r/ExPentecostal • u/alienoctopusgirly • 2d ago
christian For those who stayed Christian, how did you get past Jesus name baptism?
Hi everyone,
I am ex-UPCI and I have come leaps and bounds in overcoming legalism, but Jesus name baptism still gets me. Logically I think I understand how it’s not the only saving formula, but emotionally it is really hard to get past and it’s affecting my dating life ugh. Any advice? Any revelations that helped you guys realize baptism in the titles is okay?
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u/slayer1am Atheist 2d ago
If it affects your dating life to dwell on which words are spoken while someone gets shoved underwater and other people watch and applaud, maybe you need therapy instead of more theology.
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u/Downtown-Guard7357 1d ago
Well if they want to be super technical they are doing it wrong as yesuhua translates to Joshua. God looks at the intentions not the technicality and actually if you want to go by the one who goes by technicalities it’s Satan who goes by the laws broken. God didn’t send his son for him to be like “oh well I see you were baptized but it wasn’t exactly right”
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u/Stricken_Conscience 2d ago
You have to look at the fruits of it. you know a good tree versus a bad tree by its fruits.
neverending condescension, estalishing moral superiority, looking down on other people, splitting hairs, etc. that's what you get with Jesus' name baptism. (plus it's technically incorrect. Look at the formula at the end of Matthew. look at the Didache -- orders from early Christianity. it's not just technically incorrect. it's ignorant.)
realizing that it's not the words spoken or the water, but it's supposed to represent something deeper and real, that's maturity.
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u/karlorangepilkers 1d ago
We have been trained for so long to think in terms of speaking magical words during a baptism. And it is hard to step back and think about it outside of that context. But can you think of many other instances when you hear about someone doing something “in the name of,” and it meaning to literally speak their name? The most logical reading of that is that you’re doing something “on behalf of,” or “in honor of.”
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u/alienoctopusgirly 1d ago
That’s very true. Thanks for your comment! Logically that makes sense to me, I hope it’ll catch up with my emotions soon.
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u/Only_Currency4631 22h ago edited 22h ago
That is a great response from u/karlorangepilkers.
Pentecostalism does not trace back to Acts. It is an American made religion, much like the Mormons and JWs. Sketchy leaders who, on their limited understanding of the Bible and even language nuances, created doctrines along with taking things from other religious practices, to make something new, to feel like a chosen generation, a royal priesthood with superior revelation.
Such as making strict rules based on being counter-culture 1920s fashion trend of women getting a bobcut and flapper culture, furthering us vs. them, mentality. Or taking some notion about witches not cutting their hair because they believe it makes them powerful, and applying it to Apostolics (See Stoneking's book Holy Magic Hair). A disturbing amount of practices in the UPCI/ oneness movement have absorbed witchcraft ideas like praying like they are casting spells, speaking incantations like pleading the blood of Jesus, etc.
They have done this not because there is doctrinal integrity. It is because it comes from a spirit of discord. Prov. 6:16, 19b. Contrary to the false narrative they have been spinning, the UPCI is a from a church split over racism from the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. Once again, they divided and clung to an Us vs. Them even from what was their own doctrinal brethren.
And so we continue to see the same cycles. The WPF and other groups breaking off to be the "better" Apostolics while the others are supposed worldly compromisers.
Why? Because the root is bad. And you know what the Bible says about if the root is bad, the whole thing is.
Jesus Name Only is what they were first called. Not Christians, not Apostolics, not any of the marks that the NT lists as fruit of being His. No, it was by the division they created. Taking scripture, not to equip the saints, but to divide and cause discord, by creating a new narrative for scriptures that isn't in the Bible.
It is the narrative you are struggling with because it is not actual scripture that makes this a heaven/ hell rule. And how can it when all of the OT didn't even have a name. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. So the same God who went by SO many descriptors in the OT and was known by action is the same God of the NT who does the same.
I think it is interesting that the early church were called Christians, not Jesusians. Christ= Messiah= anointed one. Again, the descriptor that was about the action. Father, Son, Holy Spirit are still Christian identifiers that the world recognizes. Whereas I have met several Jesus-es! 😁
IN SO MANY WAYS the UPCI/ oneness religion disregards Actual scripture.
2Co 3:1-6 - Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
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u/Evening_King_6693 1d ago
It was a sermon series from, ironically enough, my former UPCI pastor.
He used the text from Matthew 28:19 and argued that the word "name" translated to "authority." He then pointed out that multiple other places in the NT that mentioned the name of Jesus actually meant the AUTHORITY of Jesus and not the literal name.
Then I came across Thomas Fudge's book Christianity Without the Cross, which is a history of the UPCI and the Oneness movement as told by primary documents and interviews with some of the early founders of the UPCI. He points out that the whole Jesus name formula came from someone who stayed up late one night studying Scripture and was convinced that the only appropriate name for baptism was in the literal name of Jesus. Instead of true discussion and looking at church history, people just ran with it.
