Hebrews 5:14
22 March 2026
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained
by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:14)
Please turn with me in your Bibles to the Book of Hebrews and to chapter 5. And this evening we will be finishing with Hebrews chapter 5 as we continue to work through this book. We are now two years in and we've been dealing in recent weeks with the subject of spiritual milk, solid food, spiritual maturity. So, we're going to read Hebrews 5 verses 11 to 14 and this evening we're going to be dealing with verse 14 of this text. This is the word of God.
“About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil”. Amen.
Let's pray together. Oh Father, we come to you in prayer and we pray, we long for that maturing of the bride of Christ. That for each of us individually, there would be a growing appetite, a desire to know, to stand upon and to grow, in the knowledge, the trust of Your Word. And we pray that through the preaching of Your Word now, that You would work and do a mighty work by Your Spirit in the hearts of Your people. Be glorified, we ask, for we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
So, we can effectively summarize what these closing verses of Hebrews 5 are saying in a very short and clear picture that is given of milk and solid food. So, the author to the Hebrews is saying that you need milk, spiritual milk, which every one of us as Christians, we need. And when we consume that milk which we need, then we grow and we grow and begin to consume solid food, the solid food of the Word. Now that's the basic roadmap of what being a Christian and beginning to be built up and growing as a Christian and then growing to maturity as a Christian, looks like. And yet that very simple and clear picture is given to us in a context where the people in question that are being written to, namely the Hebrew Christians, are stunted in their spiritual growth. And that's the issue. So, if you think back to verse 11, this is the author putting the brakes on a very deep and complex argument about the subject of the priesthood. And before getting into the subject of the order of Melchizedek in chapter 7, he now puts the brakes on that to address where not just the hearing of the ear is, but the hearing of the heart is. And the hearing of the heart is what we dealt with back in verse 11. Remember when we saw that the people have become dull of hearing. And that's the issue. That is the issue, which is an issue that doesn't go away after the time of the Hebrew Christians, because we know that this is a constant challenge throughout church history, and it is a challenge that is needed in church life today. It is a challenge that is needed in our church life today. As we sit, even this very hour, and hear the preaching of God's Word, we come to this question of, how are you hearing? How are you hearing the Word? Is it with a sense of general spiritual lethargy, a great deal of indifference? Something that not much bearing in my life is the way in which I approach it sort of way. Because this is the Hebrew Christians. And not because they don't know anything, in their case, it's because they already think they know what they need. And what they think they know they need is the Old Testament system of the priesthood. And this is why in verse 12, the author says that some of you now ought to be teachers again. And yet, they're stunted in their growth. Verse 13, they are unskilled in the word of righteousness. So basically, people who have already professed faith, they've already been taught biblical doctrine, they've been taught, know, believe, confess the gospel, but they don't know what to do with it. They don't know how to use it in their spiritual walk. And this is what makes this such a pointed subject for each of our lives. Dare we be sitting here this evening and thinking, well, this doesn't apply to me because I know that I'm on the right track of spiritual maturity and none of these issues are of any concern. No, we do need to sit up and take note because often stunted growth is subtle and it is dangerous. And this is why we need to establish again before we get to verse 14, which is the subject of solid food and spiritual maturity, we need to establish again what we all first need and what the Hebrew Christians certainly need, which is spiritual milk.
So, verse 12, you need, end of it, you need milk, not solid food. So that's the first thing that they need. Now this is not to say that, oh well verse 12's saying we don't need solid food, so don't worry about it. No, we're about to come to an entire sermon about solid food, but first things first, you need milk. So again, we go to this picture that we can all grasp. A baby first needs milk, they start consuming the milk, and as they grow, they then grow to solid food. And what is required if you've been filling your mind, your brain, your heart, oh with all sorts of confusions and distortions and falsehoods and you're going this way and that, first of all you need the milk. Get back to the milk, the basics of the very gospel that you know and believe. That is the means by which you're saved, that is the means by which you have life. Now the reason we're re-stressing this as we begin is because if we want to deal with the subject of spiritual maturity and solid food, we cannot go there any other way. That's what the stunted growth professing Christian would do. They may be not really bothered too much with spiritual milk, but they've grabbed something over there, something here, and yeah, I'm looking like a mature believer. No, that's exactly the problem here. So, first things first, you need milk. And once you have the milk, you start consuming the milk, then you begin to grow.
