Different But Not Conflicting
Why do Luke and John have differing accounts of when the Apostles receive the Holy Spirit?
The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are not identical accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. And the Gospels are not conflicting accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. Nevertheless, some details are challenging to square with each other. One example is the timing of the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit.
I’ve written about the differences between the Gospels in general before. In this article I want to briefly work through this specific issue.
John 20:21-23 says, “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” After saying this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In Luke 24:49, following his resurrection, Jesus tells his disciples, “And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered, from on high.” For Luke this sets up the Pentecost event in Acts 2. Are these differences evidence of conflicting accounts? How can these verses be squared with one another? First, the context of John 20:21-23 must be considered.
John 20:21-23 is John’s version of the great commission involving the triune God. The disciples receive the Spirit from the Father and through the Son. John noted before that the Spirit would be given when Christ was glorified (7:37) and Jesus told his disciples that if he did not go away the Spirit would not come (16:7). In this passage then, John is reenforcing that Jesus was glorified at the cross (12:27-33) and because of the atonement he accomplished by his death and resurrection he sends the Spirit to live in his disciples (7:39). Therefore, John 20:21-23 shows that Jesus has been glorified and all the promises that accompanied his glorification have come. The disciples now take the place of being witnesses to his glory in the world (1:14; 15:26-27). John views the cross, the resurrection, the gift of the Spirit and Jesus’s ascension as a unified event.
How does this help square John’s and Luke’s account of receiving the Holy Spirit? First, it reveals the difference in their emphasis. Luke’s emphasis is historical, as he says his aim was to write an ordered account of the things handed down to us concerning Jesus so that readers may “know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed” (Luke 1:1-4). For Luke, therefore, the sequence of events related to receiving the Spirit is a crucial detail. John’s emphasis is theological. He wrote selectively “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God” (20:31). For John’s purpose, he views events holistically and is not especially concerned about issues of chronology. As Gerald Borchert explains, this does not necessary create a conflict between John and Luke.
To view events holistically means that the story is told in such a way that the end is already part of the beginning. That also means that time sequences are not as important as meaning sequences, and it certainly does not imply that if someone writes in this manner he is polemicizing against someone who writes sequentially or that he creates the stories to provide the meanings.(Borchert, John 12–21, vol. 25B, The New American Commentary, 308).
For John, the gift of the Spirit is an inseparable result of Jesus’s glorification (crucifixion, resurrection and ascension) thus he frames his account to clearly identify that connection, showing that the Spirit is given from the Father, through the glorified Jesus (20:22),for the purpose of mission. Luke focuses on the timing of receiving what the Father promised while John’s focus on the ground by which the promised Spirit is received. Different emphasis does not equate to conflicting accounts.