Got Spiritual Milk?
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1 Peter 2:1-3
About twenty years ago or so, a series of commercials always ended with the simple question: Got Milk? It wasn’t for a particular brand—something from the U.S. Dairy Council. It must have been successful. People are still drinking it. It was even bumped up with red meat to the top of the new food pyramid. But it was simple and memorable and it would seem honest as well.
That is the way Peter’s imagery advertises here. No need to know Greek, and in this case you can even gain much out of the imagery with little context at all. It is not a brand name. It is a simple and singular substance that is sufficient for every part of the Christian life, yet it is also a necessary condition to any spiritual life at all.
Doctrine. God’s word is a nourishing agent that purges out old sins and proves out salvation.
On both sides of this coin—or, I suppose, on both sides of this milk—what will be in view is our new taste buds, if we have them. In contrast to this milk, a distaste for the old will develop and a taste for the new will develop, and a clear separation will start to occur.
(i.) The word of God puts away the old man.
(ii.) The word of God grows the new man.
(iii.) These two actions of God’s word prove out your true taste.
The word of God puts away the old man.
This imperative may seem out of place in between his two pieces of imagery about the word of God: the seed and now milk. The imperative is this: ‘So put away all …’ (v. 1a), and follows five sins. What is the connection? There is a conjunction in the Greek—“therefore” or “so” (οὖν)—but also a participle before it. For some, that could mean that this has less to do with the prior statement about the word. It would read: ‘Having put aside’ (Ἀποθέμενοι). In that case, the beginning of putting off the old man is already taken for granted, and he brings in the word as the instrument to do that most powerfully. But then there is that little “therefore,” so, Peter is saying, “This milk works—just like that seed works. Because it’s the same picture, from two different angles. Expect it to work.”
Whereas Paul will use the expression “old man,” Peter simply lists a group of sins: ‘all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander’ (v. 1b). The word “malice” (κακίαν) is actually from a general word for “wicked” (κακία), so it is tempting to treat it generically. However, one commentator points to its other New Testament uses which specify an “active ill-will, ‘the vicious nature which is bent on doing harm to others.’”1 Since this was a general audience, it is less likely that he is targeting sins specific to a small group of people in a particular local church. On the other hand, these are chosen for a reason. How unfitting for the Christian! These are like those rotting bones deprived of calcium. These sins require old tastes, and as one regularly takes in the word of God, new taste buds emerge which crowd these out.
Why specifically malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander? How does the milk begin to dissolve or even drown each of these? If you regularly contemplate how God loved us “while we were enemies” (Rom. 5:10), malice shows its ugliness. If you start to see that “Every word of God proves true” (Prov. 30:5), deceit begins to show its cards. If you start to believe the word that the rewards of hypocrisy and envy last for a moment,2 new, stronger motives for lasting rewards begin to form. When it comes into view that slander is the basic job description of the devil (Rev. 12:10), but that Jesus took that upon Himself so that He could give to you His own reputation with the Father, then you will want that to be true for others. These are things, in other words, that are utterly opposed to the character of God. So, in this “diluting” or “crowding out” way of the purifying milk, the word of God puts away the old man.
The word of God grows the new man.
In a way, Peter is expanding upon what he had already taught about the seed that is informed by the word. The word here translated in English as “spiritual” is λογικός, which is the same translation when the word is used in Romans 12:1. There Paul speaks of your “spiritual” or “reasonable” (λογικός) act of worship, and, not coincidentally, those are the words right before the famous “renewing your mind” passage. So the information in the seed imagery and the milk imagery are not so different after all: SPIRITUAL MILK MUST AT LEAST IMPLY RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE. The word “pure” here means that this nourishment cannot be either diluted or defiled. That is, not diluted by imbecilic entertainment, nor defiled by poisonous heresy: “Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace” (Heb. 13:9).
We saw that this kind of word is what the Holy Spirit uses to create new life in the first place, and what He uses to solidify us as imperishable. So it is here with the milk. There are two “phases,” namely, spiritual infancy and spiritual maturity. He says, ‘Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk’ (v. 2a). Spiritual infancy is not bad. Everyone has to start that way. Forced spiritual infancy is bad. You see the difference? The author of Hebrews used similar imagery.
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, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Heb. 5:12-14).
Paul had a similar struggle with the Corinthians believers: “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it” (1 Cor. 3:1-2). The substance of milk wasn’t the problem. The Corinthians were having the spiritual equivalent of food fights with their milk.
But he adds, ‘that by it you may grow up into salvation’ (v. 2b). When Paul commended to Titus a teaching ministry in the church that gets specific in training men to be men, women to be women, Christian workers to adorn the doctrine of God at their workplace—when he did that in Titus 2, he begins the chapter by saying, “But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine” (2:1), where the word for “sound” (ὑγιαίνω) is where we get our English word “hygiene.” The soundness of doctrine is like a pure and purifying thing: a whole-life nourishing thing. Just as a healthy diet makes a healthy body with physical life, so sound doctrine makes the body of Christ work by a spiritual or reasonable or pure nourishment. In our men’s study in Ephesians on Wednesday morning, we saw that the goal of the teaching-equipping ministry of the church is “mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children” (Eph. 4:13b-14a). How do we get new believers? And he goes on to talk about this being what makes every part of the body work properly. Want new believers? Got the milk of the word? Want mature believers? Got the milk of the word? Want more leaders? Got the milk of the word? So, the word of God puts away the old man; and the word of God grows the new man.