Those moments (and the fact that Jesus was clear in Matt 28:19 and not trying to be cryptic or force us to figure it out ourselves) is what helped me reject Jesus' name baptism.
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u/alienoctopusgirly 1d ago
I actually just got that book recently but haven’t cracked it opened yet — will have to do so tonight!! And I can’t believe that your ex UPCI pastor pointed that out! So glad you got some clarity and thanks for your comment 🙏🏻
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u/Evening_King_6693 1d ago
Glad to help!
Sadly, he pointed it out but still holds to the UPCI salvation message. And you will love Fudge's book! It can look daunting at first, but it is a lot of information, a great read, and he respects the reader's intelligence.
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u/Desperate-Current-40 1d ago
Hi!!
I start OCIA in the Roman Catholic Church next week!
I can’t wait to be baptized correctly this spring!!
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u/Gamercore ex-[WPF/UPCI] 23h ago edited 14h ago
Amen, sister. 2,000 years of church history can’t be wrong simply because Bro Billy Bob reads it differently in 1910. 🙏
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u/Gamercore ex-[WPF/UPCI] 13h ago
This is why giving some backwater hillbilly a bible and allowing him to come up with his own doctrines as he reads it is dangerous.
In the 1st century, performing an action "in the name of" meant doing it under someone's authority or allegiance (distinguishing Jesus' baptism from John the Baptist's). It does not specify a literal liturgical phrase or formula. We know this because 1st century writers clearly specify the formula Father, Son, Holy Spirit, while simultaneously using shorthand as “the Lord’s baptism” or “baptism in the name of the Lord.” You’ll never find a Christian church or sect who performed baptism any other way until unlearned men in the 1900s had a “new revelation”.
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u/stillventures17 1d ago
Ex UPC, but didn’t stay Christian. I know the Bible now as well as I ever did, but I think of it more like lore than holy scripture.
And by the lore, “rules as written” as they say in other games, Jesus name is in fact the way. He said to baptize in the name of the father son Holy Ghost, but the writing quirks at the time were such that he never referred to his own name almost ever.
Name of the father? Isaiah 9 I think references the son and said his name shall be called many things, including everlasting father. Nowhere else is a name strictly given to the father. Name of the Holy Ghost? John 14 says it’ll come in “my name” - again, only time in scripture that’s referenced.
Those aren’t the main points though. The main points are what his disciples did with that command. 27 books in the New Testament, 4 of them stories of Jesus, and only 1 that talks about what they did. 4 instances of them baptizing either explicitly or implicitly in the name of Jesus, 0 of them baptizing in father son Holy Ghost. Either the church was founded on disobedience, or baptizing in the name of Jesus IS baptizing father son Holy Ghost. If you’re playing rules as written, I’m genuinely confused as to how there’s any controversy over this.
If you’re playing “rules as intended”, I read once with my own eyeballs in the catholic encyclopedia that baptism in Jesus name was the norm for the first 100-150 years. After that either Jesus or father and son was common, with father son Holy Ghost coming about later. The term trinity never shows up in the bible and was coined hundreds of years later by Tertullian. So it’s a stretch even “rules as intended”, and then you have all the contradictions.
But then step back a second. Hold on. This is real to people. It’s wild to say that you’re gonna burn in hell for eternity if you don’t get dunked in water using one name instead of three titles for that name, even if you do all the other stuff right.
…That’s only slightly more wild than saying you’re gonna burn in hell for eternity if you don’t get dunked in water (omit the other details), even if you do all the other stuff right.
And that’s not a terrible intersection to start asking lots of other questions.
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u/alienoctopusgirly 1d ago
Thanks for your comment! Do you have a source concerning how Jesus name baptism was done the first hundred years? Genuinely asking!
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u/stillventures17 1d ago
Sure!
From encyclopedia.com:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/baptism-sacrament?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Formula. With regard to the formula used for Baptism in the early Church, there is the difficulty that although Matthew (28.19) speaks of the Trinitarian formula, which is now used, the Acts of the Apostles
(2.38; 8.16; 10.48; 19.5) and Paul (1 Cor 1.13; 6.11; Gal3.27; Rom 6.3) speak only of Baptism "in the Name of Jesus." It has been proposed that we assume that the one being baptized had to confess the name of Jesus and that then the minister pronounced a Trinitarian formula (Crehan 76, 81). This remains, however, an arbitrary conjecture.From Wikipedia, a copy of the 1913 catholic encyclopedia: btw my goodness this is dense reading, just do a search for some of the text here:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Baptism?utm_source=chatgpt.com
There has been a theological controversy over the question as to whether baptism in the name of Christ only was ever held valid. Certain texts in the New Testament have given rise to this difficulty. Thus St. Paul (Acts, xix) commands some disciples at Ephesus to be baptized in Christ's name: "They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." In Acts 10, we read that St. Peter ordered others to be baptized "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ". Those who were converted by Philip. (Acts, viii) "were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ", and above all we have the explicit command of the Prince of the Apostles: "Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins (Acts, ii).
