Hearing What Jesus Says
Vs.
Changing God's Word For Our Purposes
“You
are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall
it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and
trampled underfoot by men.
~ Jesus of Nazareth
Do
you remember the last time you heard a sermon about the preservative
nature of salt, and that part of the Church's work is preservative?
I've heard several over the years. The problem is when Jesus speaks
about salt he is very specific about the quality of salt he's talking
about. "You are the salt of the earth;"
(Matthew 5:13 NKJV). Now if this was all Jesus said, about salt, we
could argue he meant salt as preservative. But Jesus continued
explaining the specific quality of salt he was focusing on, "but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?" Jesus tells us very specifically "...if the salt loses flavor, how shall it be seasoned?"
Clearly Jesus is speaking of believers as having a distinctive flavor.
He is not speaking of salt as a preservative. The response I sometimes
get from fellow believers is, "Yeah, but salt was used extensively to
preserve meats, since there was no refrigeration." Saying salt is a
preservative, and what Jesus says about salt are very different, subtle,
but still very different.
There
is an issue few people see when reading this passage of Scripture.
Salt cannot lose its saltiness; not ever. If you take the time to study
the culture Jesus spoke to, you get what Jesus is talking about. At
the time of Jesus sojourn in Israel, salt was harvested from the shore
around the Dead Sea. The salt is so concentrated in the Dead Sea it
leaves huge salt deposits along the shoreline. People would go and take
the salt off the shoreline and bag it. It was a "buyer beware"
situation when buying a bag of salt. One might get a bag full of mostly
salt and a little sand, or one might get mostly sand and a little
salt. When Jesus talks about salt losing its flavor he is saying, "If
believers are mostly sand (full of the world), and very little salt then
they don't have the unique flavor of the Holy Spirit, and do not serve
the kingdom of God, i.e. "It is good for nothing..."
If
Jesus had been speaking of salt curing he would not speak of salt
losing its flavor. Meat is cured in a water and salt mixture. Salt is
absorbed into the water, thus separating the salt from the sand. The
salt will soak into the meat, but the sand will be left behind as a
residue. You could use several bags of mostly sand with a little salt,
and the meat would still cure. It might take many bags of salt to get
the desired salt level, but the sand can't stop the meat from drawing
the salt and water mixture. Were Jesus speaking about salt for curing
the amount of sand is irrelevant. The sand poses no problem, other than
the fact you need more of the salt/sand mixture to get enough salt for
curing.
The
greatest problem with the "salt as preservative" angle is that salt
doesn't save meat for life. Salt curing is done to save the meat, by
keeping life out. The bacteria which cause spoilage can't live in the heavy concentration of salt in the meat, so spoilage is greatly reduced. Jesus says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
In Jesus there is no death. We are not hunks of meat kept by salt,
until Jesus Christ returns. We are preserved alive by the Spirit of
Life dwelling in us. Salt curing keeps bacterial life away from what is dead, for
a time, but the salt levels are so high in the cured meat it is
inedible by everyone, and everything not just bacteria. Before eating
much of the salt has to be removed. If some of the salt isn't removed
eating the meat would be akin to drinking sea water. Drinking heavy
salt water has the same effect salt curing does on meat. If you drink
sea water the salt will actually draw whatever water your body has out
of you, dehydrating you, or salt curing you as you die! So what picture
does Jesus draw for us showing how too much of a good thing, like salt,
is death dealing?
“Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea
to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a
son of hell as yourself."
Matthew 23:15
Every
time I read this verse I am reminded of salt as preservative. This is
why Jesus called them "whitewashed tombs". They looked good on the
outside (preserved with religious salt), but inside they were really
just an old dead piece of meat... too much religious salt. The religious
person settles for a salty old piece of dead meat. Jesus came to us
that we might have eternal life. The way he preserves us is with,
"rivers of living water gushing into us, and out of us to the world."
God doesn't preserve by keeping life from us, as salt does. God
preserves our life for eternity by placing his own eternally living
Spirit into us. The world doesn't need preservatives which keep life
out. A dead world needs to be preserved for eternal life, by being made
born again and filled with the Spirit of Life.
Those
who belong to Christ have the unique flavor of salt, but they are
preserved by the Holy Spirit living in them. Giving the world a salt
bath in religion only insures NO life will get in, including the Holy
Spirit. Allow God to make you flavorful, but the work of preserving
belongs exclusively to the Holy Spirit.
