GOD HAS SPOKEN BY HIS SON
THE Apostle now comes to another of his urgent exhortations to the ones to whom he is writing because he feels they are in spiritual danger. In the previous time when he stopped to make an exhortation, Paul had in mind the danger of unbelief which he saw was prevalent amongst the Jewish Christians who he was addressing. In this exhortation he is feeling frustrated because his readers are so slow to learn and hold on to the truths they have been taught.
Paul complains that the Jewish Christians were slow to learn. Apparently though they had embraced Christ for some time, they were still only at the primary stages in their understanding of all the greatness of what Christ had done for them, seemly reluctant to move forward in understanding the Gospel more deeply. Paul complains that in the normal course of events they should have progressed far enough in understanding and experience to have become able to teach others. Instead they were still going over the first principles of the faith, seemingly reluctant to allow themselves to be wholly obedient to the truth, and hanging on to the prejudices of their past religion. They seemed to be asking the same old questions, and raising the same problems again and again. Because of this they were seeking to live on spiritual milk only, and not progressing to solid food, and so they were not growing in spiritual life. Remaining in spiritual infancy prevents growth into maturity, and so they were not equipped for the spiritual warfare all Christians have to face, and were deprived of the blessings of knowing the teaching of righteousness better. If we are still spiritual infants, just as babies find solid food indigestible, so as spiritual babes we will find the solid food of the Word difficult to understand, and will be unable to digest or absorb it. In this state Christians are not able to discern between good and evil. The discerning of good and evil here is not so much in the moral realm, but in the realm of truth and error. Spiritual babes are not able to distinguish teaching which is true from that which is in error, and so are in danger of being led astray and placing their souls in danger.
We see a similar condition in no small way in the church today. It is a condition of many in the churches that they are unable to tolerate sermons with any meat in them, and complain if the sermon is too long, or it requires concentration and attention. There is a reluctance among many Christians to go beyond a few simple truths, and they are heard to say that they are ordinary straight forward people who have no time or inclination for what they would describe as abstruse arguments. This reluctance is seen in the fact that relatively few in our churches will consider it necessary or desirable to attend a bible study in the week, and just one sermon on Sunday is all that is desired or felt to be necessary.
The fact is that what is true in the physical realm is true in the spiritual. Babies that don’t grow and progress to solid food, soon become retarded in both body and mind. If this lack of growth continues, then permanent damage can result
Slow learning is dangerous because growth of knowledge and experience depends on the foundations of truth being established and well understood. If we are not well grounded in the basics of our faith then, when we are given further teaching, we are unable to grasp it because we have not truly grasped the basics on which this teaching is founded. This was what Paul was finding and expresses in these verses. He was finding it hard to explain what he had learnt himself, because it was beyond the learning curve his readers had reached. Because they could not understand the teaching they were being given, these Jewish Christians were becoming more and more locked into their spiritual infancy.
The problem with such Christians is that they are open to being deceived by false teachers, and can be easily led astray. There is a tendency in fallen human nature, even when new life has been received in Christ, to be drawn away into spiritual backwaters, or downright error. The success of so much error in the church, and the success of the cults, are testimony to this. It is only Christians that are growing in understanding, and so in spiritual experience, that are able to discern truth from error, and remain on the narrow way.
We are hampered in spiritual growth by two things in the main. We are hampered by the reluctance of the flesh to give time and energy to learning and understanding the truth. It takes hard work to concentrate on teaching sometimes, and we easily grow discouraged and so want to give up. We are also hampered by the clutter of cultural habits and thoughts. These tend to prevent us from coming to the Bible with an open and unprejudiced mind. Even bad teaching of the past can fix our minds and understanding in a groove, so we are unable to see what the Bible is saying, and so we are left in error and darkness. It is only by understanding this danger that we are able to be on our guard, and test everything by the question - is this the meaning of the passage, and is this the truth of God.
We must make sure we understand the first principles of the gospel. We must hold on to them. But we must also build on them so that we grow in our understanding and joy of our faith.