As the author considers the grand and glorious topic of Jesus’s high priesthood, he suddenly realizes that his audience is not quite ready to receive his teaching. He rebukes them for their resistance, dullness and reluctance to listen. Although they were Christians for a long enough time to be teachers, the author’s assessment of their maturity level was that they were more like spiritual babies who were unwilling to work out the deeper implications of the Gospel in their lives. They failed to apply their understanding of the Gospel to righteous living. We see the same thing today as some Christians who seem to embrace the Gospel for salvation, turn to false and fruitless ideas about their.
Though the author rebukes them in verse 12: “You need milk, not solid food,” he does not proceed to nurse them on the proverbial pablum from the infant’s bottle. Rather, the author instead exhorts them in chapter 6 verses 1-3, to move past their immaturity by pursuing the advanced teaching that they needed to be challenged to greater commitment. Before issuing a stern warning in verses 4-6, the author encourages his readers by using the plural second pronoun “us” and “we” in verses 1 and 3. It is his confident expectation that those who received this letter and heard its words, would indeed attain the goal of spiritual maturity.
