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Matthew 28:19 |
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Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Note 4 at Mt 28:19: The reason we can go into all the world and share the Gospel is because Jesus now has all power in heaven and earth. And, as His ambassadors (2Co 5:20), we have that power too.
Note 5 at Mt 28:19: Notice that teaching was mentioned twice in this commission. We have not been commanded to proclaim only, but we are also supposed to explain and provide training. This is the cornerstone of Jesus' plan of evangelization.
The present-day church has put the majority of its evangelistic efforts into just proclaiming the Gospel with little or no thought to discipleship (see note 8 at Joh 8:31). The consequences have been that people have responded and been born again, but the new believers as a whole don't mature to a place where they can reproduce their Christian faith in others. This has placed the burden of evangelism on a few individuals and mass crusades.
If 1 man led 1,000 people to the Lord each year, in thirty-five years there would be 35,000 converts through his ministry. However, if the same man only led 1 person to the Lord every six months, then made disciples of those converts so that they could share their faith as he does, in ten years he would have 1,048,576 converts. In fifteen years he would have evangelized over 1,000,000,000 people, and in just over sixteen years he would have evangelized the present population of the entire world. Jesus' plan is the best.
Note 6 at Mt 28:19: In the same way that this commission is to every believer, not just to ministers, the command to baptize is to every believer too. It is proper for any believer to administer the ordinance of water baptism.
Note 7 at Mt 28:19: Here Jesus commanded believers to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, yet there is no recorded instance where the believers did so. Instead, the instances of baptism that are recorded in the book of Acts (Ac 2:38, 8:16, 10:48, and 19:5) show people being baptized in the name of Jesus only.
Because of this noticeable difference, doctrines have come into being that teach that there is no Trinity (see note 2 at Mr 1:10), and unless water baptism is administered in the name of Jesus (only), with faith in the water baptism, a person cannot be saved. This is not what the Bible teaches, and it has actually damned many people.
Water baptism is an outward witness of the inner change that has already taken place. In Ac 10:44-48, Cornelius and his friends were filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues, proving that they were already born again (see note 27 at Joh 14:17), before they were baptized in water (see note 8 at Mr 16:15).
The harmony between this commission of Jesus and the practice of the early church is simple. When they baptized in the name of Jesus, they were baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost because "in him [Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col 2:9, brackets mine). Therefore, baptizing in the name of either the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost or the name of Jesus is correct as long as Col 2:9 is understood.
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