In What Way Do We Baptise Correctly?
1) Direct Answer
We baptize by immersion in water, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, after repentance and faith. Not using titles, but calling the one saving Name over the believer.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The command and pattern: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…” (Acts 2:38). That is how the church began, and they never changed it.
- Samaria: “They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 8:16).
- Gentiles: “He commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord” (Acts 10:48).
- Ephesus: Those already baptized another way were re-baptized “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:5).
- Personal appeal: “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16).
- Mode: Baptism pictures burial and resurrection—so it is immersion. “We are buried with him by baptism” (Romans 6:4).
- Authority: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name” (Luke 24:47). “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
- Matthew 28:19 says “in the name” (singular) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The apostles, with their understanding opened (Luke 24:45), carried that out by calling the revealed Name—Jesus Christ.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Now notice: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are titles of the one God. A title is not a name. The Bible never records anyone being baptized by saying the titles only. Every example shows them invoking the Name of Jesus Christ.
- You see, it’s not three Gods and it’s not three names. It’s one God who was above us as Father, with us in the Son, and now in us by the Holy Ghost. The revealed covenant Name that carries that authority is Jesus Christ.
- Baptism is for repentant believers. Infants cannot repent or believe; sprinkling does not picture burial. Immersion does.
4) Short Reinforcing Statement
If you were baptized only in the titles, be baptized again in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the apostolic way, the Bible way, and God honors His Name.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
And knoweth it not
65-0815 §49
Now, for instance, if I was a Baptist man, and you come down and told me I must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ: it's in the Bible. Well, first thing you know, I'd say, "I'll ask my pastor." I go to the pastor, and he says, "Oh, that's something back yonder, see, see. We Baptists ... here's what we believe: We believe that we should be immersed in the titles of Father, Son, Holy Ghost. That's the way all the churches done it. Since John Smith founded it, that's the way it's done." Well, that's your ultimate...
Water baptism
59-0329M §3
Therefore all things that we do, to my opinion, as a Bible believer, must be based upon the Scriptures. All revelations, all visions, everything, must be solemnly based upon the Scripture, for that's the foundation that we rest on as "thus saith the Lord." In the Scriptures, we do not find where they ever sprinkled or poured, or consecrated little children in that manner. But in the Scripture, we find that they brought infants unto Jesus, that He might bless them. And He took them up in His arms and said, "Suffer l...
Water baptism
59-0329M §26
Jesus was completely sealed away. He was put down into the ground, and a big stone was rolled over the grave. Buried, He carried our sins far away. Therefore, we believing that... What others do, that's all right; we do not have no controversies with them. But, for ourselves, we believe in being immersed. And now we do this immersing according to the early apostolic teachings of the church. Some of those who immerse yet today got away from the beginning ritual of the apostolic belief. In the beginning, the first ba...
Water baptism
59-0329M §29
But, to me, I must be an old-fashion catholic; I must stay with what the early church did. And I must baptize according to the way the early church baptized: in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now we try to keep that. Now, that I might say this: in Matthew 28:19, Jesus said, Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptize them in to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Well, now, one of them... He never said, "in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Gh...
Questions and Answers
61-1015M §20
Now, the scriptural way of water baptism is in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is found in Acts 2:38 and the rest ... all the Bible. And many peoples today and nearly all the churches all the way from the beginning, the one that started it, they baptize the people in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost. Now, they do that through a error. There is no such commission as that in the Bible, nowhere at all. It's not even found in the Scriptures. When Matthew was wri...