Matthew 28:19 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, &c.— And disciple all nations. This commission of our Lord marks out the difference between the Mosaic and the Christian dispensation: the one was confined to the Jews; the other was extended to all the sons and daughters of Adam. The whole tenor of the succeeding books of the New Testament shews, that Christ's design by this commission was, that the Gospel should be preached to all mankind without exception, not only to the Jews, but to all the idolatrous Gentiles: but the prejudices of the apostles led them at first to mistake the sense, and to imagine that it referred only to their going to preach the Gospel to the Jews among all nations, or to those who should be willing to become Jews. The word Μαθητευσατε, is very properly rendered proselyte, or make disciples of, to distinguish it duly from διδασκοντες, teaching, in the next verse. The former seems to import instruction in the essentials of religion, which it was necessary that adult persons should know and submit to, before they could be admitted to baptism: the latter may relate to those more particular admonitions in regard to Christian faith and practice, which were to be built upon that foundation. Because proselyting is here enjoined as previous to baptism, it has been inferred by some that infants are not to be baptized: but if this argument were good, it would follow from Mark 16:16 that infants cannot be saved; nay, it is there declared, that he who believeth not, shall be damned. The truth is, both passages must be interpreted according to the subjects treated of in them, which are plainly adult persons; and therefore no argument can be drawn from them concerning either the baptism or the salvation of infants. In or into the name, is a Hebraism, which signifies to devote one's self to any particular person, and to be desirous of being called after his name,—to profess one's self his disciple. Thus St. Paul says, 1 Corinthians 1:13; 1 Corinthians 1:31 that he had baptized no one in his name, that is to say, that he had made no one a convert to himself as the founder of a new religion: see also 1 Corinthians 10:2. Though perhaps we should not positively affect, that the use of these very words is essential to Christian baptism, yet surely the expression must intimate the necessity of some distinct regard to each of the sacred Three, which is always to be maintained in the administration of this ordinance; and consequently it must imply, that more was said to those of whose baptism we read in the Acts, than is there recorded, before they were admitted to it. The Christian church in succeeding ages has acted a safe and wise part in retaining these words; and they contain so strong an intimation, that each of these Persons is properly GOD, and that worship is to be paid, and glory ascribed to each, that we cannot doubt but they will be a means of maintaining the belief of the one, and the practice of the other, to the end of the world. See Doddridge, Grotius, and Waterland's Sermons on the Trinity, p. 286.