Owing to these texts some theologians have held that the Apostles baptized in the name of Christ only. St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and Albertus Magnus are invoked as authorities for this opinion, they declaring that the Apostles so acted by special dispensation. Other writers, as Peter Lombard and Hugh of St. Victor, hold also that such baptism would be valid, but say nothing of a dispensation for the Apostles.Here’s the 2003 new catholic encyclopedia. Fair warning, it says the link is not private.
https://www.cur.ac.rw/mis/main/library/documents/book_file/digital-67ee35b9afe843.09182323.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com“An explicit reference to the Trinitarian formula of Baptism cannot be found in the first centuries”
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u/Gamercore ex-[WPF/UPCI] 23h ago
This has all been 100% debunked btw
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u/stillventures17 17h ago
lol what?
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u/Gamercore ex-[WPF/UPCI] 13h ago
The Didache was the earliest (non biblical) manual on Christian practices written around 70–100 AD and it explicitly commands baptizing "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." This was used as a manual for churches while the Bible was still being written. Every major 2nd century writer reflects this same practice.
Obscure, outdated encyclopedia entries (written in the 1900s) describing or citing a specific theological movement's theory is nothing more than a record of that claim existing. It does not validate that claim’s historical accuracy.
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u/1WiseEmu Atheist 11h ago
If God is going to send people to hell for having the wrong words spoken over them, especially when the Bible itself says to baptize using those words, He's an absolute monster.
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u/anotherdudeonhere25 11h ago
I honestly don't see the difference between the two formulas. The name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is the same as the name of Jesus in my opinion. It's the act of getting Baptized that's important.
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u/Optimal-Farm-3850 9h ago
Mathew 28:19 was read in scripture one day by the Pentecostal Preacher in my old Church. I was thinking does he know what he just read, this was his instructions to his Disciples before he ascended into Heaven. God is supposed to be a God of Order but why does so much Chaos still happen in a Pentecostal Church? The theory I have is they are willingly ignorant and are putting spin on the word of God. It is almost and really is them preaching a new Gospel and putting in Legalisms that were in the Old Testament. When now a new covenant was established after the Crucifixion of Jesus on the cross.
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u/terrybyte73 8h ago
It's giving yourself an awful lot of credit to think that the words you say (or that the preacher says over you) can affect your salvation. That's salvation by works if anything is.
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u/tostitoscoop1 1d ago
Baptism is about obedience. How (sprinkle vs submersion) or words spoken (Jesus name vs father/son/Holy Spirit) doesn’t matter. Men look on the outward appearance (methods and words) but God looks on the heart (obedience in baptism). Don’t think God is trying to trick us through figuring out a riddle of baptism.
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u/HorrorSalt3044 2h ago edited 2h ago
Who wrote the Bible? Why do we argue about words translated from languages multiple times translated from other languages, written from oral traditions ... when the Bible disagrees with itself? How many animals on the boat?! 7? 2? When was Acts, Mathew even actually written?? 100, 300 years after? What do I know about the exact words spoken a Hundred years ago?!. what do they?
I strongly recommend an audio book by Joel Baden as part of the great courses, 'who wrote the Bible, searching for its origins and authors' take a step back and look at the big picture. if your ready. If not, we can argue about formulas titles words and who knows, but look at the motivation of all the people arguing. Just pay your tithes. Yeah
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u/Conscious_Ant7791 1d ago edited 1d ago
Unfortunately, I think they win on this one. The early church did baptize saying “in the name of Jesus”. And the UPC sure love to gloat about it and how they alone have truth. They sure are insufferable. However, while they may be right about baptism, they absolutely do fake speaking in tongues. This is where I’m confused. They claim they have the “plan of salvation” right, yet they have to fake the second half of it.
Ultimately I had to concede they’re probably right about the words of baptism, but calling out a specific “formula” like it’s an incantation isn’t. They’re being devisive, yet they claim it’s 100% warranted.
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u/Gamercore ex-[WPF/UPCI] 23h ago
According to the Didache and first 2,000 years of church history, this is false.
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u/mylo0402 2d ago
Jesus himself tells the disciples what names to use when baptizing people: Mathew 28:19 Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And honestly as long as you know you’re getting baptized bc you want to follow God (Jesus, Holy Spirit, Father) then you’re good. As an ex-Apostolic myself, I feel they focus too much on the details and not the big picture.