We're labouring this point because there are so many times, so many people, and so many occasions where you look at a person, the situation, think they should know better, but they're guilty of doing these very things. And so, we always begin with the basics. That's why if you're sitting down with somebody and they say, I've been a Christian for 30 years, I was an elder of a church for 15 years, we start with Do you know the gospel? Do you believe in Christ as your Lord and Saviour? What does this mean? What does this look like? We begin with these basics. We establish, are you consuming spiritual milk?
But, as we see in verse 13, there is the danger of living on that milk. And this is why verse 14 is necessary. Because when you begin consuming the milk, the spiritual milk of the Word, you don't then imagine in your mind, well I'm just going to spend my life on milk. All fine and well for the initial stages of the baby, the baby Christian, the immature Christian in the sense of being new in the Christian faith, beginning to consume these basics, but then you need to begin to grow. You don't stay swimming in that milk. You begin to consume the solid food. And this is where we come then to verse 14. And there are three points, that we're going to consider in the form of three questions.
We're going to deal first of all with asking just simply what is solid food? What does that look like? Second of all, we're going to then consider how can we be trained by this solid food and the consuming of it? And then third, we're going to think about what it looks like to distinguish good from evil? So, three points that are dealing with what we have contained in verse 14.
Solid food
So, let's first address the question, what is solid food or strong meat? And putting this in very clear terms, these are the, if you like, advanced and deeper teachings of the biblical doctrines of the gospel that we know, and believe, flashing out the complexities, the depths, the richness of the Gospel. So, it is a deepening of the foundation of the Bible upon which we stand, where the principles of the Bible are beginning to be taking root in our lives and the outworkings of these biblical truths are beginning to shape our Christian lives. So, this is solid food that we seek to consume, so we taste it, we chew over it, we savour it. It's the spiritual nutrients that gives strength to our spiritual bodies. That is how we are built up in the Christian faith.
Now this is something that you should all want and long for. If you believe and understand the gospel, then in your heart and mind you should have a desire to grow in that, to grow in this solid food. So, you know and believe the gospel, so you want to know more about the gospel. This is not moving past the gospel. This is not about finding some alternative angles to the gospel, giving us a few interesting academic perspectives. No, this is building upon that foundation. Spiritual milk to solid food. And as we do, it begins to build us up, it begins to shape us, it begins to mature us. And then it begins to consume and shape our entire life.
Now in order to flesh this out a little bit more, let's go to a text in the New Testament in Ephesians chapter 4. So please turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4 and verses 13 to 14. Ephesians 4:13, so speaking about the building up of the body of Christ, verse 12, it goes on in verse 13, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, in deceitful schemes. The unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God. Two points that are made here in Ephesians 4:13, which are means by which we mature to manhood. So going from baby infant to mature manhood. Now think of this first point, attaining the unity of the faith. This is how we mature as a church. Because as you, each of you, sit under the preaching of the Word of God, and you're being taught and shaped and being built up in this teaching, in these truths, you are being built up together. Your mind, your understanding is being shaped. It is being governed. And it produces a unity, a togetherness in that faith. Now that's not something that's there in the beginning. So, if you imagine a group of people who have just come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, one thing that they can say together, I believe in Jesus. I was lost, now I'm found. I was blind, now I see. What does that mean? Can you explain what it means to be justified by faith alone? I'm not really sure the details of that. But as you begin to be fed, as you're taught, there is a growing unity because you have a deepening understanding together and it brings you together in that unity. And it's a unity based on the maturing of the church.
