Should baptism be in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or in the name of Jesus?
Answer
People ask this question because Jesus said to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), but there are places in Acts (2:38 for example) where it says people were “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” So, which way should it be? We baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to follow the command of Jesus. However, what about Acts? Is this is a contradiction in the Bible? No. As New Testament scholar Craig Keener says, “This phrase simply means that the person being baptized confesses Christ.” This is why we ask people questions and have them confess their faith before baptizing them so we baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit after they publicly confess Jesus. While this is our practice, we would not ask a person who was baptized in the name of Jesus to be rebaptized if his conversion and baptism are genuine and meet the other biblical criteria.