It's always fascinating the connections that you can see when you slow down as you read a text. For me one of those connections came today in John 20:22. As I read through the text, in light of a conversation yesterday with a colleague, and came across the verb ἐνεφύσησεν, being unfamiliar with it (it occurs only once in the New Testament), I did a little digging. The verb (ἐμφυσάω) occurs in the LXX only in the aorist (which is the tense used in John), and occurs only in 7 places (Gen 2:7; 1 Kgs 17:21; Job 4:21; Wis 15:11; Nah 2:2; Ezek 21:36; 37;9). In each of these instances, with exception of Nah 2:2 and Ezek 21:36, the use indicates the breathing of life into a human. The uses in 1 Kgs 17:21; Job 4:21; Wis 15:11; and Ezek 37:9 appear to be reflecting the activity of Gen 2:7, where God breathes life into man. Specifically in Ezek 37:9, the prophet uses this as a prophetic metaphor to describe the revivification of Israel, couching the description in terms of re-creation. By choice of this word, it seems the Evangelist is clearly echoing back to the creation. Is this intended to mean that the re-creation, the gift of new life, of the disciples began in that moment with Jesus?
Various interpretations of the passage have been offered. Some have taken it to refer to the impartation of "a holy spirit" (Johnston, The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John, 11) for empowerment and not the coming of the Holy Spirit which would happen later at Pentecost. Others have taken it as an indication as the gift of new life being given here and the power of the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost (Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, 350-51), and others still as John's "Pentecost" (for more discussion of the history of interpretation, see Carson, Gospel of John, 649-655). Köstenberger recognizes the connection with Gen 2:7, and suggests, "Here, at the occasion of the commissioning of his disciples, Jesus constitutes them as the new messianic community in anticipation of the outpouring of the Spirit subsequent to his ascension" (Köstenberger, John, 575). Part of me wonders, though, is this more than a symbolic act of anticipation in light of Gen. 2:7? This is, I think, close to what Turner suggests in stating, "The implication is that it is only now, beyond the cross and vindication, that the Spirit-empowered revelation to the disciples achieves what had begun within the ministry, namely new creation transformation" (M. M. B. Turner, "Holy Spirit," DJG, 348). Likewise, Cyril of Alexandria though that this referred to "a renewal of that primal gift and of the inbreathing bestowed on us, bringing us back to the form of the initial holiness and carrying man's nature up, as a kind of firstfruits among the holy apostles, into the holiness bestowed on us initially at the first creation" (On. Sol. par. 2, quoted from Fairbairn, Life in the Trinity, 63). It seems to me a good possibility that this is not simply a pre-Pentecost, or that the Evangelist is necessarily making a distinction between "indwelling" and "filling," but that he is indicating that, now that Jesus has been raised from the dead, the renewal of creation, and specifically of human beings, evidenced first here in his first followers, had begun through the impartation of the new life of the resurrection, as life was first breathed into Adam, was breathed into the disciples. I need to do some more thinking on this, but this seems to me a fruitful way to read this text in John's Gospel.
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