Now if the church is not maturing in the handling of, in the being fed by solid food, then what is the unity of the faith going to look like? Shallow. Superficial, at times even outright falsehoods. The basis being, we'll just not deal with all of these subjects to maintain unity. Does that sound like a mature believer and a mature church? That's where we are. When we think historically, where Reformed churches were grounded upon confessions of faith and clarity, depth of clarity of doctrine, and what do we see happening in the so-called conservative churches today? They dumb it down more and more so that less is stated so that we can have a more pragmatic and wide net for a bigger group of people. Now that may look good in terms of how many people come in. But there's not a maturing of a unity of the faith. There's not going to be a strong church in the context of consuming solid food. And this is why it also states quite clearly and centrally, and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Now note this, it's saying the knowledge of Jesus who is the Son of God. What is your knowledge of the Son of God? That's why we're studying books like Hebrews. We go week after week, verse after verse, in sections like Hebrews chapter 2 to wrestle and grapple with the details and the complexities of the humanity of Jesus Christ and how we reconcile this with Him being divine, being God. These complex doctrines of what it means for the Son of God to suffer, what it means for Him to be the one who would suffer, bleed and die on the cross. All of these deep and rich truths. We grow in our knowledge of the Son of God. And we are growing to mature manhood.
Now brothers and sisters, as we sit here this evening, does this sound like the sort of thing we want this church to be about? And not just for the sake of flying a flag. Look, hey, we're confessional. But actually, knowing and meaning and being built up in it. Because the danger is right here in this passage in Ephesians 4 verse 14. So that we're no longer children. Well, there we go. There's the picture. children who are still living on milk. And what's going to happen? Toss to and fro by the waves and carried by every wind of doctrine. Now here's the danger. If you are an immature Christian, if you are stunted in your growth, what is then going to happen if, for example, you're sitting in a church building and someone is getting up to preach? And they're not even giving you the basics of spiritual milk, they're giving you poison instead. Will you know that? Will you know that this is something that is damaging to you spiritually? If I were to get up here and to suddenly start saying, well, you are justified initially by your faith in Jesus Christ, and then you finish it off by your works, would you notice a problem?
Or if Mike were to stand here and say, as long as you love Jesus, it doesn't matter anything to do with church. Would there be a problem? Or if a preacher stood up here and said, you just need to ask Jesus into your heart and everything will be okay. And this is where, as we are growing and being built up in our spiritual maturity, consuming solid food, you're not simply just sitting here and waiting and wondering, well, what will I be being told next? It is that you yourselves are students of the Word. You yourselves are being built up. So yes, you come with an expectancy to hear the truth of God's Word being proclaimed, where it continues to feed you, continues to build you up. But there is a maturing, a maturing of your Christian faith and walk. This is why in 1 Corinthians 2:6 to 7 it says, yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age. who are doomed to pass away, but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
And this is what happens as the Christian consumes solid food, the solid food of the Word who is growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are, you are receiving a secret and hidden wisdom and that's the means by which you become a mature Christian. Verse 15 of 1 Corinthians 2 calls such a mature believer a spiritual person. Such a person does not have a dullness of hearing to the truth, an immaturity to the word, a worldliness in outlook and lifestyle. No, spiritual maturity is a mature person growing in the knowledge and having a wisdom and a knowledge and a fear of God that shapes the outlook and builds you up.
And another thing to note is that this verse in Ephesians 4:13, it says, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And so, we do need to be reminded that though we do yearn for that unity of the faith, that we are all growing in our spiritual walk, that practically that will look different believer to believer. So, if, for example, you're maybe looking at someone who's only been a Christian for five years and they seem to have really been growing and maturing in a way where you, maybe Christian of 10, 20 years, feels it's at a slower pace. Well, thanks be to God, it's not a competition of your own sense of righteous outworkings. No, it is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that each of you are saved and it is according to His sovereign decree by which and the pace and means by which you grow. But the key thing for you sitting here this evening is not, I need to be the one who is growing to be the most mature in this church family. No, it should be that there is a longing in your life that you would be growing. And if there are other Christians who seem to be evidencing the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ working in ways where you can see their maturity in ways that you know is not true in your life, be encouraged by that. Bless and encourage them and be challenged and spurred on therefore in your desire to mature and grow in your spiritual walk. Because we want our brothers and sisters to be consuming this solid food. So, if the subject of Melchizedek is proving to be quite difficult for you and others are getting it, then praise God for that and may there be that posture of prayer and desire that I would be getting it more.
