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.