Matthew 5 13 22 commentary

MATTHEW 5 13-22 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Salt and Light
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt
loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
It is no longer good for anything, except to be
thrown out and trampled underfoot.
BAR ES, "Ye are the salt of the earth - Salt renders food pleasant and palatable,
and preserves from putrefaction. So Christians, by their lives and instructions, are to
keep the world from entire moral corruption. By bringing down the blessing of God in
answer to their prayers, and by their influence and example, they save the world from
universal vice and crime.
Salt have lost its savour - That is, if it has become tasteless, or has lost its
preserving properties. The salt used in this country is a chemical compound - chloride of
sodium - and if the saltness were lost, or it were to lose its savor, there would be nothing
remaining. It enters into the very nature of the substance. In eastern countries, however,
the salt used was impure, or mingled with vegetable or earthy substances, so that it
might lose the whole of its saltness, and a considerable quantity of earthy matter remain.
This was good for nothing, except that it was used to place in paths, or walks, as we use
gravel. This kind of salt is common still in that country. It is found in the earth in veins
or layers, and when exposed to the sun and rain, loses its saltness entirely. Maundrell
says, “I broke a piece of it, of which that part that was exposed to the rain, sun, and air,
though it had the sparks and particles of salt, yet it had perfectly lost its savor. The inner
part, which was connected to the rock, retained its savor, as I found by proof. So Dr.
Thomson (The Land and the Book, vol. ii. pp. 43, 44) says, “I have often seen just such
salt, and the identical disposition of it that our Lord has mentioned. A merchant of Sidon
having farmed of the government the revenue from the importation of salt, brought over
an immense quantity from the marshes of Cyprus - enough, in fact, to supply the whole
province for at least 20 years. This he had transferred to the mountains, to cheat the
government out of some small percentage. Sixty-five houses in June - Lady Stanhope’s
village were rented and filled with salt. These houses have merely earthen floors, and the
salt next the ground, in a few years, entirely spoiled. I saw large quantities of it literally
thrown into the street, to be trodden underfoot by people and beasts. It was ‘good for
nothing.’
“It should be stated in this connection that the salt used in this country is not
manufactured by boiling clean salt water, nor quarried from mines, but is obtained from
marshes along the seashore, as in Cyprus, or from salt lakes in the interior, which dry up
in summer, as the one in the desert north of Palmyra, and the great lake of Jebbul,
southeast of Aleppo.

“Maundrell, who visited the lake at Jebbul, tells us that he found salt there which had
entirely ‘lost its savor,’ and the same abounds among the debris at Usdum, and in other
localities of rocksalt at the south end of the Dead Sea. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that
the salt of this country, when in contact with the ground, or exposed to rain and sun,
does become insipid and useless. From the manner in which it is gathered, much earth
and other impurities are necessarily collected with it. Not a little of it is so impure that it
cannot be used at all, and such salt soon effloresces and turns to dust - not to fruitful
soil, however. It is not only good for nothing itself, but it actually destroys all fertility
wherever it is thrown; and this is the reason why it is cast into the street. There is a sort
of verbal verisimilitude in the manner in which our Lord alludes to the act: ‘it is cast out’
and ‘trodden under foot;’ so troublesome is this corrupted salt, that it is carefully swept
up, carried forth, and thrown into the street. There is no place about the house, yard, or
garden where it can be tolerated. No man will allow it to be thrown on to his field, and
the only place for it is the street, and there it is cast to be trodden underfoot of men.”
CLARKE, "Ye are the salt of the earth - Our Lord shows here what the preachers
of the Gospel, and what all who profess to follow him, should be; the salt of the earth, to
preserve the world from putrefaction and destruction. See the note on Lev_2:13.
But if the salt have lost his savor - That this is possible in the land of Judea, we
have proof from Mr. Maundrell, who, describing the Valley of Salt, speaks thus: “Along,
on one side of the valley, toward Gibul, there is a small precipice about two men’s
lengths, occasioned by the continual taking away of the salt; and, in this, you may see
how the veins of it lie. I broke a piece of it, of which that part that was exposed to the
rain, sun, and air, though it had the sparks and particles of salt, Yet It Had Perfectly Lost
Its Savour: the inner part, which was connected to the rock, retained its savor, as I found
by proof.” See his Trav., 5th edit., last page. A preacher, or private Christian, who has
lost the life of Christ, and the witness of his Spirit, out of his soul, may be likened to this
salt. He may have the sparks and glittering particles of true wisdom, but without its
unction or comfort. Only that which is connected with the rock, the soul that is in union
with Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit, can preserve its savor, and be instrumental of good
to others.
To be trodden underfoot - There was a species of salt in Judea, which was
generated at the lake Asphaltites, and hence called bituminous salt, easily rendered
vapid, and of no other use but to be spread in a part of the temple, to prevent slipping in
wet weather. This is probably what our Lord alludes to in this place. The existence of
such a salt, and its application to such a use, Schoettgenius has largely proved in his
Horae Hebraicae, vol. i. p. 18, etc.
GILL, "Ye are the salt of the earth,.... This is to be understood of the disciples and
apostles of Christ; who might be compared to "salt", because of the savoury doctrines
they preached; as all such are, which are agreeable to the Scriptures, and are of the
evangelic kind, which are full of Christ, serve to exalt him, and to magnify the grace of
God; and are suitable to the experiences of the saints, and are according to godliness,
and tend to promote it: also because of their savoury lives and conversations; whereby
they recommended, and gave sanction to the doctrines they preached, were examples to
the saints, and checks upon wicked men. These were the salt "of the earth"; that is, of the
inhabitants of the earth, not of the land of Judea only, where they first lived and
preached, but of the whole world, into which they were afterwards sent to preach the

Gospel.
But if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? The "savour"
here supposed that it may be lost, cannot mean the savour of grace, or true grace itself,
which cannot be lost, being an incorruptible seed; but either gifts qualifying men for the
ministry, which may cease; or the savoury doctrines of the Gospel, which may be
departed from; or a seeming savoury conversation, which may be neglected; or that
seeming savour, zeal, and affection, with which the Gospel is preached, which may be
dropped: and particular respect seems to be had to Judas, whom Christ had chosen to
the apostleship, and was a devil; and who he knew would lose his usefulness and place,
and become an unprofitable wretch, and at last be rejected of God and men; and this
case is proposed to them all, in order to engage them to take heed to themselves, their
doctrine and ministry. Moreover, this is but a supposition;
if the salt, &c. and proves no matter of fact; and the Jews have a saying (k), that all that
season lose their savour "hmej hgypm hnya ‫,ומלח‬ but salt does not lose its savour".
Should it do so,
it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under
foot. Salt is good for nothing, but to make things savoury, and preserve from
putrefacation; and when it has lost its savour, it is of no use, neither to men nor beasts,
as some things are when corrupted; nor is it of any use to the land, or dunghill, for it
makes barren, and not fruitful: so ministers of the word, when they have dropped the
savoury doctrines of the Gospel, or have quitted their former seeming savoury and
exemplary conversations; as their usefulness is gone, so, generally speaking, it is never
retrieved; they are cast out of the churches of Christ, and are treated with contempt by
everyone.
HE RY, "Christ had lately called his disciples, and told them that they should be
fishers of men; here he tells them further what he designed them to be - the salt of the
earth, and lights of the world, that they might be indeed what it was expected they
should be.
I. Ye are the salt of the earth. This would encourage and support them under their
sufferings, that, though they should be treated with contempt, yet they should really be
blessings to the world, and the more so for their suffering thus. The prophets, who went
before them, were the salt of the land of Canaan; but the apostles were the salt of the
whole earth, for they must go into all the world to preach the gospel. It was a
discouragement to them that they were so few and so weak. What could they do in so
large a province as the whole earth? Nothing, if they were to work by force of arms and
dint of sword; but, being to work silent as salt, one handful of that salt would diffuse its
savour far and wide; would go a great way, and work insensibly and irresistibly as
leaven, Mat_13:33. The doctrine of the gospel is as salt; it is penetrating, quick, and
powerful (Heb_4:12); it reaches the heart Act_2:37. It is cleansing, it is relishing, and
preserves from putrefaction. We read of the savour of the knowledge of Christ (2Co_
2:14); for all other learning is insipid without that. An everlasting covenant is called a
covenant of salt (Num_18:19); and the gospel is an everlasting gospel. Salt was required
in all the sacrifices (Lev_2:13), in Ezekiel's mystical temple, Eze_43:24. Now Christ's
disciples having themselves learned the doctrine of the gospel, and being employed to
teach it to others, were as salt. Note, Christians, and especially ministers, are the salt of
the earth.

