Should baptism be in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or in the name of Jesus?

In these passages ‘in the name of’ describes what baptism means, not a form of words to be recited. To be baptised ‘into the name’ of someone was to be placed under his authority and to belong to him; Paul can even say that Israel was “baptized unto Moses” (1 Corinthians 10:2). Acts never tells us what words were spoken at any baptism. It tells us whose baptism it was. That is the point in Acts 19, where disciples who had known only “John’s baptism” were baptised “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:3–5). The contrast is between John’s baptism and Christian baptism, not between two formulas.

Luke’s own wording shows that he is not quoting a set formula. He uses three different Greek prepositions: ‘into’ (eis) the name (8:16; 19:5), ‘in’ (en) the name (10:48), and in 2:38 ‘upon’ (epi) or ‘in’ (en), depending on the manuscript. A fixed form of words would not vary like that. Nor do the passages differ in substance. Matthew 28:19 speaks of one ‘name’ (onoma, singular) shared by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Baptism in the name of Jesus is baptism into that name, since it is through Jesus that believers come to the Father and receive the Spirit, as Peter says in the same verse (Acts 2:38).

The earliest Christian church manual we have, the Didache, from the late first or early second century, uses both ways of speaking side by side. It tells churches to baptise ‘into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ (chapter 7), and then speaks of believers as those ‘baptized into the name of the Lord’ (chapter 9). To the early church the two expressions did not compete.

The words used at baptism

Barnes and many others think that the apostles used Jesus’ own words from Matthew 28:19 when they baptised, and that Luke names Jesus because confessing him as Lord was what marked a person as a Christian.

Fitted to the hearers

Some point to the audiences. At Pentecost Peter spoke to Jews who already worshipped the God of Israel and knew of his Spirit; what they had to confess was Jesus, whom they had rejected. In Matthew 28 Jesus sends the disciples to the nations, who had to learn who the one God is.

Christians differ over whether the exact words spoken matter. Most churches baptise with the words of Matthew 28:19. Oneness Pentecostal churches baptise ‘in the name of Jesus’, holding that Jesus is the one name of Father, Son and Spirit. Since Acts records no words spoken at a baptism, the New Testament does not settle that debate directly.