Salt of the Earth (Matthew #18)

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Text: Matthew 5:13

One of the things that Bible teachers will do is take the illustration of salt, figure out how many uses salt has such as preservation, seasoning, cleansing properties, and read those applications back into the text.  While that may be alright when there is no further explanation given in the Bible, before you do something like that you have to see if there is any further explanation in the Bible. Let’s see what application of salt the Lord is talking about.

Salt with the sacrifice

• Leviticus 2:13 And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
• The sacrifice is the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice is speaking to the salt.
  • Numbers 18:19 All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee. PRIESTHOOD
  • 2 Chronicles 13:5 Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? THRONE

Salt is for seasoning

• Mark 9:49-50 – salt is seasoning
• Luke 14:34-35 – salt is seasoning
  • So we can eliminate salt as a preservative.  Some folks will preach that salt is a preservative and will keep meat from decaying in the absence of refrigeration.  While true, that’s not the application. Decay is inevitable in the world. Men shall wax worse and worse no matter what’s done about it.
  • We can also eliminate salt as a cleansing agent for the same reasons above.
  • What is being described is the most common use of salt in this world: seasoning.  It is used every single day, as many times as you eat food, you eat some measure of salt.  Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?
• Salt brings out flavor.  Another way of putting it is salt manifests the flavor that’s there; it adds savour to the meal.
  • 2 Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
  • Ephesians 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
  • Ephesians 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
  • 2 Peter 1:8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ
  • 2 Peter 2:20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
  • 2 Peter 3:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Salt adds savour

• What is the savour of his (Jesus Christ’s) knowledge in every place?  In the three places salt has been mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there has been a description in each instance of what the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ looks like.
• Matthew 5:1-12 in the beatitudes describe characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Those will be further developed in Matthew 6-7 in the Sermon on the Mount.
  • Notice cast out, there is no place for it.
• Mark 9:38 describes anything that exalts itself against the knowledge of Jesus Christ and anything that is part of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ are called offences. And the extent to which someone needs to go to get rid of those things.
  • Notice cast into the sea in verse 42, and cut off in the following verses.  And notice also that someone is entering the physical kingdom of heaven in an old body.
• Luke 14:25-35 Jesus Christ preaches about discipleship and those who will be unable to manifest the savour of his knowledge.
  • Notice again it is cast out in verse 35.  Not good for the land or the dunghill.  The dunghill is a bad place, but even the dunghill is in the land.