Home Christian Writings Supporting the Trinity Doctrine? – The Trinity Doctrine Matthew 28:19

Matthew 28:19

Does the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 prove the Trinity Doctrine is right?

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

In the name of something refers to the authority of something. E.g If I say in the name of the Law, then I am invoking the authority of the Law. If I am saying something in the name of Jesus, then it is his authority rather than the pronunciation that I am invoking and we know his authority comes from God and God sent his Spirit to the Church. Hence a possible interpretation of the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So at best we cannot say that Matthew 28:19 teaches a Trinity and in the light of what we have read so far, we simply cannot throw away all the scriptures that say that God is the Father and he has a son, who is called the son of God.

In addition to the meaning of this verse, there is great speculation and some would say strong evidence that this verse like 1 John 5:7 was actually added in later and is not part of the original book of Matthew. But whether this speculation is true or not, one certainly cannot derive a Trinity understanding from this verse on its own, as it doesn’t teach that all 3 are 1 God. The evidence for a possible alteration or addition is below:

Encyclopedia Britannia, the 11th edition vol 3, page 365-366
“The baptismal formula was changed from the name of Jesus Christ to the words Father, Son and Holy Ghost by the Catholic church in the second century.

Encyclopedia Britannia, vol 3, page 82
“Everywhere in the oldest sources it states that baptism took place in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Canney Encyclopedia of Religion, page 53
The early church baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus until the second century.

Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion, Volume2
Christian baptism was administered using the words, “in the name of Jesus”. page 377.

The use of the trinitarian formula of any sort was not suggested in the early Church’s history.page 378

“Go ye therefore and teach all nations, in my name” … the latter form being the more frequent.page 380.

Baptism was always in the name of Jesus until time of Justin Martyr, when the triune formula was used. page 389.

Catholic Encyclopedia, vol 2, page 377,
Catholics acknowledge that baptism in Jesus’ name was changed by the Catholic church.

Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia, Volume 1, page 435
The New Testament knows only the baptism in the name of Jesus.

Hastings Dictionary of Bible, page 88
It must be acknowledged that the three fold name of Matthew 28:19 does not appear to have been used by the primitive church, but rather in the name of Jesus, Jesus Christ, or Lord Jesus.

The Canney Encyclopedia of Religion, page 53 states,
The early Church always baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus until the developement of the trinity doctrine in the 2nd Century.

Whatever we may believe about the validity of Matthew 28:19 we must remember that the Apostles were taught and discipled by Jesus directly and they administered baptism in the name of Jesus, just as they did all things in the name of Jesus. In scripture we see no record of the Apostles baptizing or repeating the words ” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost”.

We know that the earliest Believers continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine (Acts 2 : 42) and we read in Acts 2:38:

Peter replied, “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.

The New Testament clearly shows us that the Father of Jesus is Jesus God and our God. Remember, Jesus is the mediator between God and mankind. This is why Jesus speaks for God and it is only in the New Testament that the distinction between the Father and Son is made clear. This is because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins and now God himself can fellowship with redeemed man as a result of Christ’s sacrifice. We are living in the season for this mystery to be understood.

Scripture points to Jesus being the Word of God and while all things were made through him, it seems fitting that all things are redeemed through him too. We cannot save ourselves and God himself cannot save us directly, as he cannot fellowship with sin. “He is too pure to look upon evil”. This is the mystery revealed to us in 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 that he sent his Son.

24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.

25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

27 For he has put everything under his feet. Now when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.

28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

So the New Testament is a greater revelation of God, whereas the Old Testament only hints of the existence of God’s Son. This is why the Jews were confused when Jesus claimed to be God’s Son. They thought he was saying that he was either the Most High God or that he was equal to him. They were expecting the Messiah, but they didn’t know that the Messiah is also God’s Son and that he would come as a servant before coming as a reigning king. Yet if the Jews had known the Old Testament scriptures, then they would have known who Jesus was. Because the Old Testament speaks of him, but the New Testament reveals him.

Matthew 13:16-17
16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
17 For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Finally I leave you with John 17:21 again, which shows us that the scriptures do not teach a Trinity, rather a family. We like Christ will partake of the nature of God, but that doesn’t mean we are God or Jesus is God.

that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

← Go back to ‘Supporting the Trinity Doctrine‘.

