For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you 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 solid food.
All Commentaries on Hebrews 5:12 Go To Hebrews 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
At all events observe him continually travailing to introduce the discourse concerning the High Priest, and still putting it off. For hear how he began: Having a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens Hebrews 4:14; and omitting to say how He was great, he says again, For every High Priest taken from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God. Hebrews 5:1 And again, So Christ also glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest. Hebrews 5:5 And again after saying, You are a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech Hebrews 5:6, he again puts off [the subject], saying, Who in the days of His Flesh offered prayers and supplications. Hebrews 5:7 When therefore he had been so many times repulsed, he says, as if excusing himself, The blame is with you. Alas! How great a difference! When they ought to be teaching others, they are not even simply learners, but the last of learners. Hebrews 5:12, For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, you have need again that some one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God. Here he means the Human Nature [of Christ]. For as in external literature it is necessary to learn the elements first, so also here they were first taught concerning the human nature.
You see what is the cause of his uttering lowly things. So Paul did to the Athenians also, discoursing and saying, The times of this ignorance God winked at: but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He has ordained, whereof He has given assurance unto all men, in that He has raised Him from the dead. Acts 17:30-31 Therefore, if he says anything lofty, he expresses it briefly, while the lowly statements are scattered about in many parts of the Epistle. And thus too he shows the lofty; since the very lowliness [of what is said] forbids the suspicion that these things relate to the Divine Nature. So here also the safe ground was kept.
But what produces this dullness? This he pointed out especially in the Epistle to the Corinthians, saying, For whereas there is among you envy and strife and divisions, are you not carnal? 1 Corinthians 3:3 But observe, I beseech you, his great wisdom, how he always deals according to the distempers before him. For there the weakness arose more from ignorance, or rather from sin; but here not from sins only, but also from continual afflictions. Wherefore he also uses expressions calculated to show the difference, not saying, you have become carnal, but dull: in that case carnal, but in this the pain is greater. For they [the Corinthians] indeed were not able to endure [his reproof], because they were carnal: but these were able. For in saying, Seeing you have become dull of hearing Hebrews 5:11, he shows that formerly they were sound in health, and were strong, fervent in zeal, which he also afterwards testifies respecting them.
6. And have become such as have need of milk, not of strong meat. He always calls the lowly doctrine milk, both in this place and in the other. When, he says, for [i.e. because of] the time ye ought to be teachers: because of that very thing, namely the time, for which you ought especially to be strong, for this especially you have become backsliding. Now he calls it milk, on account of its being suited to the more simple. But to the more perfect it is injurious, and the dwelling on these things is hurtful. So that it is not fitting that matters of the Law should be introduced now or the comparison made from them, [such as] that He was an High Priest, and offered sacrifice, and needed crying and supplication. Wherefore see how these things are unhealthful to us; but at that time they nourished them being by no means unhealthful to them.
So then the oracles of God are true nourishment. For I will give unto them, he says, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. Amos 8:11
I gave you milk to drink, and not meat 1 Corinthians 3:2; He did not say, I fed you, showing that such [nourishment] as this is not food, but that [the case is] like that of little children who cannot be fed with bread. For such have not drink given them, but their food is to them instead of drink.
Moreover he did not say, you have need, but you have become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. That is, you willed [it]; you have reduced yourselves to this, to this need.
