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Mat_28:19 The οὖν of the Received text (see the critical remarks) is a gloss correctly representing the connection of the thoughts. The fact stated in Mat_28:18 is itself the reason why all nations should be brought under His government, and made subject to His sway by means of the μαθητεύειν , etc.
μαθητεύσατε ] make them my μαθηταί (Joh_4:1); comp. Mat_13:52; Act_14:21. This transitive use of the verb is not met with in classical Greek. Observe how here every one who becomes a believer is conceived of as standing to Christ in the personal relation of a μαθητής , in accordance with which view the term came to be applied to Christians generally.
πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ] all nations without exception, Mat_25:32, Mat_24:14, Mat_26:13. With these words—and this is the new feature in the present instructions—the previous prohibition, Mat_10:5, was cancelled, and the apostolic mission declared to be a mission to the whole world. On this occasion Jesus makes no mention of any particular condition on which Gentiles were to be admitted into the church, says nothing about whether it was or was not necessary that they should in the first instance become Jewish proselytes (Act_15:1; Gal_2:1), though He certainly meant that it was not necessary; and hence, because of this omission, the difficulty which the apostles had at first about directly and unconditionally admitting the Gentiles. If this latter circumstance had been borne in mind, it could hardly have been asserted, as it has been, that the special revelation from heaven, for the purpose of removing the scruples in question, Acts 10, tells against the authenticity of the commission recorded in our passage (in answer to Credner, Einleit. I. p. 203; Strauss, Keim).
βαπτίζοντες , κ . τ . λ .] in which the μαθητεύειν is to be consummated, not something that must be done after the μαθητεύσατε (Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 164; comp. also, on the other hand, Theod. Schott, p. 18), as though our passage ran thus, μαθητεύσαντες … βαπτίζετε . Besides, that the phrase βαπτίζοντες κ . τ . λ . did not require in every case the performance of the ceremony by the apostles themselves, was distinctly manifest to them in the discharge of their functions even from the first (Act_2:41). Comp. also 1Co_1:17.
βαπτίζειν εἰς ] means to baptize with reference to. The particular object to which the baptism has reference is to be gathered from the context. See on Rom_6:3, and thereon Fritzsche, I. p. 359; comp. also on 1Co_10:2. Here, where the βαπτίζειν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα is regarded as that through which the μαθητεύειν is operated, and through which, accordingly, the introduction into spiritual fellowship with, and ethical dependence upon Christ is brought about, it must be understood as denoting that by baptism the believer passes into that new phase of life in which he accepts the name of the Father (of Christ) and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit as the sum of his creed and confession, τὸ ὄνομα , because it is precisely the name of him who is confessed that expresses his whole specific relation considered by itself, and with reference to him who confesses, and accordingly the three names, “Father, Son, and Spirit,” are to be understood as expressing the sum-total of the distinctive confession which the individual to be baptized is to accept as his both now and for all time coming.[42] Consequently the Corinthians were not baptized εἰς τὸ ὄνομα Παύλου (1Co_1:13), because it was not the name “Paul,” but the name “Christ,” that was to constitute the sum of their creed and their confession. For a similar reason, when the Samaritans circumcised, they did so ìùí äì âãéæéí (see Schöttgen on the passage), because the name “Gerizim” represented the specific point in their distintive creed and confession (their shibboleth). The dedication of the believer to the Father, etc., is of course to be regarded as practically taking place in the course of the ΒΑΠΤΊΖΕΙΝ ΕἸς ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ Κ . Τ . Λ .; for though this is not directly intimated by the words themselves (in opposition to Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 163; Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, III. 2, p. 12), it is implied in the act of baptism, and could have been expressed by the simple use of εἰς (without ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ ), as in 1Co_10:2; Rom_6:3; Gal_3:27. Further, ΕἸς ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ is not to be taken as equivalent to ΕἸς ΤῸ ὈΝΟΜΆΖΕΙΝ (Francke in the Sächs. Stud. 1846, p. 11 ff.), as though the meaning of the baptism consisted merely in calling God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Spirit the Holy Spirit. Such a view certainly could not apply in the last-mentioned case, for, like Father and Son, ΤῸ ΠΝΕῦΜΑ ἍΓΙΟΝ must be understood to be a specifically Christian designation of the Spirit, ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ is rather intended to indicate the essential nature of the Persons or Beings to whom the baptism has reference, that nature being revealed in the gospel, then expressed in the name of each Person respectively, and finally made the subject of the Christian’s confession and creed. Finally, in opposition to the utterly erroneous view of Bindseil (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1832, p. 410 ff.), that ΒΑΠΤΊΖΕΙΝ ΕἸς ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ means: to lead to the adoption of the name through baptism, i.e. to get the person who is to be baptized to call himself after the particular name or names in question, see Fritzsche as above. But as for the view of Weisse (Evangelienfr. p. 186 f.) and of Volkmar, p. 629, as well, that Christ’s commission to baptize is entirely unhistorical, it is only of a piece with their denial of the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus. Ewald, too (Gesch. d. Apost. Zeit. p. 180), is disposed to trace the origin of the commission to the inner world of a later apostolic consciousness.
