as newborn babes desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word, that by it ye may grow up to salvation,
Peter has just said that God's word gave his readers new life. Now he tells them to crave that word — but what is this "milk," and who is it for?
The desire Peter commands has a precondition. Verse 1 lists the evils to drop: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. One writer sorts them into root and branches.
Deceit, hypocrisy and slander are the outward expression of the malice and envy working within. So God goes to the root. The inward working and the outward acts are alike revolting to God. Only the practical "putting away" of root and branches clears the way. What follows is an earnest desire for what God provides to grow the soul.
A mother's milk is the one food suited to the child she has just borne. Peter's point is the same: the word that gave new birth is also its food.
No one can doubt that it is the milk of the word that nourishes the believer. God's word gave him new birth, and the same word now feeds him... Here the Spirit of God dwells on how well the food suits the baby once born. Everyone is encouraged to long for the pure nourishment God supplies in abundance. It is milk for the believer's mind. A mother's breast feeds her baby's body; God's word feeds our spiritual understanding.
Many read "milk" as beginner's material to be outgrown. One writer argues the opposite. The whole Bible is the milk, and the picture is the newborn's hunger, not a low grade of teaching.
The Word itself is milk, the whole of it, and we are to be not simply like babies, but like newborn babies in our desire for it. To a newborn baby, what is milk? Its very life, we may say. And that is what God's word is to us... The highest and most advanced truths, so called, only expand, illustrate and confirm the gospel itself. No truth is more wonderful, deeper or higher than the gospel.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. Another sees milk and solid food as two supplies, both drawn from the same source:
If we feed on the Word we grow up. But even then we still need the Word, for it is meat for those of full age as well as milk for babies, as Hebrews 5:12-14 tells us.
Peter does not command hunger out of nothing. The next verse gives the reason: "if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good."
All true desire for the word is the outcome of having tasted that the Lord is gracious. The more we enjoy the company of the Lord, the more eager we shall be to sit at His feet and hear His word. Seeking Christ in all the Scriptures keeps a loving interest in God's word alive. It makes many a hard passage plain and simple.
Growth here has a goal. Salvation is not only something already received. It is finished when Christ comes.
More and more, we should be saved from everything that holds back our spiritual progress. At last, when Christ comes, we will be saved completely. Then our body of humiliation will be changed into the likeness of His body of glory.
One writer puts the cost of neglect plainly:
A Christian who does not know his Bible has almost no defence against the world, the flesh, and the devil. He is a spiritual dwarf, for he cannot grow without the pure milk of the Word.
- Clear — put away malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander first. Allowed evil kills the appetite.
- Crave — the point is not your maturity but your hunger. Want Scripture the way a newborn wants milk.
- Feed — the word that gave you new life also feeds it. Nothing else feeds spiritual understanding.
- Taste — desire grows out of tasting that the Lord is good. Enjoy Christ, and the appetite follows.
- Grow — the aim is not information but growth. It is complete only when Christ comes.
if indeed ye have tasted that the Lord [is] good.
Peter has just told his readers to crave the pure milk of the word. Now he adds a condition: that hunger belongs to people who have already tasted the Lord Himself, and the verse asks whether grace has ever reached your own tongue.
Peter is quoting an older invitation. One writer shows where the words come from, and whom Peter now applies them to.
Verse 3 gives a weighty condition: "if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." It clearly refers back to Psalm 34:8. There the inspired writer makes a most touching call for others to share his joy in Jehovah. "O taste and see that Jehovah is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him." For the Christian it is sweeter still. The apostle identifies the Lord Jesus with Jehovah, as is the truth.
William Kelly (Kelly renders the divine name "Jehovah"; the ESV reads, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!")
Conviction of sin can go deep and still stop short of this taste. One writer shows what is still missing, using Peter's own words.
A man may see sin as a deadly thing, and he may see that nothing which defiles can enter God's presence. His conscience may come to a true conviction of sin. Yet this is not tasting "that the Lord is gracious." It is a very good thing to come even that far. There I am tasting that the Lord is righteous, and I need to know it. But I must not stop there: sin without grace would leave me hopeless. Peter had not "tasted that the Lord was gracious" when he said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" He thought his sin made him unfit for the Lord's presence.
J. N. Darby (Where the ESV reads "the Lord is good," older translations read "the Lord is gracious" — the wording several of these writers use.)
Peter learned this himself after failing, and so did David.
Peter surely had tasted that the Lord is gracious. We think of his denial, and how the Lord turned and looked at him, and Peter went out and wept bitterly. He had tasted that the Lord is gracious. He tasted it even more at the meal His blessed hands had prepared for His disciples on the lakeshore (John 21). There the Lord dealt with him so graciously, and His loving voice asked, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" ... David, like Peter, had failed shamefully, and like Peter he had tasted that the Lord is gracious.
The verse explains the hunger of verse 2. Without the taste, the craving never starts.
It assumes that a person has tasted, otherwise he will not desire. Knowing how gracious Christ is makes us want more and more of it.
The same writer traces that appetite back to what the word tells me about God.
Have I tasted and understood that the Lord acts in grace, and that He is love towards me? Have I seen that His word is the expression of that grace, even as it gives life? Then I shall want to feed on this milk of understanding. The believer enjoys it in proportion to his simplicity. It is that good word which announces nothing to me but grace. It announces the God I need as all grace, full of grace, acting in grace, revealing Himself to me in that character. It is a character He can never stop showing towards me, making me a partaker of His holiness.
No preacher can produce this in you. That work belongs to Christ.
Christ gives us a taste of the word. Ministers may set the food of the word before you and carve it out for you, but only Christ can make you taste it. "If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good" (1 Peter 2:3). "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!" (Ps. 34:8). It is one thing to hear a truth preached, another thing to taste it.
This taste divides churchgoers into two groups. One writer asks who the living stones really are.
Who are these living stones? All true believers in Christ... Are all professing Christians such? Oh no. Profession is one thing; possession is quite another... He gives His own life to all who truly believe in Him and come to Him, tasting that He is gracious — and oh, how gracious He is. So they become living stones, like Peter.
- Taste — the verse quotes Psalm 34's invitation and applies to Jesus what the psalm says of the Lord Himself.
- Grace — conviction of sin only tastes that He is righteous. Tasting that He is gracious goes further, as Peter learned after saying "Depart from me."
- Appetite — the taste is what produces the craving; without it, no one desires the milk of the word.
- Given — others can set the word before you, but only Christ can make you taste it.
- Built — those who have tasted come to Him and receive His life. Profession is one thing, possession another.