“The first work which Christ does after His exaltation to the right hand of the Father is to send out the Holy Spirit.
At His exaltation He Himself accepted from the Father the Holy Spirit promised in the Old Testament, and therefore He can now, as He promised His disciples He would, share it with His disciples (Acts 2:33).
The Spirit He gives proceeds from the Father, is given Him by the Father, and is thereupon given to the church (Luke 24:49 and John 14:26).
This sending of the Holy Spirit which took place on the day of Pentecost is a unique event in the history of the church of Christ.
Just as the creation and the incarnation, it took place but once. It was not preceded by any granting of the Spirit equal to it in importance, and none has ever followed it.
Just as Christ in His conception assumed the human nature, never again to lay it aside, so the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost chose the church as His dwelling place and temple, never again to be separated from it.”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (trans. Henry Zylstra; Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1909/2019), 367.
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