Training
And this is where we come to the second point, a bit more brief on this one, which is with regards to the training. So, it says in verse 14, but solid food is for the mature. And then it says, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice. So, the powers of discernment trained. Now this is dealing with a Christian's senses. Your spiritual senses. So, for example, we know that not just babies but as adults as well - we take food and we taste it. We hear things with our ears; we see things with our eyes. Our senses are stimulated, they are built up, we grow, we mature. But here, regarding how we mature, it is giving us the exhortation that these senses must be trained or exercised. Now, just as a way of inference, because it is worth noting this. We are a church that believes and upholds and absolutely desperately relies upon the work of the Holy Spirit in every aspect of our lives. But the Holy Spirit does not become a means or excuse for not doing what the Holy Scriptures instruct and state happens in the way by which we're built up. So often things like being trained are not things that are often what we like to consume. And yet that's exactly what we're dealing with. There needs to be a level of fitness, of spiritual fitness, like a disciplined soldier. It's why in 1 Timothy 4:7 it says, train yourself for godliness. And verse 10 goes on, for to this end we toil and strive. So, what this is telling us is that this is a strenuous work in which we must agonize in. It doesn't come easy because we're carnal people in a fallen world. It requires a training of the mind, of the body, of the affections, of the soul. That's what the life of a Christian looks like, which requires regular practice and conformed habit.
Now as we think about this, we're dealing again with our spiritual senses. As one who has turned by the grace of God, by the Spirit's work in us, from doing and living according to the flesh, now by the grace of God, by Christ alone, the salvation we have in Him, we are now turned in faith towards Christ. And so, this is an exhortation to the affections of our being to the very soul of who we are. We're not looking at the spiritual milk and solid food and thinking, no, no, no, no, I don't want that. I want the worldly goodies, thank you very much. No, we're now Christians and this is now what we are directed towards. So, it's a bit like with that picture of the training athlete who looks for that perishable wreath, you as the Christian are moving in a direction towards something that is imperishable, that will not spoil, which is Christ your Lord and Saviour in glory. That is what you are running towards. That is what you're training and disciplining yourself for. And so, you know, with the basics of the reading of the Bible, when you open up the Bible, this is the Word of God. This is not some secular book that may stimulate you on an academic level and that's it. No, this is a work that the Spirit of God does in building you up. And so therefore, in order to be training these senses, you know, I need to be reading my Bible. And we know that this is hard work. What is an easy thing to do is to aimlessly scroll along our phone for a half an hour, then it becomes an hour. But it's a much harder thing to spend a tenth of that time reading, studying, devouring, chewing upon, meditating upon the Word of God.
We could spend hours in front of a screen watching a show, but how difficult it is by comparison for that spiritual discipline of spending time with our God in prayer. This is exactly what the training of our senses is all about, where we start to know and see, these are the things that matter in my life. And by the grace of God, as we grow and mature, we have a desire to dedicate more time to these things, and even there is a maturing of the way by which we're reading the Word of God. There's a maturing of the way by which we are spending time with the Lord in prayer and by which we simply spend our time day by day as Christians in how we prioritize it for our building up for our spiritual growth. There needs to be a training of these senses. Because as we're saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, then the growing spiritually in that spiritual walk is what that then looks like. Otherwise, you're just swimming in milk. And swimming in milk might mean that, as we've noted already, you could be attracted to, oh, that's an interesting subject, I'm interested in that. Well, that's something to do with this rabbit hole connected with Scripture. I'll dig into that. But the upbuilding, the day by day, week by week feeding on the Word of God, this solid food to maturity is not what is building you up. And that is exactly what you need. Because that's how your senses are trained. That's how you don't get thrown about, tossed aside by every wind and wave of doctrine.