1. If they be as they should be they are as good salt, white, and small, and broken into
many grains, but very useful and necessary. Pliny says, Sine sale, vita humana non
potest degere - Without salt human life cannot be sustained. See in this, (1.) What they
are to be in themselves - seasoned with the gospel, with the salt of grace; thoughts and
affections, words and actions, all seasoned with grace, Col_4:6. Have salt in yourselves,
else you cannot diffuse it among others, Mar_9:50. (2.) What they are to be to others;
they must not only be good but do good, must insinuate themselves into the minds of the
people, not to serve any secular interest of their own, but that they might transform
them into the taste and relish of the gospel. (3.) What great blessings they are to the
world. Mankind, lying in ignorance and wickedness, were a vast heap of unsavoury stuff,
ready to putrefy; but Christ sent forth his disciples, by their lives and doctrines, to
season it with knowledge and grace, and so to render it acceptable to God, to the angels,
and to all that relish divine things. (4.) How they must expect to be disposed of. They
must not be laid on a heap, must not continue always together at Jerusalem, but must be
scattered as salt upon the meat, here a grain and there a grain; as the Levites were
dispersed in Israel, that, wherever they live, they may communicate their savour. Some
have observed, that whereas it is foolishly called an ill omen to have the salt fall towards
us, it is really an ill omen to have the salt fall from us.
2. If they be not, they are as salt that has lost its savour. If you, who should season
others, are yourselves unsavoury, void of spiritual life, relish, and vigour; if a Christian
be so, especially if a minister be so, his condition is very sad; for, (1.) He is
irrecoverable: Wherewith shall it be salted? Salt is a remedy for unsavoury meat, but
there is no remedy for unsavoury salt. Christianity will give a man a relish; but if a man
can take up and continue the profession of it, and yet remain flat and foolish, and
graceless and insipid, no other doctrine, no other means, can be applied, to make him
savoury. If Christianity do not do it, nothing will. (2.) He is unprofitable: It is
thenceforth good for nothing; what use can it be put to, in which it will not do more hurt
than good? As a man without reason, so is a Christian without grace. A wicked man is
the worst of creatures; a wicked Christian is the worst of men; and a wicked minister is
the worst of Christians. (3.) He is doomed to ruin and rejection; He shall be cast out -
expelled the church and the communion of the faithful, to which he is a blot and a
burden; and he shall be trodden under foot of men. Let God be glorified in the shame
and rejection of those by whom he has been reproached, and who have made themselves
fit for nothing but to be trampled upon.
JAMISO , "Mat_5:13-16. We have here the practical application of the foregoing
principles to those disciples who sat listening to them, and to their successors in all time.
Our Lord, though He began by pronouncing certain characters to be blessed - without
express reference to any of His hearers - does not close the beatitudes without intimating
that such characters were in existence, and that already they were before Him.
Accordingly, from characters He comes to persons possessing them, saying, “Blessed are
ye when men shall revile you,” etc. (Mat_5:11). And now, continuing this mode of direct
personal address, He startles those humble, unknown men by pronouncing them the
exalted benefactors of their whole species.
Ye are the salt of the earth — to preserve it from corruption, to season its
insipidity, to freshen and sweeten it. The value of salt for these purposes is abundantly
referred to by classical writers as well as in Scripture; and hence its symbolical
significance in the religious offerings as well of those without as of those within the pale
of revealed religion. In Scripture, mankind, under the unrestrained workings of their
own evil nature, are represented as entirely corrupt. Thus, before the flood (Gen_6:11,

Gen_6:12); after the flood (Gen_8:21); in the days of David (Psa_14:2, Psa_14:3); in the
days of Isaiah (Isa_1:5, Isa_1:6); and in the days of Paul (Eph_2:1-3; see also Job_14:4;
Job_15:15, Job_15:16; Joh_3:6; compared with Rom_8:8; Tit_3:2, Tit_3:3). The
remedy for this, says our Lord here, is the active presence of His disciples among their
fellows. The character and principles of Christians, brought into close contact with it, are
designed to arrest the festering corruption of humanity and season its insipidity. But
how, it may be asked, are Christians to do this office for their fellow men, if their
righteousness only exasperate them, and recoil, in every form of persecution, upon
themselves? The answer is: That is but the first and partial effect of their Christianity
upon the world: though the great proportion would dislike and reject the truth, a small
but noble band would receive and hold it fast; and in the struggle that would ensue, one
and another even of the opposing party would come over to His ranks, and at length the
Gospel would carry all before it.
but if the salt have lost his savour — “become unsavory” or “insipid”; losing its
saline or salting property. The meaning is: If that Christianity on which the health of the
world depends, does in any age, region, or individual, exist only in name, or if it contain
not those saving elements for want of which the world languishes,
wherewith shall it be salted? — How shall the salting qualities be restored to it?
(Compare Mar_9:50). Whether salt ever does lose its saline property - about which there
is a difference of opinion - is a question of no moment here. The point of the case lies in
the supposition - that if it should lose it, the consequence would be as here described. So
with Christians. The question is not: Can, or do, the saints ever totally lose that grace
which makes them a blessing to their fellow men? But, What is to be the issue of that
Christianity which is found wanting in those elements which can alone stay the
corruption and season the tastelessness of an all-pervading carnality? The restoration or
non-restoration of grace, or true living Christianity, to those who have lost it, has, in our
judgment, nothing at all to do here. The question is not, If a man lose his grace, how
shall that grace be restored to him? but, Since living Christianity is the only “salt of the
earth,” if men lose that, what else can supply its place? What follows is the appalling
answer to this question.
it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out — a figurative expression
of indignant exclusion from the kingdom of God (compare Mat_8:12; Mat_22:13; Joh_
6:37; Joh_9:34).
and to be trodden under foot of men — expressive of contempt and scorn. It is
not the mere want of a certain character, but the want of it in those whose profession
and appearance were fitted to beget expectation of finding it.
SBC, "I. The high task of Christ’s disciples as here set forth. "Ye are the salt of the
earth." The metaphor wants very little explanation. It involves two things: a grave
judgment as to the actual state of society, and a lofty claim as to what Christ’s followers
are able to do to it. Society is corrupt, and tending to corruption. You do not salt a living
thing; you salt a dead one, that it may not be a rotting one. (1) Salt does its work by being
brought into close contact with the thing which it is to work upon. And so we are not to
seek to withdraw ourselves from contact with the evil. The only way by which the salt
can purify is by being rubbed into the corrupted thing. (2) Salt does its work silently,
inconspicuously, gradually. We shall never be the light of the world, except on condition
of being the salt of the earth. You have to do the humble, inconspicuous, silent work of
checking corruption by a pure example before you can aspire to do the other work of
raying out light into the darkness, and so drawing men to Christ Himself.

II. The grave possibility of the salt losing its savour. There is manifest on every side, first
of all the obliteration of the distinction between the salt and the mass into which it is
inserted; or, to put it into other words, Christian men and women swallow down bodily
and practise thoroughly the maxims of the world as to life, and what is pleasant, and
what is desirable, and as to the application of morality to business. There can be no
doubt that the obliteration of the distinction between us and the world, and the decay of
the fervour of devotion which leads to it, are both to be traced to a yet deeper cause, and
that is the loss or diminution of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. Is there a possibility of resalting the saltless salt, of restoring the lost savour? There
is no obstacle in the way of a penitent returning to the Fountain of all power and purity,
nor of the full restoration of the lost savour, if a man will only bring about a full reunion
of himself with the Source of the savour.
IV. One last word warns us what is the certain end of the saltless salt. God has no use for
it; man has no use for it. If it has failed in doing the only thing it was created for, it has
failed altogether.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st series, p. 179.
The words before us suggest—
I. A dignity. "Ye are the salt of the earth." I need hardly remind you of the worth and
honour of salt in the estimation of antiquity. Salt was the indispensable accompaniment
of every sacrifice, because of its power to stay the progress of corruption, to keep that on
which it was sprinkled, or with which it was mingled, pure and wholesome and sweet;
and it was this property of salt, no doubt, that Christ had in His eye, transferring it to
spiritual things, when He said to His disciples, "Ye are the salt of the earth." They were
salt, because they had been themselves salted with grace, salted with the purifying fire of
the Holy Ghost, and so capable of imparting a savour of incorruption to others.
II. A danger; and what is this? That the salt of the earth should lose its own savour, and
so become incapable of imparting a savour to others. We know in the natural world how
easily a little damp, a little moisture in the atmosphere, will affect the quality of salt; will
deprive it of much, if not all, its sharp and biting and seasoning powers; will leave it flat
and blunt and strengthless; useless, or nearly useless, for the one purpose to which it is
designed. No less a danger besets us. The world in which we live is no favourable
atmosphere for us, set as we are to be the salt of the earth. Many things are against us
here; many things at work to cause us to abate our edge, to come down from our heights,
to lose our saltness. What need, therefore, earnestly to watch against this so urgent a
danger!
III. A doom. "It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden
under foot of men." Observe that "trodden under foot of men," which follows the being
cast out or rejected of God; for therein lies the stress of the doom, the immeasurable
humiliation of it. A Church, from which the savour and strength of Divine grace has
departed, perishes not by the immediate hand of God—that were too noble a destiny—
but of men, often the very men whom it sought to conciliate by becoming itself as the
world.
R. C. Trench, Sermons Preached in Ireland, p. 106.

