God's New-Born Babes and Their Food
“Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” — I Peter ii. 1-3.
THIS paragraph is closely connected with the preceding one. In that we learnt how we had been born
again, and entered by the new birth into the family
of God. Here the same thought is resumed. We
are addressed as the babes of the Divine family,
and bidden to cultivate the temper and seek the
nourishment suitable to a relationship at once so blessed and
hallowed.
I. Our Condition as God’s Little Ones. — “New-born babes.” The metaphor is a ver>’ touching one. This world is but the nursery in which the heirs of God are spending the first lisping years of their existence, preparatory to the opening of life to full maturity yonder in the light of God. The most advanced among us, in knowledge and attainment, are, in comparison with what they shall be, only as babes. The furthest stretch of vision, the most perfect conceptions of the intellect, the fittest expressions of truth, are but as the untutored thoughts and babblings of babyhood, compared with what is to be in the mature life which beckons us yonder.
The same idea is expressed by the Apostle Paul in his exquisite idyll on Christian love. He is endeavouring to show that this fairest of the whole band of Christian graces is eternal in its nature, budding here, defying the frosts of death, and blooming in heaven’s everlasting summer. And, to make his conception more emphatic, he contrasts love with knowledge, affirming that our profoundest knowledge must vanish away, because in this life we are but children. “When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” And, similarly, in the next life, while we retain the love which we have had in this, we shall put away the knowledge as partial and immature, because from being children we shall have become men in Christ. We need not concern ourselves now with all the majestic conceptions which cluster around those words: it is enough to notice the thought, that the Apostle Paul considered himself a little child, compared with the coming maturity of eternity.
This word should teach us Humility. “Our best pace and strongest walking in obedience here is but as the stepping of children when they begin to go by hold, in comparison with the perfect obedience of glory, when we shall follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. All our knowledge here is but as the ignorance of infants, and all our expressions of God and of his praises but as the first stammerings of children, in comparison with the knowledge we shall have of Him hereafter, when we shall know as we are known, and with the praises we shall offer to Him, when that ’ new song ’ shall be taught us.” It becomes us, therefore, not to exercise ourselves in great matters, or in things too high for us, but to quiet ourselves as a child that is weaned of its mother, so that our souls may be even as a weaned child. Not surprised, if unnoticed or unknown; not angry, if treated with small respect; not discouraged, if face to face with incomprehensible mysteries. Our intellect is only in its dawn, our powers undeveloped, our mental grasp limited. Far be from us the haughty heart, the proud look, the conceited opinion, the sweeping assertion of self-satisfaction. Ours is the lisp of infancy: “Abba.”
This word should also teach us Hope. There is no young thing so helpless as a babe, or for so long dependent on its parents’ care. But He who has appointed the long months of babyhood has also provided the love and patience with which mother and father welcome and tend the strange wee thing which has come into their home. It is not often that a woman can forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on her son. Through ailments and sicknesses, days of anxiety, and nights of watching; with love which never considers cost, or pain, or self-denial — two fond guardian angels care for the babe. Its least cry will compel the service of a man dreaded by all his comrades, and noted for the strength and independence of his character. And shall God have put into others qualities in which He is Himself deficient? Shall He have provided so carefully for us in our first birth, and have provided nought in our second? Is not the very love of the human parent a parable of that of the Divine.’’ Is He not Mother and Father both?
It must be so. Since He has begotten us into his family, He must have to us the love of a parent to a babe; and we must have a claim on Him, as the babe on its parent. The more utterly helpless, and ignorant, and dependent the babe is, the stronger is its claim. Yes, and the more puny and sickly it is, the more urgent are its demands for tender solicitude and attention, till the spark of life, shaded by loving hands from the least unkindly breath, grows strong within the tiny lanthorn. Who is angry with a child because it is weakly, sick, and dull of brain? Who does not find in these thmgs the reason for greater tenderness, so that mothers are said to love most the children who have cost them most? And is it not so with God? Your weakness, and ailments, and nervouS dread, and besetting sins, and hereditary taint of evil habit, and dulness of vision, will not drive God from you, but will bring Him nearer. These things will draw down his choicest love to your poor-cradled being. He will sit beside you as a nurse. He will watch your every change. He will care for you with unslumbering thoughtfulness. He will supply your every need. He will make you know things hidden from the wise and prudent, but revealed to babes, in words which even they can understand. He will never leave you until you are reared to the perfect beauty of maturity in Christ.
This word should also teach us our true attitude towards God. Throw yourself on Him with the abandonment of a babe. Roll on Him the responsibility of choosing for you — directing, protecting, and delivering you. If you cannot understand his will, expect Him to make it plain. If you cannot feel as you would, believe that his feeHng towards you is unalterable as a father’s. If you are overcome by sin, be sure that it cannot alienate his love, any more than can the small-pox, which has marred some dear tiny face, prevent the mother from kissing the little parched lips. Oh, strong men and women, never get so strong as to cease to remember that you are the babes of God, and that you may carry out this winsome similitude to the full! Listen to his declaration: “I have nourished and brought up children.”
II. Our Food. — “Long for the spiritual milk which is without guile” (r.v.). At the close of the previous chapter the Word of God was compared with seed; here, with milk. But it is the same principle under different aspects. The new life is nourished by that through which it was first imparted. There are deep analogies between the worlds of nature and of grace, attesting the unity of design which pervades the universe, making the seen and the unseen one great whole.
