as new creations, reflecting the character and mission of Jesus.
Bible Study Questions and Answers
1.What is the meaning of John 20:22?
2.How does John 20:22 illustrate the impartation of the Holy Spirit to believers?
3.What significance does Jesus breathing on the disciples have in John 20:22?
4.How does John 20:22 connect to Genesis 2:7 regarding the breath of life?
5.In what ways can we receive the Holy Spirit's guidance today?
6.How should receiving the Holy Spirit impact our daily Christian walk and witness?
7.What does "He breathed on them" signify in John 20:22?
8.How does John 20:22 relate to the concept of the Holy Spirit?
9.Why is the act of breathing significant in John 20:22?
10.What are the top 10 Lessons from John 20?
11.Did Jesus breathe on them to receive the Holy Spirit?
12.Did Jesus breathe on them to receive the Holy Spirit?
13.What defines the breath of life?
14.What does breathing signify in relation to Yahweh's name?What Does John 20:22 Mean
When He had said this• The moment follows Jesus’ resurrection appearance to the frightened disciples, where He has just declared, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21).
• His words of peace and mission echo earlier promises:John 14:27 (“Peace I leave with you”) andJohn 17:18 (“As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them”).
• The sequence is important: Peace, commission, then empowerment—mirroringMatthew 28:18-20 andLuke 24:47-49, where assurance, purpose, and power flow in that order.
He breathed on them• A deliberate, physical action—Jesus actually exhales toward His followers.
• Calls backGenesis 2:7, where “the LORD God formed man… and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” underscoring new-creation life now beginning in them (2 Corinthians 5:17).
• EchoesEzekiel 37:9-10, where breath enters dry bones and they stand as a living army; the disciples are being enlivened for service.
• The act underscores intimacy: the same One who once calmed storms with His breath (Mark 4:39) now imparts life-giving breath to His people.
and said• The spoken word carries divine authority; what He commands becomes reality (cf.Mark 4:39;John 11:43-44).
• Jesus’ voice consistently pairs revelation with empowerment—John 15:3 (“You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you”) andJohn 17:17 (“Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth”).
• By joining breath and speech, He links physical sign and spiritual reality.
"Receive the Holy Spirit."• A real impartation takes place—an initial, personal reception of the Spirit fulfillingJohn 14:16-17 (“He lives with you and will be in you”).
• Distinct from—but preparatory to—the public, empowering outpouring at Pentecost (Acts 1:4-8;Acts 2:1-4). Private indwelling precedes public power.
• The Spirit’s arrival certifies the new covenant reality foretold inJeremiah 31:33 and realized inRomans 8:9 (“Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him”).
• This gift secures:
– Regeneration (Titus 3:5)
– Assurance of sonship (Romans 8:15-16)
– Beginning of their witness (John 20:23), later expanded through Spirit-empowered proclamation (Acts 4:31).
• The command “Receive” underscores responsibility: while the gift is divine, the disciples must welcome and rely on Him (Galatians 5:25).
summaryJesus, risen and authoritative, first brings peace, then breathes His own life into His disciples, verbally conferring the Holy Spirit. The scene is a literal new-creation moment, fulfilling promises of intimate indwelling and preparing them for the coming global mission. Peace, commission, and Spirit empowerment converge, demonstrating that life, authority, and ministry all flow from the risen Lord’s breath and word.
Verses 22, 23. -
And when he had said this, he breathed upon them, and saith to them, Receive ye (
the)
Holy Spirit. The word
ἐνεφύσησεν is not elsewhere used in the New Testament, but is used by the LXX. in
Genesis 2:7 to describe the essential distinction between the living soul of Adam and the living soul of all other animals. Man's life was no evolution of the life in other creatures, or consequence of pre-existent properties in the dust of the ground. A direct volition of the Almighty conferred upon humanity the life of the flesh. So here the second Adam, the life-giving Spirit (
1 Corinthians 15:45), was represented as visibly and sensibly conferring on those whom he now sends forth to complete the mission of his grace the Divine life which would make them new creatures, and bestow on them power to generate the same spirit in others. They will have power to do this by bearing testimony to that which they see and know to be the fact of the case. The celebrated passage (
John 7:39) which asserts the "glorification" of Jesus to be the condition of the mission of the Comforter (cf.
