Baptism in Jesus' Name and the New Birth
As taught in the Oneness Pentecostal tradition
How Oneness Pentecostals read John 3:5 and Acts 2:38 as a single new-birth experience.
Among the movements that emerged from early-twentieth-century Pentecostalism, few are marked out as distinctly as the Oneness or "Apostolic" Pentecostals. Their best-known practice is baptizing converts "in the name of Jesus Christ" rather than reciting the threefold name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and behind that practice lies a fuller account of how a person is saved. Oneness Pentecostals hold that the new birth of which Jesus spoke to Nicodemus is not a single inward moment but a defined experience with three connected parts: repentance, water baptism in the name of Jesus, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial evidence of speaking in other tongues. On this reading, the "born of water and of the Spirit" of John 3:5 names the very pattern Peter laid out on the day of Pentecost.
By the end of this lesson
- Describe the Oneness Pentecostal understanding of the new birth as repentance, water baptism in the name of Jesus, and Spirit baptism with the evidence of tongues.
- Explain how Oneness Pentecostals read 'born of water and of the Spirit' in John 3:5 and connect it to Peter's command in Acts 2:38.
- Trace the tradition's argument that baptism 'in the name of Jesus' fulfills rather than contradicts Matthew 28:19, and state the standard counter-reading.
- Identify the historical origins of the movement in the early-twentieth-century 'New Issue' and the role of G. T. Haywood and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.
- State plainly where the Oneness position differs from the Trinitarian and faith-centered views held by most of Christianity, including most Pentecostals, without resolving the disagreement.
Scripture
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