You are the salt of the earth:
In this first metaphor of Christian identity (Matthew 5:13), Jesus shifted from third person address in the beatitudes (“theirs is….” “those who…” see: 5:1-12), to second person plural “You are…” The specific people Jesus identified as salt and light are the ones described in the beatitudes. Character proceeds influence. Only those who can be described by the beatitudes stand in relation to the earth as salt does to everyday life.
Like salt - You are valuable, (even indispensable), to the entire sphere of human existence — to the world of unbelievers. Consistent with the metaphor — the world has daily need of you! It will rot without your influence.
Jesus did not elaborate on how far the disciples should apply the salt metaphor, but He chose an illustration that would be immediately understood by the hearers. Salt was an important part of everyday life in first century Palestine. We tend to think of salt primarily as a condiment used to flavor tasteless food. But, in Jesus’ day, that was a secondary benefit of salt — not the primary and most important use.
In the climate of Palestine (prior to the days of modern refrigeration) salt was the most common of all food preservatives, especially for meat. Salt was used to stop spoilage, to preserve (as it were) good qualities. This would have been the first and primary association of the metaphor in the minds of the disciples when Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth.”
Both metaphors (salt and Light) convey significant implications for Christian mission. By using salt and light as identity markers, Jesus clearly implied that the world has a two-fold dilemma and that His disciples serve a two-fold role in it. Consistent with the metaphors, the world is a corrupt and dark place. The believer is necessary to the world in a two-fold role of deterring decay and dispelling darkness. Again, there is “You” and “the earth,” and “You” and “the world”—two communities — the first distinct from, yet vital to, the other.
Pause to reflect:
Jesus holds a high view of the importance of our influence in this world. Perhaps this would be an appropriate place for me to pause and acknowledge how timely these words are in the present hour. The professing church in America is in the midst of an “identity crisis.” Too many people who profess to know Christ are playing church, and if they know Christ at all, they have lost touch with who they are in Christ and what God intends to do through them in the world.
Few popular contemporary writers have brought this concern to the table better than Chuck Colson. In his best-selling book, “The Body,” he goes hard after this concern.
“The church is not incidental to the great cosmic struggle for the hearts and souls of modern men and women. It is the instrument God has chosen for that battle—a battle we are called to by virtue of being members of His body. To bring hope and truth to a needy world, the church must be the church.” (p. 32)
I am reminded of the clearly implied word of rebuke Paul landed on the Church of Corinth (a Church that so blended with the culture that it lost its saltiness). In 1 Corinthians 3:16, with a scathing question of identity, the apostle asked, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
“When compared with previous generations of believers, we seem among the most thoroughly at peace with our culture, the least adept at transforming society, and the most desperate for a meaningful faith. Our [purpose] is confused, our mission obscured, and our existence as a people in jeopardy. Worst of all, our leaders know it—but seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it” (Colson, p. 32).
After Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth,” what did He say? “…but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again?”
The salt has become tasteless?
We need to look at this phrase more carefully, but I must tell you that it is a stunning comment in light of the present “identity crisis” within the evangelical church.
“The salt has become tasteless.” What an indictment! According to Jesus, His disciples, like salt—are the primary influence in the world for restraining corruption. We are (by identity) His permeating, penetrating deterrent to social decay and moral deterioration—a preservative against unrestrained evil.
As R.V. G. Tasker put it, the disciples are ‘to be a moral disinfectant in a world where moral standards are low, constantly changing, or non-existent’ (p. 63).
I agree with John Stott when he writes that:
“God has set other restraining influences in the community. He has himself established certain institutions in his common grace, which curb man’s selfish tendencies and prevent society from slipping into anarchy. Chief among these are the state (with its authority to frame and enforce laws) and the home (including marriage and family life). These exert a wholesome influence in the community. Nevertheless, God intends the most powerful of all restraints within sinful society to be his own redeemed, regenerate and righteous people (Sermon on the Mount, p. 59).
Yet, the very recognition of other restraining influences like state and home brings us to a higher level of concern because we are witnessing the rapid breakdown of both!
In America, the culture has largely embraced a disdain for moral absolutes that has led to a loss of moral consensus. As might be expected, this has resulted in judicial confusion in the courts, political disarray and increased crime and anarchy in the street. When one includes the accelerated, widespread breakdown of the home, the conclusion is obvious. The restraining influence of state and home is rapidly disappearing.
Worse, these influences are increasingly becoming instruments for unleashing rather than restraining evil because, among other things, we’ve become unwilling to define and punish it. This being the case, we see all the more why the church must regain a clear understanding of her “salt” relationship to the world.
