"Milk" Sermon: Henrews 5:11-6:3

“Milk”

[Hebrews 5:11-6:3]

August 5, 2012 Second Reformed Church

            “About this we have much to say,”

            For the past few weeks, we've been talking about the High Priesthood of Jesus. We saw that Jesus acted both as the Perfect Sacrifice – a Holy Man who kept all of God's Law and Who voluntarily became our Substitute and took upon Himself the Wrath of God against the sin of everyone who ever believes in Him Alone for salvation – and Who is the Perfect High Priest – Who as Holy Mediator, stood between God and us to plead for us and to offer Himself up for us. We saw the importance of Jesus in living a Holy, Sinless Life – so we could be seen by the Father as holy through the crediting of Jesus’ Holy Life to us. We remember that Jesus died for every sin of every believer throughout time and space – paying the entire penalty due us.

And we considered what priestly line Jesus was a part of:  there was the line of Aaron, and the line of Levi, and we are told that there is also a third line – the line of Melchizedek. This is the line of the priesthood that Jesus was part of. However, we saw the Jesus is called to be High Priest and His line in Melchizedek’s priesthood was not through His humanity, but through His Divinity. Jesus, in His Divinity, is the Only Begotten Son of God, Who, from eternity, was designated by God High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.

And so, when we read the author of Hebrews writing, “About this we have much to say,” the author of Hebrews is saying that he has much to say about the fact that Jesus in His Divinity is the Only Begotten Son of God, Who from eternity, was designated by God High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.

The author of Hebrews told his readers that he had much to say about this topic – that it was important for them to understand who Melchizedek was, what his priesthood was, and how Jesus participated in it.

            “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.”

            The author of Hebrews had a lot to say to the Hebrews about Jesus being part of the high priestly line of Melchizedek. But here he stops his writing – and he does not go on – he does not explain more about the High Priesthood of Jesus and His participation in the high priestly line of Melchizedek, because the Hebrews had become dull of hearing.

            Remember the people the author of Hebrews was writing to: these were Hebrews – Jews – who had heard the Gospel preached and who said that they believed the Gospel. They believed that God had come to earth. That He had lived under His Own Law perfectly, that He had died for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, and that He had risen from the dead in His physical body – and ascended back to His throne. But now – they were wondering if they were wrong – if they had been over-exuberant – they wondered if they might be deceived. They wondered if it might not be best to return to the Old Testament laws and ceremonies which they knew well – the things they knew that God had given them and commanded them.

            We saw the author of Hebrews become incredulous about this – he couldn't believe that after hearing and believing the Gospel, they could turn away from it and turn back to the shadows – to the prophecies – and he warned them that if they did not continue to believe in the Gospel – if they turned away from where they had stood – if they apostatized – they would commit the only unforgivable sin.

            Not only had the Hebrews been questioning whether the Gospel was true, but they had become “dull of hearing” – they weren't listening – they thought they knew it all – they saw no reason to go back to the Scriptures, and check the Scriptures, and read them again, and seek the Holy Spirit's guidance and His Gift of understanding.

            It seems fair to apply these words to the American church as a whole: “you have become dull in hearing.”  How often do we come to “worship” desiring that we be excited, entertained, that we have our “felt needs” met, but we don't care if we have understood the text, or if God's Word has been preached at all, much less if God has been honored and glorified in what has occurred.

            John Owen, colorfully explains the problem this way:  “it is not unnatural imbecility of mind that he blames in them; nor such a weakness of understanding as they might be obnoxious unto for want of improvement by education; Nor a want of learning and subtlety to search into things deep and difficult: for these, although they are all defects and hindrances in hearing, yet are they not crimes. But it is a moral negligence and inadvertency, a want of the discharge of their duty, according to their ability and attending unto the means of their instruction, that he chargeth them withal” (Hebrews, volume 4, 549).

            His language is quaint, but what he is saying is this: they were not disabled in such a way that they could not read and understand God's Word. They were not lacking the education necessary to be able to read and understand God's Word. No, the problem was sin – they didn't care to read and understand God's Word to the best of their ability. They just didn't think God's Word was that important. They had better things to do. Yet, God is very angry when we neglect His Word.

            Back in Lent, we looked at the principles of church growth. Do you remember what the first one is?  “God’s Word must be central – of primary importance and honor – to our lives and worship for us to grow as individuals and as the Church.” Do you believe that? Do you believe that the center of worship is God and His Word? Do you believe that we know God and all He has to teach us about life and salvation through His Word?

            The author of Hebrews tells his readers that the biggest problem they have is that they have become lazy in receiving the Word of God. And because they have become lazy in receiving the Word of God, their ears have become dull. They have lost some of the ability to understand God's Word.