Discussion

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  • October 15, 2014 at 5:57 am#780575
    terraricca
    Participant

    hi grasshopper

    but also what Paul did in those scriptures is he lay his hand upon them and only then they receive the holy spirit ,

    for they first were introduced to the new message of Christ ,what seem they never heard of ,only John message of repentance

    He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”
    Ac 19:5 On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.
    Ac 19:6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
    Ac 19:7 There were about twelve men in all.

    just for your info

    October 16, 2014 at 3:42 pm#780636
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi GH,
    True.
    A major deception and stumbling block to salvation

    October 16, 2014 at 4:59 pm#780644
    Grasshopper
    Participant

    A major, MAJOR stumbling block, indeed! The message of the Gospel…the message of Christ is beautiful in it’s simplicity. It’s rather straight forward and to the point. In a no-holds-barred sort of way, we were given the information that we needed to obtain salvation. We are to live righteous, holy lives free from sin as Christ did, and to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who was sent by His Father and ours. Nowhere in scripture does it say that a condition of our salvation is that the Body of Christ has to deconstruct, and then reconstruct the words that were given to us by Jesus, himself. Then out of this we should then formulate new laws and or traditions concerning God and Christ based on that deconstruction/reconstruction process. We were NOT commissioned to do that; but it has been done, regardless of the lack of Holy instruction to do so. Creating doctrine based on assumptions is basically implying that what we were given by God and Christ is simply not good enough;that somehow WE (man) can improve on the wisdom of God ALMIGHTY by filling in the blanks and creating doctrine, that according to most denominational churches, are just as equal/weighty as the written scripture itself. If doctrine can’t hold water because of the holes, then it’s a tell-tale sign of man made doctrine based on filling in the blanks and of assumption.

    There was a classic movie from the 80’s called “Stripes” starring Bill Murray.
    In the film they had a Sgt. named Sgt. Hulka.
    There was a scene where Sgt. Hulka was giving a training class to the new recruits and was using a chalkboard to write things on. He was giving examples for them on the subject of reactions in combat, etc…and told them that they should never ASSUME anything. He then proceeded to write the word “assume” on the board. He continued on to teach them “You should NEVER assume ANYTHING, because when you ASSUME, you make an ass out of you and me!”

    This is how he wrote it on the board:
    Ass/U/Me.

    This scene has stayed in my memory for all these years….probably because of it’s truth!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~

    Grasshopper

    October 16, 2014 at 6:26 pm#780646
    kerwin
    Participant

    Grasshopper,

    A fair amount of that evidence is hearsay and I do not believe the Catholic Church was in existence in the second century as one source claims. I did not look through it all.

    October 17, 2014 at 12:29 am#780659
    Admin
    Keymaster

    Thanks for starting this topic Grasshopper.

    I am in the process of merging the comment system attached to pages on this site with the forum.

    This makes the site easier to use.

    Usually each comment thread under each page is replaced by a new topic. In this case I have decided to make it the thread that is associated with this page because the topic is identical.

    https://heavennet.net/writings/supporting-the-trinity-doctrine/matthew-28_19/

    I deleted previous comments in the comment system (that were older than your topic) as they were not really about the topic anyway. This has preserved you as the topic owner.

    If you go to this page you will notice your topic appended to the page in the place of the old comment system.

    You may also be interested in reading that page.

    October 17, 2014 at 7:14 am#780660
    Grasshopper
    Participant

    Admin,
    I appreciate that, thank you. Since I’m new, I am trying to catch up with as many things as I can to get familiarized with everything here 🙂

    Thanks again
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Grasshopper

    October 17, 2014 at 7:32 am#780661
    Grasshopper
    Participant

    I would like to acknowledge a typo that I didn’t catch. In the first paragraph of the topic/thread I started, I accidentally put Matt 29:19, when I meant Matt 28:19.
    But I guess such things will happen from time to time when one chooses to post in the wee hours of the morning and when one’s dyslexia is well at hand. 😉

    ~~~~~~
    Grassy

    October 17, 2014 at 9:33 am#780664
    Admin
    Keymaster

    I changed it for you. As the Admin, I have full editing rights.

    Posts have an edit option, but that options expires after a while.

    So if you catch any mistakes in time, you can fix them.

    In the old forum, posts had an unlimited editing option. But that got abused by some and had to turn that off. Some people actually changed their posts when they were refuted instead of admitting they were wrong. Pretty sad.

    October 17, 2014 at 11:32 am#780667
    Grasshopper
    Participant

    Admin,
    Thank you so very much for doing that for me 🙂
    Yeah, I can imagine how the edit feature could be abused when some encounter the oh-so undesirable critique. Thanks again.
    ~~~~~~~
    Grassy

    October 18, 2014 at 11:40 am#780714
    kerwin
    Participant

    To whomever it concerns,

    The trinity tenet of the Catholic was not officially established until the fourth century when the First Council of Constantinople did so in 381. The Council of Nicea was only a few decades earlier in 325 and all it officially established in the Catholic Church was the Jesus was God. I am not even sure there was a Catholic Church before 325. So before 381 I do not see an organized effort to change the words in Matthew 28:19 to agree with the trinity teaching.

