1 Pet. ii. 1 — 3. IVherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-lorn babes, desire the s-inccre milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby ; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
A STRANGE opinion has obtained amongst some, that there is no such thing as growth in grace. But the whole tenor of Scripture, from one end of it to the other, proclaims the contrary. We will go no further than to the passage before us, and to the
context
context connected with it. In the beginning of his epistle, the Apostle had spoken of Christians as " begotten by God the Father to a lively hope''." To stir them up to walk worthy of their high calling, he says to them, " Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end, as obedient children ; not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in your ignorance ; but, as he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation ; because it is written. Be ye holy, for I am holy''." This injunction he enforces by a great variety of arguments. He urges, first, the consideration, that God the Father will judge them according to their works"; then, that they have been redeemed by God the Son*^; and then, that they have been born of God the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the preached word, which unalterably inculcates and requires holiness \ From these premises he deduces the exhortation in our text : " PVherefore, as neiu-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the world, that ye may grow thereby ; if so be ye have tasted, (or, as it should rather be translated, since ye have tasted,) that the Lord is gracious." Here the idea is kept up of their being Children of God, though children but newly born; and they are urged to desire and feed upon that blessed provision which God has made for them in his word, and which alone can secure their growth in the Divine life.
The words, thus viewed, will lead us to consider,
I. The character of God's Children —
Many are the descriptions .given of them in the holy Scriptures ; but there is not one in all the Inspired Volume more simple, or more accurate than this : " They have tasted that the Lord is gracious." This, I say, is,
1 . Their universal experience —
[There is not a Child of God in the universe to whom this character does not belong. The very instant that a child is born of God, this is his experience. Indeed it is of " new- born
* Ch. i. 3. '' ib. ver. 13—16, <• ib, ver. 17.
^ ib. ver. 18, I9. ' ib. ver. 23-^25.
112 1 PETER, ir. 1—3. [1158.
born babes " that it is spoken. As to their knowledge of God, his nature, his perfections, his purposes, it may be ex- tremely limited and imperfect. Even of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of " the exceeding riches of God's grace as displayed in him," they may know but little : but they have " tasted that the Lord is gracious," and they do assuredly know it by their own happy experience. If the person be young or old, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, he has learned tliis, and knows it, and feels it in his inmost soul. He has heard of the Saviour ; he has sought for mercy through him ; and he has received into his soul a sense of God's pardoning love and mercy in Christ Jesus : and in tliis he does rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. He may indeed have received but a taste : but a taste he has received : and it is " sweeter to him than thousands of gold and silver." The most uncivilized savage, when born of God, is in this respect on a footing with the most enlightened philosopher : he has believed in Christ ; and he " makes Christ all his salvation, and all his desire."]