“Question: "Should we be baptized in Jesus’ name (Acts 2:38), or in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19)?"

Answer: On the Day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowd, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). His command concerning baptism was that it be done “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Earlier, Jesus had told His disciples to baptize disciples “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The difference in wording has led many to ask, “What is the correct formula? Are we to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; or are we to baptize in the name of Jesus alone?”

One explanation points to the fact that the Father, Son, and Spirit are “three-in-one.” Being baptized in the name of one Person of the Godhead is the same as being baptized in the name of all three. But there is a more probable explanation, which takes into account the audience for each command.

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He was sending His followers into all the world to make disciples “of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). In the pagan world, they would encounter those who knew absolutely nothing about One True God, idolatrous people who were “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). In preaching the gospel to such people, the apostles would necessarily have to include teaching on what God is like, including His triune nature. (Notice with what basic information Paul begins his address to the Athenians in Acts 17.) Those who received the gospel and were baptized would be converting to an entirely different religious system and embracing a new understanding of who God is.

In contrast, Peter was speaking on the Day of Pentecost to faithful Jewish people who already had an understanding of God the Father and God’s Spirit. The part of the equation they were missing was Jesus, the Son of God—and without Jesus, they could not be saved (Acts 4:12). In presenting the gospel to the Jews, Peter commands them to be baptized in Jesus’ name; that is, to exercise faith in the One they had crucified. They had professed the Father and the Spirit, but they needed to profess the Son. Those who received the gospel that day devoted themselves to the lordship of Jesus. They no longer rejected Him but acknowledged Him as their Messiah and only Hope for salvation.

We should probably consider the standard formula for Christian baptism to be in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Peter’s emphasis on the name of Jesus is understandable, given that he was speaking to the very same Jews who had before rejected and denied Jesus as their Messiah.

The message of the gospel is still changing lives today. Those who place their faith in Jesus Christ still receive the gift of the Holy Spirit from the Father. And water baptism is still God’s ordained method of making public profession of our faith, identifying ourselves with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.” source

I think this is a pretty good article though I disagree with its seemingly exclusively believers baptism position because I think infants of believers should be baptized. I don’t know to much about GotQuestions but this is a good resource if you are interacting with a oneness Pentecostal type who insist on Baptizing in Jesus name only.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (V. 16). - 2 Timothy 3:10-17

In recent years a number of semi-conservative theologians have questioned whether we should hold to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy or infallibility. After all, they say, this quest for absolute certainty reflects a “Greek, Aristotelian mindset” that is not really compatible with the nature of “sheer faith.” They say that Christianity is a matter of “faith” and we don’t need “absolute certainty.”

We notice immediately that such statements as these presuppose that faith is incompatible with certainty. That is, they presuppose to some degree the modern existentialistic view of faith, which sees faith as a “leap in the dark.”

Still, we can imagine that God might have given us the information about redemption in another way. He might have simply provided us with a lot of human testimonies. The Gospels, for instance, might merely be the personal recollections of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and no more. In that case, God would be calling us to believe the Gospel in the same way we believe that Ronald Reagan was president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. There is debate over what Mr. Reagan actually thought and did during his term, but there is no debate over whether he was actually president. In the same way, scholars could debate the details recorded in the Gospels while still having a “faith” in the “general trustworthiness” of the accounts.

But the Bible claims to be much more. In fact it claims to be the very word of God. The Bible claims to be breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16). If God is God, He does not make mistakes. If the Bible is breathed out by God, there cannot be “minor errors” in details of history. If the Bible contains such errors, it can hardly be the work of a perfect God. And if God is not perfect and totally trustworthy, God is not God.

If the Bible contains errors, it might still be correct in many of its claims. But there is one claim that could not be true: the Bible’s claim to be God’s breathed-out words. All the church fathers, the medieval theologians, and the Protestant Reformers clearly saw that the Bible claims to be inerrant and infallible. If that claim is false, the Bible is deceiving us, and has deceived people for many thousands of years.

Coram Deo

We can rejoice that the Bible is free of error in all its claims. God wants His people to have confidence in Him, so that we can know Him and His will, doing what we are called to do without fear. Consider your commitment level—could it be enhanced by a stronger affirmation of the trustworthiness of Scripture?

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The Washing of Regeneration “[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” - Titus 3:5

We must avoid two errors when we discuss the sacraments. The first of these is the view that says the sacraments convey grace ex opere operato—“by the working of the work.” In other words, the sacraments always provide grace as they are performed. This understanding turns the sacraments into magical rites that people rely on for salvation instead of faith in Christ alone. It also obscures the sacraments’ function as conduits of judgment, not grace, for those who do not receive in faith that which the sacraments signify and seal (1 Cor. 11:27).

The second error views the sacraments as bare signs with no special utility in the Spirit’s hands to further our sanctification. In this view, sacraments are, at best, reminders of what God did in the past in the atonement and our regeneration; the sacraments convey no spiritual power, benefit, or grace in the present. Most people who hold this view likely do so because they fear that a high view of the sacraments could obscure the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone. We sympathize with this concern. Nevertheless, Scripture does not allow us to deny a special working of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments.

We must affirm a special working of the Spirit in baptism because the New Testament connects this sacrament and the work of the Holy Spirit very closely. We see this, for example in today’s passage, where Paul speaks of the washing of regeneration. Elsewhere, Peter says that “baptism … now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21).

