And *I*, brethren, have not been able to speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly; as to babes in Christ.
Paul has been describing the person taught by the Spirit of God. Now he turns to the Corinthians with a painful admission: he could not speak to them on that level. They were real Christians, yet "of the flesh," and still infants.
Paul is not just sorting people into believers and unbelievers. He has a third description in view, and it applies to Christians.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that all Christians are "spiritual" in the sense that term carries in chapter 2. Chapter 3 uses it the same way. In both it means those who are not merely given life, but who walk, feel, and judge in the Spirit. The error lies in supposing that the apostle looks at only two classes. In truth he speaks of three: the natural man, the carnal, and the spiritual. The last two are Christians, but in a different state. For "babes in Christ" points not to a recent conversion, but to a lack of growth.
This has a practical edge for how you read other believers.
You have three things: carnal men, natural men, and spiritual men. You may meet a person you cannot agree with because, although he has the Holy Spirit, his practical state is "carnal," yet not "natural." When the apostle calls the Corinthians carnal, he means the particular state of certain Christians who ought to be up to the measure of their standing, but are not.
The complaint is that the Corinthians had never moved on from infancy. One word in an older translation of the next verse fixes the point: "hitherto," meaning "not yet."
The word "hitherto" in this passage shows that they had never yet been in any other condition; they had remained in the condition of babes. The Hebrews are somewhat similar, but with this difference: they had advanced, and then gone back to the state of babes.
That prolonging of infancy is exactly what Paul names carnality.
Of course there is a stage in our Christian life when we are rightly and necessarily "babes." The apostle John writes to these (1 John 2). But Paul rebuked the Corinthians for staying in that state, and for them carnality was the true name for dragging it out.
The Corinthians would not have called themselves undeveloped. But what they admired gave them away.
The apostle now gives the reason why he pressed only the elementary truths of Christ on the Corinthians: their own state. They were not spiritual but fleshly. What a blow to their self-satisfaction! If they were only babes in Christ, what other food would suit them? That craving for the world's wisdom, that admiration of it, was the sure evidence. Flesh delights in what is of man, while the Spirit gives us to enjoy what is of God.
Paul does not leave "of the flesh" as a vague charge. He points to the factions in Corinth.
Here, then, the Holy Spirit clearly teaches that sects and divisions are not of God but of man. They are the results of unspirituality, carnality, and walking as men. Yet Christians defend them as the result of man's nature. "We are only walking as men," they say. "If you are walking as men," replies the apostle, "you are carnal, and I cannot speak to you as spiritual."
Paul had more to give and could not give it.
To make progress in the things of God, two things seem necessary. First, a moral condition of soul able to receive. Second, an exercised state of mind. With the Corinthian believers the first was so lacking that the apostle could not set the deep things of God before them. The Ephesian saints, however, were in a very different state. So the apostle could gladly set before them the eternal purposes, ways and mysteries of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. All of this he had to withhold from the Corinthians.
Withholding was not coldness. It was care, and it carries a warning for anyone who teaches.
Far from denying it, he admits their suggestion was true. He had only brought elementary truths before them. They were not in a condition to bear more. This is full of practical meaning and importance at all times. We may do souls great damage by presenting high truths to those who need the simplest basics of divine truth.
- Three states. Paul names three — the natural man, the carnal, and the spiritual. The last two are both Christians. They differ in practical state, not in whether they have the Spirit.
- Cause. Their appetite for human wisdom kept them small. Flesh delights in what is of man; the Spirit gives enjoyment of what is of God.
- Symptom. Envy, strife and party names are not neutral human nature but the visible fruit of that carnality.
- Cost. A soul unable to receive gets milk. Paul poured the deep things out on the Ephesians, but held them back from Corinth.
- Remedy. Being a babe is a right beginning, not a resting place. The rebuke falls on staying there. Love feeds each soul what it can bear.
