In Matthew 28:19 the Lord tells us to baptize the nations into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Greek preposition translated “in” should be “into.” Therefore, we should baptize them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To understand this, we must also read Galatians 3:27, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” By these two verses we can see that to be baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is equivalent to being baptized into Christ. The Father is in the Son, and the Son by resurrection became the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, today, if we touch the Spirit, we touch the Son. And when we have the Son, we have the Father. This is the Triune God.
Before Matthew 28:19, the Triune God was never revealed in such a clear way. The name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is one name of three persons. This one name is the fully processed Triune God. After His resurrection He was fully processed in order to be dispensed into us. The Spirit who comes into us is the Son with the Father. This is proved in Romans 8:9-10. In these verses we see that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself. Then there are many verses in the New Testament which tell us that the Father is in us, the Son is in us, and the Spirit is in us. We all know that there are not three in us, but only one. This is because the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are just one. This is the processed, Triune God.
In order to be processed, God firstly became flesh. Then, after living on this earth as a man, through death and resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. This is our living Christ today. He is in the heavens, and He is also on the earth. He is omnipresent; we do have Him within us. In Him we have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In Him we also have our Redeemer, our Creator, and our Savior. In Him we have everything, because He is everything. He is our all in all. He is our life, our light, our power, our strength, our holiness, our righteousness, our love, our kindness, and our peace. All the divine attributes and human virtues are in Him. Hallelujah! He is everything! This is the processed Triune God who is the all-inclusive Christ. When we baptize people, we baptize them into this One. Baptism should not be a formal ritual, but the real putting of people into the Triune God.
To baptize people into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit really has a deeper meaning than most have realized. For years I had seen that this verse signifies the putting of people into the Triune God, but I did not have the confirmation of any other record. Therefore, I hesitated to say this. Then one day I obtained a set of books entitled, Word Studies of the New Testament, by M. R. Vincent. In one of these books, Mr. Vincent comments about baptizing into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as recorded in Matthew 28:19. He says, “Into denotes union or communion with, as in Romans 6:3. Baptizing into the name of the Holy Trinity implies a spiritual and mystical union with Him. The name is the expression of the sum total of the divine being. It is equivalent to His person. His name is of no avail detached from His nature. When one is baptized into the name of the Trinity, he professes to acknowledge and appropriate God in all that He is and all that He does for man.”
Isn’t this wonderful? Now we can understand what it means to be baptized into the name of the Triune God. It is to be put into this mystical union with Him, and to appropriate whatever God is into our being. The purpose of this is to produce the church.
Now we have seen a sketch of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew. He was the son of David and the Son of Abraham, born of a virgin with the names of Jesus and Emmanuel. Eventually He passed through all the processes to become the life-giving Spirit. Now we are to be baptized into Him, into the Triune God.
Having been baptized into Him, we can partake of all that He is, for He is in us. To do this we must exercise our spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3). We have a willing spirit (Matt. 26:41). Our flesh is weak, but our spirit is strong. So we must exercise our spirit and call Him Lord as David did (Matt. 22:43). We can call Him Lord in spirit. When we do this, He becomes so practical to us in our daily life. This is for the building up of the church.