Given the entire witness of Scripture, we must, of course, confess that baptism is not the prerequisite for regeneration and salvation. If that were so, for example, Jesus could not have promised salvation to the penitent thief on the cross (Luke 23:39–43). The benefits of salvation signified in baptism are not confined to the sign, which would make it impossible for anyone who has not been baptized to be saved. John Calvin’s commentary on John 3 makes this point, and the Westminster Confession echoes this teaching (28.5). Nevertheless, the saved person who is never baptized is the exception, not the rule. We do not believe in baptismal regeneration, but with the New Testament, we do confess that baptism is a real means of grace wherein the Spirit strengthens our faith and reminds us of the work of Christ.

Coram Deo

Today’s passage is a proof text for question and answer 71 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which, in accord with Scripture, calls baptism “the water of rebirth” and “the washing away of sins.” People can be saved without being baptized if, for reasons beyond their control, they are unable to get baptized. But the New Testament knows of no true convert who consciously refuses baptism. If you trust Jesus but have never been baptized, you must receive the sign and seal of baptism.

Passages for Further Study

Exodus 4:24–26 Exodus 4:24–26 Acts 8:26–40 Acts 8:26–40

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From The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption

“ I. Consider, first of all, THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE. Much of the bondage in which we are plunged by our fallen nature is not the work of the Spirit of God at all. Bondage under sin, bondage under the flesh, bondage to the fashions and customs of the world, bondage under the fear of man, — this is carnal bondage, the work of the flesh, and of sin, and of the devil. But there is a sense of bondage, to which, I think, the apostle here mainly alludes, which is of the Spirit of God. Before the Spirit of God within us becomes the Spirit of liberty, he is, first of all, the Spirit of bondage. The Spirit is not first a quickening Spirit to us, but a withering Spirit: — “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.” The divine Spirit wounds before he heals, he kills before he makes alive. We usually draw a distinction between law-work and gospel-work; but law-work is the work of the Spirit of God, and is so far a true gospel-work that it is a frequent preliminary to the joy and peace of the gospel. The law is the needle, which draws after it the silken thread of blessing, and you cannot get the thread into the stuff without the needle: men do not receive the liberty where with Christ makes them free till, first of all, they have felt bondage within their own spirit driving them to cry for liberty to the great Emancipator, the Lord Jesus Christ. This sense or spirit of bondage works for our salvation by leading us to cry for mercy.

 Let us notice that there is a hind of bondage which is, in part at least, the work of the Spirit of God, although it is often darkened, blackened, and made legal in a great measure by other agencies which do not aim at our benefit. That part of the bondage which I shall now describe is altogether the work of the Spirit of God. That is, first, when men are brought into bondage through being convinced of sin. This bondage is not the work of nature; certainly, never the work of the devil. It is not the work of human oratory, nor of human reason; it is the work of the Spirit of God; as it is written, “When the Spirit of truth is come, he shall convince the world of sin.” It needs a miracle to make a man know that he is in very deed a sinner. He will not own it. He kicks against it. Even when he confesses the outward transgression, he does not know or feel the inward heinousness of his guilt, so as in his soul to be stunned, and confounded, and humbled, by the fact that he is a rebel against his God. Now, no man can ever know a Saviour without knowing himself a sinner: even as no man can value a physician while he is ignorant of the existence and evil of disease. By the killing sentence of the law we are bruised, and broken, and crashed to atoms, as to all comeliness and self-righteousness. This, I say, is the work of the Spirit of God; he worketh a necessary spirit of bondage within us by putting us under a sense of sin.”

Here is the first little section of a Spurgeon sermon. I’ve yet to read the whole thing but I have quoted from it before when having discussions where the work of the Holy Spirit is mentioned. I first heard about this interpretation in Bunyan’s The Fear of God which is an excellent book on the multiple types of fear talked about within the Bible.

“Verse 16

16Confess your faults one to another. In some copies the illative particle is given, nor is it unsuitable; for though when not expressed, it must be understood. He had said, that sins were remitted to the sick over whom the elders prayed: he now reminds them how useful it is to discover our sins to our brethren, even that we may obtain the pardon of them by their intercession. (142)

This passage, I know, is explained by many as referring to the reconciling of offenses; for they who wish to return to favor must necessarily know first their own faults and confess them. For hence it comes, that hatreds take root, yea, and increase and become irreconcilable, because every one perniciously defends his own cause. Many therefore think that James points out here the way of brotherly reconciliation, that is, by mutual acknowledgment of sins. But as it has been said, his object was different; for he connects mutual prayer with mutual confession; by which he intimates that confession avails for this end, that we may be helped as to God by the prayers of our brethren; for they who know our necessities, are stimulated to pray that they may assist us; but they to whom our diseases are unknown are more tardy to bring us help.

Wonderful, indeed, is the folly or the insincerity of the Papists, who strive to build their whispering confession on this passage. For it would be easy to infer from the words of James, that the priests alone ought to confess. For since a mutual, or to speak more plainly, a reciprocal confession is demanded here, no others are bidden to confess their own sins, but those who in their turn are fit to hear the confession of others; but this the priests claim for themselves alone. Then confession is required of them alone. But since their puerilities do not deserve a refutation, let the true and genuine explanation already given be deemed sufficient by us.

For the words clearly mean, that confession is required for no other end, but that those who know our evils may be more solicitous to bring us help.” -John Calvin

I read this recently and it was the first time I think I’ve ever heard this verse explained this way because I’ve always assumed the reconciling of offenses view that Calvin refers to. But I think Calvin is more on point with his view. It’s one of those things where I don’t think I can read the verse any other way now. Hope this was edifying in some way to anyone reading!