Davies and Allison on Matthew 28:19

 

εἰς τὸ ὄνομα κ.τ.λ. can mean ‘in the name of the Father and the name of the Son and the name of the Holy Spirit’ (cf. Justin, 1 Apol. 61). The difficulty with this, however, is that one might then expect τὰ ὀνόματα. The alternative is to suppose that the one divine name—the revealed name of power (Exod 3:13–15; Prov 18:10; Jub. 36:7)—has been shared by the Father with Jesus and the Spirit, and there are early texts which speak of the Father giving his name to Jesus (Jn 17:11; Phil 2:9; Gos. Truth 38:5–15). But we are unaware of comparable texts regarding the Spirit.

 

We see no developed Trinitarianism in the First Gospel. But certainly later interpreters found in the baptismal formulation an implicit equality among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; so for instance Basil the Great, Hom. Spir. 10:24; 17:43. (W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, 3 vols. [International Critical Commentary; London: T&T CLark, 2004], 3:685-86)