John 20:22,23 – He breathed on them and *said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
This was literally the first breath for fallen man. The whole race had been dead in their sins with no hope since the time of the fall of man in the garden. For thousands of years the whole race has been banished from the “Garden of Eden” as well as alienated from the Lord. Our nature, which had been formed in the image of God, was dead and had no way to commune with the Lord. That was all about to change with one breath from the Lord. This is what Jesus had described to Nicodemus, “You must be born again or born of the Spirit”, He said. When Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”, that first breath brought them from death into life. Here is how Barclay describes this.
“Jesus breathed on his disciples and gave them the Holy Spirit. There is no doubt that, when John spoke in this way, he was thinking back to the old story of the creation. There the writer says: ‘Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being’ (Genesis 2:7). This was the same picture as Ezekiel saw in the valley of dead, dry bones, when he heard God say to the wind: ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live’ (Ezekiel 37:9). The coming of the Holy Spirit is like the wakening of life from the dead. When he comes upon the Church, it is re-created for its task.”
We were all literally dead in our transgressions and sins until we actually took in that first breath of God. That first Resurrection Day Jesus came to the disciples to offer them this first breath of God’s new life. When Jesus breathed on them they were made alive. The nature of God Himself entered into them and brought them instantly from death into life. This was the beginning of the fulfillment of why Jesus became a man. We could now receive the Holy Spirit into our lives changing everything. This first breath for man was the first breath of an entire new race of humans, we became sons and daughters of God.