I. This sentence takes for granted the well-known doctrine of the general corruption and
decay of the world around us. We little know how much we are indebted to the
Christianity or, as we call it sometimes, the civilization of the world around us—how
many men are sober and chaste simply because religion has so seasoned the society
round them that they would lose their position if they were not so.
II. "If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" It is possible, then, to
have a thing which has lost its essence. A traveller to the Euphrates tells us that when he
came to the Valley of Salt he broke off a piece that had been exposed to the rain, sun, and
air, and he found that, although it had all the sparkle of the crystal, and all the other
qualities of salt, it had lost its savour. And is not this so with many professing
Christians? Do they not possess all the outward qualities of the Christian character,
being pure in morals outwardly, respectable, decorous in general conduct? But they have
allowed themselves to be so exposed, unprotected, to the temptations of the spirit of
worldliness around them that all savour is gone—all power of giving Christian purpose
to the society in which they live. They are like crystals in the Valley of Salt.
III. If you have a secret consciousness that you have lost your savour, let me point out
how you may become salt again Go to Him from whom comes out virtue. Go to Him by
daily prayer, by daily effort, by daily meditation, by daily repentance, by daily obedience
to His voice, as far as you have heard it.
IV. If your desire is to salt the world, you must begin with yourself. You cannot salt other
things if you have lost your saltness. If you want to do good, you must be good. Be
unobtrusive; do not thrust your advice on any one; and often, when least you expect it, a
heart will be opened to you, and God will permit you to save a brother from suffering or
from sin or shame.
C. E. R. Robinson, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 622
I. This declaration involves the idea that there is in humanity the liability to corruption.
II. Christ’s method for the preservation of society is a personal one. The seasoning
influence must come through men.
III. To this seasoning influence godliness is a vital necessity. Godliness is the true and
only inspiration to goodness.
W. Garrett Horder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 180.
Matthew 5:13-16
Influence of Christian Character.
I. Christians—such Christians as those to whom the Beatitudes of the previous verses
belong—are called to be, and will be, the "salt of the earth," and they are exhorted not to

let "the salt" lose its savour. Two things seem to be involved in these words: (1) Salt gives
relish to what would otherwise be tasteless or unpleasant; and Christ’s people are, if we
may so speak, the relishing element in the world, which prevents it from being
loathsome altogether to the Lord; (2) salt is a preserving agent, arresting the natural
tendency to corruption. Christ’s people are called to this duty; they are to be the salt of
the earth; let them take heed to fulfil their high calling. People we hear often sorrowfully
complaining that the world is waxing worse and worse. Let those who complain of it
bethink them whether they are playing their part as salt to check this corruption.
II. The second aspect under which the Christian influence is presented here is, Believers
are to be the light of the world. This figure carries the matter into a somewhat higher
region. Salt makes the world endurable, bad as it is. Salt also prevents it from becoming
still worse. But light quickens life; light shows the way of God, and leads into it; light at
once develops and exhibits all the beauty of earth; light helps us to fellowship one with
another; light awakens the voice of adoration and praise. (1) The Christian must be a
light-bearer. He who brings the lamp is not himself a light, yet he brings light; and every
man of God has it laid on him to do something in this way. (2) It is implied here that
Christians are to be light-givers as well as light-bearers. To be a proper light-bearer, one
must also be a true light-giver. For one soul saved by Christian precept, you shall find
twenty saved by Christian example. The greatest sermon one can preach is the silent
sermon of a true and pious life.
W. C. Smith, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 37.
MEYER, " THE NEW SALT AND LIGHT OF HUMAN SOCIETY
Mat_5:10-16
We must expect to be persecuted, if we hold up the pure light of a consistent life amid
the evils of the world. Men hate the light which exposes their misdeeds. They will
tolerate you only so long as you leave them alone. But the universal testimony of those
who have suffered thus is that the Son of man walks through the furnace beside His
faithful martyrs.
Our holy lives ought to act as salt to arrest the corruption around us. It is said that the
presence of a child has arrested many a crime. A sudden silence should fall on certain
kinds of conversation when we enter the room. But it is very easy to lose our saltness, as
did Lot in Sodom and the seven churches of Asia. See also Eze_15:2-5. Our lives ought to
serve also as light. The spirit of man is a candle. See Pro_20:27. We need to be kindled
by the nature of God. Men light candles and God will light you. Let us burn and shine as
John did, Joh_5:35. Beware of the bushel and ask God to choose your stand.
TRAPP, "VER 13. Ye are the salt of the earth] As salt keepeth flesh from
putrefying, so do the saints the world: and are therefore sprinkled up and down
(here one and there one) to keep the rest from rotting. Suillo pecori anima pro sale
data, quae carnem servaret, ne putresceret, saith Varro. Swine and swinish persons
have their souls for salt only, to keep their bodies from stinking above ground.

Christ and his people are somewhere called the soul of the world. The saints are
called all things; the Church, every creature, Mark 16:15; Tabor and Hermon are
put for east and west, Psalms 89:12; for God ACCOU TSfor the world by the
Church, and upholds the world for the Church’s sake. Look how he gave Zoar to
Lot, and all the souls in the ship to Paul, Acts 27:24; so he doth the rest of mankind
to the righteous. Were it not for such Jehoshaphats, "I would not look toward thee,
nor see thee," said Elijah to Jehoram, saith God to the wicked, 2 Kings 3:14. The
holy seed is statumen terrae, saith one prophet: the earth’s substance or settlement,
Isaiah 6:13. (Junius.) The righteous are fundamentum mundi, the world’s
foundation, saith another, Proverbs 10:25. ( Quia propter probes stabilis est
mundus. because on ACCOU T you may make the earth firm. Merc.) I bear up the
pillars of it, saith David, Psalms 75:3. And it became a common proverb in the
primitive times, Absque stationibus non stare mundus: but for the piety and prayers
of Christians, the world could not subsist. It is a good conclusion of Philo, therefore,
Oremus, ut tanquam columna in domo vir iustus permaneat, ad calamitatum
remedium. Let us pray that the righteous may remain with us, for a preservative, as
a pillar in the house, as the salt of the earth. But as all good people, so good
ministers especially are here said, for their doctrine, to be the salt of the earth; and
for their lives, the light of the world. ( Doctrina salis est; vita lucis. Aret.) Ye are salt,
not honey, which is bitter to wounds. Ye are light, which is also offensive to sore
eyes. Salt hath two things in it, Acorem et saporem, sharpness and savouriness.
Ministers must reprove men sharply, that they may be "sound in the faith," Titus
1:13, and a sweet savour to God; savoury meat, as that of Rebekah, a sweet meat
offering, meet for the master’s tooth, that he may eat and bless them. Cast they must
their cruses full of this holy salt into the unwholesome waters, and upon the barren
grounds of men’s hearts (as Elisha once of Jericho), so shall God say the word that
all be whole, and it shall be done. o thought can pass between the receipt and the
remedy.
But if the salt have lost his savour, &c.] A loose or lazy minister is the worst creature
upon earth, so fit for no place as for hell, -as unsavoury salt is not fit for the
dunghill, but makes the very ground barren whereupon it is cast. Who are now
devils but they which once were angels of light? Corruptio optimi pessima, as the
sweetest wine makes the sourest vinegar, and the finest flesh is resolved into the
vilest earth. Woe to those dehonestamenta cleri, disgraceful ministers that, with
Eli’s sons, cover foul sins under a white ephod: that neither SPI nor labour,
Matthew 6:28, with the lilies, unless it be in their own vineyards, little in God’s; that
want either art or heart, will or skill, to the work; being not able or not apt to teach,
and so give occasion to those blackmouthed Campians to cry out, Ministris eorum
nihil villus: their ministers are the vilest fellows upon earth. (Campian in
Rationibus.) God commonly casteth off such as incorrigible; for wherewithal shall it
be salted? there is nothing in nature that can restore unsavoury salt to its former
nature. He will not only lay such by, as broken vessels, boring out their right eyes
and drying up their right arms, Zechariah 11:17; i.e. bereaving them of their former
abilities; but also he will cast dung upon their faces, Malachi 2:3; so that, as dung,
men shall tread upon them (which is a thing not only calamitous, but extremely
ignominious), as they did upon the Popish clergy; and the devil shall thank them

when he hath them in hell, for sending him so many souls: as Matthew Paris telleth
us he did those in the days of Hildebrand. Literas ex inferno missas commenti sunt
quidam, in quibus Satanas omni Ecclesiastico coetui gratias emisit. As for
themselves, it grew into a proverb, Pavimentum inferni rasis sacrificulorum
verticibus, et magnatum galeis stratum esse: that hell was paved with the shaved
crowns of priests and great men’s head pieces. God threatens to feed such with gall
and wormwood, Jeremiah 23:15.
ELLICOTT, "(13) Ye are the salt of the earth.—The words are spoken to the
disciples in their ideal character, as the germ of a new Israel, called to a prophetic
work, preserving the earth from moral putrescence and decay. The general
reference to this antiseptic action of salt is (as in Colossians 4:6, and possibly in the
symbolic act of Elisha, 2 Kings 2:21) enough to give an adequate meaning to the
words, but the special reference to the sacrificial use of salt in Mark 9:49 (see ote
there) makes it probable enough that there was some allusion to that thought also
here.
If the salt have lost his savour.—The salt commonly used by the Jews of old, as now,
came from Jebel-Usdum, on the shores of the Dead Sea, and was known as the Salt
of Sodom. Maundrell, the Eastern traveller (circ. A.D. 1690), reports that he found
lumps of rock-salt there which had become partially flavourless, but I am not aware
that this has been CO FIRMED by recent travellers. Common salt, as is well
known, will melt if exposed to moisture, but does not lose its saltness. The question
is more curious than important, and does not affect the ideal case represented in our
Lord’s words.
Wherewith shall it be salted?—The words imply a relative if not an absolute
impossibility. If gifts, graces, blessings, a high calling, and a high work fail, what
remains? The parable finds its interpretation in Hebrews 6:1-6.
To be trodden under foot of men.—The Talmud shows (Schottgen in loc.) that the
salt which had become unfit for sacrificial use in the store-house was sprinkled in
wet weather upon the slopes and STEPS of the temple to prevent the feet of the
priests from slipping, and we may accordingly see in our Lord’s words a possible
reference to this practice.
COKE, "Matthew 5:14. Ye are the light of the world— Jesus compares his disciples
to the sun, representingtheefficacyoftheirministry(accompanied by his divine
Spirit), to fill the world with the gladsome light of truth; a thing as necessary in the
moral world, as light in the natural: ye are the light of the world. This appellation
was given by the Jews to their wise men and doctors. See John 5:35. 2 Peter 1:19.
The Lord Jesus Christ bestows it on his disciples, because they were appointed to
preach the Gospel (Philippians 2:15.), and to reveal to mankind the knowledge of
Christ, who is the true light of the world; John 1:9. This is also APPLICABLE to
Christians in general; and to excite them and all Christians to diligence in
dispensing the salutary influences of their doctrine and example, he bade them call
to mind, that a city which is set upon a mountain cannot be hid; or, that the disciples