“It is hard to imagine, therefore, a more urgent or critical task than the recovery and restoration of the biblical view of the church” (Colson, p. 32, The Body).
The implications behind the “salt” metaphor are especially important in the present conditions. What should we take from it?
- Your influence is vital to this world to deter corruption and to hold back moral decay.
- As salt must make permeating contact to be effective, so we must make more than superficial contact with the world of unbelievers. What good is to have the meat on one shelf and the salt on the other?
- Salt (to have a deterring effect) must be distinct from that which it permeates.
This final point may seem all too obvious. But when Jesus said, “…if the salt has become tasteless (NIV – ‘loses its saltiness’) how will it be made salty again?” he was not suggesting that salt can lose its chemical properties and remain salt.
Jesus either used an “absurdity” (like in v. 15 — lighting a lamp and putting it under a peck measure) or, and more likely, He was referring to the adulteration of salt — the contamination of it with other properties that would render the salt “unserviceable.” Stay with me on this.
John Stott echoed the consensus of opinion:
“…strictly speaking, salt can never lose its saltness. I am given to understand that sodium chloride is a very stable chemical compound, which is resistant to nearly every attack. Nevertheless, it can become contaminated by mixture with impurities, and then it becomes useless, even dangerous. Desalted salt is unfit even for manure… Dr. David Turk has suggested to me that what was then popularly called ‘salt’ was in fact a white powder (perhaps from around the Dead Sea) which, while containing sodium chloride, also contained much else, since, in those days, there were no refineries. Of this dust the sodium chloride was probably the most soluble component and so the most easily washed out. The residue of white powder still looked like salt, and was doubtless still called salt, but it neither tasted nor acted like salt. It was just road dust.”
Accepting this understanding, Jesus taught that when salt becomes contaminated in this way, “It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” The effect depends on the distinction. So it is with the believer. Without distinctiveness from the world, your contact with it is useless (maybe even harmful).
Here we have a truth we desperately need to hear again: Jesus considers our influence to be vital to the world. But for it to be effective there must be permeating contact and a positive distinction.
This metaphor addresses the two-fold difficulty God’s people have faced throughout history. Both Israel and the church have made the two mistakes of trying to gain distinction through isolation and influence through accommodation. This is the struggle of making influential contact without contamination. As believers, we painfully acknowledge that when we lose our distinctiveness, we lose the power of our influence. When we are no longer different, we cannot make a difference.
But anyone who maintains prolonged contact with unbelievers will also acknowledge how difficult it is to discern where the lines of distinction must be drawn. We are aware of the verses that say:
- Do not be conformed to the world.
- Do not love the world.
- Keep yourself unstained by the world.
- Be holy in all your conduct.
- Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
We are painfully aware of the danger of accommodation, contamination and amalgamation. But we also acknowledge that the lines of distinction are not always easy to discern in the arena of influence. These lines of distinction must be discerned in areas of morality, values, attitudes, speech, styles, and a long list of so-called grey areas.
But while trying to discern where to draw the line, it’s tempting to seek an escape from the difficulty and complexity by just cloistering ourselves in the safe shelter of a totally Christianized life. This would be to order our lives in a way to insure minimal contact with unbelievers. Quite frankly we feel this temptation because we think it’s easier than having to deal with all those lines of distinction.
“Too many of us evangelicals either have been, or maybe still are, irresponsible escapists. Fellowship with each other in the church is much more congenial than service in an apathetic and even hostile environment outside. Of course we make occasional evangelistic raids into enemy territory (that is our evangelical specialty); but then we withdraw again, across the moat, into our Christian castle (the security of our own evangelical fellowship), pull up the drawbridge, and even close our ears to the pleas of those who batter on the gate” (p. 14, “Decisive Issues,” John R. W. Stott).
According to Jesus, the world we live in is a corrupt and dark place and in desperate need of our influence as His disciples. But the effectiveness of your influence depends upon permeating contact and unadulterated distinction.
Let me put it to you this way: if God’s concern is your concern and you take seriously the generation of men, women and children He has entrusted to your influence, you will not choose the luxury of escape (which is not in the end a luxury at all) or the compromise of accommodation that tries to attract the world by blurring the lines of distinction so badly needed.
Let us pray with intensity: “Oh, how we need grace and wisdom. We need the Holy Spirit’s direction. We need to be people of the book. To this end we humbly pray.”
Steve Cornell
See Part one here.
