The Meaning of Being Baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Matt. 28:19 presents the deep matter of baptizing people into the Triune God, that is, baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; there is only one name, but there are three persons – we are baptized and we baptize people into the Divine Trinity.

This week we come to the last week on the topic of, Living in and with the Divine Trinity, and in particular, we will focus on, Living with the Divine Trinity (3) Experiencing and Enjoying the Divine Trinity in Full.

In our ordinary conversation or fellowship, in our prophesying and in our speaking, we may use the terms, the Triune God, and, the Divine Trinity, as being the same, and in a general overall sense, they are.

We are not mistaken when we speak of the Divine Trinity or the Triune God.

But there are specific times when we need to make the distinction between the Triune God and the Divine Trinity based on the truth revealed in the word of God.

The Triune God mainly refers to God’s person, to His Godhead; the Triune God is God in the Godhead and as the Godhead.

The expression, the Divine Trinity, actually refers to an attribute of God, an attribute of God being triune; this is an attribute of being.

The Divine Trinity is manifested mainly throughout the New Testament, where we see that God was processed and consummated to become the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit.

The Divine Trinity operates in us today. We may liken the distinction between the Triune God and the Divine Trinity with the distinction of a person being faithful and being faithfulness itself.

The characteristic of a person is that he is faithful; but if you want to go further with someone we really know, we may say that his very being is faithfulness – faithfulness refers to the person, and being faithful refers to a characteristic or virtue of that person being lived out.

We need to see the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity into us; God’s desire is to work Himself into us and constitute us with His life and nature, and His desire is carried out by His Divine Trinity.

The Triune God dispenses Himself in His Divine Trinity into us.

The whole Bible is constructed with the Divine Trinity, and every portion and verse in the New Testament referring to God or to the Father, the Son, or the Spirit, is referring to the dispensing of God into man, referring to our experience.

We have seen the matter of living in the Divine Trinity, as seen in John 15, Abide in Me and I in you; to abide in Christ means that we live in the Divine Trinity, and for Christ to abide in us for us to live with the Divine Trinity.

In particular, we have seen what it means for God to operate in us – He operates in us, enabling us to do His will, and He does this by supplying us with Himself as the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

This week we want to see what it means to live with the Divine Trinity in the aspect of experiencing and enjoying the Divine Trinity in full.

The Meaning of being Baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

In Matt. 28:19, after the Lord Jesus passed through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, He commissioned us, His disciples, to go and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

There are three persons mentioned here – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – but there is one name; one name (singular) is attributed to three persons (plural).

This is quite mysterious, for each person has their own name, but here we see there’s one name for three persons.

This shows that, even though the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three, yet the name is one; this is why we say that God is triune – He is three-in-one, or triune.

This one name includes the three – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – and it tells us that God is three-in-one, triune.

Although God is uniquely one, there are three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

The name is the sum total of the Divine Being, equivalent to His person; the name of the Triune God is the totality of the divine being.

We need to keep this in mind when we are immersed in the waters of baptism; when we were baptized, though it was a quick action by being put into the water and then taken out, something eternal took place.

We were baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and we were placed into the name, the Person of the Divine Trinity.

When we baptize a new believer, we need to have the realization that, as we pray and praise the Lord, having strong, powerful prayers, we are immersing this one into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

This means that we are immersing them into all that the Triune God is and has, and we bring them into the person of the Triune God so that they may have an organic union with Him.

When someone repents and is being baptized, they are brought out of their old state into a new one, for baptism terminates their old life and germinates them with the new life of Christ so that they may become kingdom people.

The Lord Jesus charged His disciples to baptize people into the Triune God, and not long after He charged them to do this, He baptized them and the entire church in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2:4) and in the house of Cornelius (Acts 11:15-17).

Then, based upon this, the disciples continue to baptize the new converts (Acts 2:38) not only visibly into the water but also invisibly into the death of Christ (Rom. 6:3-4), into Christ Himself (Gal. 3:27), into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19) and into the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). Amen!

The water of baptism into which the repentant people are put can be considered as a tomb to terminate their history.

When they are put into the water of baptism, they experience the death of Christ, they are put into Christ Himself, into the Triune God, and into the Body of Christ. Amen!

For us to be baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit means that we’re terminated in our old life (on the negative side) and we are germinated with a new life, the eternal life of the Triune God, for the Body of Christ (on the positive side).

This is the reality of being baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and the reality of all this is in spirit, for the outward sign is just something outward unless we contact the Lord in spirit to enter into the spiritual reality of baptism. Amen!