of Jesus Christ, and all Christians, being appointed to profess and preach the
Gospel, the eyes of all men would be upon them, and so, their faults being by this
means known and observed, might stop the progress of the Gospel: compare
Philippians 3:17. Mr. Maundrelltells us, that there is a city called Saphet, thought to
be the ancient Bethulia, which, standing on a high hill, might easily be seen from the
mountain on which Christ made this discourse; and he, very probably, supposes,
that our Saviour might point to that here, as he afterwards did to the birds and the
lilies; agreeably to what we have observed on Matthew 5:2 of our Lord's manner of
taking his similies from the most obvious things; a thought which Sir Isaac ewton
has well illustrated in his Observations on the Prophesies of Daniel, p. 148., to whom
the writer referred to in the note on Matthew 5:2 is greatly indebted. See Doddridge,
and Beausobre and Lenfant.
BARCLAY, "You are the salt of the earth. If the salt has become
insipid, how can it regain its saltness? It is no longer
good for anything but to be thrown out, and to be
trampled on by men.
WHE Jesus said this, He provided men with an expression
which has become the greatest compliment that can be
paid to any man. When we wish to stress someone's solid
worth and usefulness, we say of him, " People like that are
the salt of the earth."
In the ancient world salt was highly valued. The Greeks
called salt divine (theiori). In a phrase, which in Latin is a
kind of jingle, the Romans said, " There is nothing more
useiul than sun and salt." ( il utilius sole et sale.) In the
time of Jesus salt was connected in people's minds with
three special qualities.
(i) Salt was connected with purity. o doubt its glisten-
ing whiteness made the connection easy. The Romans
said that salt was the purest of all things, because it came
from the purest of all things, the sun and the sea. Salt was
indeed the most pi imitive of all offerings to the gods, and
to the end of the day the Jewish sacrifices were offered with
salt. So then, if the Christian is to be the salt of the earth
he must be an example of purity. One of the characteristics
of the world in which we live is the lowering of standards.
Standards ot honesty, standards of diligence in work,
standards of conscientiousness, moral standards, all tend to
be lowered. The Christian must be the person who holds
aloft the standard of absolute purity in speech, in conduct,
and even in thought. A certain writer dedicated a book to
J. Y. Simpson " who makes the best seem easily credible."
o Christian can depart from the standards of strict
honesty. o Christian can think lightly of the lowering of
moral standards in a world where the streets of every great

city provide their deliberate enticements to sin. o
Christian can allow himself the tarnished and suggestive
je^ts which are so often part ot social conversation. The
Christian cannot withdraw from the world, but he must,
as James said, " keep himseU unspotted from the world"
(James I: 2?).
(n) In the ancient world salt was the commonest of all
preservatives. It was used to keep things from going bad
and rotten, and to hold decay and putrefaction at bay.
Plutarch has a strange way of putting that. He says that
meat is a dead body and part ot a dead body, and will, if
lelt to itself, go bad; but salt preserves it and keeps it
tresh, and is therefore like a new soul inserted into a dead
body. So then salt preserves from corruption. If the
Christian is to be the salt of the earth, he must have a
certain antiseptic influence on life. We all know that there
are certain people in whose company it is easy to be good;
and that also there are certain people in whose company it
is easy for standards to be relaxed. There are certain people
in whose presence a soiled story would be readily told, and
there are other people to whom no one would dream of
telling such a tale. The Christian must be the cleansing
antiseptic in any society in which he happens to he; he
must be the person who by his presence defeats corruption
and makes it easier for others to be good.
(iii) But the greatest and the most obvious quality of
salt is that salt /ends flavoui to things. Food without salt
is a sadly insipid and even a sickening thing. Christianity
is to life what salt is to food. Christianity lends flavour to
life. The tragedy is that so often people have connected
Christianity with precisely the opposite. They have con-
nected Christianity with that which takes the flavour out of
life. Swinburne had it:
"Thou hasT conquered, O pale Gaitlaean; the world
has grown gray from 1 hy breath."
Even after Constantine had made Christianity the religion
of the Roman Empire, there came to the throne another
Emperor called Julian, who wished to put the clock back
and to bring back the old gods. His complaint, as Ibsen
puts it, wa^:
" Have you looked at these Christians closely ? Hollow-
eyed, pale-cheeked, flat-breasted all; they brood

their lives away, unspurred hy ambition: the sun
shines tor them, but they do not see it: the earth
offers them its fulness, but they desire it not; all
their desire is to renounce and to suffer that they
may come to die,"
As Julian saw it, Christianity took the vividness out of life.
Oliver Wendell Holmes onct said, " 1 might have entered
the ministry if certain clergymen 1 knew had not looked
and acted so much like undertakers." Robert Louis
Stevenson once entered in his diary, as if he was recording
an extraordinary phenomenon, " I have been to Church
to-day, and am not depressed."
Men need to discover the lost radiance of the Christian
faith. In a worried world, the Christian should be the only
man who remains serene. In a depressed world, the
Christian should be the only man who remains full of the
joy of life. There should be a sheer sparkle about the
Christian life; and too often the Christian dresses like a
mourner at a funeral, and talks like a spectre at a feast.
Wherever he is, if he is to be the salt of the earth, the
Christian must be the difTuser of joy.
Jesus went on to say that, if the salt had become insipid,
it was fit only to be thrown out and trodden on by men.
This is difficult, because salt does not lose its flavour and
its saltness. E. F. F. Bishop in his book Jesus of Palestine
cites a very likely explanation given by Miss F. E. ewton.
In Palestine the ordinary oven is out of doors and is built
of stone on a base of tiles. In such ovens " in order to retain
the heat a thick bed of salt is laid under the tiled floor.
After a certain length of time the salt perishes. The tiles
are taken up, the salt removed and thrown on the road
outside the door of the oven ... It has lost its power to
heat the tiles and it is thrown out " That may well be the
picture here. But the essential point remains whatever the
picture, and it is a point which the ew Testament makes
and remakes again and again uselessness invites disaster.
If a Christian is not fulfilling his purpose as a Christian,
then he is on the way to disaster. We are meant to be the
salt of the earth, and if we do not bring to life the purity,
the antiseptic power, the radiance that we ought, then we
invite disaster.

It remains to be noted that sometimes the early Church
made a very strange use of this text. In the Synagogue,
among the Jews, there was a custom that, if a Jew became
an apostate and then returned to the faith, before he was
received back into the Synagogue, he must in penitence lie
across the door of the Synagogue and invite people to
trample upon him as they entered. In certain places the
Christian Church took over that custom, and a Christian
who had been ejected by discipline from the Church, was
compelled, before he was received back, to lie at the door
of the Church and to invite people as they entered,
" Trample upon me who am the salt which has lost its
savour!"
COFFMA , "
BE SO , "Matthew 5:13. Ye — ot the apostles, not ministers only; but all who
possess and manifest the graces spoken of in the preceding verses, and are truly holy
and righteous; are the salt of the earth — Appointed to be the means of preventing
or curing the growth of that corruption which prevails in the world, and of
seasoning men’s minds with wisdom and grace. But if the salt have lost its savour —
Or, be grown insipid, and therefore want seasoning itself, wherewith shall it be
salted — By what means can its lost virtue be restored? The word µωρανθη,
rendered have lost its savour, has peculiar strength and beauty, and is literally, be
infatuated, or, grown foolish, “alluding,” says Dr. Doddridge, “to the common
figure, in which sense and spirit are expressed by salt.” It is thenceforth good for
nothing — It is wholly useless, and left to be thrown out of doors, and trampled on
by men as the common dirt in the streets: “thus worthless and contemptible will
you, my disciples, be, even in the most eminent stations, if you lose YOUR character
for real and vital religion.” The following passage of Mr. Maundrell, QUOTED by
Dr. Macknight, illustrates our Lord’s supposition of salt’s losing its savour. In the
valley of Salt, near Gebul, and about four hours’ journey from Aleppo, there is a
small precipice, occasioned by the CO TI UALtaking away of the salt. “In this,”
says he, “you may see how the veins of it lie; I brake a piece off it, of which the part
that was exposed to the rain, sun, and air, though it had the sparks and particles of
salt, yet it had perfectly lost its savour. The innermost part, which had been
connected to the rock, retained its savour, as I found by proof.”
CALVI , "Mat_5:13.Ye are the salt of the earth. What belongs to doctrine is
APPLIED to the persons to whom the administration of it has been committed.
When Christ calls the apostles the salt of the earth, he means, that it is their office to
salt the earth: because men have nothing in them but what is tasteless, till they have
been seasoned with the salt of heavenly doctrine. After having reminded them to
what they are called, he pronounces against them a heavy and dreadful judgment, if
they do not fulfill their duty. The doctrine, which has been entrusted to them, is
shown to be so closely connected with a good conscience and a devout and upright