So we see, first, this morning, our ability to understand and profit from God's Word grows as we interact with it – as we read it – as we hear it read and preached – as we hear it taught – as we meditate on it, asking the Holy Spirit to help us to understand and apply it wisely and correctly. The more we read the Word of God, the more we are exposed to the Word of God, the more we pray that God will help us to understand and apply the Word of God, the more grace God will give us to read it, to understand it, and to apply it. Reading the Bible is not unlike using a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it will become; the less you use it the more it will decay.

This is a very frustrating text:  If you don't read your Bible and you don't take advantage of the opportunities to discuss it and learn it, then don't be surprised with the results. It's like buying a gym membership, never going, and then calling the gym to complain that you're still fat and lacking muscle.

Read the Word of God. Attend worship and hear God’s Word read and preached. Come to a study and discuss the Word of God. Buy good Christian books, or CDs, or DVDs. William Tyndale, who lost his life for translating the Bible into English, said he did so, that every plowboy would be able to read the Bible for himself. Pray that you would desire to spend time in God's Word – and then pray that you would desire to spend more time in God's Word.

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.”

The author of Hebrews continues his criticism, telling them that with the amount of education in the Word of God that they had received, they should be teaching others by this point, but because they became dull of hearing – because they didn't care about the Word of God and what it said – they had actually gone backwards in their ability to understand – they had gone backwards in their becoming Christ-like. They needed to be taught the basic doctrines all over again.

And so we see, just as it is possible to mature in the faith, it is possible to immature in the faith. It is possible to go backwards in our sanctification. It is possible to go backwards from an adult to a child spiritually. It is possible to lose the understanding of the very basic, foundational, principles of Christianity. It is possible to become fatally confused about the meaning of the Gospel – and we saw this as we talked about evangelism and how people think that the Gospel is about how you feel or how much God loves you, when the Gospel is a very specific set of historical facts about a historical figure.

Then the author of Hebrews uses an image – comparing the Hebrews with infants:  “You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.”

I hope we all understand that milk is for babies – milk is made up of nutrients to help a baby grow, but it is not so intense and strong that the baby cannot eat it and digest it. I hope no one would try to stuff a steak in an infant's mouth. Even if the infant had teeth, it's unlikely that he or she would be able to eat and digest it properly. Milk is given to babies to mature their digestive systems and the rest of their bodies. Solid foods – meat – is to sustain the grown – the mature – the adult body.  Just as we can't properly mature and grow, drinking only milk and milk products, so we also have to add to what we have learned – we have to grow in on our understanding of the Scripture.

So, secondly, the author of Hebrews is saying that there are basic doctrines that every Christian should know – that every Christian should understand – but no Christian should stay with just the basic doctrines – every Christian is called to mature as the Holy Spirit works through him or her. Each one of us is to add to our faith and understanding – to grow in what we have heard and read and understood – that we might know God better – that we might experience more grace – and live more fully to His Glory.

“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

The author of Hebrews does not condemn his readers and then leave them without hope: he tells them there is a way to move toward maturity. There is a way to become an adult – it's through eating solid food – it's through training our powers of discernment – by training our minds – by constant practice – not once a month or once a week, but again and again and again as a regular habit – in distinguishing good from evil.

So what is he telling them to do? What is he telling them – and what are we being told this morning, if we want to mature – if we realize we're drinking milk, and were tired of drinking milk? What should we do if we have had enough milk – if we have received all the nourishment we can receive from milk, and now we want to move on to solid food – to meat?

Thankfully, the answer is “milk” – it’s basic – it’s simple: if the Hebrews want to mature again – to recover what they lost through becoming dull of hearing – if they recognize that they were sinning in being bored and impatient and fed up with the Word of God – even doubting if it was true – if you want to mature – first get the Gospel right: God came to earth in the Person of Jesus – a real human being, He lived under God's Law sinlessly, He died for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, and He physically rose from the dead, ascending back to His throne. That's milk. It's the best milk any human ever gets, but we must grow from there – once we’ve got that, we have to grow.

Understand, the author of Hebrews is not suggesting – and I am not suggesting – that there are different levels of salvation. However, we do fluctuate in our maturity – one day will be a little more mature, one day we will be a little less mature. We ought to be, striving to be, more mature overall as the Holy Spirit makes us into the Image of Jesus.

So, maturity begins with a right understanding of the Gospel. And then, we ought to do everything within our ability to learn and understand and put into practice everything else. We ought to be, striving – praying to God – asking for grace and understanding – that we would be able to read this Scripture and understand it to the fullest. God has given us His Word that we would understand it and rejoice in it and give Him thanks and glory for it. There is a point at which each of us, according to our ability, has to say, “this far and I can understand no further” – there are mysteries which are kept from us.  We read, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29, ESV).

