Were You Baptized Wrong? "Jesus Only" People Say Yes

IN THIS ARTICLE: Some claim baptism “In the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit” is wrong and brings God’s condemnation, claiming Acts 2:38 shows the way. This interpretation is incorrect and matters greatly when witnessing to people who have been frightened into believing this error.

Welcome to a rare second post at my Substack within a given week. I will hardly ever do this until at least later this year, when I finish my current degree program at Northern Seminary. This article is especially for those coming out of anti-trinitarian churches. Still, it will help anyone who wonders or is faced with the question, “Why did Jesus say “baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?” (Matt. 28:19), but Peter says, “Be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38).

One of the distinctive features of “The Message,” the cult in which I grew up, was an anti-trinitarian insistence on being baptized “in Jesus’ Name” (although William Branham, the founder of The Message who died before my birth, flirted with trinitarianism and “oneness-Pentecostalism” throughout his life, telling churches and evangelistic partners whatever they wanted to hear).¹ My old church shared a common belief within The Message that Christian baptism should not include the phrase “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19) because the Trinity is an anti-Christ concept. If you were baptized according to Jesus’ instructions, you were not baptized into Christ. Yep, you read that right.

They believe that when Peter said, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38), he was acting on a revelation from God that Matthew 28:19 was more or less a riddle – one that can be answered by those who receive a revelation that “Jesus Christ” is the “name” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is similar to Modalism, an ancient heresy wherein “Father, Son, and Spirit” are not three persons but three “modes,” or offices of God. While Oneness (also called “Jesus Only”) practitioners often say that this is an “end time” revelation that God has given them, Modalism dates to the third century C.E. teaching of Sabellius (“Sabellianism” is another name for Modalism).

What do you do if someone in your church wants to be baptized and has been taught this? They need instruction on the Trinity, but you’re unlikely to get anywhere with them until you walk them through the issue of baptism. After all, what is the alternative? Was Peter wrong? If the “oneness” harmonization of Matt 28:19 and Acts 2:38 is wrong, what’s right?

Let’s walk through it step by step:

Are Titles Different Than Names?
The argument typically begins, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit aren’t names; they are titles.” This is simply incorrect in Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament writers. The Greek word for “name” is ὄνομα (onoma). It encompasses what we would consider proper names and titles like “Father” and is used in many contexts.²

1 Corinthians 5:11 applies this to “brother or sister”: “You must not associate with anyone who bears the name brother or sister ….” (“bears the name” here is ὀνομαζόμενος, a present passive participle form of onoma). Using “oneness” logic, “brother” and “sister” are titles, not names, which would mean Paul is incorrect or he is saying there is a specific name for brother and sister, and you better figure out what it is so you don’t associate with whoever bears it.

Sometimes “onoma” means “reputation,” as in Revelation 3:1 — “I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.”

Doing something in someone’s “name” means doing it under their authority. We still use “name” this way in contemporary English:

• “Stop, in the name of the law!”

• “Stop in the name of love / before you break my heart.”

And according to Revelation 19:13, “The Word of God” is a name: “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.”

Name or Names?
Next, Oneness proponents claim that since Matthew wrote “name” instead of “names” in 28:19, he must refer to one noun, not three. This turns 28:19 into a riddle, where we must figure out what singular name represents: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Their answer, of course, is “Jesus Christ.” This is ironic because, using their logic, “Christ” isn’t a name. It’s a title. As Basil the Great taught in On The Holy Spirit in 374 A.D., when Luke and Paul discuss being baptized into Christ Jesus, they do not omit the Spirit (or Father) because “Christ” is a title that means “anointed one.” The Father anoints the Son with the Spirit (see Acts 10:38).³

Nevertheless, this insistence that Matthew would have used the plural “names” if he’d meant for people to be baptized into three names is incorrect. Jesus is communicating that he wants us to baptize people in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. If he had used the plural of onoma, he would have been telling us to baptize people in the multiple names of the Father, multiple names of the Son, and multiple names of the Holy Spirit (whatever that would mean).