life, that the corruption, which might be tolerated in others, would in them be
detestable and monstrous. “ other men are tasteless in the sight of God, to you shall
be given the salt which imparts a relish to them: but if you have lost YOUR taste,
where shall you obtain the remedy which you ought to supply to others?”
Our Lord skillfully pursues his metaphor, by saying, that other things when they
lose their original qualities, are still useful after they have become corrupted: but
that salt becomes even hurtful, and communicates barrenness even to dunghills.
(375) The amount of his statement is, that it is an incurable disease, when the
ministers and TEACHERS of the word corrupt and render themselves tasteless: for
they ought to season the rest of the world with their salt. This warning is useful, not
only to ministers, but to the whole flock of Christ. Since it is the will of God that the
earth shall be salted by his own word, it follows, that whatever is destitute of this
salt is, in his estimation, tasteless, how much soever it may be relished by men.
There is nothing better, therefore, than to receive the seasoning, by which alone our
tastelessness is CORRECTED. But, at the same time, let those whose business is to
salt it beware lest they encourage the world in their own folly, (376) and still more,
that they do not infect it with a depraved and vicious taste.
The wickedness of the Papists is therefore intolerable: (377) as if it had been the
design of Christ, to allow the apostles unbounded liberty, and to make them tyrants
of souls, instead of reminding them of their duty, that they might not swerve from
the right path. Christ declares what sort of men he wishes the teachers of his
Church to be. Those who, without any proper grounds, give themselves out to be
apostles, (378) hide by this covering all the abominations which they are pleased to
introduce; because Christ pronounced Peter, and his companions, to be the salt of
the earth. They do not, at the same time, consider the sharp and severe reproof
which is added, that, if they become tasteless, they are the worst of all. This sentence
is mentioned by Luke in an abrupt manner: but is introduced there for the same
purpose as in this passage, so that it does not require a separate exposition.
(375) “Que le sel estant empire, ne fait mesmes que gaster tout, a quoi qu'on le
mette, tellement qu'il corrompt mesmes les fumiers, et consume toute la grasse
d'iceux.” — “ salt, when it is decayed, does only spoil everything that it touches: so
that it corrupts even dunghills, and consumes all their fatness.”
(376) “De ne nourrir le monde en sa folie et fadesse;” — “ to nourish the world in
their folly and tastelessness.”
(377) “Et pourtant la malice des Papistes n'est aucunement a supporter, quand ils
n'ont point de honte de couvrir de ces titres leurs Prelats mas-quez, afin que nul ne
presume de rien reprendre en leurs personnes.”— “ then the malice of the Papists is
not at all to be endured, since they are not ashamed to cover with these titles their
masked Prelates, that no one may presume to reprove any thing in their persons.”

(378) “Des gens qui se vantent a fausses enseignes de tenir le place des apostres.” —
“ who boast, under false colors, of holding the place of apostles.”
PULPIT, "Ye are the salt, etc.. Weiss thinks that St. Luke gives it in its original
context; that St. Matthew is right in interpreting it as of special reference to the
disciples; and that St. Mark APPLIESit the most freely. It may, I DEED, be that its
position here is only the result of the inspired guidance of the evangelist; but, on the
whole, it seems more probable that so natural a figure was used more than once by
our Lord, and that he really spoke these words in his sermon on the mount, as well
as on the later occasion indicated by St. Luke. Ye; i.e. the µαθηταί of verse 1. Are, in
fact ( ἐστέ ); therefore recognize the responsibility. The salt of the earth. It has been
disputed whether allusion is here made to the preservative properties of salt or to
the flavour it imparts; i.e. whether Christ is thinking of his disciples as preserving
the world from decay, or as giving it a good flavour to the Divine taste. Surely a
useless question; forgetful of the fact that spiritual realities are being dealt with, and
that it is therefore impossible for the one effect to be really separated from the other.
Our Lord is thinking of the moral tone which his disciples are to give to humanity.
The connexion with verses 11, 12 is—Persecution must be borne unless you are to
lose your moral tone, which is to be to the earth what salt is to its surroundings,
preserving from corruption and fitting for (in your case Divine) appreciation. What
χάρις is to be to the Christian λόγος (Col_4:6), that the Christian himself is to be to
the world. If … have lost its savour ( µωρανθῇ ); so elsewhere in Luk_14:34 only.
Salt that has lost its distinctive qualities is here said to lack its proper mind or sense.
Salt without sharpness is like an ἄνθρωπος ἄλογος ; for man is a ζῶον λογικόν . On
the fact of salt losing its virtue, cf. Thomson, "It is a well-known fact that the salt of
this country [i.e. Palestine] when in CO TACT with the ground, or exposed to rain
and sun, does become insipid and useless. From the manner in which it is gathered
[vide infra], much earth and other impurities are necessarily collected with it. ot a
little of it is so impure that it cannot be used at all; and such salt soon effloresces
and turns to dust—not to fruitful soil, however. It is not only good for nothing itself,
but it actually destroys all fertility wherever it is thrown.… o man will allow it to
be thrown on to his field, and the only place for it is the street; and there it is cast, to
be trodden under foot of men." It should be observed that the salt used in Palestine
is not manufactured by boiling clean salt water, nor quarried from mines, but is
obtained from marshes along the seashore, as in Cyprus, or from salt lakes in the
interior, which dry up in summer, as the one in the desert north of Palmyra, and the
great Lake of Jebbul, south-east of Aleppo. Further, rock-salt is found in abundance
at the south end of the Dead Sea (cf. Thomson, loc. cit). Wherewith shall it be
salted? i.e. not if you will not act as salt, wherewith shall the earth be salted?
(apparently Luther and Erasmus); but what quality can take the place of moral tone
to produce in you the same result? You are as salt. If you lose your distinctive
qualities, where, can you find that which answers to them? It is thenceforth good for
nothing. Our Lord here lays stress, not on want of fitness ( εὔθετον , Luke), but on
want of inherent power. "It is only useful for that purpose to which one applies
what is absolutely useless" (Weiss-Meyer).

PULPIT,"Matthew 5:13-16
The influence of sanctified characters.
The righteousness which Christ commends will exert in the world a most gracious
moral influence. It will season, as the salt does; it will illuminate and quicken, as the
light does. "Salt seasons things, causing things to taste savoury, which otherwise
would be no way pleasant, or wholesome, or good for the body." "Our Lord
APPLIES to his disciples the stronger word "light," i.e. essential light, rather than
any which signifies merely a light-bearer. They are not only to reflect or transmit
this light, but to become themselves "lights." The believer is not a mere reflector, in
himself dead and dark, receiving and emitting rays; he is a new seat and centre of
spiritual life." As Christ was pleased to use the two figures of the "salt" and the
"light" as illustrative of sanctified character, we may consider the SUGGESTIO S
which the two figures have in common.
I. BOTH "SALT" A D "LIGHT" ARE SILE TLY WORKI G FORCES. either
makes any noise. The one works away at the arresting of corrupting PROCESSES,
the other works away at the quickening and invigorating of life, but neither seeks to
draw any attention to itself, or has any open boasting to make. And the silent forces
are usually the mightiest. This is an essential peculiarity of Christian character. It
has no voice. It cannot brag. It works, it exerts its influence, but it says nothing
about it. Illustrate the power of Florence ightingale in the Crimean hospitals, or of
Mrs. Fry in the English prisons. Truly wonderful is the sanctifying power of silent
goodness.
II. BOTH "SALT" A D "LIGHT" ARE I TERIOR-WORKI G FORCES. This
is, at first sight, more evidently true of "salt" than of "light." You must put salt into
things, and hide it in them. But the light cannot do its full work until it can get
inside things. Its surface-work is its least work. It is warmth in things. It is
quickening in things. And so the influences of Christian character work within men,
in thought, and motive, and feeling, and resolve. The good have their spheres of
influence in the souls of their fellows. They feel a power they may not confess they
feel.
III. BOTH "SALT" A D "LIGHT" ARE PERSISTE TLY WORKI G FORCES.
They keep on as long as there is sphere for their activity. This is the most important
element of power in established Christian character.—R.T.
PULPIT, "Matthew 5:13-16
The startling salutation.
The announcements of the Beatitudes were necessarily startling in their matter,
even when considered as delivered simply generally, whether the world or any in it
hear or forbear. They breathed a spirit and plainly laid down views with which

those of the world were so utterly at variance. The estrangement was almost
absolute, and amounted to the rigour of alienation. otice, then, in these words—
I. THE ASSISTA CE THEY OFFER TO THE DISCIPLES TOWARDS
REALIZI G THEIR OW RELATIO I PARTICULAR TO THESE
BEATITUDES. If they are to be, in truth, disciples of Christ, it is necessary that
they at least get a firm grip upon the principles underlying the Beatitudes. And it is
a great assistance to this—how many significant analogies we know!—to have their
own POSITIO , i.e. that awaiting them, placed so as to confront them at once.
Great theoretic surprises are often converted most beneficently into startling
personal and practical surprises. The theoretic surprise would end in nothing but
vague dissipation of mind; the personal surprise startles into thought, duty,
enterprise. And of such nature surely were these two descriptions of themselves
ADDRESSED so unexpectedly to the disciples, viz. "Ye are the salt of the earth …
ye are the light of the world." The value of the bracing effect of them cannot be
overestimated.
II. THE ASSISTA CE THEY GAVE TO THE DISCIPLES TOWARDS
COMPREHE DI G THEIR OW CALL. Of oral lessons, these must have been
among the first; and in the nature of energizing, refreshing salutations to minds and
lives that had never dreamed of what was in STORE for either the one or the other.
ow must have dated the birth within them of some more adequate sense of the
dread responsibility of that call. This awakening was not by the path of despairing,
overawing, crushing convictions, but by the very contrary:
III. THE CROW I G ASSISTA CE THEY GAVE I THE TWO FIGURES
THEY USE. They are such very strong figures. They can't fall on listless ears. They
can't fail of making their due impression. They well utter out their unambiguous
significance to those disciples. They are of world-wide interpretation—"salt" for
and of the earth, "light" for heaven and the whole PROCESSIO of things created.
The absolute plainness and boldness of these figures enhance immensely their likely
usefulness, and go no little way to disarm them of one possible danger, viz. the
danger, had they been more covert in their manner, of feeding self-importance, self-
assertion, and vanity in those newly called disciples. St. Augustine well says, " ot he
that suffers persecution is trodden underfoot of men, but he who through fear of
persecution falls away."
IV. THE DISTI CT REFERE CE TO THE CARDI AL FACT THAT GOD
WAS TO BE GLORIFIED I ALL. The "light" of these men is to be the light of
those who are "light in the Lord." Their light is to shine; it is not to be hidden; it is
not to be obscure. Their light is to be the light and lustre that assuredly belong to
"good works." These "good works" are to be now "seen of men," and in one certain
sense they are to be done. so that and in ORDER that men may see them; but the
end is to rest not there, and the glory is not to be reflected back on the disciples. The
end is that "men may glorify" the Father, of whom the grace and power and light
come that make "good works," and who himself is "all Light," and the "Giver of all
light."—B.