Lord Jesus, show us the real meaning of being baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! Hallelujah, we not only believed into Christ but we were also baptized into Christ, into His death, into the Triune God, and into the Body of Christ! Amen, Lord, we praise You for terminating our old old life and germinating us with a new life through baptism. We want to fulfill the commission You gave us to disciple all nations by baptizing them into the Triune God. Amen, Lord, bring us and bring all the repentant believers into a deeper organic union with You in spirit so that we may experience and live in the reality of our baptism into the Triune God!

Being Baptized into the Triune God brings us into an Organic Union with the Divine Trinity

In Matt. 28:19 we are told to baptize people “into” the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; it doesn’t say to baptize people “in” but “into”.

To be baptized into the Triune God is to be brought into an organic union with the Triune God.

As we call on the name of the Lord and exercise our spirit when we are put into the water of baptism, we experience the termination of our old life and the germination of a new life, and we are brought into an organic union with the Divine Trinity.

Hallelujah, all believers who have baptized into Christ have been brought into an organic union with the divine person, the Divine Trinity.

No matter how we feel, no matter whether or not we were defeated by the enemy today or had a failure, we are in an organic union with God, and we can remain in this organic union.

It is in our organic union with the Triune God that we can experience and enjoy the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

We need to fellowship with the Father, with the Son, and with the Spirit; the Father is the source, the Son is the embodiment and expression of the Father, and the Spirit is the flow, the reaching out, of the Triune God with a rich fellowship for us to enter into.

This one word, “into” indicates union; to be baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is to be put into a mystical union with Him so that we may appropriate whatever God is into our being.

This matter is very deep; being baptized into the Triune God is a deep matter in the Bible.

We are right now in the name of the Triune God; we are in the name of the triumphant God, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Through baptism into Him, we were grafted into Him to be joined to the Lord as one spirit. Now we can abide in the Lord and He can abide in us (John 15:1, 4-5).

And when we will see the Lord face to face and we will marry Him at the wedding feast (hopefully), we will be in an eternal, unending, unbreakable union with the Divine Trinity in Christ as the Spirit. Praise the Lord!

Day by day the Lord is shepherding us and praying for us in His ministry so that we may live in this organic union with the Divine Trinity.

God in His government is training us more and more to live in a practical way in this mystical union with the Triune God.

This doesn’t mean that we need to be “mystical” as in being strange or having a weird expression and strange manifestations; rather, mystical refers to something that is beyond time and space, beyond something material and physical.

Because we are in this name and are living in this organic union, we can appropriate whatever God is into our being.

We constantly and desperately need the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity; we need the divine life, the divine grace, Christ, and all that God is.

Honestly speaking, we don’t know what we need, but we know that we need more of God and less of us; while we abide in the organic union with the Divine Trinity, God is dispensing what He is into us, and His dispensing meets all our needs.

Outwardly we do all kinds of things that we need to do in the daily human life, but inwardly we are appropriating something of what the Triune God in His Divine Trinity is dispensing into us.

Hallelujah, we have been immersed into the Triune God to be joined to Him in an organic union with the Divine Trinity, and we daily can live in this organic union with Him to enjoy and appropriate all that He is into our being!

For this, He was processed and consummated to become the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit; as God in His Godhead, He cannot be approached, for He dwells in unapproachable light, but as the One who passed through a process and was consummated, He can be enjoyed and appropriated by man in the organic union.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for bringing us into an organic union with You through our being baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah, we believers in Christ are one with the Triune God in spirit so that we may appropriate all that God is for our enjoyment and experience. Praise the Lord! We want to remain here, Lord, in the organic union with You, so that we may enjoy the continual and constant divine dispensing of the Triune God in His Divine Trinity into our being. We want to cooperate with You to bring many more into the organic union with God by baptizing them into the Triune God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1991-1992, vol. 1, “The Central Line of the Divine Revelation,” ch. 2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living In and With the Divine Trinity (2021 Thanksgiving Day Conference), week 6, entitled, Living with the Divine Trinity (2) Experiencing and Enjoying the Divine Trinity in Full.
• Further reading on this topic:
  – What mystery, the Father, Son, and Spirit, / In person three, in substance all are one. / How glorious, this God our being enters / To be our all, thru Spirit in the Son! (Hymns #608)
  – The Father, Son, and Spirit, Thou, / The triune God, my life fore’er; / In me Thou art the full supply / That I Thy holy nature share. (Hymns #609)
  – We’re baptized unto Thy dear name, / No more our own are we; / Thy steps we’d follow, for Thee live, / And e’er be one with Thee. (Hymns #937)