John 16:7) makes the bestowment of the Spirit on this occasion a proof that the glorification had already begun. Has he not already said to Mary, "I am ascending to my Father"? So now he implies that the. time will come when, though he is sending his disciples forth from his immediate corporeal presence, they will touch him by other faculties than eye, or ear, or hand. He is about to leave them for seven days; they are to learn the reality of his spiritual presence by an earnest of Pentecost, by such a gift of the Spirit that they will recognize, in the rushing mighty wind, the presence of the same uplifting, revealing, supernatural Energy. It is urged by Hofmann, Luthardt, Gess, Moulton, and to some extent Westcott and Coder, that the absence of the article must be represented in the translation, that we have here either "a holy spirit," or an energy, an impersonal force of Spirit, or "a gift of the Holy Spirit," an effusion of Holy Spirit, and not "the Spirit of the Father and Son," not the fullness of the Holy Ghost, not the realization of the Divine indwelling, only an earnest of the sublime reality, a symbolic expression of the promise of the Father. Godet says, "This communication is to the Resurrection what Pentecost will be to the Ascension. As by Pentecost he will initiate them into his ascension, so now he associates them with the life of the Resurrection." This last may be perfectly true; yet
Πνεῦμα Ἅγιον, with or without article, is "the Holy Spirit" (cf.
Romans 8:4;
Galatians 5:16). Meyer says, "The idea of an intermediate Holy Spirit, distinct from the Holy Spirit, lies outside of Scripture." Nor can we minimize the full force of
λάβετε, which emphasizes the special action of Christ, by which he communicated to this first gathering of the Church the sense of his Divine presence, the gift of spiritual insight, the God-consciousness, the experience of two worlds, the unity and community of life with himself, which has been augmenting in positive realization, in vivid proofs, in mighty powers, from that hour to this. Whosoever enters into the sphere of that Divine breath becomes "alive unto God;" his faith is invincible; he comes to know that which passes current experience. This was the beginning of the supernatural life which makes Christian consciousness unique among religious experiences. From that hour the holy world and kingdom in which Christ rules has been an objective fact. It lies far beyond the ken of science, and cannot find any place in a sensational philosophy, because it is not a universal experience. It will become so. The further revelations of the Lord all contributed to create the conviction, and Pentecost sealed it to the world. It is desirable to remember (cf.
Luke 24:33, etc.) that not merely the eleven apostles received this Divine gift but all the others who had gathered together with them. This circumstance must be held to govern to some extent the solemn and mysterious privilege which appears to follow the Divine bestowment of the Holy Spirit. We cannot divide the company into two parts, one of which received the Holy Spirit, and the other which did not receive him; one of which became conscious of the Divine reality, and the other not. The women who had been the first witnesses and proclaimers of the resurrection-life of the Lord could not have been deprived of this sublime privilege. To the little society of believers, before long to swell to a company of a hundred and twenty, was this great grace given, and to the new fellowship of faith was the high privilege vouchsafed; for he continued,
Whosesoever sins ye (remit)
forgive, they are forgivenunto them - absolutely forgiven by God; for who can forgive sins but God only, and the Son of man who had and exercised the power on earth to forgive sins? -
and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained. The history of the interpretation of this remarkable passage is given at length in Herzog's 'Real Encycl.,' art. "Schlüsselgewelt," by Stein. The patristic, scholastic, Tridentine,' Reformation doctrines are very carefully treated. The decrees of the Council of Trent, session 16. co. 1. - 6, show that every form in which apostolic custom, reformed theology, and modern exegesis have solved the problem of their meaning, was repudiated and anathematized by the Church of Rome, and that the function of forgiving or retaining sin was reserved for the priesthood alone, whether in respect of venial or mortal sin (see ' Ecclesia: Church Problems considered in a Series of Essays,' article by the present writer "On Forgiveness and Absolution of Sins"). It is impossible to sever this passage from those passages in
Matthew 16:19 where Peter's confession of the Messiahship draws forth from the Lord the extraordinary benediction and privilege, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Lightfoot and Schöttgen have shown, by numerous quotations from the Talmud, that the phrases "bind" and "loose" are repeatedly used by the rabbis to denote the declaration of what is binding and what is immaterial in ethic and religions life. Thus say they, "The school of Hillel binds, the school of Schammai looses or declares indifferent, this or that regulation." We know that it was given to Peter, by the conference upon him of the powers of the Holy Ghost, to declare the terms of admission and exclusion from the kingdom of God. Thus
