Many of us must have marvelled that after learning the Truth which involved the disclosure that the doctrine of the Trinity was quite unscriptural, it became evident from the witnessing of immersions that the first step we were required to take in obedience to the newly-found-faith would be to the accompaniment of the apparently Trinitarian-flavoured formula, “… I baptise you in (or into) the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,…” The explanation that this was not three names, but only one name (supported by the dropping of the separating commas of the A.V. by the R.V.); and that one thereby became a candidate for a place in the great Name of Yahweh, “I will be Who I will be,” of which Jesus had already become the first gloriously Living Letter; and that one may reasonably (and indeed only thus, consistently with other Scripture) understand the formula to mean: “into the Name of the Father, as manifest in the Son, by the holy Spirit,” gave to our instinctive suspicion a quietus of, perhaps, many years duration.
In our case, we became so accustomed to using the formula and hearing it used, that it was almost a shock when we heard one immerser say, “In the name of the Lord Jesus”! Yet, we reflected, we had met the record of the use of this short form in Acts! So short in fact, in its contrasting unfamiliarity, that we had a fleeting impression of insufficiency, if not quite unsuitability! But the worm of doubt had long been busy in the very marrow of our bones respecting the popular triune formula; for we knew it to be the only phrase in all Scripture to be now left, as a prop ready-to-hand, of the “Babylonish” Trinity. It needed no great skill in spiritual sleuthing to suspect that here was a spurious twin-coin to that other of proved monkish minting, in 1 John 5, unscrupulously put into circulation, but now almost universally nailed well and truly to the counter. Consequently, because there was to us an ever-increasing ill-odour about the usual form of words, we decided to use, henceforward, the shorter form. But we were immediately questioned as to our reason for so doing! (Perhaps there was just a little anxiety as to whether the candidate had been “properly” baptised).2 We replied that firstly, we were certain that the shorter form was apostolic and we did know that the other was open to misunderstanding by any witnessing friends who were Trinitarians, as well as to doctrinal misusage by some who openly contended that herein was proof that one is baptised “into the power of” the Holy Spirit!
We later noted that the conscience of Bullinger (a Trinitarian) was much troubled because he knew that not a single one of the apostles obeyed the explicit command of Christ! Neither is there a record, in Acts or any epistle, among all the baptisms recorded, of the triune formula being used! Then, when searching for other purposes under “Baptism” in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics we came upon abundant evidence of the kind we had long hoped for.
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Author: F. Whiteley
Keywords: Trinity, Trinitarian, Triunity, Trinitarianism, Unitarian, Unitarianism, Biblical unitarian, Biblical unitarianism, triad, triadic, triadic formula, three persons, baptized, baptise in the name, baptism in name of father son holy spirit, baptism in name of father son holy ghost, baptize in the name, baptising them in the name, baptizing them in the name, Father Son and Holy Ghost, Father Son and Holy Spirit, baptise in the name of Father Son and Holy Spirit, baptize in the name of Father Son and Holy Spirit, baptising in the name of Father Son and Holy Spirit, baptismal formula, baptism formula, baptism in the name of, baptizing in the name of Father Son and Holy Spirit, triadic baptism, baptism, baptize, baptizing, baptising, three-fold name, baptise in three-fold name, three-fold baptism, name of father son holy ghost, name of father son holy spirit, father son holy spirit, father son holy ghost, trine, trine immersion, triune immersion, trine baptismal formula, trine baptism
Bible reference(s): Matthew 28:19, Acts 2:38, Act 8:16, Act 10:48, Act 19:5, Act 22:16, 1 Corinthians 1:13, 1 Corinthians 1:15
Source: “A Collection of the Evidence For and Against the Traditional Wording of the Baptismal Phrase in Matthew 28:19,” The Testimony, Vol. 32, No. 375, March 1962, pp. 80-2.
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