From Milk to the Stature of Messiah

A child born of the word and the Spirit is truly born. But Scripture never treats birth as the finish, because no one is meant to stay an infant. The apostles used the plain words of infancy and adulthood for the life of God’s children, and they expected those children to grow.

Newborn Infants

Peter, who wrote of the imperishable seed, went straight on to the newborn: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure rational milk, so that by it you may grow” (1 Peter 2:2). We met this verse in Chapter 29, as the milk of the word with which the lambs are fed. Here the point is the last words, “so that by it you may grow.”

“Like newborn infants.” The Greek is artigenneta brephe, babies just born. Peter does not scold them for being infants. A newborn is supposed to be small and to need milk. What he asks is that they long for the milk, and he gives the reason: “so that by it you may grow.” The verb is auxano, to grow, to increase. The milk is not the goal. Growth is the goal, and the milk serves it.

Milk and Solid Food

The letter to the Hebrews speaks more sharply, because its readers had stayed infants too long.

Hebrews 5:13-14 For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the logos λόγος log'-os(word) of dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness), since he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature — for those who have their senses trained by practice to diakrisis διάκρισις dee-ak'-ree-sis(discernment) of both good and evil.

“Milk” is gala, and “the mature” is teleios, something brought to its goal, full-grown. The writer draws a clear line. Milk belongs to the beginning, and solid food belongs to the mature. A believer is meant to move on from the first things to the food that only grown children can take.

Maturity, first of all, is measured by the word of righteousness. The infant is not someone who lacks feeling or zeal, but someone “unskilled in the logos(word) of dikaiosyne(righteousness).” And the senses of the mature are trained “by practice.” Discernment between good and evil does not arrive by itself with the years. It is trained, the way a body is trained, through repeated use. A believer who hears the word but never puts it into practice can remain an infant for a lifetime, however long ago he was born.

The Stature of the Fullness of Messiah

How far is the child meant to grow? Paul names the end of the growing, and he sets it high.

Ephesians 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the epignosis ἐπίγνωσις ep-ig'-no-sis(spiritual, complete knowledge) of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the pleroma πλήρωμα play'-ro-mah(fullness) of Messiah.

“A mature man” is aner teleios, the same word for maturity that Hebrews used. “The measure of the stature” uses helikia, the height a person grows to. And the stature in view is that “which belongs to the pleroma(fullness) of Messiah.” The goal of the growing is nothing less than the full stature of Messiah Himself. The children are meant to grow, in the spirit, to His height.

The verse also speaks of epignosis, full knowledge, “of the Son of God.” Part Two followed the line of yada and its Greek partner ginosko γινώσκω ghin-oce'-ko, the knowing that begins in the union of husband and wife and ends in eternal life: “that they may know You” (John 17:3). Growth to maturity is growth in that same knowing.

Genesis shows the same pattern. Adam was formed from the dust, and the woman was built from his bone. Under the blessing, be fruitful and multiply, the earth slowly filled. In the new birth, a life begins; then the growing, which is usually called sanctification, brings that life toward maturity. A believer who is born and never grows has not reached what the new birth was for.

Growing Means Falling and Rising

The walk of falling and rising shows what this growth looks like from the inside. The commandments must be kept, and no one keeps them by his own strength. The righteous one falls seven times and rises (Proverbs 24:16). He takes hold of the victory of the cross, nails the old nature to the cross again, confesses, and gets up. That walk is not a detour from growing up. It is how growing up happens. From milk to solid food, through falling and rising, the child moves toward “a mature man.”

That is why Paul could say something that sounds bold until you see what he means.

1 Corinthians 11:1 Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Messiah.

The word is mimetai, imitators. Paul did not claim to have no faults. He claimed to be following Messiah, and he asked the young believers to follow him as he followed. Children learn by copying, and a spiritual father gives his children something to copy. This is the same apostle who wrote that he was in labor until Messiah was formed in them (Galatians 4:19). Here is the other side of that labor: a life lived in front of them so that they could see what Messiah formed in a person looks like.

The Battle Grows With the Growing

Scripture adds something less comfortable about growing up: as the believer grows, the battle grows.

Ephesians 6:11-12 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the diabolos διάβολος dee-ab'-ol-os(slanderer-devil). For our struggle is not against sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) and blood, but against the rulers, against the exousiai(authorities), against the kosmokratoras(world-rulers) of the darkness of this age, against the pneumatika(spiritual forces) of wickedness in the heavenly places.

“Struggle” is pale, wrestling, a contest in which each side tries to throw the other to the ground. It is close fighting, body against body. The word recalls the night at the Jabbok, when Jacob wrestled until the dawn; the Greek translation of Genesis uses a verb of the same family there (YLV Genesis 32:25, Masoretic verse order). But Paul is careful to say whom the believer wrestles. It is not flesh and blood, not people, but the rulers and authorities of the darkness of this age, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

The mature believer wrestles, then, but not against the people around him. The same letter that calls believers to the stature of the fullness of Messiah in chapter 4 calls them to stand against the schemes of the devil in chapter 6. The growing and the battle belong together. The further a believer grows toward Messiah’s stature, the more directly he meets the powers that set themselves against Messiah, and the more he needs the full armor that God, not he, provides.

Where the Growing Leads

Here, then, is the whole course of growth. Born of the imperishable seed, the newborn longs for the milk of the word and grows, training his senses by practice, falling and rising and walking on, and copying those who copy Messiah. He grows toward the stature of the fullness of Messiah, and as he grows, the wrestling grows with him.

At the top of that growth stands something unexpected. The one who has grown into the likeness of Messiah does not only share His knowing and His battle. He comes to share His suffering, and some come to share His death.