Scripture: Nephi lists the spiritual qualifications required for cleansing by baptism. Candidates must follow the Son (meaning, obeying all of the commandments, just as the Son willingly obeyed all of the Father’s commandments), have real intent, and repent of their sins.
Nephi also adds that an important part of the ritual is to “take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism.” Although his wording suggests that Nephi sees baptism as symbolizing this “taking of the name,” recurrences of the phrase later in the Book of Mormon suggests that it is not inextricably tied to baptism. For instance, Captain Moroni states: “And he said: Surely God shall not suffer that we, who are despised because we take upon us the name of Christ, shall be trodden down and destroyed, until we bring it upon us by our own transgressions” (Alma 46:18).
E. W. Bullinger’s classic Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, notes that “name” can be a pleonasm, which he defines as: “The figure is so called when there appears to be a redundancy of words in a sentence; and the sense is grammatically complete without them.” Bullinger cites Isaiah 30:27, “Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from afar,” and indicates that the name indicates Jehovah himself. Similarly, in Psalm 20 1, “‘The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble: the name of the God of Jacob defend thee:’ i.e. Jacob’s God Himself.”
The taking of the name is much more than creating a label for a group. This is a covenant to follow the God whose name one takes. It is the commonality of this name-covenant that defines the group, not their baptism into the group. For the Nephites, these were two different rites, where the modern church tends to see them as combined into the practice of baptism.
Part of the promise that Nephi makes for baptism’s effect is that the baptized person will receive the Holy Ghost. This is clearly the meaning of “baptism of fire” as it is used in the Book of Mormon, though not as the phrase was originally used in the New Testament. (See the following section.)
Translation: In Book of Mormon usage, the phrase “baptism by fire” is not seen as separated from baptism by the Holy Ghost, even though the phrase used is “baptized by fire and the Holy Ghost.” This is clearly the way in which Joseph Smith used the phrase “baptism by fire” in his later teachings, as well as in the translation of the Book of Mormon. In Doctrine and Covenants 19:31, he declares (as mouthpiece for the Lord): “And of tenets thou shalt not talk, but thou shalt declare repentance and faith on the Savior, and remission of sins by baptism, and by fire, yea, even the Holy Ghost” (see also D&C 20:41, 33:11, 39:6). This interpretation of “baptism by fire and the Holy Ghost” as a single event referring to the gift of the Holy Ghost continues with modern interpreters of scriptures. Bruce R. McConkie notes: “The Holy Ghost is a sanctifier, and those who receive the baptism of fire have sin and evil burned out of their souls as though by fire.”
The phrase itself echoes the language of Matthew and Luke (Matt. 3:11, Luke 3:16), but the conflation of the two phrases into a single event does not appear to reflect the meaning intended in Matthew and Luke. I suggest that, in this case, the language of the New Testament and not the actual meaning of the New Testament that informs the translation of the Book of Mormon.
To understand the New Testament meaning of “baptism by fire and the Holy Ghost,” we must examine both the texts and the contexts in which it appears. The three synoptic gospels all use similar imagery in the story of Jesus’s baptism:
And [John the Baptist] preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.
I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. (Mark 1:7–8)
And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not;
John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable. (Luke 3:15–17)
And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. (Matt. 3:9–12)
Luke and Matthew both depend on Mark 1:7–8, with the basic information from Mark being brought into a single verse for both Luke and Matthew (Luke 3:16, Matt. 3:11). Of greatest interest, however, are the differences in both text and context.
The context in Mark is the person and mission of John the Baptist. The text comes as part of the description of John the Baptist and will lead to Christ coming to be baptized of John. When we move to Luke, however, there is an interesting change of the overall context. While the players are the same, the frame of the story has an important distinction.
It is John who will baptize. The text before the quoted verses simply introduces John. But in Luke the context is not John but part of John’s declaration of the coming Messiah. Luke 3:16 quotes Mark 1:7 (the “one mightier than I”) which establishes John’s relationship to Jesus. The difference is subtle, for, in Mark, John is refusing the title of the Messiah because it belongs to “one mightier than I.” In Luke, the story occurs as an integral discussion about the Messiah (not John the Baptist). The common citation from Mark describes the relationship of John to Jesus, but in Luke it comes in response to a question that specifically examines Messianic possibilities. John refuses the title of Messiah but bestows it by implication on the “one mightier than I.”
The specific change in text itself is the ending verse. Verse 16 is not found in Mark, but appears in both Luke and Matthew’s versions. In the new context of Luke and Matthew, this added verse is important. Also significant is the addition, just before this verse, of another new phrase. In both Luke and Matthew, John’s original statement that the “one mightier than I” would baptize with the Holy Ghost has added to it the additional “baptism” of fire.
Matthew’s text agrees with Luke, but the specific context does not. Rather than a discussion about the possible Messiahship of John, the context is one of the rightful children of Abraham and, in particular, those who may be called righteous. In verse 10 Matthew places the statements about the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost in a context of a judgment, where the wicked are separated and burned. For both Luke and Matthew, the order is reversed from the Book of Mormon phrase. In Luke and Matthew we have “he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” In the Greek, as well as in English, the text from Mark is preserved, with the simple addition of “and fire.” (The Greek adds only these two words.)
It is this context of Matthew that is most instructive about the meaning of both the addition of the word “fire” in verse 11 and the addition of the entire verse 12. Verse 12 echoes the theme of verse 10. We have a purging of the wicked—a separation of the good from the evil. In both verses 10 and 12, the wicked are burned. “Fire” here refers, not to the Holy Ghost, but to God’s wrath. This is the image that appears in the Old Testament:
Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. (Ezek. 5:4)
Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. (Isa. 5:24)
Perhaps the best context for Matthew’s development of this theme is Isaiah 10:16–23:
Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standardbearer fainteth.
And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.
Isaiah first describes the destruction of the wicked by burning (vv. 16–19). There follows a redemptive section that promises the exaltation of the righteous remnant (vv. 20–22). I suggest that Matthew and, to a lesser extent, Luke frame their report of John the Baptist’s comments in Isaiah’s context. What began as a discussion of the difference between the baptisms offered by John and by Jesus becomes a theological statement of Jesus’s Messianic mission.
Mark simply contrasts baptism in water to baptism by the Holy Ghost. This contrast parallels the contrast between the two bestowers of the baptisms. Luke and Matthew, however, add a second aspect to Jesus’s “baptism.” In addition to baptizing with the Holy Ghost, Jesus will also baptize with fire. The context of the baptism by fire in both Luke and Matthew suggests the apocalyptic cleansing at the time of the Messiah’s triumphal return: the wicked will be burned and the righteous redeemed. Jesus will be acting in his Messianic role as predicted by Isaiah and Ezekiel.
In the New Testament, the baptism of fire is distinct from the baptism of the Holy Ghost in that it refers to end-time events when the Triumphant Messiah will come in glory and his glory will “burn” the wicked. This is not, however, the meaning of the phrase in the Book of Mormon or later LDS discussions. I suggest that the presence of the phrase in the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph Smith’s understanding of the phrase as a single unit referring to the Holy Ghost. This “translation” is borrowing the phrase, but not the meaning (or context) from the New Testament.