- Welcome to Facebook live. I'm Dave Norris and I'm the professor of Biblical Theology at Urshan
Graduate School of Theology. Here joining with me today,
of course, is Brother Bernard. He is the Chancellor of Urshan
Graduate School of Theology and also of course the
general superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church. The subject of today's talk is baptism, specifically baptism in Jesus' name. I was baptized in Jesus'
name when I was 11 years old in Camp Galilee at the lake there. And of course I memorized
scriptures about that in Sunday school and was a Bible quizzer and memorized texts as well there. But when I became a high
school student and then older I wondered what the academic world thought about that. I remember reading tracts and they quoted such things as an old Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia, Religious Knowledge, which was good but it was old. And then an old Catholic Encyclopedia or Encyclopedia Britannica. I thought, well I wondered
what scholars had to say. Later when I went to seminary
and did a master's thesis on the historic origins of what we believe and began to study, I found
some excellent sources of scholars who were mainline scholars who said many of the
very same things we do. By the time I got to Temple University where I was doing my PhD, the Anchor Bible Dictionary had come out. And there was an article in there and this is the main dictionary, resource, starting resource, for seminaries and graduate schools. The resource in there on baptism was written by Lars Hartman. And he made very specific the fact that when someone is baptized in the Bible, there's no other way that they're baptized other than in Jesus' name. We're gonna ask Brother
Bernard just to go over the scriptures in the
historic account in Acts. But before we do I want to invite you to send any questions
in that you might have. We'll try to address as many
of them as we possibly can. - All right, it's great to be here today and I appreciate Dr. Norris helping to facilitate our conversation. And as he just mentioned,
mainline scholars, New Testament scholars
and church historians, both Catholic and Protestant, agree that in the New Testament the standard means of water baptism was
to invoke the name of Jesus. Such as into the name of Jesus Christ or into the name of the Lord Jesus. He mentioned Lars Hartman
who has actually written a book called Into The
Name of The Lord Jesus. And that's the main topic you might say or one of the main
topics of the entire book to establish the original
or early baptismal formula. Well, of course, we go
straight to the Bible. While we respect scholarship, we believe that the Bible
itself is our authority for doctrine and for salvation. And when we go to the
Bible we do find indeed that the early church
consistently baptized with the invocation of the name of Jesus. The idea of using a threefold
formula or three titles appears to come after the New Testament. So just to get started all the accounts, the historical accounts of water baptism the New Testament church
are found the book of Acts. There are nine of them. Five of them mentioned
the name or the formula. In each case the name is Jesus. So you have Acts chapter two, the twelve Apostles preaching to Jews. Then you have Acts eight,
baptizing the Samaritans. Acts 10, baptizing the Gentiles. Acts 19, baptizing the disciples of John who had already been baptized before but baptizing them again at Ephesus. And then Acts 22 recounts the conversion of the Apostle Paul. All five cases include the name Jesus. - When I was doing a dissertation
at Temple University, I wanted to do it on baptism
in the name of Jesus. Of course it's a secular university and they're not interested in somebody saying that the Bible is true, but they are interested in
finding out what things mean. And so in order to do a study on the socio-historical meaning of the name of Jesus in the early church, I used certain sociological
methods and so on. But they said I had to
go back and find out not just the meaning
socially and culturally of the name of Jesus but before that, the meaning of the name of Yahweh. Do a kind of a literature review. And I read everything
that has been written in the last couple of hundred years. In that process I came
across a dissertation by a guy from Princeton,
name of D. Preman Niles. And he said something that
was absolutely mind-blowing. He said that in the Old Testament when covenant initiation was taking place, what was significant was
that the name of the person who was making covenant with the group would speak their name over that group in order to bind himself in covenant. The time of Moses there were
rulers over the Hittites who did this very thing and
there were specific ways in which that was done. So it was when Exodus chapter 20 begins the way that the Lord
speaks is the very way that kings made covenant at this time. And God audibly, "I am the
LORD," and capital LORD is Yahweh, it's Jehovah. "I am the LORD who brought
you out of the land of Egypt." So it's not simply in the New Testament that the name is spoken over a person in covenant relationship, but it begins as well
in the Old Testament. - And that fits very well because we believe that water baptism is part of entering into the new covenant, or what we might call
Christian initiation. It's not just a ceremony
or ritual or a symbolism. It is those things, but
it's more than that. Because in the New
Testament you always find when people believed on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're talking about
the New Testament church after it was established
