1 Peter 2:1-3

1 Peter 2:1-3. Wherefore Since the word of God is so excellent and durable in itself, and has had such a blessed effect upon you as to regenerate you, and bring you to the enjoyment of true Christian love; laying aside As utterly inconsistent with that love; all malice All ill- will, every unkind disposition; or all wickedness, as κακιαν may be properly rendered, all sinful tempers and practices whatsoever; and all guile All craft, deceitful cunning, and artifice, every temper contrary to Christian simplicity; and hypocrisies Every kind of dissimulation; and envies Grieving at the prosperity or good, temporal or spiritual, enjoyed by others; and all evil speakings All reproachful or unkind speeches concerning others; as new-born babes As persons lately regenerated, and yet young in grace, mere babes as to your acquaintance with the doctrines, your experience of the graces, your enjoyment of the privileges, and your performance of the duties of Christianity; desire Επιποθησατε , desire earnestly, or love affectionately, or from your inmost soul, the sincere The pure, uncorrupted milk of the word That is, that word of God which nourishes the soul as milk does the body, and which is free from all guile, so that none are deceived who cleave to it, and make it the food of their souls; that ye may grow thereby In Christian knowledge and wisdom, in faith, hope, and love; in humility, resignation, patience, meekness, gentleness, long-suffering, in all holiness and righteousness, unto the full measure of Christ’s stature. In the former chapter the apostle had represented the word of God as the incorruptible seed, by which the believers, to whom he wrote, had been born again, and by obeying which they had purified their souls; here he represents it as the milk by which the new-born babes in Christ grow up to maturity. The word, therefore, is both the principle by which the divine life is produced in the soul, and the food by which it is nourished. Some critics, following the Vulgate version, render λογικον αδολον γαλα , the unadulterated rational milk. But the context evidently shows that our translators have given us the true meaning of the apostle. By adding the epithet, αδολον , unadulterated, or pure, the apostle teaches us that the milk of the word will not nourish the divine nature in those that use it, if it be adulterated with human mixtures. If so be, or rather since, ye have tasted Have sweetly and experimentally known; that the Lord is gracious Is merciful, loving, and kind, in what he hath already done, and in what he is still doing for and in you. The apostle seems evidently to allude to Psalms 34:8, O taste and see that the Lord is good: where see the note. Not only think and believe, on his own testimony, or on the testimony of others, that he is good, but know it by your own experience; know that he is good to you in pardoning your sins, adopting and regenerating you by his grace, shedding his love abroad in your heart, and giving you to enjoy communion with himself through the eternal Spirit.