    The Oneness Pentecostals believe that a person needs to literally be immersed while the one immersing them says “I baptize you in the name of Jesus”. I admit that I do not agree with their teaching and so the I see no difference between immersing people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and immersing them in the name of Jesus. The only thing that sounds odd my ear it that I would not think the Holy is that important to be mentioned though it is critical in its own place.

    October 18, 2014 at 12:36 pm#780718
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    If anyone thinks that a name is not important, then think again. Yeshua came in his Father’s name and we should do all in the name of Yeshua.

    Mark 9:41
    Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.

    Acts 4:12
    Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

    By intentionally changing a name, you steer people away from the only name toward yourself or the person who owns the name. So in the name of the Trinity means in the name of those whose doctrine it is. In the case of the Trinity it is I think Athanasius, but most certainly the Roman Catholic Church which is built on his creed.

    The Athanasian Creed

    • Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic [Apostolic/Universal] Faith, which except everyone shall have kept whole and undefiled, without doubt he will perish eternally.
    • Now the Catholic Faith is this: We worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance.
      For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is One, the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal.
    • Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit; the Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; the Father infinite, the Son infinite, and the Holy Spirit infinite; the Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet not three eternals but one eternal, as also not three infinites, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one infinite. So, likewise, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty; and yet not three almighties but one almighty.

    Now understand this.

    Acts 20:30
    29 “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
    30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
    31 Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.”

    October 18, 2014 at 5:41 pm#780744
    Grasshopper
    Participant

    To all,

    Acts 4:12 (ESV)

    12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

    This is a rather key scripture, for it actually is quite revealing as to what name should be used. Because Jesus is now the Mediator between God and man, God is telling us in this verse that His name (Jesus’ name) is the ONLY NAME by which we can be saved. Basically this verse is telling us that even though Yahweh is our God and is Supreme, we cannot expect to call on HIS name (Yahweh) directly in order to receive salvation. Until the time when all things are finally reconciled back to God, Jesus is the ONLY one (as far as we, mankind, are concerned) that has ALL AUTHORITY. Hence, the “for there is no other name given UNDER heaven (that would mean here on Earth) AMONG MEN (for the record, that means US) by which we must be saved.”
    Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. Anyone who chooses to bypass or diminish Jesus’ God given TOTAL authority, is by no means honoring God, the Father. Yes of course, Yahweh is our salvation, but as it says in Hebrews 1:2, “but in these last days he has spoken to us BY HIS SON, whom he appointed the HEIR OF ALL THINGS, through whom also he created the world.”(ESV); THIS is the “The Way” by which HE saves us. We must show regard and respect for the plan that God put forth, which is THROUGH HIS Son…ONLY.
    ~~~~~~~~~
    Grasshopper

    October 19, 2014 at 10:20 am#780774
    kerwin
    Participant

    To whomever it may be concern,

    When you have a teaching before you test it for falseness.

    John 14:13Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

    13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

    I do not see where the believe asked in Jesus name in this passage.

    Acts 4:24-30Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

    24 And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: 25 who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? 26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. 27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28 for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. 29 And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, 30 by stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

    Are they disobeying Jesus’ teaching or in some way are they asking God for these things in Jesus’ name?

    March 25, 2017 at 7:51 pm#818965
    AndrewAD
    Participant

    I agree that Matt 28:19 is not teaching the trinity but have no doubt that it’s original to Matthew based on all manuscript evidence and the fact that many early Christians used this formula to baptize; the Didache,Justin Martyr,Irenaeus,Tertullian,and Hippolytes all taught this form of baptism as from apostolic tradition.

    I’ve read where people say that Matt is the most Jewish of the gospels but this is very non Jewish.That stands to reason if you think Matt 28:19 is teaching trinity as later ratified in 381. But baptism in Jesus name is even more non-Jewish which could be why Matt has to teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father,the Son and the Holy Spirit.The nations,that is gentiles need to learn of all three to convert to Christianity and this formula gives the Father first place not Jesus.

    And we don’t know how John baptized so baptism in Jesus name could’ve been to differentiate it from John’s form of baptism. And from what I’ve read of church history there were churches in various cities that had one tradition or the other and it created a controversy when Christianity became the official religion and the church decreed baptism in the threefold formula.

    December 26, 2017 at 2:44 pm#820410
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi,

    Didache, Justin Martyr, Iranaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus are not verified followers of Christ Jesus

    but more likely the founders of the false church.

    December 26, 2017 at 4:15 pm#820411
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi,

    Of course the Didache was from a variety of teachers.

    December 27, 2017 at 6:09 am#820417
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi,

    The Didache takes Spiritual teaching into ritualism with the breaking of bread becoming the Eucharist- a Word not found in scripture. It is intellectual, inconsistant and it lacks life. The beginnings of man’s religion.

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