"And are become such as have need of milk and not of solid food." (Heb. 5. 12). The Christian life is one of "becoming". It is not static or stationary. Either there is growth and progression, or there is decay and retrogression. In the text the Apostle addresses some who had "become" such as had need of milk again and not the more solid food. And for this he felt it needful to administer words of reproof, for by that time they to whom he wrote ought to have become teachers of the Word. Instead of having progressed to that more favourable state they had retrogressed from an intermediate stage of development until now they were back at the point where their Christian growth began.

Naturally in the first phases of the Christian life milk is the proper food for all believers. And the more developed and mature rejoice exceedingly to see the new beginner imbibing and absorbing milk, but it must be cause for much concern and regret for them to see believers who have had the Word for years retrogressing and becoming such as have need of milk again.

It would be cause of considerable concern and alarm in our domestic life if our boys and girls of "teen-age" growth were becoming such as had need of milk again. We hold it right that they should have milk—good milk indeed—in the first few months of life. They need good supplies of milk along with solid foods for the first few years, but should they have reached adolescence and puberty and then begin to retrogress and become in need of an all milk diet, this would be a very serious matter indeed.

That is exactly what had happened, in a spiritual sense, with the brethren of this text. A considerable period of time had elapsed since they first believed and were fed with milk, but now by reason of that stretch of time they ought to have developed as teachers. Instead, there had been malnutrition and decay, and they were neither able to be of service to others in the teaching capacity, nor could they be taught the deeper things which a Christian needs to know. If these Christian brethren were of the "first" generation of believers some thirty years would have elapsed since they began to receive the milk of the Word.

In that span of time (or even in one-third that span), they surely ought to have grown up to teacher level and have been able to pass on the milk to other new believers, every day of their lives! They ought to have been teachers of the Word! God counts the time from when we first believe, and rightly expects to see progression and development in the way of the Lord, and if, as the years go by, there is no such development, He may want to know the reason why!

The brethren in the text had become "dull of hearing", apathetic, sluggish and somewhat indifferent to the Word in its deeper, wider fulness. Teachings that the Apostle wished to impart were to them "hard of interpretation". Not that they ought to have been hard to impart had the brethren been alert, with their senses spiritually exercised. They were "hard of interpretation" - hard to put over by the teacher solely because the brethren had become dull of hearing, and could not exercise their senses enough to discern the good things of the Word, and the evil nature of their lethargy.

That was the tragic side of their Christian life, for while they drifted backwards and became as babes again, the deeply flowing currents of their day and nation were sweeping onwards towards the crisis-hour of their national and religious overthrow. Every day and month was carrying them nearer to that national catastrophe concerning which the deeper truth they could not learn would have been deeply instructive. In the vortex of the swiftly moving current they were likely to be as helpless and useless as children caught in the rapids of a river in spate.

Perhaps nothing is so pitiable in human experience as the decline into a second childhood. In the first childhood - the infant childhood - the vital powers are expanding and developing; the days of milk are followed by the days of "the crust", and then of "meat". Here the days of milk are temporary and in proper season - and indeed this is Nature's way; but in the second childhood the vital powers are spent. Degeneration and decay become paramount, and senility and death loom ahead.

So also with those who, after juvenile growth spiritually "become" such as have need again of spiritual milk. They are "becoming" old, decrepit, senile, old-age babes. There are certain marks that are indicative of babyhood that becomes accentuated in a second spiritual childhood. First, it is right and proper for an infant babe to be carried about from place to place, and even to be tossed about in parental hands. Correspondingly it is a sign of immaturity to be tossed about by any and every wind of doctrine that blows about (Eph.4. 14). This is often seen after some long-trusted teacher is removed by death or other circumstance. Such growth as there may have been is arrested and the reverse procedure begins. Uncertainty and insecurity replace conviction and trust, former beliefs are relinquished and new ones take their place with every shift of wind.

Secondly, the babe tends to "belong" - as a baby claims to have its crib, its toys, etc. The religious babe has its sect, its church, its fellowship and is very careful to "belong". And this becomes very obvious as its inner helplessness becomes complete.

Babes in spiritual things tend to glory in men, to enthuse over Brother X's preaching or ideas. Like the Corinthians, they can say "I am of Paul" or "I am of Apollos", or in more modern terms "I am of Wesley" or "I am of Calvin" or "I am of Brother Y". Paul had to treat the Corinthians as babes in Christ, whom he had to feed with milk, because they had turned aside from deeper things. "Are you not of the flesh and behaving according to human inclinations?" he asks them. These are Christians who had become worldly. They are not necessarily wicked Christians but Christians living only on the human level. These are Christians dividing up into groups just as politicians do, professing preference for this or that leader. When seen at work this attitude always indicates the great central truth of the Church's oneness in Christ is either lost or obscured.

Babes need much sleep. So do some decadent and relaxed Christians. The vigour of youth is spent, the fires of enthusiasm are dying or have died, and a spirit of slumber and lethargy creeps slowly over the mind. The sense of ambassadorship is lost, the spur of the ministry of reconciliation is spent, and the tired one lies down to vegetate till senility damps out the fires.

It is an inescapable fact that every one of us is "becoming" this or that. Either we are "becoming" strong in the Lord and in the power of His might with all the senses rightly exercised to discern both good and evil, or we are "becoming" weak and need only milk for our sustenance. There is nothing to-day exactly as it was yesterday, nor will it be tomorrow exactly as it is to-day. It is either growth or decay, vigour or wasting away, health or disease, a matter of daily change, for good or ill. We must all give attention to this matter of "becoming", for

To sow an act is to reap a tendency;

To sow a tendency is to reap a habit;

To sow a habit is to reap a character;

To sow a character is to reap a destiny.

God grant us to be among those who are being changed from glory unto glory with every passing day, and so "becoming" Christ-like in consequence.

 TH