COFFMA , "Regarding the question of salt's losing its savor, Elmer W. Maurer,
research chemist with the United States Department of Agriculture and a brilliant
contemporary scientist, made this interesting reference to this portion of the
Saviour's teachings:
Salt was accepted and collected as taxes by the Romans from the people of the Holy
Land. One of the main sources of salt for Palestinians, of course, was the Dead Sea,
or Salt Sea. So oppressive were these taxes that the people adulterated the salt with
sand or other earthy material (the salt to begin with was not our nice pure table
salt). The government purified the salt by spreading it in big vats or tanks, filling
them with water and drawing off the concentrated salt solution or brine. All that
remained was the earthy, insoluble material. I DEED, the salt had lost its savor
because it was no longer salt. It was fit to be trodden underfoot.
And this was not the only way that salt could lose its savor. The surface waters of
the Dead Sea, on evaporation, have a chemical salts content of about 31 percent
sodium chloride, 13 percent calcium chloride, and 48 percent magnesium chloride,
together with other impurities. The calcium and magnesium chlorides are
hygroscopic (take water out of the air) and will thus literally dissolve the sodium
chloride. A bitter tasting composition results. It was the custom to STORE vast
amounts of this salt in houses that had earthen floors. In time, the salt next to the
ground spoiled because of the dampness. Since it would be harmful to fertile land
because of its salt content, no man would allow it to be thrown on his field. The only
place left was the street, where it was trodden under foot of man. Thus the Bible was
proved scientifically accurate, even in its many small details - for this was just a lone
example.[8]SIZE>
We might observe that accurate, scientific investigation of any of the so-called
scientific ERRORS in the teachings of Christ will always have the same result as
that discovered by Maurer.
Salt keeps food from being insipid and preserves it from corruption. Both these
functions are performed by Christians for society as a whole. A little more salt (true
followers of God) would have preserved Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction
(Genesis 18:32). The world at large little realizes the debt of gratitude that is owed
by the whole race to that relatively small percentage who truly walk in the
commandments and ordinances of the Lord.
Good for nothing ... What a truly worthless state is that of the apostate Christian!
The Saviour's estimate of him is that he is "good for nothing"! Another pertinent
observation regarding salt is that it must come in contact with that which is to be
benefited by it. So must Christians come in contact with the rest of mankind. Christ
did not encourage monasticism or asceticism. It is also proper to observe that SALT
IS I DISPE SABLE. So are Christians. Some people "pity believers; some have a
patronizing air in their attitude; a few would abolish"[9] Christians; but, in this
passage, Christ shows that Christians are truly indispensable to this world. THEY
ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH!

[8] Elmer W. Maurer, article in The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe
( ew York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1955), p. 205.
[9] Doran's Minister's Manual (1947), p. 105.
CHARLES SIMEO , "CHRISTIA S THE SALT OF THE EARTH
Mat_5:13. Ye are the salt of the earth: but. if the salt have lost his savour,
wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out,
and to be trodden under foot of men.
LITTLE do the world think how much they are indebted to those very saints whom
they “revile and persecute for righteousness’ sake [ ote: VER. 11.].” The
extirpation of them (which is so much desired by many) would leave the world an
entire mass of corruption, without any thing to heal its disorders, or to stop its
progress towards utter destruction. Were they removed out of it, the rest would soon
become as Sodom and Gomorrha [ ote: Isa_1:9.]. The representation given of them
in the text fully justifies this idea. They are called “the salt of the earth.” This, of
course, must be understood of those only who have the spirit of religion in them: for
all others, whatever they may possess, are as vile and worthless as the real
Christians are good and excellent.
The words before us will lead us to consider,
I. The worth and excellence of truly spiritual Christians—
The use of salt, as intimated in this expression of our Lord, is to keep other things
from putrefaction and corruption.
This is the office that has been executed by all the saints of old—
[View them from the beginning; and they will all be found active in their generation,
and zealous in benefiting the world around them. oah preached to the
antediluvians an hundred and twenty years, indefatigably exerting himself to bring
them to repentance. Lot, in Sodom, “vexed his righteous soul from day to day with
their unlawful deeds,” and strove to turn the people from their horrible
abominations. All the prophets in successive ages laboured in the same blessed
work, using all their efforts to lead their hearers to the knowledge of the only true
God, and to an obedience to his holy laws. How the Apostles acted in relation to this,
it is needless to observe. They lived for no other end, but to make known the way of
life, and to “turn men from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto
God.”
All, I DEED, were not favoured with the same success. Those who preceded the
Saviour, rather sowed the seed, than reaped the harvest: but his disciples, through

the influence of the Spirit of God upon their labours, were instrumental to the
conversion of thousands and of millions; all of whom in their respective spheres
endeavoured to disseminate the same principles, and to spread “the savour of the
knowledge of Christ” wherever they went. Take only one man, the Apostle Paul;
and who shall say how much corruption he was the means of preventing in the
world? — — —]
This is the office which every Christian, ACCORDI G to his ability, still executes—
[Ministers labour for this end in the word and doctrine — — — and private
individuals feel themselves bound to co-operate with them, yea, I may say, to be
“fellow-workers also with God.” o one who has received the grace of God in truth,
will “live any longer unto himself:” he will seek to glorify his God, and to do good to
those around him. Has he any relations, a father, a mother, a wife, a child, going on
in ignorance and sin? he will endeavour by all possible means to rectify their
dispositions, and to guide their feet into the way of peace. He will not say with
himself, I am but as a grain of salt, and therefore can do no good: he will thankfully
EMPLOY his influence, how small soever it may be, for the benefit of those to
whom it will extend. Even the poorest have access to some poor neighbour like
themselves: and the resolution of the weakest will be like that of the Church of old,
“Draw me, and we will run after thee [ ote: Son_1:4.];” that is, ‘Draw me, and I
will not come alone, but will bring all I can along with me.’
And shall this be thought a small matter? o, surely: for if a Christian be
instrumental, even in the course of his whole life, to convert one single person from
the ERROR of his ways, he has effected a good, which exceeds in value the whole
material world: for he has “saved a soul from death, and covered a multitude of sins
[ ote: Jam_5:19-20.].”]
Thus is the truly spiritual Christian, a man of great worth and excellence: but all
who profess religion are not of this stamp: the text itself declares that there are some
of a very different character; and that nothing can exceed,
II. The worthlessness of those who have not the savour of religion in their souls—
Salt that has lost its savour is here said to be “good for nothing; but is trodden
under foot of men.” This shews the desperate state of those who are not truly alive
to God. Their prospects are indeed gloomy in relation to,
1. Their personal recovery—
[Salt that has lost its savour, cannot by any means be restored to its former
pungency. And thus it is with those who, after some experience of the power of
godliness, have made shipwreck of their faith and of a good conscience. Doubtless,
“with God all things are possible;” and therefore He can restore the most
determined apostate: but there is very little reason to hope that he ever will; since he
has told us, that such an one shall be given over to final impenitence [ ote: Heb_6:4-

