Yesterday we studied the sins of discord. We wrestled with why Peter thought to focus on these sins, rather than the more seemingly heinous and outward sins. If you would like to read that before moving further in these same verses, please see Sins of Discord: The Quest: Day 34.0. Today I want to look at the following verses. Peter already told us to put away the sins of discord. Now, he exhorts his readers to long for something greater. That longing, if fulfilled, will lead to spiritual maturity.
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1 Peter 2:1-3
Spiritual milk
Peter exhorts us to long for pure spiritual milk. In fact, he tells us to be hungry for the pure spiritual milk. It is important to point out that Peter is not encouraging us to be spiritual. He is telling us to consume something and to hunger for it. The pure spiritual milk is, of course, the word of God. Read your Bible? It seems like a Sunday school answer, but there it is. In most congregations Sunday school is for children, and children have to learn the basics before they can be taught complexities. We too, must learn the basics before we can grow into spiritual maturity. Read your Bible is as basic as it gets, and yet it is the way to build a firm foundation.
Peter says we should be like newborn infants. He is not referring to our mental state. Or, if he is referring to that at all, it is only referring to our need to be innocent. Paul wrote something along those lines to the Corinthians, Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. (1 Corinthians 14:20) When Peter mentions newborn infants he is referring to our condition. The newborn babe is dependent on milk to survive. And, milk is what the newborn baby craves.
Reading the Bible, foundation of spiritual maturity
Peter is saying that our lives and, like a newborn baby, our ability to thrive are dependent upon the pure spiritual milk of scripture. We must not only consume it, we must long for it. I addressed the idea of the “verse of the day” mode of Christian living in a previous study (Therefore: The Quest: Day 6.0). In it I related briefly the struggles of men I have known who believed they were in the word daily because they read the verse of the day. There are multiple issues with this approach, but the long and short of it is that if you feed a newborn infant a dribble of milk per day it will die. Period. That is not the path to spiritual maturity.
Grow up into salvation?
So we are to feed on the word of God, that is the pure spiritual milk, and we are to do so in order to grow up into salvation. This might sound strange. Are we not newborns – those born again – when we first are saved? Doesn’t grow up into salvation sound a bit like works-based theology? I think these questions are natural. If this chapter were the only scripture we had, we might well get sidetracked into believing works-based salvation, carrying around the notion that we can only be saved by consuming enough (whatever amount that might mean) scripture. Thankfully, though, we have the entirety of scripture, and so we can read these verses in light of the whole.
I have quoted it many times, but here is again what Paul wrote in Philippians:
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Philippians 2:12-13
A hunger for spiritual maturity
Is this a mystery? I know it used to seem like one to me. How is it we are saved, but we must work out our own salvation? How is it God is the one working within us, but we must do the work? It is certainly beautiful, and has not lost the wonder of mystery within my heart and mind. But, these verses no longer carry the element of befuddlement or bafflement of mystery for me. If you read the study Called: The Quest: Day 18.0, or indeed many of the other studies we have done so far, you will see that salvation is God’s doing from first to last. We know salvation and even the good works we do are God-ordained (Ephesians 2:8-10). So, when Peter says we should consume the scripture hungrily so that we can grow up into salvation, he is talking about growing into spiritual maturity – into sanctification. Sanctification is the end, if you will, of our salvation. In that sense, our salvation is never realized until the end. (For more on sanctification, please see the helpfully titled, Sanctification: The Quest: Day 19.0.)
Spiritual maturity and food
So, what does the rest of scripture say, as regards our growing in spiritual maturity? Is Peter alone in using the metaphor of food when teaching us how we are to grow up in sanctification? To quote Paul the apostle, by no means!
Paul addresses the topic spiritual food when writing about spiritual maturity to the churches at Corinth. Perhaps even more interestingly, he even mentions the results of the sins of discord.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
Similarly, the author of Hebrews used a food metaphor when addressing the spiritual maturity of his audience.
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:12-14
“How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?” – Floyd
I think the point is this: before we start debating high-brow doctrines, eschatological theories, and the like, we must first be fed on the basic food from which those banquets are made. If we only read and discuss the “deep things” but have no biblical foundation, we are likely to remain ignorant like children, self-centered like children, quarrelsome like children, etc. It is true that we will not gain full sanctification until this life is over. But we can grow up, as Peter says by staying hungry for and partaking of the word of God. We can increase in spiritual maturity, but we can only do so if we read the Bible and apply what we read to our actions. This is both the path and the evidence of spiritual maturity.
the proof that it lives is, that it grows
The Reverend John Lillie, in his lecture on 1 Peter 2 said something along these lines. Here is an excerpt.
It may have to struggle still with the mists of morning, and its path may be through clouds and storms. But that path is ever upward and onward ‘unto the perfect day.” Or, keeping to the figure of the text, we may say of every new-born babe in God’s household, that it is born a living child, complete in all the faculties that shall adorn the glorified saint; and the proof that it lives is, that it grows.
The growth, it is true, may be slow and, for a time, even imperceptible. Obstructed by the still remaining constitutional taint of the old nature, it may be hindered also by unfavorable circumstances, and interrupted by the diseases incident to childhood, or through neglect of the appropriate means of growth. But the tendency is there, and that tendency is to be seconded and fostered by the careful appliances of a Christian education. It must likewise be understood that, so long as the believer is in this world, his childhood lasts, and so long, therefore, lasts his education. To ‘grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—this should be his life-long aim and endeavor.
Rev. John Lillie, Lectures on the First and Second Epistles of Peter, 92, Charles Scribner & Co, 1809
Spiritual maturity of men
So, as long as we are in this life, we are in a since children. We are dependent on food and direction from the Lord. But, we must not remain like children in our attitudes, proclivities, habits, and especially in our thoughts. We must attain spiritual maturity in these areas. While we may remain childlike in our dependency on God, we cannot like children follow our passions, whims, and fancies. Spiritual maturity, our sanctification, means conforming ourselves to the image of Christ. Christ was born a newborn infant. He was dependent on milk from his mother, but he did not stay a baby, or even a child. Christ grew to be a man, and we too are to become men.
Paul says this best in Ephesians. Let’s close with his words, and consider them in light of Peter’s exhortation to grow up into salvation.
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:11-16
