John 20:22

And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.

Jesus had promised the apostles that after he went away he would send the Spirit, hence his action here (John 16:7ff). Windisch said, "It is impossible to see in John 20:22ff the fulfillment of the Paraclete prophecies";[10] but, of course, it is impossible not to see it. Windisch's argument is that in the Paraclete sayings the Spirit was to be sent by the ascended one "from heaven" and not from on earth as here! The stupendous error of such an argument is that it views the sending of God's Spirit as a one-shot operation comparable to a president's sending an ambassador. Such is not the case at all. God's (and Christ's) sending of the Holy Spirit is a continuous thing, being done constantly in all generations, and to benefit each new recipient of salvation. As so many unspiritual writers do, Windisch incorporated elements invariably present in the sending of a mortal man with the promise of sending the Spirit, a far different thing. Jesus' appearance in this verse as conveyor of the Spirit is no contradiction of the fact that Jesus sends the Spirit from heaven, as on Pentecost. Furthermore, even in this verse, the Spirit came from both God and Christ who are one (this is the essential fact missing in Windisch), there being thus no possible denial of the Spirit's coming, even here, from heaven.