on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two, in every case once they believed and
repented of their sins, immediately they were baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ. You don't find the example
of an unbaptized believer or someone who refused or
neglected to be baptized. And that's because
baptism is not considered a subsequent event or an optional event, it's considered part of our entering into the New Testament church. Part of our expression
of faith that puts us in covenant with Jesus Christ. And so it makes perfect sense. I think Christians of all
backgrounds and denominations, even if they don't agree
with everything I just said, at minimum they would agree that baptism is a way of confessing Jesus
as our personal Savior. And committing ourselves to Jesus Christ. So it makes all the sense in the world that if baptism is confessing
Jesus as your Savior, if it's part of entrance
into the body of Christ, the New Testament church,
then obviously the name that should be used is the name of Jesus. - You know the Bible says in
Acts chapter four in verse 12, in the New King James, nor is
there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. And of course, as you
said, in the book of Acts when anyone was baptized
they were baptized in the name of Jesus. But we have another
scripture and that's found in Matthew chapter 28 and verse 19. How would you address Matthew 28:19 with regard to the fact that everyone who was subsequently baptized was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ? Well, as Apostolic Pentecostals we look to apostolic authority as the key. So we don't read Matthew through the lens of fourth and fifth century creeds or councils of the church, but we read it in the
context of the first century. So here you have Jesus
speaking to the 12 Apostles. They're all Jews, they've been trained from childhood in Deuteronomy 6:4. Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one. And so they, nobody's ever
talked about the word trinity, 3 persons, or a concept of
3 centers of consciousness in the Godhead. They haven't
even thought about that. Now they're very familiar with the term of God is our Father. Jesus taught them to pray to our Father, God as the source of life. They are well aware that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God or God manifest in the flesh. They were recently promised
that when Jesus would depart he would send back His Spirit upon them. And so the Spirit is the Spirit of God, Jesus Christ himself
coming back in spirit form. So you can see all that
in John 14 for example. So from that basis when
Jesus spoke in Matthew 28:19, of course, He told them to baptize in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. We must immediately ask
ourselves, what was he saying? Was he saying to repeat those words? If he was then it seems like the apostles completely disobeyed him, we have no example in the New Testament where they ever obeyed him. Starting with Acts 2:38,
the 12 apostles told people who are asking how to be saved and how to be forgiven of their sins, be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ. Now I've heard some people say, well I'd rather take the words of Jesus than the words of Peter. And superficially that might sound good until you realize Jesus didn't write any of the Bible himself
personally in the New Testament. But the Gospel of Matthew
was written by Matthew. Acts was written by
Luke quoting from Peter. So if you're gonna start choosing one scripture over the other, then you have to choose
one apostle over the other and ultimately we can never know if the Apostles were wrong
or if they got it wrong or if they were contradicting themselves. We have no way of knowing what's right. Instead we would say in Matthew Jesus spoke to the 12 Apostles including Matthew and Peter. In Acts Peter preached in
the presence of Matthew. And so if one of them got it wrong, the others would have corrected him. If Peter wasn't obeying the words of Jesus Matthew should have tugged on his robe and said, wait a minute you forgot what Jesus just told us a few days ago. But obviously not because
we believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Therefore it's infallible without error, it won't contradict itself and especially on a matter so important to our salvation, we need to understand what's
the consistent message, what's the harmony? So the bottom line is this, Jesus commanded something,
the apostles fulfilled it. We as Apostolic Pentecostals would say instead of taking our own
intellect, our own traditions, 2,000 years of developments to figure out what we think it means, let's see what the
apostles thought it meant. And if that's what they thought it meant, that should be what we think of it. And then let's look at
how they fulfilled it. If they fulfilled it a certain way, then we should fulfill it the same way. So on that basis what
we say is the apostles correctly understood and
obeyed Jesus' command by baptizing everyone with the invocation of the name of Jesus. Now we can talk about this further is well how does that work? When you say in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, how does that end up being the name of Jesus? But I wanted to establish
the foundation here is that clearly this is
what the apostles thought. So we're not coming up with
some new doctrine of our own, rather we're privileging or respecting what the apostles understood
the words of Jesus to be. We don't have direct access. Through prayer, of course, we
