Concerning whom we have much to say, and hard to be interpreted in speaking [of it], since ye are become dull in hearing.
The writer has just called Christ a high priest "after the order of Melchizedek." At that point he stops and turns to his readers. The problem is not the subject. It is what has happened to the people listening.
"Of whom" points back to Melchizedek, the priest named in Genesis 14. Scripture says very little about him.
Melchizedek's history in Genesis 14 is very short. Psalm 110:4 adds one comment: "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." That should surely have stirred every godly Jew to want to know the reason for it. And should not every Scripture stir our own hearts with longing to know the mind of God in it? But just as it was hard to interpret these things to the Hebrews, so we often find interpretation too difficult. And why? Simply because of dullness of hearing.
"Hard to explain" is not a comment on the obscurity of God's word. The trouble lies in what the listeners bring with them. For these readers, one weight pressed harder than the rest.
It is not that the word of God is obscure in itself, but that men bring in their own difficulties. Nor does His word need light thrown on it, as is often thought; it is light itself. By the Spirit's power it drives back the darkness of nature. Many things block the light that comes through the word. None is more decided than the force of religious prejudice, and this would work most among the Hebrew saints. They clung too much to old things; they could not take in the new. Nothing makes people dull in spiritual things as much as religious tradition. And their state was not only weakness; it put them in the greatest danger.
The tense matters. They had not always been this way.
He is referring to the truth just introduced: that the Lord was High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Of this he writes, "we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become [not, are] dull of hearing." It was their present state, not their original one, that stood in their way. How they got into it is not explained, nor did it need to be. Their state was the important thing, and it is described with complete clearness.
The Greek word behind "dull" appears only twice in the New Testament. The second use, later in this same letter, shows what the fault is.
nōthros seems to imply a more habitual slothfulness. It occurs only twice in the New Testament. The Hebrew saints were "dull of hearing" when diligence should have made them teachers (Hebrews 5:11). The letter urges them not to be "sluggish," but to imitate those who inherit the promises (Hebrews 6:12).
Why does hearing go dull? One answer points to the state of the heart.
Freshness of affection and quickness of understanding go together. There is less spring, less grasp, less clearness when our hearts are not happy. On the other hand, my judgment is clear when my affections are warm. Motives that used to move me stop being motives when my affections are warm. Having lost freshness of affection, the Hebrews were "dull of hearing," and so had become people who "need milk, not solid food."
What they could take in limited what they received.
He had many things to say about Melchizedek. But their senses were not exercised enough to discern both good and evil. And when he does open that remarkable story as a picture of Christ, he never hints that he has said everything that could be said. He says only what they were able to bear. He gives enough to quicken their feeble spiritual digestion, not to clog it. So he makes no use of the bread and wine which Melchizedek brought out to the victors.
The remedy is growth. The alternative is slipping backwards.
If we grow spiritually, we exercise our spiritual senses and form spiritual habits. Then we can take in the "solid food" of the truth in its wider and deeper aspects. If we do not grow, then although we may have received "the word of righteousness," we become unskilled in it. We may even slip so far back that we need to be taught the simplest elements of foundation truth all over again.
- Not the word — the difficulty lies in the hearer, not in Scripture. God's word is light itself; men bring their own darkness to it.
- Not the start — they became dull. They drifted into it, and the letter judges the state they are in now.
- Not the mind — "dull" means sluggish, the same fault the letter warns about later. Cold affections dull the understanding before ignorance does.
- Not without cost — dullness limits what a teacher can give. Even when the writer opens up Melchizedek, he says only what they can bear.
- Not without remedy — growth exercises the senses and opens up solid food. Refuse to grow, and you must learn the first lessons again.
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have again need that [one] should teach you what [are] the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, [and] not of solid food.
The writer stops in the middle of a deep truth about Christ, because his readers cannot take it in. The rebuke that follows measures them not by how much they know, but by how long they have had to learn it.
The verb matters: they had become people who needed milk.
The apostle could have explained more, but the spiritual state of the Hebrews held him back. They had become dull of hearing. They needed to be taught the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, when by this time they ought to have been able to teach others. And they had become people who needed milk, and not solid food. They had become this, let the reader observe. It was not the condition in which the gospel had found them. It was the condition they had fallen into by not going on to perfection — that is, full growth.
"Oracles of God" means God's spoken words. The word beginning points to an early stage of that speaking.
He implies, and in fact states plainly, that they were spiritually infants who needed to learn the elements again. These are described as "of the beginning of the oracles of God." They mean what God gave in Christ here on earth, short of His redemption, His heavenly place, and the gift of the Spirit. It is these that give Christianity its true distinctive character and its power.
The elements themselves are never the problem:
It is of the highest importance to grasp and hold fast the "principles" or "first principles" of Christianity. In fact the Epistle insists on this from first to last.
