Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Hebrews V. 14. 429
This is what we should naturally expect the author to say.
Instead
of this, however, he says :
" Every one who still needs milk, has as
yet no part in the doctrine of justification."
Bleek thinks that ver.
13 contains an explanatory repetition of the words not of strong
meat; " you could not yet bear strong meat, for whoever still nourishes
himself with milk cannot yet understand the doctrine of justification."
According to this the author must have meant by the
strong meat the doctrine of justification. But this is plainly against
the context. By the strong meat, of which the readers were not
yet capable, is rather to be understood that obscure doctrine concerning
the similarity between the priesthood of Melchisedec and
Christ, the deep insight into the Old Testament type, the doctrine
of the divinity of Christ. On the other hand, the doctrine of justification,
the doctrine of repentance and dead ivorhs, offaith, and of
baptism, are rather reckoned as belonging to the elements, chap,
vi. 1, seq.; the doctrine of justification is itself the milk which must
first be taken into the heart and the understanding, in order that a
foundation may be laid on which the more difficult theologoumena
can be built. Bleek's explanation is therefore not fitted to remove
the difficulty.
This difficulty is rather to be removed simply by regarding the
proposition in ver. 13 not as descriptive or declaratory, not as determining
the import, but the extent or comprehension of the idea
expressed by ner^x^'^ ydXaKTog. It is not an answer to the question:
" What are the characteristics of him who still nourishes himself
with milk ?" but an answer to the question: '^Who nourishes himself
with milk ?" The words contain a conclusion backwards from
the consequence to the presupposed condition. Whosoever still
needs milk, of him it is presupposed that he must not yet have
rightly apprehended the doctrine of justification : = whosoever has
not yet apprehended this doctrine is still at the stage at which he
needs milk. We found similarly inverted conclusions at chap, ii. 11,
iv. 6. This explanation also affords a most satisfactory explanation
of the words, for he is still a hahe. Not without a stroke of irony
does the author explain in these words, in how far it must be presupposed
of a spiritual suckling that he will be unskilled in the loord
of righteousness.
The 14th verse also now runs perfectly parallel with the 13th.
He who still needs milk will doubtless not yet have comprehended
the doctrine of justification ; but that strong and more difficult
meat (of the higher typology) is adapted not to such, but only to
mature Christians who have come of age, and who are exercised in
distinguishing between the true and the false way. Tt'Aeio^, as the
opposite of vrjmog, is a term familiar to the apostle Paul (1 Cor.
iii. 1, xiii. 11 ; Kom. ii. 20 ; Eph. iv. 14). TeXf.mv finds here its