can ask God to reveal truth, but we don't have direct access to the historical Jesus the way they did. So if they didn't understand something they could have easily said, well, Jesus, what did you mean by that? And in fact they did on occasions like John 14 Jesus said,
"Well you've seen the father." And Philip said, "What do you mean? "I don't think we have,
what are you talking about?" Jesus said, "Well, if you've
seen me, you've seen the Father." In other words I'm
the visible manifestation of the invisible Father. So if they did have a question what do you mean, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit? Who are they, what do those titles mean? Well, Jesus could have and
probably no doubt did explain. And so when we see what they fulfill, it's not up to us to argue with them and say, no, they were wrong
or let's do it a different way. It's up to us to follow what they did because Jesus authorized them to establish the church
and teach doctrine, and it's our job to follow that. To honor them is to honor
the lordship of Jesus. - You know in the Old Testament, covenant was made in the
name of Yahweh consistently. In fact, the Lord spoke to Moses and say now the priests, this is Numbers chapter
six verses 22 to 27, this is how they should bless the people. Say to them the Lord bless you. That's just not a nice benediction, this was calling down the power of God. This was covenant renewal. The Lord bless you and
keep you, Yahweh bless you. Yahweh make his name shine
upon and be gracious to you and give you peace and so on in verse 26. In verse 27 he says they're to call down the name of the Lord, the name
of Yahweh, a New Jerusalem. Basically says that in those terms that they're to specifically put the name of God on the people. In Matthew chapter one a very
wonderful thing happened. There was a virgin named Mary and when she told her to-be-husband that she was gonna have a baby and God was the father
he didn't believe it. But an angel appeared to him in a dream and explained that this
was exactly the case. And then in Matthew 1:21 he said, you shall call his name Jesus. And the word Jesus in the English is from the Hebrew word Yeshua. And he says you should call his name Jesus for he shall save his
people from their sins. Yeshua is like many Hebrew names, it has the name of God in there. When you see Yah or El
in the name in Hebrew it means something to do with God. So Daniel, God is my judge. Elijah, there's Yah from
Yahweh and El from Elohim and so it has the name of God. So Jesus name literally means Yahweh has become our salvation. So the God of the Old Testament
did something incredible, he became incarnated. And for the first time in human history, the name Yeshua actually meant, specifically and literally
what it was saying. That in him Yahweh has
become our salvation. That's why in Acts 4:12, nor
is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. We have a question here
and it's from Harvey. And he wants to know specifically, well what about if
somebody were baptized say in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost and then added in "which is Jesus," what do you think of that sort of thing. - Well, first of all, when
we have questions like this we may have a lot of speculation. Well I think this would be good, I think that would be good. But as much as possible, we should go back to the precedent of Scripture. So in the accounts of Acts
that I just referred to, there's no example of that. So I would say, I would never do that. Now if you want to, in an explanatory way, say something like, "as Jesus taught us in Matthew 28:19 to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so I fulfill this, I now baptize you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." Well that's fine; that's clear. Because you are explaining
it and you're culminating with the invocation name of Jesus. But if someone is saying, "I baptize you in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit and I baptize you in the name
of Jesus," that's confusing. Now somebody says, well,
you you are calling the Jesus. Will God accept it? Well, that's a question
that God will answer, but as far as me, I would
say that's confusing. Because it leaves the person wondering what's really going on. So I would not use the titles at all or if, or in a preparatory
way of explanation. But I would always make sure the ceremony focuses on the invocation
of the name of Jesus. I think that would be
the biblical precedent. And let me go a little further, just piggyback on what you've said. So in essence what you're saying is the name of Jesus doesn't
eliminate the name of Yahweh but incorporates the name of Yahweh. So just as Yahweh would
be the supreme name of God in the Old Covenant, the name by which He's identified personally to His people in contrast to all the other
gods who were false, is Yahweh. Then Jesus becomes the
New Testament name of God. It becomes the personal name of God by which we identify Him in distinction to all the other gods who are false. Not by eliminating the Old Testament name but by elaborating on or extending to say the Old Testament God, Yahweh, has now become our personal Savior through incarnation in Jesus Christ and made atonement for our sins. So this goes back to Matthew 28:19 where Jesus said, baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Well, again, Christians of any persuasion, Catholic, Protestant, or whatever if you said Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they would probably agree that's God. So to paraphrase, Jesus
says, "make converts and baptize them in the name of God." Well, what is the name of God? And I've actually asked
different Trinitarians this. And some have said, "God."