We often blame slow learning on ability. This verse points somewhere else.
The apostle rebuked the disciples for being still only learners, when they ought to have been teachers of divine mysteries. It was not that they lacked intellectual power or education. The failure was of a moral character, or he would not have rebuked it. They were dull of hearing because their souls had not taken an interest in the glory of the Lord Jesus. Had they loved Him better, they would have taken that interest.
These readers were Jewish believers living in Jerusalem.
The words of James to Paul in Acts 21:20 confirm it: "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law." Staying in Jerusalem, the birthplace of Christianity, had tended to keep believers in spiritual infancy. It had not led them on to become mature Christians.
The standard is time. And the teaching in view is not a public platform.
How long have we been Christians? Here is one who has been saved for a year, and another for five years. Others can look back on ten, fifteen, or twenty years of Christian life... but here is the point: for the time that you have known Christ you ought to be a teacher of Christ. It is not a question of the gift of teaching here... It is the spiritual ability to make known to others a Person we know well ourselves. You can only introduce two people if you know both of them.
Milk is good food. The rebuke lies in what a diet of milk alone shows.
The Apostle does not belittle the use of milk at all. But he says that if milk is the proper diet, it is clear proof that the soul is spiritually a babe. Such a soul still needs to be established in the righteousness of God.
Not every babe is in the same condition:
The babes of the Corinthian letter were still babes because they were worldly. The babes of the Hebrew letter were still babes because their growth was stunted. The babes of Peter's letter were normal, healthy babes, ready to take the milk of the word.
- Became — the gospel did not find them dull; they slid into it by not going on.
- Because — the cause was moral, not mental: their hearts had lost interest in the glory of Christ.
- Beginning — the "elements" are what God gave in Christ on earth. They stop short of His redemption, His place in heaven, and the gift of the Spirit. Yet we should never despise first principles.
- By the clock — time is the measure: however long you have known Christ, you should be able to make Him known.
- Bread — milk is good food, but if milk is still the only food, that itself is the diagnosis.
For every one that partakes of milk [is] unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe;
The writer stops and explains why he cannot go further: his readers cannot take it in. Verse 13 gives the reason in a single figure — a person still living on milk, and what that diet reveals about him.
The problem is not that these readers were recent believers. One commentator points to how their spiritual progress had stalled.
The writer was not addressing people who were only ignorant of the truth, or young in the faith. Those things would not by themselves make the teaching of Scripture hard to understand. The real difficulty was they had "become dull of hearing." Their spiritual growth had been arrested. The time had come when they should have been teachers. Sadly, they needed to be taught again the elementary truths of the beginning of the oracles of God.
The wording matters. They had become people who need milk. That is different from never having moved at all.
The Corinthians were still in the condition of babes when the apostle wrote his first letter to them... The words "not yet" in that passage show that they had never been in any other condition. The Hebrews are similar, with one difference. The Hebrews had advanced, but had afterwards returned to the state of babes... "You have become such" shows that they had gone back to it.
The verse is not an attack on simple truth. The point is the age of the person still living on it, and the word for "partakes" carries that sense.
In no way is milk slighted in its due place. It is the most wholesome and fitting food of all for an infant. But the grown man needs quite different food for his developed state and the duties that go with it... To "partake" means to have milk as one's regular share, the way a baby takes it. It does not mean milk as an occasional part of the diet, as anyone might have it.
Commentators explain the phrase from two angles. One takes it as the settled ground on which a person stands before God:
In this letter the gospel is taught to us. Here the word of righteousness is unfolded. The foundation on which the soul stands in relationship with God is gone into and opened out. It is milk for babes, and babes truly need milk. By using milk we grow up to salvation and become able to take solid food.
Another traces the infant state to life under the law, and ties growth to how much of Christ God has revealed:
This infancy was the soul's condition under the rules and requirements of the law. The word of righteousness means the true practical relationships of the soul to God, according to His character and ways. The more Christ was revealed, the more it was developed. He is the display of that character, and the centre of all those ways.
Skill here is not information. It is what a person has handled and lived on. That is why the babe has nothing to pass on.
The infant is unskilled in the word of righteousness; he does not know it from experience. He uses milk and not strong meat. He cannot digest the meat himself, nor set more than milk before the souls of others. In divine things we cannot give out to others what we have not ourselves received. Second-hand truth feeds no souls. The believer grows by the truth, and as far as he has grown he can help others.
A permanent appetite for the basics is healthy; a permanent refusal of anything more is not.
There is a certain sense in which we are always to have the spirit of the new-born baby... The thirst for truth, for the word of God, is to be like the thirst a new-born baby has for its nourishment. But that is very different from being babies who want only milk. They want the elementary, the simplest things, and they turn away from solid food... "Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness." "To everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance." But we must use what God has given us if we expect Him to entrust more to us.
