1 Peter 2:2

1 Peter 2:2. as new-born babes. Of two words for child, one of which corresponds etymologically to our ‘infant,' and means the child yet incapable of speech, and then more generally (as in Galatians 4:1) a minor, the other the child at the stage of birth; or at the tenderest age (cf. Luke 18:15; Acts 7:19), it is the latter that is used here, as it is also used of Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), and of the infant Jesus (Luke 2:12; Luke 2:16). It is not used, however, in the metaphorical sense in which the babe (as designated by the other word) in knowledge is contrasted with him who is of full age (Hebrews 5:13), or the immature and carnal with the spiritual (1 Corinthians 3:1). It expresses a simple fact here, the recency of the Christian life in these converts, which is marked still more emphatically by the addition of the strong adjective (nowhere else used in the N. T.) ‘new-born.' The contrast is not between Christians at different stages of Christian maturity, but between these converts as once they were and as now they have just come to be. And it is in this character (the ‘as' here again being the note of quality or fact, not of comparison) that they are charged to long for the pure, rational milk. The verb (an intensive or compound form) means not merely ‘desire' (as the E. V. renders it here, although elsewhere it deals better with its force, e.g. Romans 1:11, ‘long;' 1 Thessalonians 3:6, ‘desire greatly,' etc.), but ‘earnestly desire,' or ‘long for,' as with the keen and healthy appetite of the child, with whom it is so natural to turn to the ‘food convenient' for it, that, as Bengel says, it is capable of nothing but this desire. It is difficult to convey the precise sense of the three words which follow. It is clear, however, that they describe the food for which these converts are to cultivate an appetite, and the E. V., though literally inexact, gives a sufficiently correct representation of their general import by its rendering ‘sincere milk of the word.' The term ‘milk' here does not mean the elementary doctrine which is suitable for babes in Christ in contrast with the ‘meat' (1 Corinthians 3:3), or the ‘strong meat' (Hebrews 5:12-14), which elsewhere is said to be for the full-grown. It is simply a figurative expression for the food which they must have, seeing that they are now in a new life. They themselves are not compared to babes, but said to be babes, as having been only recently ushered into the Christian life. And their food is not compared to milk, but said to be milk. But this is at once qualified by two adjectives which exhibit its nature. One of these is resolved into a noun, ‘of the word,' by our E. V. and some other versions, as well as by Beza, Bengel, etc. This brings out the sense well enough, but is not itself a correct translation. What the food is which is indicated by the ‘milk,' is not stated, but is left to be inferred from the context, which certainly points neither to the Eucharist, as some strangely imagine, nor even to Christ, as the Logos preached in the Word (so Weiss), but simply to the Word itself. And to make this plain, an adjective is attached which occurs often in the Classics, and in a variety of senses (e.g. belonging to speech, possessed of reason, logical, etc.), but in the N. T. is found only once again (Romans 12:1). In both its N. T. occurrences (and even in ecclesiastical Greek, the offering of the angels being described, e.g., in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, as a ‘rational and bloodless offering') it seems to mean rational, or spiritual (though these English words poorly express the idea), as opposed to literal or ceremonial. In the Pauline passage it designates the new sacrificial service to which the Christian is pledged by Christ's sacrifice, as one in which the mind is engaged, which cannot be discharged by the hand without the heart or as an opus operatum like the legal circumstantial service of the Jew. In the present passage it explains the ‘milk' to be food for the soul, not for the body; spiritual milk for the spiritually new-born, not material milk as for the natural babe. But this is further defined by a second term, which signifies ‘guileless,' and in which, therefore, there may be an echo of the ‘all guile' of 1 Peter 2:1. Two shades of meaning, however, are possible. If the figure of the ‘milk' is regarded as sunk in the idea of the Word to which it points, the term will be rendered ‘sincere' (as in E. V. and the Geneva Version), or ‘without guile' (as in Wycliffe), or ‘without deceit' (as in Cranmer; Tyndale gives ‘without corruption'). The point then will be that the Word is pure, ‘uncrafty' (as Jeremy Taylor puts it), incapable of deceiving or corrupting; with which may be compared the use of the cognate verb in 2 Corinthians 4:2, ‘ handling the Word of God deceitfully. ‘If, as is more likely, the figure rules the term, it may be rendered unadulterate; free from any foreign element hurtful to the life; an analogy to which is found (see Lillie) in Shakespeare's ‘the innocent milk in its most innocent mouth' (Winter's Tale, 1 Peter 3:2).

that ye may grow thereby. The best authorities add here the important words, unto salvation, which carry these converts in thought at once from their present infancy in grace on to what they are designed to be in the ultimate manifestation of the sons of God. The unflagging spiritual appetite or ‘longing' which is spoken of is to be cherished with this in view as its most proper object, their own growth from strength to strength, until they reach the measure of final redemption. This increase will be secured, and that goal reached, only ‘thereby,' or rather, ‘therein;' that is, so far as the Word is made the mental food in which their new life instinctively seeks its nourishment, and made this with that great object in view. Any other use of the Word of God comes short of a worthy use. ‘To desire it only for some present pleasure and delight that a man may find in it, is not the due use and end of it: that there is delight in it, may commend it to those who find it so, and so be a means to advance the end; but the end it is not. To seek no more but a present delight, that vanisheth but with the sound by the words that die in the air, is not to desire the Word as meat but as music' (Leighton).