Well, that's obviously incorrect because God is a generic title which refers to all kinds of gods. The true God, false gods. It's like saying, "man." I'm a man, but you can't distinguish me from all the other men on planet Earth by calling me a man;
you have to use my name. So, if you say Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit is God, well, what is the name of God? And to say those three again,
those are generic or titles that there are many fathers,
there are many sons, there are many spirits. But if you want to
identify the one unique God who is Father, who came
in flesh as the Son, who sends His Spirit,
well, what's the name? And I think you've
already quoted Acts 4:12 which in the context is
clearly the name of Jesus. It says neither is there
salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. So if baptism is connected
to our salvation, and at baptism we're supposed
to invoke the name of God, then both of those statements converge to say, the name is Jesus. And you look at the context
of Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus says, in essence,
"I have all power." "Since I have all power, I'm
sending you out of the world. Make disciples unto me,
teach them my commandments, I will be with you always,
so therefore baptize the name of three different persons." Is that what he's saying? No, the context demands,
"baptize in my name," and that's how they understood that. I would further add that, of
course, name is singular there. So we're not looking for
three different names to represent three different persons, we're looking for one supreme name that would represent the fullness of God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit represent the fullness of God, represent God's redemptive manifestations 'cause you might ask well
why would those three titles be mentioned there? It's because they're all connected to the important purpose
of salvation. In order to die for our sins, Jesus
had to be the Son of God. But in order for the Son to be born, God had to be the Father; no
one else could be the Father. And in order for the salvation that Jesus purchased for us
on Calvary 2,000 years ago, in order for that to
be applied to us today, God comes to us by the Spirit. So I would paraphrase
we need the work of God as our Father, as Son, and as
Spirit in order to be saved. But what is the one name that represents all of those works simultaneously? It's the name of Jesus. And then, one more point, if you look at the parallel passages there, this is called the Great Commission, but Mark also gives his version
of the Great Commission. Luke gives his version, so in Mark 16, Jesus said, "in my name." And then in Luke, it
reports, "in His name." So the gospel message and the preaching of the gospel and miracles
and signs and wonders will go forth in the name of Jesus. So if you parallel
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it's the name of Jesus that would fit all three of those descriptions. So, to summarize, I believe that Jesus was referring to His own name. And the reason why you might say it was a kind of in a parabolic form, is He was using it as
a teaching opportunity to explain the significance
of the name of Jesus. In fact, why we should use the name. - Yes, and as you said, in Luke 24:47, that repentance and remission of sins would be preached in His
name beginning at Jerusalem. Luke is not only the author of Luke, he's also the author of Acts. So now we have it set up in Luke 24 and we have the fulfillment
in Acts chapter 2 where actually the name
of Jesus Christ is used. Now some people think that
baptism is not a big deal, it's not significant, it has very little to do with salvation. One of the things that I've
learned from these scholars was how central it was both
historically and biblically. Now, some of these
scholars that I've read, they don't take any
personal application at all. - Right. - They're only asking,
they might be an atheist, but they're asking the
biblical question, historically and academically, what did they believe. Albrecht Oerke, who wrote
in what's called TDNT, Theological Dictionary
of the New Testament, which is also a basic work, he describes the New Testament, one of, a metaphor he likes
is that they saw baptism as a quote-unquote "cleansing bath." And Lars Hartman in John chapter 3 some people say when
Jesus commanded Nicodemus to be born of the water and the Spirit, that that water was somehow natural birth and the spirit was spiritual birth. But he completely debunked
that in his article on baptism and in other places, and he demonstrates that everything about John 1, everything about John
2, even later in John 3, is baptism, and this can
only refer to baptism. Joachim Jeremias demonstrates, at the time when proselytes came
and wanted to be Jews, part of the process of that was that they were to do
various certain things. But one of the things would
be they would be dunked in a tank, a mikvah, and that would be, they would be said to be born anew. The very language that Jesus uses to this Nicodemus, this ruler of the Jews. So if baptism is so important, I've got another question for you and I got several coming in now, but let me ask you a question from Ben. And the question is,
well, what happens then if I don't get baptized in Jesus' name? If I'm just, I've got
the Holy Ghost, I've been baptized in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are you judging me? Are you telling me I can't go to heaven, or what are you saying? What would you say about that? - Well, once again, I would
give a twofold answer. The first part is, well, that's a question for God to answer. In
other words, when you get to the end of your life,
you will be accountable to God, not to me. Doesn't really matter what I think; it matters what God says. But, for me, I have to go by the example
of the New Testament. So I would say, I can give you two things. First of all, I could tell
you what the Bible says, which we're trying to do, and I'll give a little bit more information on that. Second, I give you my personal testimony. I personally did obey,
and if I had not obeyed I would not feel that I had
done what God asked me to do. I would not feel
confident to approach God, in judgment saying, "Yeah,
I knew what You said, but it wasn't important
to me, so I didn't do it." And in the many years
I've served as a pastor and as a minister, I've
baptized many people. And I have many testimonies
of how God met them in the waters of baptism
with an experience of forgiveness of sins. Actually receiving the Holy Spirit-- - Tell us one of those.