These two actions of God’s word prove out your true taste.
Growing in one’s understanding of the word, both its doctrine and its demands, is one evidence that one is born again. It is not the only evidence. It cannot stand in isolation, since intellectual pride or divisive disputations can masquerade as a mind that is sound in biblical truth. But taken in concert with other evidences of grace, this kind of growth in knowledge is a knowing of the whole soul and a knowing of God Himself.
This is taught by that last qualifying clause: ‘if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good’ (v. 3). The word chosen by Peter is instructive. Why use the TASTE metaphor for this essentially intellectual maturity? Aside from the fact that he is already operating with the milk metaphor. We say that someone has a “taste” for something when they have the knack for it, and specifically, when they take a liking to it. The Bible speaks of developing a kind of spiritual taste. Of course there is the praise: “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!” (Ps. 34:8). The implication is that this is something you are called to do, or experience. It isn’t passive. It must be tried and tested. But what is being tested for is specifically a spiritual taste, or a goodness known to the soul, a sweetness:
How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Ps. 119:103).
That means that the things of God are satisfying to the soul, fulfilling to who we were made to be.
When Jonathan Edwards wrote his Religious Affections, it was this spiritual sense that played such a big role in true signs of a work of the Spirit on someone. He wrote,
If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart. The reason why men are not affected by such infinitely great, important, glorious, and wonderful things, that they often hear and read about in the word of God, is, undoubtedly, because they are blind.3
That is, they are lacking in a sense: sight. Now apply this to the sense of taste. We can get even more specific into the source of this spiritual taste and the substance of this spiritual taste. Edwards did, and I think true to Peter’s words here: “The grace which is in the hearts of the saints, is of the same nature with the divine holiness, though infinitely less in degree; as the brightness in a diamond which the sun shines upon, is of the same nature with the brightness of the sun, but only that it is nothing to it in degree.”4 Why do I match Edwards’ words here to what Peter is telling us? One reason is other things Peter tells us throughout his two letters, but nowhere more wonderfully than in 2 Peter 1:4: “partakers of the divine nature.” In a way suitable for the creature, of course; but here we have a nourishment of the soul with a substance that is of God Himself. In speaking of this holiness, what is beheld and treasured is “the moral excellency”5 of God, an excellency that we begin to think of and sense as a “loveliness”6 or sweetness of the soul.
Practical Use of the Doctrine
Use 1. Instruction. How do you get people from milk to meat when the issue doesn’t seem to be doctrinal depth, but personal holiness? I mentioned Peter’s focus on the milk more than the results of the milk. Even in that first participle: ‘Having been…’ Peter is saying, “This milk works. Expect it to work.” The other reason I brought up the grammar—whether it was an imperative or only a past assumption—is because there are two kinds of Christians who emphasize personal holiness. One expects it, purely and simply; the other expects it by yesterday morning, and that usually means he expects it to look like himself. The Apostle Paul was as near as any mere mortal to the kind of mature realist that commends this milk:
Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained (Phi. 3:15-16).
Even where Paul’s disagreements with others was bitterly personal, he was comfortable in his skin as to other people getting it in God’s time. Why? He got the milk. Not only is it not our job to regenerate. It isn’t our job to transform any other Christian from a place of sin to a radically different place of holiness. We are instruments here too. We rebuke sins. We wallow in the sins of others to shame them. There’s another meme floating around. It is used in response to someone who posts something utterly cringe-worthy on social media. It says two things: “The best time to delete this post was the moment you posted. The second best time is right now.” Now, that’s a good friend! He is pressing for change now. And he can do that, because he’s not hung up on: “What about change already?”
What about it! How does dwelling on that help now? More milk!
“But he had milk yesterday!” More milk.
Use 2. Consolation. If I was to ask you about that “Taste and see that the Lord is good” of Psalm 34:8, or Peter’s qualification here, If you have tasted—if I was to ask you, “Have you tasted?” Do you understand what I’m really asking? I am not asking you to compare yourself to any other Christian’s observable experience. I would at least begin by asking you, Have you tasted at all? Do you know by personal experience that God is good, that He has been kind to you, and that He has provided the most important thing for you in His Son? To know that is to have tasted. None of us have had the full feast—not in this life. But have you tasted? Have you taken in this word in such a way that you know you need more and long for that? Well, then you have been born again. The action item is simple: Press on, further up and further in.
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1. Stibbs and Walls, 1 Peter, 95.
2. Matthew 6:2, 5, 16; Titus 3:3; James 4:1-2 (with Colossians 3:5).
3. Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections in The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Volume One (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009), 243-44.
4. Edwards, The Religious Affections, 265.
5. Edwards, The Religious Affections, 277, 279.
6. Edwards, The Religious Affections, 283.
