At Matthew 28:19 reference is made to “the name . . . of the holy spirit.” But the word “name” does not always mean a personal name, either in Greek or in English. When we say “in the name of the law,” we are not referring to a person. We mean that which the law stands for, its authority. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament says: “The use of name (onoma) here is a common one in the Septuagint and the papyri for power or authority.” So baptism ‘in the name of the holy spirit’ recognizes the authority of the spirit, that it is from God and functions by divine will.

In the Gospels evidence of the Trinity is found explicitly only in the baptismal formula of Mt 28.19.”

And Matthew 28:19 reads: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Do those verses say that God, Christ, and the holy spirit constitute a Trinitarian Godhead, that the three are equal in substance, power, and eternity? No, they do not, no more than listing three people, such as Tom, Dick, and Harry, means that they are three in one.

This type of reference, admits McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, “proves only that there are the three subjects named, . . . but it does not prove, by itself, that all the three belong necessarily to the divine nature, and possess equal divine honor.”

And of Matthew 28:18-20 it says: “This text, however, taken by itself, would not prove decisively either the personality of the three subjects mentioned, or their equality or divinity.”