1 Corinthians 3:2
Ps Paul Cheng
Dear Bethelites,
The Corinthians were spiritual positionally, but they were behaving unspiritual, practically. That was the reason why the Apostle Paul said to them, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. Similarly, although the believer who is a new man in Christ and is no longer dominated by sin, he is still capable of falling into sin. And whenever he sins, he is living just like the unbeliever, carnal.
So, the first term Paul used to describe this abnormal spiritual condition was carnal; then he went on to illustrate the second term, babes.
I. Babes in Christ
The Corinthian believers had received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour years earlier, but they were acting as if they had just been born again. They were like babes in Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:2, I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
In recent years, our church has been blessed with many babies. As we watch the babies grow; some are still being nursed by their mothers, but others are able to sit at the table and eat their own food. As the children grow, they learn to eat solid food, and move on from milk to meat. That is the natural progress in their physical growth.
When Paul first preached to the Corinthians, he taught them the elementary truths of the Word of God which was milk. But about five years later, they were still being fed with milk. They could not yet eat meat which was a reference to deeper scriptural teachings, or solid theological doctrines, or things hard to be understood (2 Peter 3:16).
Many Christians today, who are just happy with spiritual milk, do not want the preacher to get too deep theologically. They want the preacher to stick to the evangelistic messages which are mainly for unbelievers. One of the reasons why such people do not want to go beyond the evangelistic messages is because once the preacher touches on discipleship, it requires commitment, or their sins would be exposed, and they would be rebuked and corrected. Thus, they would rather just remain where they are, drinking spiritual milk all the time!
So, the Corinthian believers were still drinking spiritual milk and not able to digest spiritual meat. Truth is truth and it will not change. Essentially, there is no difference between the truths of a spiritual milk diet and a spiritual meat diet; the only difference is in the details and depth. All doctrines may have both milk and meat elements. For example, to the new believer, we may explain the atonement as simply, “Christ died for our sins!” But for the mature believer, we may need to explain the theological meaning of the atonement, what it means to be the propitiation for our sins, to appease our sins, to satisfy the penalty of sin, and so forth.
Praise be to God for all those who have grown from spiritual babes to spiritual adults. There was a time when your topics of discussion were just about the elementary truths of the Bible, but today, you have grown to discuss deeper truths, about matters pertaining to eschatology, the rapture, the tribulation, the millennial kingdom, covenantal theology and so forth. It is one thing to understand these truths, but the amazing thing is that you are now able to articulate these truths to those who are babes in Christ. All glory to God!
To see a baby acting like a baby is a joy, but to see an adult acting like a baby is a tragedy. It is understandable when the child has a special medical condition, but when the child is perfectly normal and yet is not growing, that is another thing altogether. It grieves God and the spiritual leaders to see the believers in Corinth not growing out of their spiritual infancy. Some may argue that it is because the preachers are not very effective, or the teachers are not very resourceful, but let us not forget that we have the best Teacher within, the Holy Spirit who desires to instruct the believer in the things of God. Sometimes the preacher is to be blamed because he has not been diligent and faithful, but more often than not, the problem is with ourselves!
One of the greatest fears of being a spiritual babe is that he or she is easily deceived. We are living in the last days where there are all kinds of false teachers and false prophets, and they would search for the most gullible ones to deceive, the babes in Christ. As Ephesians 4:14 warns us that we need to grow spiritually so that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. This is one of the strongest reasons why we should seek to grow into spiritual maturity because we are living in perilous times and there are so many deceptions around us today, more than in any period of time in the history of the church. We cannot imagine what would happen to our children in the future; most certainly it would be worse. If our children continue to remain as babes in Christ, the consequences would be most devastating. May the Lord have mercy!
With love in Christ,
Pastor Paul Cheng
(To be continued in our next pastoral chat)