We need to remember that, although there are difficult passages of the Scripture, the Word of God, by and large, was not written for intellectuals and scholars – it was written for William Tyndale's plowboy – it was written for you and me. What kind of God do we believe in, if we say that God has given us His Word and then made it too difficult for us to understand any of it? That is not the God that we see in the Bible. The God of the Bible condescends to humanity so that He will be understood. God uses words and imagery that would be understood by the people who received it – and God Himself came to earth in the Person of a human being – how much more one-on-one could God get? The Bible was largely written for shepherds and farmers and nomads and the illiterate. Most of the Bible is straightforward and doesn't need any degree or special insight – besides the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit – to understand. If you are a Christian, and you want to mature in the faith, “pick up and read” – and then do everything within your ability to understand, and God will bless that.

How long does it take? How long is your life? Paul, encouraging other Christians to press on, wrote, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14, ESV).  Paul continued to mature – to the day of his death.

            “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”

            Since this is true – since we are called to mature and not stay with the doctrines of milk – merely with the basics of the Christian faith – but to build on them and to understand as much as we are able of the Word of God – the author of Hebrews says to leave the elementary doctrines – not to forget them, but to continue on – to move on – to mature – to build on those elementary doctrines – and to go on to maturity.

            The author of Hebrews warns them that they are not to lay “again a foundation of repentance from dead works.”  What does that mean? Well, what are “dead works”? This expression is only used twice and only by the author of Hebrews, but we can make sense of it: what do we repent of? Sin. What type of sin would be “dead works”? “Dead works” are works that we do thinking that they will make us right with God without Jesus. The original audience of the letter of Hebrews was turning to dead works – they were leaving the Gospel and Salvation in Jesus Alone and turning back to keeping the Law and the Ceremonies as their salvation – which is impossible: the Law and the Ceremonies were given to us to show us that we cannot save ourselves. So, the author of Hebrews is warning them that they are not to go back to trying to earn their salvation – because it will not – it cannot – work. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone.

            The author of Hebrews quickly mentions a few of the elementary doctrines of Christ – and Christianity – that are found in the Word of God:

First, “instruction about washings” or “instruction about baptisms.” The word that can be translated “washings” or “baptisms,” is again a word that is only used twice in the Bible, and only by the author of Hebrews – so what baptisms is he talking about? There are three baptisms mentioned in the Bible: what is called the baptism of John, which was a ceremonial cleansing rite, the baptism by which a person becomes part of the covenant community, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, by which a person receives salvation. The author of Hebrews is obviously talking about the second two – instruction about entrance into the covenant community, and instruction about salvation. (He would not be calling them to return to a Ceremonial Law for the reasons we have already discussed.)

Second, “the laying on of hands”– which was also done for three reasons in the Bible: the recognition and blessing of a person called to office, for healing, and for the gifting of the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit and His giving of gifts. Again, contextually, since we are talking about the elementary doctrines of Christ – that is salvation – we can only be talking here about the gifting of the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit and His giving of gifts.

Third, “the resurrection of the dead.” And here the author of Hebrews is countering those who say that the resurrection from the dead is merely a spiritual resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead in his physical body, so we must rise in our physical bodies.  If we do not rise in our physical bodies, then Jesus’ Salvation is a failure, because part of what Jesus came to save would not be saved.

Fourth, “eternal judgment.” There must be an eternal judgment, if God is Just. If God does not punish sin, He does not love us. If God does not judge the world and punish sin and put it away from Him – and us – and His Kingdom, we are not saved.

            The original audience of the letter to the Hebrews was getting hung up on these basic issues: the Holy Spirit changes our hearts and regenerates us – brings us back to spiritual life, the Holy Spirit gives us gifts and the grace to use them for the sake of the Church and to the Glory of God, the Resurrection is of both our souls and our bodies – the material world is good and God will restore it and perfect it and bless in the Kingdom, and there will be a judgment and those who do not believe in Jesus Alone for salvation – those who do not believe the Gospel – will enter eternal Hell. This is all good stuff – this is all important stuff – vitally important – but it's not all there is – and God has called us to read and hear preaching and teaching on the Whole Counsel of God – the Whole Word of God – including what it means that God eternally designated the Only Begotten Son of God High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.

            “And this we will do if God permits.”

            Let us pray:

            Almighty God, as we come to meet You in the Sacrament, we ask that You would give us grace to mature.  We ask that You would turn us back from our sin – from our laziness, from our uncaring, from believing that anything in Your Word is unimportant.  Help us to know the Gospel rightly, to hold onto it firmly, and to seek out, by the Holy Spirit, the strong meat that You provide for us.  Help us to strive towards You until we are in Your Presence, and let us settle for nothing less.  Be truly in the bread and the cup that we may commune with You.  We ask these things in Jesus Name, Amen.