- Healing and deliverance. - Give us one story here. I'm a story guy, give me a story. - Well the many times I can say, I'll give you example of a Muslim person. This is an exchange student from Albania. He came to our church. He had a glorious, you
might say, experience of he felt the presence of God. And he said, "How comes nobody's ever come "to my country to tell me you
could actually feel this?" So when we baptized him in
the water and brought him up, he received the Holy
Spirit, speaking in tongues. So that was an immediate thing where, and then there are other examples of people just when they're baptized from various types of sins, drugs, alcohol, sexual immorality, immediately coming up saying, I feel clean, I feel different. I remember there was a
76-year old Hispanic lady who was an invalid. When we were first starting
our church in Austin, Texas, she responded to a newspaper ad. Because she was an
invalid, we were only able to bring her to church maybe
two times the whole time. But my wife went to her home,
taught her a Bible study, a very simple one, because
her English was limited, and we didn't speak Spanish. But after my wife explained
to her about Jesus Christ, she said, "I'm an old woman,
do you think I can be forgiven "of all the sins in my whole
life? Is that possible?" And my wife said, "Of
course, that's repentance "and water baptism." So we scheduled her for baptism. I baptized her in her bathtub in her home. And I made sure to learn the Spanish, so she would have no doubt
in (speaks foreign language). Well, the next day she
calls me and she says, "Brother, what did you do to me? "I'm a different person,
I don't feel depressed. "I feel excited. What did you do?" And I said, "I didn't do anything. "That's what we're telling
you about the name of Jesus "and baptism in the name of Jesus." And later, she received the Holy Spirit praying in her home speaking in tongues. So, of course, that's
a subjective account, but it was a very dramatic account, Where here is an elderly woman who is very depressed, discouraged, sick, and it's just like a
light shone in her life. So-- I get to tell one story.
- Sure. - So here's my one. So this one guy, I had baptized him, and we had just started the church, so it was in a horse tank. But it was painted, and so
it was a nice horse tank. And a couple days later he says to me, "How did you know that would happen?" And I'm not too spiritual sometimes, so I didn't even know
what he was talking about, I said, "What do you mean?" And he said, "Well I've
been struggling with drugs. "I'm basically a drug
addict, and I was gonna stop "before I got baptized, but I got nervous, "so I had to have something." So he said, "When I
went down in the water, "I came up clean, absolutely clean "and there was no residual effects "and I haven't had any desire
for drugs since that time." And his testimony, of
course, was that he lived a holy life after that in
terms of giving himself to the Lord and God, it
was a true deliverance. So I mean that's my story, and
I'll give you back the floor. - I just thought of another one. There's another older gentleman, I think he was 72, he
was African-American. When he was baptized, not only
did he receive the Holy Ghost but he had had a stiff neck for 18 years. He was instantly healed
of that stiff neck. So got baptized, got healed,
received the Holy Ghost all at the same.
- All the same time. - But, but going back to that question, is it really necessary to call the name of Jesus at baptism? Well, I briefly touched on
Acts, but Acts is very specific. If you dig into the Greek text, it's not just a generic statement that we should follow
the authority of Christ, it's very specific. And you mentioned some resources, the standard Greek-English dictionary or lexicon that scholars use, is Bauer, Danker, Arndt and Gingrich. That would be the number
one recognized lexicon of all scholars of all denominations. And if you go to its study of water baptism, specifically I think it's under the word,
name, (onoma in Greek), and they go through the various accounts in Acts and show the Greek wording and grammar is a little different for several of them. But it shows that the Greek terms mean the name was invoked over the person. So in Acts 2:38 we baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's with invocation of the name. Now that, as I mentioned before,
was directed to the Jews, Acts 8:16 you have the Samaritans who were descendants of Jews who had intermarried with Gentiles. Then in Acts 10, there is a command that Cornelius and his household were Gentiles in Acts 10:48, they were commanded to be
baptized in the name of the Lord. The underlying Greek text, the most ancient texts actually say in the name of Jesus Christ. - I had a Spanish.