I have given you milk to drink, not meat, for ye have not yet been able, nor indeed are ye yet able;
Paul has just called the Corinthians "infants in Christ." Now he explains what that cost them: his teaching had to stay at the level of milk. The verse raises two questions — what was held back, and whose fault it was.
The Corinthians thought highly of their own wisdom. They felt Paul's preaching was too basic. He agrees with the complaint and turns it against them.
These Corinthians had a very high opinion of themselves, so he must tell them plainly why he does not open out these deep things. They themselves were not fit; they were only babes. What! the polished Greek believers no more than babes! ... Far from denying it, he admits their suggestion was true. He had only put elementary truths before them. They were not in a condition to bear more. In practice this has real meaning and importance at all times. We can do great damage to souls when we give high truths to people who need the simplest basics of divine truth.
The milk was not empty teaching. One writer compares this verse with Hebrews 5 to see what Paul taught at Corinth, and what he could not.
Compare these words with the close of Hebrews 5. That helps us see how far the apostle's earlier teaching at Corinth reached. The doctrine of saving grace ... had certainly been the staple of his ministry. And while he stayed with them they had thrived on his words; but in his absence things had changed. They had grown, but not in the knowledge of the Saviour or of themselves. The knowledge that puffs up was plentiful among them, but God's wisdom was hard to find there. ... Paul felt unable to give them the solid food of God's purposes. He could not open up the mystery of Christ to people whose undisciplined hearts would have found it a snare rather than a blessing.
Holding truth back is not the same as hiding it.
There may indeed be times when some companies of the Lord's people are not in a condition to appreciate the deep truths of God. The Corinthian assembly was such a case (1 Corinthians 3:2). But there was no secrecy about the truths they were not ready for.
The force of the verse sits in its timeline. Paul says they were not ready then, and he adds that they are still not ready now. Older translations read "hitherto" where the ESV has "not yet."
The word "hitherto" in this passage shows that they had never yet been in any other condition. They had remained in the condition of babes. The Hebrews were in a somewhat similar state when the apostle wrote to them. There was this difference: the Hebrews had advanced, but had afterwards gone back to the state of babes.
At Corinth there had been no advance to lose.
The block was not a shortage of ability. Corinth had gifts in abundance.
It is true they were not natural men who do not have the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14). Nor were they spiritual men walking according to the Spirit. Yet the Apostle has to say, "Are you not of the flesh?" They were believers, having the Spirit, but walking according to the flesh. How humbling it is to discover what is possible. A believer can be enriched with all speech and knowledge and gift, and be "full" and "wise in Christ" and "strong" (1 Cor. 4:8-10). Yet in the sight of God he can be carnal, or spiritually undeveloped — like a babe that has stopped growing, and so unable to take in the rich, spiritual food that God has provided for His people.
One writer draws a sharp lesson from Paul's regret.
It is clear in this case that the apostle fed these believers with "milk" because of their bad condition. He regretted having to do it. Had they been responding better to God's grace and love in redemption, he would have fed them with solid food, and not with milk. To assume, then, that the saints need "milk" is to assume they are in a Corinthian state. To make provision for it is even to encourage the very condition all should regret. We learn too that the ministry suited to one assembly may be completely unsuited to another. ... Nothing is plainer than this: it would be a complete mistake to deal out Ephesian truth to a Corinthian assembly, or Corinthian truth to an Ephesian assembly.
The problem at Corinth was not milk, but milk that never ended.
- Diet — Milk is the elementary truths. Solid food is God's purposes and the mystery of Christ, which Paul had to leave unopened at Corinth.
- Diagnosis — The limit was in the hearers, not the teacher. They had never once moved past the babe stage.
- Deception — Gifts and self-confidence hid the problem. A church rich in speech and knowledge can still be a babe that has stopped growing.
- Disclosure — Paul withheld depth but hid nothing. He told them plainly that more existed and why they could not take it.
- Duty — Milk given with regret is care; milk that never ends is harm. Teachers must read the state of souls; hearers must grow past the bottle.