Josephus’ Antiquities, XV, iii, 3. Christ’s baptism was not his inauguration to the priesthood. His priesthood was neither Aaronic nor earthly. For “if he were on earth, He should not be a priest; seeing that there are priests that offer gifts _according to the law_; who serve unto the _example_ and _shadow_ of heavenly things.”—Heb. viii, 4, 5. If any part of the ceremonial of Aaron’s investiture was a rule of conformity to Jesus, the whole of it was equally so. But he was made a priest, “_not_ after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.”—Heb. vii, 16, 17. Christ’s consecration to the priesthood and exercise of its functions belong to that “true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.”—Heb. viii, 2. He was not installed by human hands. “For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity. But the word of the oath which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated forevermore.”—Heb. vii, 28. Dr. Dale understands the Lord Jesus in the above place to mean,—Thus it becomes us, by a united and public act, to announce “my entering upon my covenant work which I now declare, and am ready to begin, ‘to fulfill all righteousness.’” But, in the first place, that was not the time of Jesus’ entering on the work of fulfilling righteousness. Had it been so, it was too late. He was “made of a woman, made under the law.”—Gal. iv, 4, 5. From the hour of his birth, he was fulfilling righteousness,—in the obedience of his childhood, as truly as in the sufferings of the cross. The work on which he entered, after his baptism and anointing by the Spirit, was his prophetic office, in which he announced and offered himself to Israel as her promised King and Savior. So he himself testified in the synagogue in Nazareth. (Luke iv, 18-20.) But this office will not fit into the above exposition. Moreover, it would seem that if any words can express the idea of a thing done as a duty of righteousness those of Jesus do so. Dr. Dale says,—“It can not be claimed that the Lord Jesus was under obligation to undergo this baptism as a part of ‘all righteousness;’ (1) Because there is no righteousness in it; (2) Because what there is in it is just what he did not come to do. He did not come to repent for sinners, nor to exercise faith for sinners.” The latter argument has the fatal fault that it proves too much. Upon the same ground the Lord Jesus should not have been circumcised or purified with his mother. He should not have kept the passover, nor any of the Levitical feasts and ordinances. All these implied and required in others a state of heart and mind and exercises of repentance and faith which were foreign to the holy nature of the Lord Jesus.