I am not sure what the Lord means in the words, ’Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.’  Baptism could not be the fulfilling of all righteousness!  Perhaps he means, ’We must, by a full act of the will, give ourselves altogether to righteousness.  We must make it the business of our lives to send away sin, and do the will of the Father.  That is my work as much as the work of any man who must repent ere he can begin.  I will not be left out when you call men to be pure as our father is pure.’

To be certain whom he intends by us might perhaps help us to see his meaning.  Does he intend all of us men?  Does he intend ’my father and me’?  Or does he intend ‘you and me, John’?  If the saying mean what I have suggested, then the us would apply to all that have the knowledge of good and evil.  ’Every being that can, must devote himself to righteousness.  To be right is no adjunct of completeness; it is the ground and foundation of existence.’  But perhaps it was a lesson for John himself, who, mighty preacher of righteousness as he was, did not yet count it the all of life.  I cannot tell.

Note that when the Lord began his teaching, he employed, neither using nor inculcating any rite, the same words as John,—­’Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

That kingdom had been at hand all his infancy, boyhood, and young manhood:  he was in the world with his father in his heart:  that was the kingdom of heaven.  Lonely man on the hillside, or boy the cynosure of doctor-eyes, his father was everything to him:—­’Wist ye not that I must be in my father’s things?’

JESUS IN THE WORLD.

’Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.’  And he said unto them, ’How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my father’s business?’ And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.—­Luke ii. 48-50.

Was that his saying?  Why did they not understand it?  Do we understand it?  What did his saying mean?  The Greek is not absolutely clear.  Whether the Syriac words he used were more precise, who in this world can tell?  But had we heard his very words, we too, with his father and mother, would have failed to understand them.  Must we fail still?

It will show at once where our initial difficulty lies, if I give the latter half of the saying as presented in the revised English version:  its departure from the authorized reveals the point of obscurity:—­’Wist ye not that I must be in my father’s house?’ His parents had his exact words, yet did not understand.  We have not his exact words, and are in doubt as to what the Greek translation of them means.