Discernment
And it's how, as we come to the third point, we distinguish good from evil. We distinguish good from evil. Now this is a challenge brothers and sisters. It's a challenge because of how often this is such a subtle thing. But as we know, there are literally false gospels, false teaching, false professions of faith, false teachers, all of these things that are masquerading under the umbrella of Christianity. So, it's not simply a case of evil, looks like uh a cartoon devil-like figure with a, this is the devil's work, and we know to avoid that, and that's evil over there, but this stuff is good. No, it is often and so regularly far more subtle and often much more deadly than that. And so, brothers and sisters, as we are training these senses to have a discernment, that is a discernment to distinguish good from evil.
Now this starts with the spiritual milk of the gospel. It starts with the spiritual milk of the gospel. And why there needs to be specific deliberate, maturing clarity on the gospel. If there is one subject that we need to be unwaveringly clear and specific on, it is the gospel. And why would that be? Because the gospel is what saves. The gospel is that light instead of darkness. The gospel is life instead of death. The gospel is heaven instead of hell. Hell? Because this takes us to Christ and the means by which we go from sinful flesh which leads to hell to being in Christ which leads to heaven. And so therefore, a spiritually mature or even maturing believer will yearn to study and to know more about the gospel. A spiritually mature Christian will never, ever say, I have already heard and know about the gospel. Because this is the very life and heartbeat of who and what we are. And this is why, with the dangers that the enemy will often seek to infiltrate and attack, he will go to the very heart of what Christianity is all about, which is the Gospel. And in many ways and shapes and forms will this take place. One will be to distract from the Gospel.
So, we're Christians, we believe the gospel, and yet we could be Christians who never speak or think about the gospel. And there are many, many people who are driven and passionate about good and right causes, which are applications that connect to the Gospel, but the Gospel has nothing to do with it. And what the enemy is doing is taking right and good causes and he is effectively separating it from Christ and the Gospel. Another one will be to create a vagueness of the Gospel. Again, on the bracket of let's agree to disagree and maintain some wider superficial unity. But what then happens very quickly with that? We quickly allow false Gospels. When an area of the Gospel is attacked, whether it be something in the realm of easy believism and you need to make the decision, or whether it be confusing that it is by Christ's righteousness alone by which we can stand justified in the sight of the living God, or whether it be a confusion or a distortion even about the actual reality of Christ's humanity, and also Him being divine, or even questions surrounding the incarnation, or the fact that Jesus even rose from the dead, or even more explicit and blatant, where people will even just outright say that doctrines like substitutionary atonement are false. This comes in many shapes and forms, and throughout church history, what has been one of the mainstay determining driving factors of the church to guard from error by upholding truth and clarity of the Gospel. That is the spiritual milk to solid food, which is absolutely essential to know and to believe, to rest and rejoice in Christ alone for salvation. And so, when it comes to Jesus coming to this earth as the one who is truly God and fully man, you may sit here and say, I don't quite understand all of that, but I know and uphold this. When it comes to Christ being the only one who can fulfill the law, and he must as the perfect sinless one, you may wonder, I don't know everything about the law, but you know and uphold this, and again, would desire to grow in your knowledge of this. When it comes to the cross and Jesus Christ dying on the cross, you have an awareness that Christ has been brutally persecuted in terms of the lead up to it and his body brutalised on the cross, that he has been abandoned and betrayed and that on that cross he is taking upon himself the sins of his people. How and why there may still be questions that you seek to explore and understand more, but that you know it is by Christ and Christ alone. Where He is the perfect righteous one and by His death, His righteousness is then the only means by which we can stand before the most holy God and be justified. Only by His blood can we be cleansed, only by His perfect life being sacrificed and laid down, are we forgiven and only by His resurrection do we know that there is victory and life. These are non-negotiable truths which are the foundation and the central means by which we then grow to maturity.
