John 20:22 "And when He had said this, He breathed on them and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.'"

Acts 2:1,4 "And when the Day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. . . . And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

"It shows a remarkable lack of spiritual insight if one speaks of a discrepancy between these two passages. Does the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the apostles on the Day of Pentecost mean that this gracious gift was never given before? Every Christian has the Holy Spirit, and still he asks God every day to be made the dwelling place of the Spirit of God. The apostles had the Holy Spirit before the death and resurrection of their Lord as is very evident from their possession of the gift to expel devils and to heal diseases. Jesus Himself says that He was driving out the devils through the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28). His apostles must have done it through the same agency. Jesus renewed this gift after His resurrection when He breathed on the apostles and assured them again that they, as true disciples, having the Holy Spirit, had authority to forgive and to retain sins. On the Day of Pentecost they were filled with the Holy Spirit, being granted a special measure of His gifts and graces. In all this there is nothing contradictory. In Eph. 5:18 Paul exhorts his readers: ‘Be filled with the Spirit,’ and yet he has pointed out to the same readers that they have the Holy Spirit, that they have been sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13). We, then, have a full and satisfactory explanation of the difficulty supposed to be inherent in the above texts if we remember that God sends His Holy Spirit again and again and now and then in a greater measure than at other times."