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(2)
It indicates spiritual infancy.
`Ye have need of milk and not of solid food'.
(3)
It indicates lack of experience.
`For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience
of the word of righteousness'.
(4)
It indicates the opposite of being `perfect'.
`But solid food belongeth to them that are perfect'.
(5)
It indicates a culpable neglect.
`Perfect, even those who by reason of use have their senses
exercised'.
(6)
It indicates lack of discernment.
`Senses exercised to discern both good and evil'.
Let us take some of these points and gather their lessons.
(1)
Teachers are placed together with those who can take solid food,
have senses exercised and are perfect. No articles could be
written for this book or any magazine if we were to understand
the word `perfect' in its ultimate sense. The passage does come
to us very solemnly, however, and says that the qualification for
teaching is something more than head knowledge and ready speech.
In the Sermon on the Mount, breaking the commandments and doing
them are associated with teaching men so, and also with losing or
gaining a position in the kingdom of heaven. James utters the
warning, `My brethren, be not many "teachers", knowing that we
shall receive a greater judgment' (3:1). Instead of progress
there was retrogression:
`For even when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that
one teach you again certain rudiments of the beginning of the oracles
of God' (Heb. 5:12 author's translation).
Ta stoicheia tes arches `the rudiments of the beginning'.
Stoicheia are the initial steps in knowledge, and also the `elements' of the
natural world. (See Galatians 4:3,9; Colossians 2:8,20; 2 Peter 3:10,12).
The verb stoicheo comes in Acts 21:24, `walkest orderly'; Romans 4:12, `walk
in the steps of that faith'; Galatians 5:25, `walk in the Spirit'; Galatians
6:16 and Philippians 3:16, `walk by rule'.
These Hebrew believers had progressed no further than the initial steps
of the faith, and indeed needed teaching in these things all over again. An
intellectual grasp of the teaching of men on any subject may be sufficient,
but a mere intellectual grasp of God's truth is not sufficient. The doctrine
and faith of the early church was rightly called `The Way', for it was walk
as well as word, life as well as lip.
`Then shall we know, if
we follow on to know the Lord' (Hos. 6:3).
What these `first principles' were that they needed to be retaught we
shall see better when we come to Hebrews 6.