Christ was not deserted in death and his body was never destroyed. ‘Christ is the man Jesus, whom God raised up—a fact of which all of us are eye-witnesses!’ He has been raised to the right hand of God; he has received from the Father and poured out upon us the promised Holy Spirit—that is what you now see and hear!
~Acts. 2:31-33, J. B. Phillips translation
This verse was one that I learned in a slightly different form adapted from The Living Bible, in fact, it hung as part of poster on a wall in my bedroom:
The Father gave the authority to the Son to send the Holy Spirit, with the results you are seeing and hearing today.
Quoted verbatim from The Living Bible verse 33 reads,
“And now he sits on the throne of highest honor in heaven, next to God. And just as promised, the Father gave him the authority to send the Holy Spirit—with the results you are seeing and hearing today.
Christ’s death and resurrection brought about a change in the relationship between The Holy Spirit and man.
- In the first covenant, God’s Spirit occasionally rested on certain individuals, such as the prophets
- In the time of Christ, the disciples experienced Emmanuel, God with us. The Spirit indwelt Jesus who in turn was physically present among mankind in ways unknown since the Garden of Eden, but limited by whatever physical location Jesus was present at any single time.
- After the resurrection, God’s Spirit lived inside those who granted Him full authority, or Lordship over their lives.
Christ came to fulfill a sacrificial mandate, but also to usher us into a time when His Spirit would live through us; where instead of being centered on a single person (and therefore a single place) the Spirit of God would be present in people throughout the entire earth. Though omnipresent in both old covenant and new covenant times, the embodiment of His presence after Acts 2 was much more widespread.
Raised to new life, God pours out His Spirit on all those who believe and follow.
There is a continual progression that leads up to the verse in Acts 2 above. In John 7:37-39 we read,
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (NIV)
Then, in John 14:
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I said to you. (NASB)
And a chapter later Jesus is quoted saying,
“But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.” (15:26 NLT)
And then just before his ascension, in Acts 1:3-4, we read,
To the same apostles also, after his suffering, he presented himself alive with many convincing proofs. He was seen by them over a forty-day period and spoke about matters concerning the kingdom of God. While he was with them, he declared, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait there for what my Father promised, which you heard about from me. (NET)
Many times I’ve seen Bible study outlines with titles and headers like, “Jesus predicts his death;” but we have an equally compelling case to examine the instances of “Jesus predicts the giving of the Holy Spirit.”
Many times I’ve also heard people talk about “the gifts of the Spirit;” but one time I heard a pastor say
The gift of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit Himself.
With that in mind, let’s end with Luke 11:13
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (NIV)
Christianity 201 
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