Question: Into whose name should a Christian be baptized? 
“Matthew 28:19 says, ‘Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’ I now still baptize in three of them. What is your idea on this? If someone wants to be born again, how must we baptize him?”
Ethiopia
Answer:
Every time the apostles baptized in water after they heard the command of Jesus, they did so in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. (See Acts 2:38; 8:6; 10:48; and 19:5.)
If we insist that a person must baptize in three names, then we must say that the apostles were wrong to baptize the way they did. Either we are wrong to insist on three names, or they were wrong to baptize in only one name.
Christ’s words were not a formula to recite at baptism but a command to teach, or immerse in the truth, about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all of which are vital in a Christian’s experience.
For further explanation of Matthew 28:19, please read the “Questions and Answers” section of the April and July 2002 issues of Present Truth, available by request or online at www.presenttruth.info.