- Yes. - A missionary friend and
he showed me in his Bible it didn't, it used the word "invoked." - Yes. - And because, of course, in the Greek it's epikaleo which means literally to invoke over or call upon like James 2:7. - Right. - Call over and so there really
is no arguing about that. It's not-- - And in fact if you wanna go, okay let me, let's see where I am, Acts 19 the disciples of John they had already been
baptized under John's baptism. Which was a baptism unto repentance, in water, by immersion.
- True, right. So they did good stuff, yeah.
- So the only difference was the invocation of the name. So this goes back to that question. If you just ask me, well,
is it really necessary? I might say, well, it's
the thought that counts, as long as your intentions are good, I'm sure God understands that, etc. But really there's an
example on point in Acts 19. Here were some people
who had been baptized. Their baptism was the
will of God for its time. It wasn't like it was a wrong baptism. And all the elements
that you could ask for for baptism were there, except they had not been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And Paul said that's
sufficient that I need to baptize you a second time specifically to invoke the name of Jesus and to express your newfound
understanding of who Jesus is. And that fits, you know,
in our Western culture, we think of believing as
just a mental activity, but in the Bible believing
is something you do. If you really believe something, you act upon what you believe, you obey. And if you don't act, it means
it wasn't really true faith. And so if you ask me, well, do you... I'm already baptized
already in the Trinity; do I really have to get
baptized a second time? I might say, well, here are
various ways of looking at it. But if I have an example
from the apostles, this goes back to having
apostolic authority, here's a case study which
is pretty much on point, and Paul said, you know
what we're gonna do, we're gonna baptize you a second time. Now that you truly understand who Jesus is and believe on him, do not be satisfied with your previous action. But fulfill your faith by
being baptized a second time, specifically to take on the name of Jesus. And then, the final example, Acts 22:16, there you have the very specific language, "invoking the name." So Ananias told Paul to be
baptized in the name of Jesus, to invoke the name. That's where you have, it's
even more clear in Greek, and, as you mentioned, Spanish, than it might appear in English. And that connects to James 2:7. Although it doesn't use
the name of Jesus or say, it talks about the name
that was called over you when you became a Christian. - [Norris] Right. - Well, when would that be? It's water baptism. - In Acts 15 this pretty
incredible thing happens. There's a council in Jerusalem because of Paul's success
on the missionary field. He's converting all these Gentiles, and yet he doesn't believe
they have to keep the Torah. Don't have to get circumcised, don't have to keep the dietary laws, and he has well-meaning brethren who come behind him and
tried to undo his work, and it comes to a head in Jerusalem. They go through all of this whole thing, and then finally James answers. And he answers this by
quoting from the prophecy, Amos, and this is from Acts
15:13, from the New King James: "And when they became silent,
James answered saying, Simon has declared how
God at the first visited the Gentiles to making of
them a people for his name. And with this the words
of the prophets agree..." and he quotes from Amos 9:11. "After this I will
return and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David
which has fallen down, and I will raise up his room." Then it says, "so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord even all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called." Now in the original, in Amos, in the Hebrew it meant oral invocation. Here it means oral invocation.
What do scholars tell us? When was the name of God
called over these people so that they're in covenant
and they don't have to worry about whether they eating bacon or getting circumcised or any of that? It was, universally they will say this, it was when they were baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ. - And let me just follow up with that by saying, okay, when
Acts gives the accounts, the purpose is not just a history lesson, the purpose is to set a pattern. So it's no coincidence
that Acts 2, the Jews, Acts 8, the Samaritans, partial Jews, Acts 10, the Gentiles who are non-Jews, that right there is an example that covers the whole human race. Every human being is either Jewish or part Jewish or non Jewish. And then Acts 19 talks about rebaptism. And then Acts 22 is very
specific for the invocation. So it's a comprehensive answer: Yes, no matter who you
are, whatever background, whatever past baptismal
experiences you might have had, if you've never been
baptized with the invocation of the name of Jesus, this is for you. And then when we read the epistles, there are about five or six
places where the epistles are referring back to Jesus Name baptism. And you might miss it if you don't know about Jesus Name baptism. But one good example is in
I Corinthians chapter 1. - 1:13. - Yeah, 1:13, where Paul is talking about their factions in the church that are following different preachers, such as Paul, Apollos, Cephas or Peter. And he says, wait a minute, was Paul crucified for you? No, Jesus. That's the implied answer. Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? - Right, right.