And we grow to maturity in knowing therefore that because of the Gospel and standing upon the Gospel, it has a bearing on all other subjects of doctrine. So, let's say for example, you as a maturing believer are maybe sitting down with some Presbyterian brothers and sisters and discussing the differences of your understanding of the covenant in the Old Testament to the New Testament. That's not a waste of time. It may be difficult, especially for a new Christian or someone who is still needing to be consuming the spiritual milk, but as you're maturing, you're beginning to look into deeper and more complex spiritual and doctrinal matters. It's building you up in your knowledge of the truth.
Even when it comes to subjects like eschatology and differences in your understanding of Christ's return. This is not something that you just kind of brush off and laugh off and say, ah well, no big deal. No, these things do matter and they even sharpen our focus and our understanding. Again, we are so quick to dumb down, but as we dumb down, what we do is we do not press on to maturity. We are then not in such a position to distinguish good from evil. Because in every area of our Christian life, this is applicable. It is because of and by the Gospel that we then understand why this is central to being part of a local church and the way by which we can be built up and mature. If we're saying, well, I can mature as a Christian, but I don't need the church, there's already a blatant contradiction.
Similarly with the family. It's not that, well, as long as Christian life, church life is sorted, other areas don't really matter. No, they do matter. So, the way by which your marriage functions, the way in which your children are raised, is not something that we appeal to conservativism. It is something that matters because of the gospel. It's why what we do with our time, it's why what we put into our bodies, it's why what we do with our money, every aspect, every area of our life, it matters as the means by which we are growing in our maturity. Because the evil one will seek to infiltrate in these areas.
If you maybe say, well these areas in my life, they don't matter as long as I'm reading my Bible, then that's all that counts. But as you grow in maturity, then these areas matter or the devil is going to begin to attack you from these areas. Whether it could be secularism, whether it could be materialism, whether it could be just the comforts of your idolatrous lifestyle and then quickly they become the means that set you in your spiritual stunted growth.
And it's easy. It's easy to move in this direction as we close. What is the easy route? To swim in the spiritual milk. Look for the candy floss to bloat us up, while the devil pulls us there and attracts us to there all the time. This is why Romans 12:3 states that we are to think with sober judgment. We see ourselves first of all in the right light increasingly which leads to a conviction of sin. As you mature in your Christian life and you may be thinking, I think more about my sin and I'm more aware of my sin now than I did five years ago. In most cases, that's good. It's not good that you're sinning, but it's good that there is an increasing and heightened awareness of it. It's not that you weren't sinning five years ago, but as you mature, you become more aware. And then, what takes place? There is repentance, there is a yearning for holiness. But what also happens? We're afflicted in this world. Afflicted by the circumstances of a fallen earth. Afflicted by the temptations where we fall. And the enemy seeks to attack and devour us in this way. And this is why many spiritually immature professing Christians often will fall away, they'll give up, or they'll stop short far below what we see in Hebrews 5:14. Because naturally we look to the flesh, we look to worldly answers and comforts. And why in all of these subjects, spiritual maturity in the Christian faith is of such importance. You, me, we need to be trained by the solid food we consume, trained to have these spiritual disciplines that would create a growing discernment of good from evil that's built upon the gospel, that's built upon the truth that we know, and in this we then can press on to maturity as Hebrews 6 then launches into. Is this what you long for here today, Christian? That you would go from spiritual milk to solid food, that there would be a maturing of your faith in the knowledge and trust of the Gospel, in the unity of faith that we have as brothers and sisters, in the way that it shapes you in every aspect of your life, that you are all consumed by this all-consuming, glorious God and the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That's what matters. This is who matters, and this is how we go from spiritual milk to solid food. Let's pray together.
Our Lord and our God, we pray, may you challenge the hearts, the affections, the souls of people here in this place. That as people who need spiritual milk, may there be a growing to maturity as we consume the solid food of the word. Father, we pray that we would see the importance of this, that we would have a diligence and a desire to see this being applied in our Christian life, that there would be disciplines of discernment of good from evil, where there would then be that spiritual growth in our Christian walk. Lord, do such a work by your Spirit. Build us up and equip us and use us for your kingdom and glory, for we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.