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daily devotional
Morning ...
Acts 5:31
Him hath God exalted.
Jesus, our Lord, once crucified, dead and buried, now sits upon the throne of
glory. The highest place that heaven affords is His by undisputed right. It is
sweet to remember that the exaltation of Christ in heaven is a representative
exaltation. He is exalted at the Father's right hand, and though as Jehovah He
had eminent glories, in which finite creatures cannot share, yet as the
Mediator, the honours which Jesus wears in heaven are the heritage of all the
saints. It is delightful to reflect how close is Christ's union with His
people. We are actually one with Him; we are members of His body; and His
exaltation is our exaltation. He will give us to sit upon His throne, even as
He has overcome, and is set down with His Father on His throne; He has a crown,
and He gives us crowns too; He has a throne, but He is not content with having
a throne to Himself, on His right hand there must be His queen, arrayed in
"gold of Ophir." He cannot be glorified without His bride. Look up, believer,
to Jesus now; let the eye of your faith behold Him with many crowns upon His
head; and remember that you will one day be like Him, when you shall see Him as
He is; you shall not be so great as He is, you shall not be so divine, but
still you shall, in a measure, share the same honours, and enjoy the same
happiness and the same dignity which He possesses. Be content to live unknown
for a little while, and to walk your weary way through the fields of poverty,
or up the hills of affliction; for by-and-by you shall reign with Christ, for
He has "made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever and
ever." Oh!, wonderful thought for the children of God! We have Christ for our
glorious representative in heaven's courts now, and soon He will come and
receive us to Himself, to be with Him there, to behold His glory, and to share
His joy.
Hebrews 5:12-14
(12) For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have
need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of
God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. (13) For
every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is
a babe. (14) But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those
who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
1 Corinthians 3:1-2
(1) And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. (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 using milk as a metaphor in I Peter 2:2, Peter is in no
way chiding people as Paul does in Hebrews 5:12-14. The former uses milk simply
as a nourishing food because his emphasis is on desire, not depth. Paul uses
milk as a metaphor for elementary because he wants to shock the Hebrews into
comprehending how far they had slipped from their former state of conversion.
Paul also uses milk as a metaphor for weak or elementary in
I Corinthians 3:1-2: "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual
people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not
with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now
you are still not able." Paul judges the Corinthians as weak based upon their
behaviors and attitudes, which reflected no spiritual progress. So he "fed"
these immature Christians elementary knowledge because things of greater depth
would have gone unappreciated, misunderstood, and unused. These references
directly tie spiritual diet to growth in understanding, behavior, and attitude.
Paul's milk metaphors are scathing put-downs! Undoubtedly,
he seriously hurt the feelings of many in the congregation, yet he is free and
clear before God of any charge of offense. He does not question their
conversion, but he certainly rebukes their lack of growth. He rightly judges
that they need to have their feelings hurt so they could salvage what remained
of their conversion.
In I Corinthians 3, the embarrassing immaturity that
required him to feed the people like babies also produced strife and factions
in the congregation, proving that the people were far more carnal than
converted. The Hebrews account is more complex: The people had once been more
mature but had regressed. It is a situation vaguely similar to elderly people
becoming afflicted with dementia, except that faith, love, character, conduct,
and attitude were being lost rather than mental faculties. This resulted in the
people drifting aimlessly.
An additional insight regarding an insufficient spiritual
diet appears in the next chapter. Paul tells them that their problems are
directly related to being lazy. Dull in the phrase "dull of hearing" in Hebrews
5:11 is more closely related to "sluggish" or "slothful." It is translated as
such in Hebrews 6:12, ". . . that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those
who through faith and patience inherit the promises."
Paul charges them with being lazy listeners; they are not
putting forth the effort to meditate and apply what is taught them. They are,
at best, merely accepting. That they are not using what they hear is proof
enough for Paul to understand that they are not thinking through the
seriousness or the practical applications of the teachings. In other words,
they are not assimilating what they hear, and the result is a lack of faith and
a consequent faithlessness. His rebuke is far more serious than the one in I
Corinthians 3 because these people are older in the faith. They have frittered
away a large amount of time that would have been far better spent on spiritual
growth.
Paul attempts to shame and shock them into realizing how
far they had slipped by calling these grown people-some of them undoubtedly
elderly-infants. He goes so far as to tell them that they are unacquainted with
and unskilled in the teaching on righteousness. In other words, he attributes
to them the one particular trait of infants: that they do not understand the
difference between right and wrong, a characteristic that defines immaturity. A
parent must instruct and chasten a child until it understands.
The Bible provides ample evidence that a poor spiritual
diet results in a spiritually weak and diseased person, just as a poor physical
diet works to erode and eventually destroy a person's physical vitality.
Similarly, we can see that a person can be in good spiritual health but lose it
through laziness or another form of neglect. Just as a mature adult needs good,
solid nourishment to maintain his vitality and remain free of disease, the
spiritual parallel follows. For one to grow to spiritual maturity and vitality,
a mature Christian needs solid, spiritual nourishment, assimilated and actively
applied, to continue growing and prevent regressing, as opposed to the Hebrews
sluggish spiritual deterioration.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From The Offerings of Leviticus (Part Eight): Conclusion
(Part One)
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