It is a mistake to speak of our passage as the formula of baptism;[43] for Jesus is not to be understood as merely repeating the words that were to be employed on baptismal occasions (and accordingly no trace of any such use of the words is found in the apostolic age; comp. on the contrary, the simple expression: βαπτίζειν εἰς Χριστόν , Rom_6:3; Gal_3:27; ΒΑΠΤΊΖΕΙΝ ΕἸς ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ , Χ ., Act_8:16, and ἘΠῚ Τῷ ὈΝΌΜ . Χ ., Act_2:38), but as indicating the particular aim and meaning of the act of baptism. See Reiche, de baptism, orig., etc., 1816, p. 141 ff. The formula of baptism (for it was so styled as early as the time of Tertullian, de bapt. 13), which in its strictly literal sense has no bearing whatever upon the essence of the sacrament (Höfling, I. p. 40 ff.), was constructed out of the words of the text at a subsequent period (see already Justin, Ap. 1:61), as was also the case, at a still later period, with regard to the baptismal confession of the three articles (see Köllner, Symbol. d. Luth. K. p. 14 ff.). There is therefore nothing here to justify those who question the genuineness of our passage (Teller, Exc. 2, ad Burnet de fide et officiis Christianorum, 1786, p. 262; see, on the other hand, Beckhaus, Aechth. d. s. g. Taufformel, 1794), or those who of late have doubted its originality, at least in the form in which it has come down to us (Strauss, Bruno Bauer, de Wette, Wittichen in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1862, p. 336; Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Scholten, Keim), and that because, forsooth, they have professed to see in it a ὕστερον πρότερον . Exception has been taken, again, partly to the ΠΆΝΤΑ ΤᾺ ἜΘΝΗ , though it is just in these words that we find the broader and more comprehensive spirit that characterized, as might be expected, our Lord’s farewell commission, and partly to the “studied summary” (de Wette) of the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity. But surely if there was one time more than another when careful reflection was called for, it was now, when, in the course of this calm and solemn address, the risen Redeemer was endeavouring to seize the whole essence of the Christian faith in its three great leading elements as represented by the three substantially co-equal persons of the Godhead with a view to its being adopted as a constant ΣΗΜΕῖΟΝ to be used by the disciples when they went forth to proclaim the gospel (Chrysostom: ΠᾶΣΑΝ ΣΎΝΤΟΜΟΝ ΔΙΔΑΣΚΑΛΊΑΝ ἘΓΧΕῚΡΗΣΑς ΤῊΝ ΔΙᾺ ΤΟῦ ΒΑΠΤΊΣΜΑΤΟς ). The conjecture put forward by Keim, III. p. 286 f., that Jesus instituted baptism—though without any specific reference to all nations—on the night of the last supper, to serve the purpose of a second visible sign of His continued fellowship with the church after His departure from the world, is inadmissible, because there is no trace of this in the text, and because, had such a contemporaneous institution of the two sacraments taken place, it would have made so deep an impression that it could never have been forgotten, to say nothing of the impossibility of reconciling such a view with Joh_4:1 f.
[42] Had Jesus used the words τὰ ὀνόματα instead of τὸ ὄνομα , then, however much He may have intended the names of three distinct persons to be understood, He would still have been liable to be misapprehended, for it might have been supposed that the plural was meant to refer to the various names of each separate person. The singular points to the specific name assigned in the text to each of the three respectively, so that εἰς τὸ ὄνομα is, of course, to be understood both before τοῦ υἱοῦ and τοῦ ἁυίου πνεύματος ; comp. Rev_14:1 : τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ . We must beware of making any such dogmatic use of the singular as to employ it as an argument either for (Basilides, Jerome, Theophylact) or against (the Sabellians) the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. We should be equally on our guard against the view of Gess, who holds that Christ abstained from using the words “of God the Father,” etc., because he considers the designation God to belong to the Son and the Holy Spirit as well. Such a dogmatic idea was not at all likely to be present to His mind upon an occasion of leave-taking like the present, any more than was the thing itself on which the idea is supposed to be based, for He was never known to claim the name ειός either for Himself or for the Holy Spirit. Still the New Testament, i.e. the Subordinatian, view of the Trinity as constituting the summary of the Christian creed and confession lies at the root of this whole phraseology.—Observe, further, that the baptismal formula: “in nomine,” and: “in the name,” rests entirely on a mistranslation on the part of the Itala and Vulgate, so that there is accordingly no ground for the idea, adopted from the older expositors, that the person who baptizes acts as Christ’s representative (Sengelmann in the Zeitschr. f. Protestantism. 1856, p. 341 ff.), neither is this view countenanced by Act_10:48. Tertullian (de bapt. 13) gives the correct rendering in nomen, though as early as the time of Cyprian (Ep. lxxiii. 5) in nomine is met with. The practice of dipping three times dates very far back (being vouched for even by Tertullian), but cannot be traced to the apostolic age.
[43] It is no less erroneous to suppose that our passage represents the first institution of baptism. For long before this the disciples had been baptizing in obedience to the instructions of Jesus, as may be seen from Joh_4:1 f., where baptism by the disciples is spoken of as tantamount to baptism by Jesus Himself, and where again there is as little reason to suppose the mere continuation of the baptism of John to be meant as there is in the case of our present passage (Joh_3:5). In the passage before us we have the same commission as that just referred to, only with this difference, that it is now extended so as to apply to all nations. This at once disposes of the question as to whether baptism should not occupy merely a secondary place as a sacrament (Laufs in the Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 215 ff.). Comp. also, on the other hand, 1Co_10:1-3, where there is an unmistakeable reference to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as the two great and equally important sacraments of the Christian church. Of these two, however, it is clearly not the Lord’s Supper, but baptism, on which the greatest stress is laid as forming the divine constituent factor in the work of redemption, and that above all in the Epistles of Paul, in which the only instance of anything like a full treatment of the subject of the Lord’s Supper is that of First Corinthians, and even then it is of a somewhat incidental character.