What Does “In The Name Of …” mean?|
Oneness proponents have a simplistic view of what it means to be baptized “in the name,” as if a specific magic incantation must be uttered for baptism to “work” and for the person to be saved. Colossians 3:17 says,

“Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”

But this does not mean you rise out of bed and, all day long, you say, “I make my bed in the name of Jesus. I floss in the name of Jesus. I eat Captain Crunch in the name of Jesus …” Rather, Colossians 3:17 means that you do everything under the authority — and in worship of — King Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 1:14-15, Paul writes, “I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius so that no one would say you were baptized in my name.” Paul wasn’t worried that anyone would have accused him of saying, “I now baptize you in the name of Paul.” He meant, “No one can accuse me of baptizing under my authority instead of Christ’s.”

Baptism “in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38) means baptism as commanded by the risen Lord (in Matthew 28:19), not something different.

Matt 28:19 for Baptizers/ Acts 2:38 for Baptizees
Don’t forget the difference of perspective between Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19 and Peter’s words in Acts 2:38. In Matthew, Jesus tells “baptizers” how to baptize. In Acts, Peter tells unbaptized people that Jesus is the authority they are to be baptized under. The baptismal candidate (the baptized person) calls on the Lord's name, while the baptizer baptizes them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Acts 22:16 sheds more light:

Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’

The passage's grammar shows that the baptized one is to call on Jesus’ name. It is what we call the “confession of faith.” Right before we baptize at my church, the baptizer asks, “What is your sacred confession?”

The baptismal candidate responds, “Jesus is Lord.”

Then the baptizer says, “Upon your confession of faith, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

In this way, we fulfill the intent of Matthew 28:19 and Acts 2:38. We baptize as Jesus commanded, while the person being baptized calls on the name of the Lord (which means to declare their allegiance to Jesus as the true king).

How Did The Early Church Really Do It?
But what did the first Christians say as they were baptizing converts? Oneness/Jesus’ Only practitioners say that the book of Acts proves their claim.

• Acts 2:38 “… in the name of Jesus Christ …”

• 8:16 “… in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

• 10:48 “… in the name of Jesus Christ.”

• 19:5 “ … in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

• 22:16 “… calling on His name.”

The emphasis in every verse is on the person being baptized, not the one doing the baptizing. This is why we don’t read “they were baptized by Paul, who said, ‘in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit’” - they emphasis is not supposed to be on Paul but on the new believer being baptized.

But consider Acts 19:2-3. Paul comes to some disciples at Ephesus:

He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.”

Isn’t it odd that Paul answers the admission, “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit,” by blurting, “Into what then were you baptized?”

His response would make no sense, except that Paul can’t understand how they could have heard the baptizer say, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” yet claim they’d never heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. As soon as they confess their ignorance about the third Person of the Trinity, Paul knows something is amiss.

Is Oneness/Jesus Only A New Revelation From God?
Oneness/Jesus-only proponents often say this is a new revelation that came sometime during or after the Azusa Street Revival of 1906, which is generally regarded as the birth of modern Pentecostalism.

However, the argument that Jesus Christ is the secret answer to the riddle, “What is the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” did not come by revelation to any 20th-century prophet. It came from a fifth-century Monophysite monk named Shenoute.

And the ancient gnostic heretic Marcion first said, “I baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ” (see Cyprian, Letter 72,4). Marcion did not use Matthew 28:19 because he did not accept Matthew’s Gospel. Nor did he accept the Hebrew Scriptures because he believed YHWH was a false god. His “bible” only contained an extensively edited version of Luke’s writings and Paul’s letters.

There is nothing new under the sun.

So there you have it. The Oneness/Jesus Only version of baptism doesn’t hold up. Further, it stems from a denial and misunderstanding of the Trinity. A complete defense of this doctrine will have to be a post for another day, but a systematic theology book is a good place to start (Michael Bird’s Evangelical Theology is a great contemporary systematic). Go now in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, recognizing that Jesus is King.

1. Charles Paisley, Come Out Of Her My People: A History of The Message of William Branham Vol 1: Days of The Voice (Independent: Jeffersonville, IN, 2024), 462-68.

2. Moisés Silva, “ὄνομα,” NIDNTTE 3:514-522.

3. Basil the Great, On The Holy Spirit (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press, 2011), 49.