Breathing
Breathing
BREATHING.On the evening of the Resurrection, the Lord appeared to the disciples, gave them the commission As my Father, etc., and when he had said this, he breathed on them (), and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost ( ). Whose soever sins retained, Joh 20:21 f. The word is that employed by LXX Septuagint to translate in Gen 2:7, Eze 37:9. As Westcott observes, the same image which was used to describe the communication of the natural life [at the Creation] is here used to express the communication of the new, spiritual life of recreated humanity. The figure of human life depending on the breath of God is frequent in the Bible; besides above passages, see Job 12:10; Job 33:4, Psa 33:6, Isa 42:5, Dan 5:23, Act 17:25. In the following the breath of God is synonymous with the manifestation of His power: 2Sa 22:16, Job 37:10; Job 41:21, Isa 11:4. Both ideas seem to underlie our Lords action. The Church was now receiving its commission, and the efficacy and reality of the commission must depend upon the indwelling in the Church of the same Spirit as was in Christ Himself. Alike the mission of the Church and its authority to forgive or retain sins are connected with a personal qualification, Take ye the Holy Ghost (Edersheim, ii. 644). The work was not new, but was that already received from the Father by the Son and now handed on to that Church which was to be Christs body on earth. He had compared the action of the Spirit to breath (Joh 3:8). By breathing on them He signified that the Holy Ghost was the Spirit not of the Father alone but likewise His own (Aug. St. John, translation 121).
Considerable difference of opinion exists as to whether the act of breathing, with the authority to retain or forgive sin, was bestowed upon the Apostles only or on others besides. Those who limit it to the Apostles urge that disciples is always in the later chapters of St. John used to signify Apostles; and that, even if others were present, the analogy of Mat 28:16 and Mar 16:14-18 implies that the breathing and commission were limited to the Apostles. They would then see in the act a formal ministerial ordination.* [Note: Stanley (Christ. Inst. p. 192) states that in the Abyssinian and Alexandrian Church ordination was, and still is, by breathing.] On the other hand, Westcott and many others, comparing Luk 24:23, see no reason whatever for limiting the act and commission to Apostles. Even of the Eleven we know that Thomas at least was absent (Joh 20:24). The commission was one given to the Christian society as a body: in it in its corporate capacity would dwell the Holy Ghost, and the authority of retaining or forgiving sins.
Literature.The Commentaries on St. John; Westcott, Revelation of Risen Lord, p. 81; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 644; Gore, Christian Ministry, p. 229; Stanley, Christian Institutions, p. 192.
J. B. Bristow.