6; Heb_10:26-27. 2Pe_2:20-22.] — — —
The state of one who has merely declined in religion is certainly not so desperate;
but still it is truly deplorable. If a man had never known any thing of religion, it
might be hoped that the truths of the Gospel would influence his mind; but if he be
already acquainted with those truths, and they be not able to preserve him, how can
it be hoped that they shall have efficacy to restore him? Whilst “the heart is yet
tender,” the Gospel is mighty in operation; because God accompanies it with his
power from on high: but when “the heart is hardened through the deceitfulness of
sin,” and the Spirit of God has withdrawn his agency, there is great reason to fear
that the man “will draw back unto perdition.” How solemn are the admonitions
given on this subject to the Church at Ephesus [ ote: Rev_2:4-5.], and to that at
Sardis [ ote: Rev_3:1-3.]! Let every one then who has declined in religious exercises
and enjoyments, even though his declensions be ever so secret, tremble, lest that
threatening be fulfilled in him, “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own
ways [ ote: Pro_14:14.].”]
2. Their ministerial usefulness—
[“All who have received the gift, are bound to minister the same to others, as good
stewards of the manifold grace of God [ ote: 1Pe_4:10.].” But the man that has lost
the savour of religion in his own soul, is ill qualified for this: he has not inclination
to do it, he has not courage, he has not ability. When religion flourished in his soul,
he could converse upon it with pleasure: “Out of the abundance of his heart his
mouth would freely speak.” But now he can converse on any other subject rather
than that: he finds no satisfaction in maintaining fellowship even with the saints: it
is not to be wondered at therefore that he has no disposition to instruct the ignorant,
and reform the wicked. Indeed, he is afraid lest that proverb should be retorted
upon him, “Physician, heal thyself:” and his own conscience will remonstrate with
him in the energetic language of the Apostle, “Thou that teachest another, teachest
thou not thyself [ ote: Rom_2:21-24.]?” — — — And though no change has taken
place in his intellect in reference to earthly things, his understanding becomes
CLOUDED in relation to spiritual things: his GIFTS in a great measure vanish
together with his grace: he once could speak and pray with fluency; but now his
mouth is shut; and he experiences the truth of that singular declaration, “From him
that hath not (that hath not improved his talent) shall be taken away even that
which he hath [ ote: Mat_13:12.].”
But it is observed of the salt, not only that it is “good for nothing,” with respect to its
primary uses of keeping other things from putrefaction, but that it is “not fit for the
land, nor yet for the dunghill [ ote: Luk_14:35.].” The fact is, that salt, when
destitute of its proper qualities, has a tendency rather to produce sterility than to
promote vegetation, if it be cast upon the land. This is intimated in many passages of
Scripture [ ote: Jdg_9:45. Jer_17:6. Eze_47:11 and particularly Psa_107:34. the
marginal reading. The Salt Sea is the Dead Sea.] — — — And such is the effect
produced by those who have lost the power of godliness, and departed from God:
they cast a stumbling-block before men, and “cause the way of truth to be evil

spoken of.” The world may do what they please, and the individuals alone are
blamed; but let any one who professes religion do any thing amiss, and religion itself
must be accountable for it, and the name of God is blasphemed on his account. This
indeed is most unreasonable and absurd: nevertheless so it is: and a most
aggravated woe is thereby entailed on all who occasion such an offence [ ote: Mat_
18:7.].]
3. Their final acceptance—
[Even here they are rejected both by God and man. Those who walk consistently,
are hated and despised by the ungodly world; but those who walk inconsistently, are
despised a thousand times more; and this God has ordained as a just punishment
for their treachery [ ote: Mal_2:8-9.]. As for his own abhorrence of them, it is
scarcely possible for language to express it more strongly than he has declared it
[ ote: Rev_3:15-16.]. Moreover, if they repent not, the same indignation will pursue
them in the eternal world. What reception they will then meet with at his hands, he
has plainly warned them [ ote: Psa_50:16-22.].” And the saints with whom they
associated here, will then disown them, and cast them out of their society [ ote:
Luk_13:28.]: yea, the very heathen who walked agreeably to the light that they
enjoyed, will be admitted into bliss, whilst the lifeless professor of religion, who
brought forth no fruit to perfection, will be banished from it with abhorrence [ ote:
Rom_2:27.]: so true is that expression in our text, “They shall be trodden under foot
of men!”]
Seeing then that the power of godliness is of such importance, we call upon you all,
1. To seek it—
[It is not a lifeless formal religion that will avail for your salvation. The command of
God to every one of us is, “Have salt in yourselves [ ote: Mar_9:50.].” The
distinction between the true Christian and the self-deceiver is, that the one “savours
the things of the Spirit,” which the other does not [ ote: Rom_8:5. ö ñ ï í ï ῦ ó é í ,
sapiunt, Beza. See also Rom_2:28-29.].” We must “delight ourselves in God,” or it
will be in vain to hope that ever He will delight in us.]
2. To preserve it—
[The “salt may soon lose its savour.” Religion is not like the sculptor’s work, which
if left ever so long remains in the state it was: but like a stone rolled up a hill, which
will descend again as soon as the impelling force is withdrawn. The stony-ground
and thorny-ground hearers shew, that we are prone to depart from God, or to rest
in a carnal state whilst maintaining outwardly a spiritual profession. It is a
melancholy, and an undeniable fact, that many do “begin in the Spirit, and end in
the flesh.” Let us then “stir up the gift of God that is in us,” as we would stir a
languishing fire; that we “lose not the things which we have wrought, but that we
receive a full reward [ ote: 2 John, ver. 8.].”]

3. To diffuse it—
[We must never forget the office which God has assigned us in our respective
spheres. The treasure committed to us earthen vessels, is not for ourselves only, but
to enrich others. “Our speech should always be with grace seasoned with salt [ ote:
Col_4:6. Eph_4:29.].” Let us then exert ourselves to the utmost of our power to
instruct the rising generation — — — to reform the habits of the world — — — to
send the Gospel to the Heathen — — — and to impart to all within our reach the
knowledge and salvation of God [ ote: If this be a subject for Missions, or Bible
Society, or Sunday Schools, or for Visiting the Sick, or Reformation of Manners, the
appropriate idea should be exclusively insisted on.].]
KRETZMA , "Having experienced the sanctifying power of the Word and Spirit
of Jesus, the disciples are a salt. ote the four main qualities of salt: It is white and
pure, it prevents rapid decay, it preserves nutriment and flavor, it renders the food
palatable and healthy. The Christians are the salt of the earth; their BUSI ESS is to
prevent its decay and putrefaction, to use every effort that the moral rottenness of
the children of the world does not become excessive and render every class and age
of society putrid by its infection, 1Co_15:33. This is not an easy task. But "our
defiance, when things go badly, and when the world and the devil give us evil looks,
and are as angry as they wish, is this, that He says to us: Ye are the salt of the earth.
Where this word shines into the heart that it puts its trust in that and glories
without doubting that we are God's salt, then let everyone be thoroughly angry that
will not laugh. I can and may put more defiance and boasting upon a single word of
His than they upon their might, swords, and guns. " If this salt now loses its flavor,
it becomes insipid. This is true only of salt that undergoes a chemical process, either
by being exposed to rain or by being stored for some length of time, as travelers
from the Holy Land report. The figure of Christ is thus particularly apt. Insipid,
saltless salt is really a contradiction in itself, and Christians that have lost their
distinctive properties have ceased to influence their surroundings for good, have
also lost their discipleship. As savorless salt has no value whatever and is treated as
refuse; as a certain species of bituminous salt found in Judea which very rapidly
became flat and tasteless was spread out in a court of the Temple to prevent slipping
in wet weather, so the Christians that have ceased to APPLY themselves to their
business of acting as a moral power in the world, will partake of the judgment of the
world. Luther probably is right in saying: "Therefore I have always admonished, as
Christ also does here, that salt remain salt and not become insipid, that is, that the
chief article of faith be urged. For if that ceases, then not one piece can remain, and
everything is lost; there is neither faith nor understanding, and no one can teach or
counsel properly anymore."
GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE, "The Salt of the Earth
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be
salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot
of men.—Mat_5:13.

The exact position of these words in the Sermon on the Mount must be carefully
remembered. They follow immediately after the Beatitudes—those sayings in which
Christ had described the various qualities of character essential to the citizen of the
Kingdom of Heaven, that is, for one who would obey the rule which He had come on
earth to establish and extend. A citizen of that Kingdom, Christ had just taught His
hearers, must be humble-minded: he must grieve over the sin and the various evils
which exist in the world; he must be gentle; he must desire righteousness above all
things; he must be merciful; he must be pure-minded in the fullest sense of the
words; he must do all in his power to promote peace; and he must be prepared to
suffer in order that righteousness may be promoted and extended. A character
which fulfils these conditions, that is, a character of which these virtues are the
factors, is the character desired by Christ, and such a character is His own.
Immediately after this description has been given, as soon as ever this ideal has been
set us as the standard, Christ addresses the words of the text to those who were
following Him and learning from Him. To them He looked to cultivate this
character. And for a moment He thinks of them, not as they actually were, but as He
would have them be. For a moment He treats them as if His ideal for them were
already realized in them; He does not say ye shall be, but ye are the salt of the earth.
The spirit of all the united qualities commended in the Beatitudes is the salt of the
life of the world. All of them—meekness and humility and purity and the rest—run
up into two: the spirit of love and the spirit of righteousness. These, then, embodied
in human life, are the salt of the earth, the salt of Churches and nations, of all forms
of human activity, of thought, of imagination, of business, of the daily life of men.
These keep humanity fresh and living, preserve it from corruption, and add to it the
savour which secures to men their true and enduring enjoyment of life. But chiefly,
in Christ’s present idea, they were the freshening, purifying, preserving element in
His Kingdom.
I
The Salt and its Savour
“Ye are the salt of the earth.”
1. Salt is one of those superfluities which the great French wit defined as “things
that are very necessary.” From the very beginning of human history men have set a
high value upon it and sought for it in caves and by the seashore. The nation that
had a good supply of it was counted rich. A bag of salt, among the barbarous tribes,
was worth more than a man. The Jews prized it especially because they lived in a
warm climate where food was difficult to keep, and because their religion laid
particular emphasis on cleanliness, and because salt was largely used in their
sacrifices.
Both in Hebrew and in Roman bywords, salt is praised as a necessity of human life.
Homer calls it “divine,” and Plato speaks of it as a “substance dear to the gods.” It is
an indispensable element in the food both of men and of animals. It is so cheap and

