One Name, Three Persons

One of the most interesting passages, in my opinion, is found in Matthew 28:19. I will keep the commentary to a necessary minimum so as not to read into the text any foreign concepts.

The NWT translates it:

"Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit,"

The part I want to look at is the phrase "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit." We will take our Greek for this phrase from the Kingdom Interlinear Translation (Westcott Hort text) and transliterate it as follows:

Gr: eis  to  onoma 
En: into the name 

Gr:     tou patros  kai     tou huiou  kai     tou hagiou pneumatos 
En: (of)the Father  and (of)the Son    and (of)the holy   spirit

Now, let's take a look at what we have grammatically. First, the ones baptized are baptized "into the name." The word "name" is singular. There is one "name." Second, there are three separate things or persons spoken of here. Each one is separated by kai or "and", and each one is preceded by the definite article, tou or "the". This indiciates a distinction made between "the Father" and "the Son" and "the holy spirit".

The next important thing about this phrase is that each of the phrases

tou patros ("the Father")
tou huiou ("the Son")
tou hagiou pneumatos ("the holy spirit")

is in the Genitive case. In Greek, and other languages (including Latin), we have cases for nouns that determine their usage in the sentence. In English, we depend more upon word-order to determine things like the subject of a sentence or the direct object of a verb, etc. In languages like Greek, we depend on nouns and the definite article ("the" in English) being found with different case-endings or case-forms.

So, here we have the Genitive. Why is this significant? There are a few uses of the Genitive case in Greek. The most common one is called "Genitive of possession." That is what is in view here. It talks about a noun possessing something. That is why I put "(of)" next to each in the transliteration above, and that is why the NWT (and other translations) translated it "of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit." There is no word "of" there in the Greek. It is an English reflection of what is being said in the Greek by means of the Genitive case.

In English we might say, "The boy's ball." But in Greek, they didn't use apostrophes and the like. They used the Genitive. It would be reflected in the case-ending on the noun and the form of the definite article, something like this:

"The ball   the(Genitive form)   boy+[Genitive ending]"

and the translation would be

"The ball of the boy" or "The ball [possessed by] the boy"

The Genitive of possession has a referrent, something it possesses. In this case, "the boy" is Genitive of possession, and thus it refers back to something "the boy" possesses. Here, the boy possesses "the ball." It is "the ball of the boy." Follow me?

Now, let's go back and see what this little bit of information tells us about the verse in question. (Note: The English reflects this fine. The English rendering in the NWT, for this particular phrase, is just like what you would find in any major translation. I just want to emphasize what the meaning is by illustrating it from the Greek)

For each of the segments, "of the Father" and "of the Son" and "of the holy spirit", which are Genitive of possession, there is but a single referrent. It is "the name", which itself is singular. It is not "the names", implying that the Father, the Son, and the holy spirit possess perhaps separate names. No, "the name" is singular. So what is the significance of this? It says that each of the three, being distinct, possess the one name, the same name (singular) possessed by the other two!

A few comments:
What does it mean for each of these -the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit- to share the same Name? What does "name" here refer to? "Name" is often used figuratively to refer to power or authority or reputation or character. The "name", when used in reference to God, represents the character, the glory, the power, the very being and majesty of God. Consider how the Lord Jesus uses it in His example of prayer to the disciples: "Father, let your name be sanctified" (Luke 11:2, NWT). The note in the NWT Reference Edition says, "Or, 'let... be held sacred; let... be treated as holy.'..." To that I agree very much. The only thing is that this name, which belongs to the Father, belongs to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, also. Matthew 21:9 has the crowds shouting, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of Jehovah" (NWT) and the NWT indicates that it is a reference to Ps 118:26. I may do a post in the future on the significance of the "name", especially related to YHWH God. The "name of Jehovah" is not a trivial matter, nor is it the same in force as the name of anybody else. It is THE name that is set apart, to be hallowed and held sacred above every other name. This name, however, is the possession of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. (on a quick note, see also Phil 2 where is says Jesus was given the Name above every name, not "every [other] name", as the NWT inserts. He was given the Name that is above every name; He owns the Name -the same Name belonging to the Father and the Holy Spirit.)