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F a t h e r s K n o w B e s t
Trinitarian Baptism
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This Rock
Volume 14, Number 2
 February 2003 
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For a sacrament to be valid, three things have to be present: the correct form, the correct matter, and the correct intention. With baptism, the correct intention is to do what the Church does, the correct matter with which to do it is water, and the correct form is baptizing "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).
Not all religious organizations use this form. Jehovah’s Witnesses sometimes use no formula at all in their baptisms, and an even larger group, the "Jesus-Only" Pentecostals, baptize "in the name of Jesus." As a result, the baptisms of these groups are invalid—they are not Christian but pseudo-Christian.
Both groups also reject the Trinity. Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Jesus is not God, a heresy known as Arianism (after its fourth-century inventor, Arian), and the "Jesus-Only" Pentecostals claim that there is only a single Person, Jesus, in the Godhead, a heresy known as Sabellianism (after its third-century inventor, Sabellius).
"Jesus-Only" Pentecostals note that Jesus told the apostles to baptize in "the name" (singular) of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but they make the mistake of assuming that name is Jesus. In reality, if the term name is to be taken literally in this passage, the single name shared by the three is likely Yahweh (the personal name of God in the Bible).
This name is applied to both the Father and the Son in the New Testament. In Acts 2:34–36, Peter quotes Psalm 110:1, applying the term Lord to the Father, but in the Old Testament original, the term Lord is actually Yahweh.
In Philippians 2:10–11, Paul quotes Isaiah 45:19–24, applying a prophecy about the Lord to the Son. And in the Old Testament original, the term Lord in this passage is Yahweh. Jesus also applied the name Yahweh ("I Am") to himself in John 8:58. His audience understood exactly what he meant and tried to stone him for claiming equality with God.
Since the Bible applies the name Yahweh to the Father and the Son, it is almost certainly possessed by the Spirit and thus is a name of all three persons of the Trinity.
"Jesus-Only" Pentecostals also argue that the New Testament talks about people being baptized "in the name of Jesus," but there are only four such passages (Acts 2:38, 8:16, 10:48, and 19:5). Further, these passages do not use the same designation in each place (some say "Lord Jesus," other say "Jesus Christ"), indicating that they were not technical formulas used in the baptism but merely descriptions by Luke. These four descriptions are not to be considered as a substitute for or contradiction of the divine command of the Lord Jesus Christ to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).
The early Church Fathers, of course, agreed. As the following quotes illustrate, Christians have from the beginning recognized that the correct form of baptism requires one to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
The Didache
After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. If you have no living water, then baptize in other water, and if you are not able in cold, then in warm. If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Didache 7:1 [A.D. 70]).
Hippolytus
When the one being baptized goes down into the water, the one baptizing him shall put his hand on him and speak thus: "Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty?" And he that is being baptized shall say, "I believe." Then, having his hand imposed upon the head of the one to be baptized, he shall baptize him once. Then he shall say, "Do you believe in Christ Jesus . . . ?" And when he says, "I believe," he is baptized again. Again shall he say, "Do you believe in the Holy Spirit and the holy Church and the resurrection of the flesh?" The one being baptized then says, "I believe." And so he is baptized a third time (The Apostolic Tradition 21 [A.D. 215]).
Tertullian
After his resurrection he promises in a pledge to his disciples that he will send them the promise of his Father; and lastly, he commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into the three persons, at each several mention of their names (Against Praxeas 26 [A.D. 216]).
Origen
Why, when the Lord himself told his disciples that they should baptize all peoples in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, does this apostle [Paul] employ the name of Christ alone in baptism, saying, "We who have been baptized into Christ"; for indeed, legitimate baptism is had only in the name of the Trinity (Commentary on Romans 5:8 [A.D. 248]).
The Acts of Xantippe and Polyxena
Then Probus . . . leapt into the water, saying, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, and everlasting God, let all my sins be taken away by this water." And Paul said, "We baptize thee in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost." After this he made him to receive the Eucharist of Christ (Acts of Xantippe and Polyxena 21 [A.D. 250]).
Cyprian
He [Jesus] commanded them to baptize the Gentiles in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. How then do some say that though a Gentile be baptized . . . never mind how or of whom, so long as it be done in the name of Jesus Christ, the remission of sins can follow—when Christ himself commands the nations to be baptized in the full and united Trinity? (Letters 73:18 [A.D. 253]).
Eusebius
We believe . . . each of these to be and to exist: the Father, truly Father, and the Son, truly Son, and the Holy Ghost, truly Holy Ghost, as also our Lord, sending forth his disciples for the preaching, said, "Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Concerning whom we confidently affirm that so we hold, and so we think, and so we have held aforetime, and we maintain this faith unto the death, anathematizing every godless heresy (Letter to the People of His Diocese 3 [A.D. 323]).
Cyril
You were led by the hand to the holy pool of divine baptism, as Christ was carried from the cross to this sepulcher here before us [the tomb of Jesus at Jerusalem]. And each of you was asked if he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And you confessed that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and again ascended, and in this there was suggested by a symbol the three days of Christ’s burial (Catechetical Lectures 20:4 [A.D. 350]).
Athanasius
And the whole faith is summed up, and secured in this, that a Trinity should ever be preserved, as we read in the Gospel, "Go ye and baptize all the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19). And entire and perfect is the number of the Trinity (On the Councils of Arminum and Seleucia 2:28 [A.D. 361]).
Basil
The Holy Spirit too is numbered with the Father and the Son, because he is above creation and is ranked as we are taught by the words of the Lord in the Gospel, "Go and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." He who on the contrary places the Spirit before the Son, or alleges him to be older than the Father, resists the ordinance of God, and is a stranger to the sound faith, since he fails to preserve the form of doxology which he has received, but adopts some newfangled device in order to be pleasing to men (Letters 52:4 [A.D. 367]).
Ambrose
Moreover, Christ himself says, "I and the Father are one." "One," said he, that there be no separation of power and nature; but again, "We are," that you may recognize Father and Son, forasmuch as the perfect Father is believed to have begotten the perfect Son, and the Father and the Son are one, not by confusion of person, but by unity of nature. We say, then, that there is one God, not two or three gods (The Faith 1:1[9–10] [A.D. 379]).
Jerome
Seeing that a man, baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, becomes a temple of the Lord, and that while the old abode is destroyed a new shrine is built for the Trinity, how can you say that sins can be remitted among the Arians without the coming of the Holy Ghost? How is a soul purged from its former stains which has not the Holy Ghost? (Dialogue Against the Luciferians 6 [A.D. 382]).
Gregory of Nyssa
And we, in receiving baptism . . . conceal ourselves in [the water] as the Savior did in the earth: And by doing this thrice we represent for ourselves that grace of the resurrection which was wrought in three days. And this we do, not receiving the sacrament in silence, but while there are spoken over us the names of the three sacred persons on whom we believed, in whom we also hope, from whom comes to us both the fact of our present and the fact of our future existence (Sermon for the Day of Lights [A.D. 383]).
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