- No, in the name of Jesus. So he's saying, well, you're
all baptized in Jesus' name. You should all be following Jesus. And that only makes sense
if you know that baptism in Acts was in Jesus' name. And then I Corinthians 6:11, he says, and such were some
of you, you are washed. He's talking about such were some of you, your former life of sin. He said, you're washed, you're
sanctified, you're justified. Well, that refers to the experience of salvation including water baptism. - It says, in the name of Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God and in the Greek it's all one thing. - Right, and so now you
have the name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, all
part of Christian initiation. - Absolutely. I have
one more question here. Oh, I've got two more, so let
me give you the first one. Why is it so hard for
some Christians, then, if this everything you're saying is true, to understand baptism in Jesus' name as the Biblical pattern? - I think the answer is because of church history and tradition. They have been taught the
doctrine of the Trinity, so they feel like if they're baptized in Jesus' name, that would
be denying the Trinity. This is what their grandparents did, this is what their denomination does, this is what the preachers have done. And obviously, we have
to say, while we respect all of these people and
they're accountable to God for whatever relationship
they had with him, but we can't be content to follow them, we have to go back to the Word of God and the example of the early church. And maybe a related question
that some have even asked me, well, if what you're
really saying is true, why would Jesus use those words of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Which by the way that's the only place in the whole Bible that has
that particular phrase there. But why would that, He would use that if
it's gonna be confusing? And my answer there is twofold. First of all, in the
context in which He gave it it wasn't confusing, it was revelatory. Nobody who heard Him would have said, oh, you're teaching the Trinity. - Yeah. - We should forget everything we believed for thousands
of years, and now we should start teaching
the doctrine of the Trinity. No, they saw it as a
revelation of who He was. And that leads to my second answer. It's kind of the same way God, that Jesus spoke in parables. The disciples asked him, why
did you speak in parables? And if you think about a
story, a story is very vivid. And so a parable helps
you remember the point, but also the point is hidden in the sense that it's not explicitly stated usually, so you have to think
about it and seek it out and desire it in order to understand it. And so Jesus said, well,
I speak in parables 'cause they have ears but they don't hear and they don't wanna
know, they don't pursue. And so the interesting
thing about a parable, it obscures truth from
people who don't seek truth. But it actually reveals and affirms truth and puts it in your heart
if you do seek it out. So could it be that God
used this very phrase because if you're not really
seeking, it passes you by. But if you study it out, now you have a revelation.
- You have a revelation. - Of who Jesus really is. - Yeah absolutely, another question here. I got like three really
quick here questions. They're popping left and right here. So here's my question, so Jesus' name in the Hebrew was Yeshua, and yet we don't baptize
in the name of Yeshua. Is there a reason why we don't do that? - Yeah, well, once again,
go back to the apostles. For every answer I'm gonna
say, what did the apostles do? - [Norris] Sure. - All right. Now, the apostles wrote the New Testament in Greek. Luke probably didn't even
know Hebrew. He was a Gentile. It's very interesting, when he recorded these baptismal passages, they didn't try to transliterate the Hebrew or Aramaic word. - [Norris] They are not magical. - No. They used the Greek word, Iesous. - People that would would understand in their own vernacular.
- In their own language. So based on apostolic precedent, I would say you can use the name of Jesus in any language that you speak. - In the vernacular. - So in English, we say Jesus. If you're baptizing people
in Spanish, you say Jesús, if you're baptizing in
Korean, you say Yesu. Yeah, and so that's following
what the apostles did. They baptized in Greek
when they were dealing with Greek-speaking people. And I would say as a practical matter, we have churches in 194 nations and 35 territories around the world as the United Pentecostal
Church International. And so we're dealing
with multiple languages. Do you know in every
language no matter how the name of Jesus is
pronounced in that language, when people pray in the name of Jesus, they still get healed, they
receive the Holy Ghost, demons are cast out. So God Himself honors the
invocation of the name. Because here's the key: It's
not the form of pronunciation; it's the meaning of who He
is, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is God manifest in the
flesh, Lord and Savior. And faith in his name,
which is exactly Acts 3. - Verse 16.
