FRIDAY
Finally for this week we come to our final imperative in this passage.
1 Peter 2:1-3 1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Peter concludes this section imploring them to “long for the pure spiritual milk.” In 1 Cor. 3:2 Paul uses milk in a negative sense to represent the believer’s lack of maturity. Here there is no indication that this is a negative. Regardless, this is a curious statement. What is the milk in Peter’s mind? He doesn’t say exactly, so it is difficult to say for sure. I think the best option is to take it as a broad reference to living according to the way of God or in the presence of God himself. In verse 3 he quotes Psalm 34:8, which also references the sense of taste, and they are to taste that the Lord, himself, is good.
This milk is said to be pure and spiritual. The word translated as spiritual is a difficult word to translate. It occurs only here and in Romans 12:1. Without getting into the weeds with it too much, it seems best to take it as meaning: that which is true or appealing to the ultimate reality.
Therefore, the idea is that as newborn infants (see also 1:3, 14, 17) they need a new sustenance that corresponds to that new nature. The food of this new nature is the things of God (loving one another genuinely, holy living, their inheritance in heaven, etc). We are to long for these things like a baby longs for milk. A hungry baby crying out for milk is the picture he paints of us and how desperately we should long for the things of God. He goes on to say that these things of God will mature us into salvation. Again, if we are viewing salvation as only where we go when we die this statement makes little sense. Instead, salvation is the deliverance from the effects of sin on our lives. This is the process of becoming more like Jesus. As we long for our inheritance in heaven, we are less attached to the things of this world. As we long for holiness, sin becomes less appealing. As we long for loving one another genuinely, the vices listed in v. 3 become heinous evils in our eyes.
It’s in this vein then that he contrasts the things of God with the things of this world: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. These are not the pure spiritual milk we are to long for. In fact these are the opposite of them. We are to put these things away. This term is often used of taking off clothing. So the sense is that we are taking these things off of ourselves in the counter-formation process of discipleship and in turn longing for the things of God.
Notice how all of these are social evils. Again, the idea of a Christian in voluntary isolation is foreign to the way of Jesus.
Finally, in verse 3 he ends this section with a reference to Psalm 34:8. You’ll notice he eliminates the “…and see” from the passage in Psalms, this is just to keep consistency with his metaphor of tasting milk. With the conditional “if” he is assuming for the sake of argument that they have. Tasting that the Lord is good will lead to this longing for God and the things of God.
This reference is a sign of Peter’s saturation in the word of God. The themes of Psalm 34 are similar to the themes he is writing of here in this letter. This was written by David when he was in an exile of sorts. The following verses would have been a great comfort to his readers as well. Peter is likely hoping that this reference will draw their attention to this passage and they will find hope in it as well.
Psalm 34:1 1 I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
- Peter begins his letter with praise and blessing to God, just as David does.
Psalm 34:6 6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
Psalm 34:9 9 Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!
Psalm 34:11 11 Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
Psalm 34:12 12 What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?
Psalm 34:14 14 Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
Psalm 34:18–19 18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. 19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
Psalm 34:22 22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
Additional Content
On longing for the things of God, I want to bring back a quote from a couple of weeks ago. James K. A. Smith in his book You Are What You Love writes:
“We are orientated by our longings, directed by our desires. We adopt ways of life that are indexed to such visions of the good life, not usually because we ‘think through’ our options…We aren’t really motivated by abstract ideas or pushed by rules and duties. Instead some panoramic tableau of what looks like flourishing has an alluring power that attracts us, drawing us toward it, and we thus live and work toward that goal.”
Reflection
Long for the things of God. These will cause you to mature into salvation. Remember we are not motivated so much by our knowledge or rules or duties as we are our longings. Explore your heart today and ask yourself if you genuinely long for the things of God.