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.