Growth is not just a matter of knowing more.
There must be the addition of good solid food to produce proper growth and strength. This calls for skill in using the Word of God. It calls for healthy exercise of the senses in telling good and evil apart. This is no mere mental boost or progress. It is a moral and spiritual condition — not dormant, but stirred by exercise of soul.
- Diet. Milk is right food — for a baby. The verse never criticises simple truth; it reads the diet as a report on the eater's age.
- Drift. These readers went forward, then slipped back. Their milk diet was a second childhood, not a first.
- Definition. "The word of righteousness" is the ground on which the soul stands with God. It opens up as God reveals Christ.
- Deficiency. "Unskilled" means untested by experience. Second-hand truth feeds no one, so the babe can neither digest for himself nor feed others.
- Development. God gives more to those who use what they already have. The exercise is moral and spiritual, not just mental.
but solid food belongs to full-grown men, who, on account of habit, have their senses exercised for distinguishing both good and evil.
The writer of Hebrews has just broken off a deeper teaching, because his readers had grown dull of hearing. The verse raises two questions — what makes a Christian "of full age," and how are the senses trained to tell good from evil?
The phrase does not describe a spiritual elite. It describes an adult rather than an infant. One commentator notes that milk is never criticised — it is just the wrong food for a grown person.
Milk is in no way looked down on when it is in its proper place. It is the most wholesome and fitting food of all for an infant. But a grown man needs quite different food, to suit his grown state and his proper duties... The word translated "full-grown" is literally "perfect." Older English translations use "perfect" so often that some readers lose its true force, which is simply people who have come to maturity.
Another writer measures the letter's first readers against that standard.
The Hebrew Christians were in fact not going on. For the length of time they had been learning, they ought to have been able to teach others. Instead, they still needed teaching themselves — and teaching in the very basics. They still needed milk, rather than the solid food suited to people who are used to exercising themselves in spiritual things, and so trained to tell good from evil.
If the mature take solid food, what is on the plate? One commentator ties it to a settled standing before God.
The stronger food is the full truth of Christianity, which the apostle wants to lead us into. It belongs to the full-grown Christian — the one who is settled in the place where the righteousness of God has put him, as a son before God. Instead of being dull of hearing, such people have their senses trained to tell good from evil.
The verse traces this discernment to "constant practice." One commentator points to what the readers' dullness cost them: a deeper teaching about Christ's priesthood they could not take in.
The apostle clearly wanted to teach them many precious things about the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ. But they had been so little exercised by divine truth that they were dull of hearing... So it is clear that exercising the mind with the truth of God is essential to our making spiritual progress, or to making us able to tell good from evil.
"Good and evil" here is not only a list of right and wrong behaviours. One writer ties maturity to Christ in glory, and credits the Holy Spirit with sharpening the faculty that discerns.
The Hebrews were encouraged to go on to maturity — that is, to grasping Christ in glory... The Holy Spirit's presence, which follows Christ's exaltation and glory, is what sharpens our senses — our spiritual faculties — to tell apart fine distinctions between good and evil. This goes much wider than what people call morality or conduct.
Trained senses show themselves when error arrives in a pleasant disguise. One writer describes the difference maturity makes when a false teaching blows through.
Milk is no longer the only food that suits us. We can take with thankfulness the solid food that belongs to the mature. A wind of teaching blows up from hell. Once we might have welcomed it as a gentle breeze from the Paradise of God. Now we are not likely to mistake where it comes from.
The same standard holds for those who teach others.
The people the Holy Spirit uses to feed, nourish and guide the saints of God are those whose souls are exercised in the word of God as a habit — those "who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." The least that can be expected of anyone who ministers in the church is this much acquaintance with the word of God.
Growth is not optional. One writer says the world itself either trains the soul or hardens it.
The world, such as it is, is well fitted to produce and grow this kind of moral discernment. If it does not do that, it dulls and hardens the soul instead. God would use His word to shape us after His mind, so not going on with that word is a sign of this dullness of soul. And light, neglected or refused, becomes darkness.
- Grown, not gifted. "Of full age" means full-grown. Solid food is not for a spiritual elite. It is for ordinary adults in the faith.
- Fed to grow. The mature Christian's food is the full truth of Christianity. It is for those settled where God's righteousness has put them — sons before God.
- Grown by use. Discernment does not arrive ready-made. It comes by habit — the soul exercised again and again in the word of God.
- Grown to see. Trained senses catch fine distinctions of good and evil, far wider than conduct. They spot a false teaching that once seemed a gentle breeze.
- Or grown dull. Refuse to go on, and the world that could sharpen you hardens you instead. Neglected light turns into darkness.