(3) The Synoptic Gospels present, by way of just historic accommodation, the teaching of Jesus to the Jews, though showing incidentally, especially after the resurrection, the higher self- consciousness of Christ as found in the Fourth Gospel (cf. especially Mt 11°? and Lk 10%); This last, given intentionally for disciples (Jn 21%), for the Church, and for man as man, unfolds the deeper character and words of Christ. There are two symbolical acts, which show how the doctrine
of the Trinity appears with equal naturalness in all the Gospels. Jesus breathed upon His dis- ciples and imparted the Holy Ghost (Jn 20”). He also bade them baptize their converts in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Mt 2818 19), Here in brief symbol and formula He sets forth the Trinity conception of Jn 14-17. He breathed upon the disciples from His own glorified body and said, ‘ Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’ He speaks as Lord, ‘Take’; it is a word of command with which He sends forth the Spirit. He begins to do what He said He would do (167), Speaking as God (cf. Gn 2’, Ezk 37°), He exercised the authority to impart the Spirit of God. Through His word of command and His vital breath the Holy Ghost proceeded from God the Father to the hearts of men. The Apostles received the baptism of the Holy Spirit for service, as had Jesus Him- self for His great Apostleship (Mk 1°, Jn 1°, He 3!). The authority to bind and loose given by Jesus (Mt 1818) is now ascribed to the Holy Ghost (Jn 20%), Both Son and Spirit forgive sins through the Apostles. The gift of the Spirit (Jn 20°?) cor- responds with the baptismal command (Mt 281%). Both set forth the Apostolic commission; and both do so in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus sends forth the Twelve in His own name, with the authority of the Father and inspired by Him with the Spirit (207). In Mt 28% He claims all power in heaven and on earth, and bids them disciple and baptize men in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Jesus began His own work with baptism, which He said was from God (Mt 21%), and re- ferred to communion with Himself as baptism (Mk 10°8) ; hence His command to baptize is not strange. He would send His disciples to the Gentile world with the same ordinance with which John came to Israel. It is the Trinitarian formula that chal- lenges criticism (cf. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, ii. 349, 374). True, there is no text evidence against it (Resch, Paralleléexte, 3 Ev. ii. 393f.); and it occurs in the most Jewish Gospel, where such teachings are improbable unlessfrom Jesus. Later references to baptism in the name of Jesus (Ac 238 195, 1 Co 11) seem either to describe the accept- ance of Christianity, without reference to the mode of baptism, or to prove that the Trinitarian form was not the only one inuse. Where the form of baptism is expressly referred to, it is always in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Didache, vii. 3; Justin M., Ap. i.61; ef. Resch, é.c.). If the teachings in Jn 2072" are from Jesus, Mt 28 is quite natural. If the Apostles were sent by the Father and the Son, and inspired by the Spirit to declare converts’ sins remitted, what more natural than to add ‘baptize them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’? We can hardly think of Paul, some 25 years after Christ’s ascension, writing ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the com- munion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all,’ or John reporting Jesus (167°) as building His gospel upon Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unless the Lord had taught essentially what is in Mt 28”. The teachings of Jesus seem fairly to include the following: (1) He approved of the baptism of John, and His disciples continued it (Jn 3% 4!) ; (2) after the death of John, He let this preparatory baptism drop (a) because the kingdom foretold had actually come, (0) because Messianic baptism led to false views of the kingdom and provoked opposition, (c) because Jesus gradually turned to the special instruction of the Twelve; (3) His teaching on baptism identified it with the Holy Ghost, as all the evangelists tell us (Mt 34, Mk 1°, Lk 37%, Jn 18, Ac 15), hence, as soon as the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, the Apostles felt that the time
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had come for the renewal of external baptism also ; (4) baptism ‘in the name of Jesus’ would then mean, as Jesus taught, baptism of the Holy Ghost and into the service of Christ, in contrast with Johannine baptism; (5) Luke shows that Jesus had the same view of baptism and the Trinity as appears in Mt 28). He taught (a) the coming of the Holy Ghost, (0) this coming was a baptism of the Holy Ghost, and (c) the Father and Son par- ticipated in this baptism of the Holy Ghost (24%, Ac 1°), Here are the same elements of doctrine as are contained in Mt 28%. If we suppose with Haupt (Apostolat im NT, 38 f.), that this is not a formula of baptism, but a summary by the Evangelist of Christ’s teachings on baptism and what it meant, we reach the same result: the only confession of faith and baptism that Jesus taught meant sharing the redemption of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Apostolic form ‘in the name of Jesus’ would then mean just what is taught in Mt 28, It was baptism in the Spirit unto Christ: hence, when St. Paul found disciples (Ac 19*) who had not received the Holy Ghost, he asked unto what they had been baptized : baptism had special reference to the Holy Ghost. It also referred to all the redemptive work of the Son (Gal 36, Ro 6°), as well as to the full activity of the Spirit (1 Co TEES Ay yb) p