Acts 2:37-39;
Acts 3:19;
Acts 5:1-11;
Acts 8:20-24;
Acts 10:34-48;
Acts 11:17;
Acts 15:8, etc. Now, we find James in the same assembly proceeding still further than Simon Peter (James, who was not even one of the twelve disciples); and Paul repeatedly, in the Acts and in his Epistles, declaring by Divine inspiration the duties, the privileges, the ideas, the redeeming principles, of the kingdom of God, "binding and loosing," in the full confidence that he was the minister and mouthpiece of Jesus Christ. This is not remarkable, because we find that the identical privilege which was in
Matthew 16. described as a privilege of Peter is in
Matthew 18:15-19 conferred, not merely on Peter, but on the whole Church, and still more explicitly upon any two who should agree as touching the forgiveness of a brother, to ask the Father in heaven for this great boon. This privilege is based on the ground that "where two or three are gathered together" in Christ's Name, there, says he, "am I in the midst of them." If the offending brother had refused all repentance and neglected to hear the judgment of the Church, this prayer cannot be urged. Peter then seeks for further information, "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times?" In answer to this question Christ reminded Peter of the Father's boundless love, and made it the pattern of human forgiveness; and the whole question of the forgiveness of injuries is shown to be closely associated with this binding and loosing power, this anticipation, this discovery of the will of the Father, this acquisition of the truth in answer to earnest prayer. Prayer is, as we have seen in numberless places, the rising up of human desires into the very purposes and grace of God, not a change wrought by us in the mind and will of God - God forbid that we should ever, to our confusion, secure such a result as that! - but it is in essence a change wrought by God in us, helping us to say, "Thy will be done!" Let it be borne m mind that this privilege of learning and uttering in our prayers the forgiving love of God, upon the conditions of repentance and faith and a forgiving spirit, is not confined to Peter, but conferred on all the disciples, nay, upon any two of them who should agree to pray with the sinning brother for forgiveness. This great law of love, prayer, and forgiveness was doubtless given for all time. Our Lord, in this repetition of a promise made on an earlier occasion, emits all reference to the binding in heaven of what is bound on earth. Yet he does not repeal the promise, but rather specifies the occasions on which the disciples would find that most frequently they would have to exercise it. Whosesoever sins ye, etc. It is as much as to say - Announce boldly remission of sins on conditions of faith and repentance (
Luke 24:47) "to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Your forgiveness even of my murderers, your forgiveness of' Samaritans and publicans, of chief priests and Pharisees, of Greeks and Jews, of those that stone you and persecute you; as well as your announcement of the infinite compassion of God, shall be justified and ratified in heaven. This has been the divinest function of the Church and of the disciples of Christ ever since. There is no case that we can find in the New Testament in which the apostles as an order of men, or the ministers of the Church as such, assumed in any other way the power of personally forgiving, in the stead of God, the specific sins of any individuals. We cannot here trace the matter into the controversies that have arisen as to the power of a specially ordered ministry to absolve personally individual sinners from the consequences of their sin against God. Spiritual communion with Christ, personal reception from Christ himself of his own Spirit, is the highest guarantee of power to proclaim with emancipating effect the amnesty of love, or to utter with subduing might the terrors of the Lord.
Parallel Commentaries ...
Greek
[When]καὶ(kai)Conjunction
Strong's 2532:And, even, also, namely.He had saidεἰπὼν(eipōn)Verb - Aorist Participle Active - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2036:Answer, bid, bring word, command. A primary verb; to speak or say.this,τοῦτο(touto)Demonstrative Pronoun - Accusative Neuter Singular
Strong's 3778:This; he, she, it.He breathed on [them]ἐνεφύσησεν(enephysēsen)Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1720:To breathe into, breathe upon. From en and phusao; to blow at or on.andκαὶ(kai)Conjunction
Strong's 2532:And, even, also, namely.said,λέγει(legei)Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 3004:(a) I say, speak; I mean, mention, tell, (b) I call, name, especially in the pass., (c) I tell, command.“ReceiveΛάβετε(Labete)Verb - Aorist Imperative Active - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 2983:(a) I receive, get, (b) I take, lay hold of.[the] HolyἍγιον(Hagion)Adjective - Accusative Neuter Singular
Strong's 40:Set apart by (or for) God, holy, sacred. From hagos; sacred.Spirit.Πνεῦμα(Pneuma)Noun - Accusative Neuter Singular
Strong's 4151:Wind, breath, spirit.
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NT Gospels: John 20:22 When he had said this he breathed (Jhn Jo Jn) 