There is nothing which so proves the inspiration of the Scriptures as their suitableness to the nurture of the new life in the soul. As long as that life is absent, there is no special charm in the sacred Word: it lies unnoticed on the shelf. But directly the new life has been implanted, and whilst yet in itsearliest stages, it seeks after the Word of God as a babe after its mother’s milk; and instantly it begins to grow. This afifinity between the Divine life in the soul and the sacred Scriptures establishes their emanation from the same source as gave it birth. Human life in infancy is most naturally nourished by the products of the life from which it originated; and since the Divine life in man is nourished by the words of the Bible, surely zV also is proved to be Divine in its origin, supernatural in its qualities, heavenly in its temper — as far removed from the earthly and human as is the life to which it ministers.
Oh, well would it be if we were to minister to the regenerated spirits around us more of the pure and unadulterated Word of God! It is this which they really need. They may be attracted and pleased for a time by flowers of rhetoric and the dazzling glow of eloquence; but they will not be satt’s/ied by these things. Underneath all there will be a great hunger for the sincere milk of the Word. And when that word is presented in all its fulness and simplicity, eager appetites will gather around, as bees attracted by the flower-gardens, or the fragrant breath of the heather. “Before conversion, wit or eloquence may draw a man to the Word, and possibly prove a happy bait to catch him; but when once he is born again then it is the milk itself that he desires.”
And here surely we are taught the reason why so many Christians around us are so puny and stunted in their growth. They are always needing attention, nursing, wheeling about in perambulators, because their teachers have not provided them with the nutriment which they really need. As unsuitable food, however abundant, will soon tell its own tale on the pinched face of a babe, so the sickly condition of so many Christians sets forth a lamentable complaint of the food with which they are supplied. To say nothing of strong meat, they do not even get milk. Hence the Church of God too much resembles the wards of a children’s hospital.
III. How TO CREATE AN APPETITE FOR THE WORD. — “Desire.” One of the most dangerous symptoms is the loss of appetite. It is the danger-signal warning that evil lurks unseen within. And there is no surer indication of religious declension and ill-health than the cessation of desire for the Word of God. How can that appetite be created where lacking, and stimulated where declining? The answer is given in the context.
(i) Put off the evil that clings to you. — The word translated “putting away” is the same as in Col. iii. 8. The idea is the change of dress which is often used as a Scriptural figure for the change of the habit of the soul. The habiliments which we must doff are enumerated, and a terrible catalogue it is. Alas that it should ever have been necessary, or that it should still be, to urge Christians to surrender such obvious evils as these!
Malice., which is anger cooled down into “double-distilled malignity,” rejoicing in the misfortunes which come to others. Gtiile which savours of trick and craft. Hypocrisy, the J udas-act
of concealing treachery beneath the garb of friendship. Envy, which repines at another’s good. Both mahce and envy vent themselves in evil speaking. These things spoil the appetite for God’s Word, as surely as sweetmeats clog the physical appetite and taste. Many cannot enjoy the Word of God, because their minds are so occupied with these poisoned dainties, or with the sugar-coated sweetmeats of exciting or questionable literature, of worldly amusements, and of evil imaginings. These things must be at once and for ever put away. You must elect the cross. There must be a casting aside of the shameful works of darkness, so only can the appetite for God’s Word become vigorous and eager. Clear away the rubbish, and the spring will burst up naturally from the ground.
(2) Remember that your growth depends on your feeding oft the Word. — Who is there amongst us that is not anxious to grow; to become more Christlike, and holy, and devoted; to increase in knowledge and in grace? But we appear often to imagine that we shall grow by attending meetings or doing Christian work. It is a disastrous mistake. And until we come to see that growth is proportionate to Bible-study, it will be impossible to rise up to the perfect beauty of the stature of Christ. We shall always be children, carried about by every wind of doctrine.
Do not always read your Bible because you like to do so, or desire it, but because it is right to do it, and as a matter of simple duty to your own life. Study the Word under the light of the Holy Spirit, as the ancient saint, when blindness was setting in, was wont to carry his Bible to the window, and place the open page in the full beams of the western sun. And slowly the appetite will re-assert itself, and you will come to esteem the Word of God more than your necessary food.
(3) Stimulate your desire by the memory of past enjoyment. — “If so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” We seek food, not only because our body requires it, but because we remember the past sweetness of it to our taste. We often take more than is necessary to appease hunger, because the food is toothsome.
How sweet to the taste is the precious Lord! For none appetite for tijc IStorif. 77
among the sons and daughters of men can be compared to Him. His love has sometimes filled our souls with inexpressible delight and bliss — grapes of Eshcol, prelibations of the river of life, branches laden with fruit reaching over the wall. And those who have once tasted of that love have contracted a passion which grows in being fed. Because they have tasted they must come again and again to stay an appetite which, though always being met, is always on the increase.
Do you not remember days like these, of feasting and song, when you were led into his banqueting-house, or sat under his shadow with great delight? If so, surely the memory of them will sharpen the jaded desire, until it cries with the spouse: “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love.” Ah, how vapid and insipid do the joys of the world appear when once the soul has tasted that the Lord is gracious. “Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.”