- When Peter and John prayed for the lame man was healed. It said through his name through faith,
- His name through faith, in his, 3:16.
- In his name. Now that does not obviate
the actual invocation. - Right. - Because if you go back
to verse 6, they said, - In the name of Jesus Christ.
- In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. - Absolutely. We're getting more questions than we can answer. Here's a quick question, and
probably be our last one, and then I'm gonna have
you give a little update on the Urshan campus. - Okay. - [Norris] So, here's the question. This person, Brenda, she
says, been in the world for several years.
Should I get rebaptized? - If your original baptism was on genuine faith and repentance, that's a one-time event. If you're baptized as a baby, you're baptized without repentance, baptized out of peer pressure or just to do what people said, then you need to make sure. But if you had personal faith
and personal repentance, even though it may not have been with full understanding of
your later Christian life, but it was a genuine act
of faith and repentance, that one baptism suffices. Here's why: Because you're born
again, so if you fall away from God, you don't have
to be born again again; you just have to be renewed
to original experience. And again I'll give you
an apostolic precedent. Acts 8, Simon the sorcerer
was baptized in Jesus' name. But later he tried to buy power from God, and Peter rebuked him
in the sharpest of terms and said, you need to
repent of your wickedness. He didn't say, you need to repent and you need to get baptized again; simply you need to repent and
then move forward from there. - Okay, well, we're
pretty much out of time, and it's been a great privilege of mine to be here with you today. I wonder if before we leave
you could just give us an update about what's
going on at Urshan College and Urshan Graduate School. - Sure. Well, of course,
you're a professor at Urshan Graduate School of Theology and have been since the
beginning of the school and also at Urshan College. So these are two UPCI-owned institutions. UGST has been accredited
for a number of years and now the combined school
has a regional candidacy which will result shortly
in full accreditation. And also, which is very exciting, the two schools have purchased a new campus in the St. Louis area, more than doubling the current acreage and the current building capacity and rapidly trying to
renovate additional buildings that are already there
to expand the capacity even beyond double. And already the enrollment
is, the projected enrollment, is near capacity for this fall. So as soon as the school renovates what's, the first phase they're gonna have to start renovating additional phases just to keep up with the growth. So that's very exciting. So this fall, it will
begin on the new campus. In fact, the summer terms for UGST, you've already started. - Had one this week, Robin Johnston in Modern Pentecostal Movements, and then I start tomorrow for a weekend course on Eschatology. - Well, great. Of course,
I serve as the chancellor which is kind of an advisory position. But I do guest lecture, I team teach with you, Systematic Theology,
on the graduate level, and lecture in your undergraduate classes. So that's the very
exciting thing. Of course, I believe they're starting
a capital campaign because there's so many
needs of the new property. That if you feel a burden
for Christian education and Christian ministry, we encourage you to give your monthly or one-time support to Urshan College and/or Urshan
Graduate School of Theology. They have respective
websites that you can go and get all the latest information and make contributions. I think it is important for us to support all of our
educational institutions. But these two are unique in that they're, they have accreditation or in the process. Urshan College has a
Christian college model that goes beyond the
majors of a Bible college into a variety of other majors. And, of course, Urshan Graduate
School is our only seminary, it's our only graduate school. And so I'm very excited to
see the tremendous growth and success and this new
campus of, what is it? 43 acres, is going to
secure the long term future. And so you ought to see what's going on. If you ever are in the St. Louis area, you need to come by our new headquarters which we're in now and you need to come by our new college campus. - I just wanna say one last thing. There are a lot of colleges in the world. And I'm happy for all
the majors that we have, we have expanding majors every year and you could get a good job and people have gone on to graduate school in various degree programs,
and so, very thankful for that. But when the students
first walk in the door, the first class that they take is what's called Introduction
to Pentecostal Theology. Brother Bernard and I team teach; Brother Gleason also teaches in that. And we have, one thing we
want a student to know, if they don't learn anything else, We want them to learn lots of stuff. We want them to know why
you can take this Bible and believe the Bible, and
stand upon your Apostolic faith and your experience. And you don't have to back down to any-you can be kind- but you can know who you
are and why you believe. And I believe that this is the generation that's gonna reach the world.