plentiful with us that we can hardly realize that there are places where there is what
is known as salt starvation, which is in its way even more painful than hunger or
thirst. A missionary tells us that in Africa he has known natives who have travelled
fifty or sixty miles in search of salt. Their hot African blood, lacking the purifying
and health-giving salt, has broken out in painful ULCERS which drain the life and
energy; and when the mission-house has been reached they have begged in piteous
tones, not for money or bread, but for salt.1 [ ote: J. G. Mantle, God’s To-Morrow,
22.]
Chloride of sodium (common salt) is fortunately one of the most widely distributed,
as well as one of the most useful and absolutely necessary, of nature’s gifts; and it is
a matter of much comfort to know that this mineral exists in such enormous
quantities that it can never be exhausted. “Had not,” says Dr. Buckland, “the
beneficent providence of the Creator laid up these stores of salt within the bowels of
the earth, the distance of inland countries from the sea would have rendered this
article of prime and daily necessity unattainable to a large proportion of mankind;
but under the existing dispensation, the presence of mineral salt, in strata which are
dispersed generally over the interior of our continents and larger islands, is a source
of health and daily enjoyment to the inhabitants of almost every region.” Even
supposing that the whole of the mines, brine pits, and springs become exhausted, we
can fall back on the sea, whose supply is as boundless as its restless self; and there is
as little fear of its exhaustion as there is of the failure of the sun’s heat.1 [ ote: W.
Coles-Finch, Water: its Origin and Use, 167.]
2. From one point of view it was an immense compliment for the disciples to be
spoken of as salt. Their Master showed great confidence in them. He set a high value
upon them. The historian Livy could find nothing better to express his admiration
for the people of ancient Greece than this very phrase. He called them sal gentium,
“the salt of the nations.” But our Lord was not simply paying compliments. He was
giving a clear and powerful call to duty. His thought was not that His disciples
should congratulate themselves on being better than any other men. He wished them
to ask themselves whether they actually had in them the purpose and the power to
make other men better. Did they intend to exercise a purifying, seasoning, saving
influence in the world? Salt exists solely to purify, not itself, but that which needs its
services. The usefulness of the Church as a separated society lies wholly in the very
world from which it has been so carefully separated. It exists to redeem that world
from itself. Out of love for that world it is sent by the same impulse of the Father as
sent to it His only-begotten Son; and the damning error of the Pharisee is that he
arrests this Divine intention in mid career, arrests it at the point where it has
reached him, arrests it for his own honour and his own benefit, refusing to let it pass
through him to its work on others.
(1) Salt is most largely used as an antiseptic, for allaying corruption, and for
stopping the effects of climate upon animal matter; it is a preservative of sweetness
and purity in that with which it is associated. So the presence of Christ’s Church in
the world, of a Christian man or woman in the smaller world of his or her own
circle in society, is to be preservative: to allay corruption, to maintain life, to ward

off decay and death, to uphold a standard of right, without which the world would
be a far worse place than it is.
“Ye”—Christians, ye that are lowly, serious, and meek; ye that hunger after
righteousness, that love God and man, that do good to all, and therefore suffer
evil—“ye are the salt of the earth.” It is your very nature to season whatever is
round about you. It is the nature of the Divine savour which is in you to spread to
whatsoever you touch; to diffuse itself, on every side, to all those among whom you
are. This is the great reason why the providence of God has so mingled you together
with other men, that whatever grace you have received of God may through you be
communicated to others; that every holy temper and word and work of yours may
have an influence on them also. By this means a check will, in some measure, be
given to the corruption which is in the world; and a small part, at least, saved from
the general infection, and rendered holy and pure before God.1 [ ote: John
Wesley.]
(2) To put our Lord’s comparison in its full relief, however, we must add the
sacrificial use of salt in Hebrew worship as well as in the rites of heathen antiquity.
o offering of cakes or vegetable produce was laid on Jehovah’s altar saltless;
perhaps this seasoning was added even to animal sacrifices; certainly it entered into
the composition of the sacred incense. With all this in their minds, Jesus’ audience
could understand Him to mean no less than this, that His disciples were to act on
society (Jewish society, of course, in the first place) as a moral preservative, keeping
it from total decay, and fitting it to be an oblation, not distasteful, but acceptable, to
Jehovah. The thought was far from a new one to the Hebrew mind. Remembering
how the world before the flood perished because “all flesh had corrupted his way,”
except one salt particle too minute to preserve the mass; how ten men like Lot would
have saved the cities of the lower Jordan; how it marked the extreme ripeness to
destruction of the Israel of Ezekiel’s day, that even these three men, oah, Daniel,
and Job, had they been in it, could have delivered “neither son nor daughter”; no
Jew could miss the point of our Lord’s words to His Twelve around Him, “Ye are
the salt of the land.” When He spoke, the corruption of His nation was extreme, as
His own sermons show us; and effete Judaism was fast ripening for its fall.
(3) Salt gives relish to what would otherwise be tasteless or unpleasant; and Christ’s
people are, if we may so speak, the relishing element in the world, which prevents it
from being loathsome altogether to the Lord. So Lot was in the cities of the plain the
one savour which made them even so long endurable. There was not much salt in
Lot; but there was a little, there was a righteous soul that at least vexed itself
because of the unrighteousness around it, if it did not do very much to arrest that
unrighteousness. And because of Lot, God almost spared the place, would have
spared it had there been only a few more like him, or had he been just a little truer
than he was. Even so Christians are to be as salt to the earth, which, without them,
would be in a manner loathsome, being so possessed with mean and base and
ignoble souls.
A king asked his three daughters how much they loved him. Two of them replied

that they loved him better than all the gold and silver in the world. The youngest
one said she loved him better than salt. The king was not pleased with her answer,
as he thought salt was not very palatable. But the cook, overhearing the remark, put
no salt in anything for breakfast next morning, and the meal was so insipid that the
king could not enjoy it. He then saw the force of his daughter’s remark. She loved
him so well that nothing was good without him.1 [ ote: A. C. Dixon, Through ight
to Morning, 197.]
(4) Salt does its work silently, inconspicuously, gradually. “Ye are the light of the
world,” says Christ in the next verse. Light is far-reaching and brilliant, flashing
that it may be seen. That is one side of Christian work, the side that most of us like
best, the conspicuous kind of it. But there is a very much humbler, and a very much
more useful, kind of work that we have all to do. We shall never be the “light of the
world,” except on condition of being “the salt of the earth.” We have to play the
humble, inconspicuous, silent part of CHECKI G corruption by a pure example
before we can aspire to play the other part of raying out light into the darkness, and
so drawing men to Christ Himself.
I was once travelling in an Oriental country, where life was squalid, women
despised, and houses built of mud; and of a sudden, I came upon a village where all
seemed changed. The houses had gardens before them and curtains in their
windows; the children did not beg of the passer-by, but called out a friendly
greeting. What had happened? I was fifty miles from a Christian mission-station,
and this mission had been there for precisely fifty years. Slowly and patiently the
influence had radiated at the rate of a mile a year, so that one could now for a space
of fifty miles across that barren land perceive the salt of the Christian spirit, and
could see the light of the Christian life shining as from a lighthouse fifty miles away.
That was the work to which Jesus summoned the world,—not an ostentatious or
revolutionary or dramatic work, but the work of the salt and of the light. The saying
of Jesus is not for the self-satisfied or conspicuous, but for the discouraged and
obscure. A man says to himself: “I cannot be a leader, a hero, or a scholar, but I can
at least do the work of the salt and keep the life that is near to me from spoiling; I
can at least do the work of the light so that the way of life shall not be wholly dark.”
Then, as he gives himself to this self-effacing service, he hears the great word: “He
that loseth his life for my sake shall find it,” and answers gladly: “So then death
worketh in us, but LIFE I you.”1 [ ote: F. G. Peabody, Mornings in the College
Chapel, ii. 53.]
II
The Salt without the Savour.
“If the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”
1. Salt may lose its seasoning power. In Christ’s era salt frequently reached the
consumer in a very imperfect state, being largely mixed with earth. The salt which
has lost its savour is simply the earthy residuum of such impure salt after the

sodium chloride has been washed out. Blocks of salt were quarried on the shores of
the Dead Sea and brought to Jerusalem, and a store of this rock-salt was kept by the
Levites in the Temple to be used in the sacrifices. It was very impure—usually
containing a large mixture of sand—and in moist weather the saline ingredient
deliquesced and, trickling away, left the porous lump in its original shape, but all its
substance, all its “savour” gone. For food it was no longer fit seasoning. Cast on the
altar it would no longer decrepitate and sparkle, and in FLOWERS OF flaming
violet adorn and consume the offering. Even the farmer did not care to get it. The
gritty, gravelly mass was good for nothing—only fit to be pounded and sprinkled on
the slippery pavement, and trodden under the feet of men.
I have often seen just such salt, and the identical disposition of it that our Lord has
mentioned. A merchant of Sidon having farmed of the Government the revenue
from the importation of salt, brought over an immense quantity from the marshes of
Cyprus—enough, in fact, to supply the whole province for at least twenty years.
This he had transferred to the mountains, to cheat the Government out of some
small percentage. Sixty-five houses in Jûne—Lady Stanhope’s village—were rented
and filled with salt. These houses have merely earthen floors, and the salt next the
ground in a few years entirely spoiled. I saw large quantities of it literally thrown
into the street, to be trodden under foot of men and beasts. It was “good for
nothing.” Similar magazines are common in Palestine, and have been from remote
ages; and the sweeping out of the spoiled salt and casting it into the street are
actions familiar to all men. Maundrell, who visited the lake at Jebbûl, tells us that
he found salt there which had entirely “lost its savour,” and the same abounds
among the debris at Usdum, and in other localities of rock-salt at the south end of
the Dead Sea. I DEED, it is a well-known fact that the salt of this country, when in
contact with the ground, or exposed to rain and sun, does become insipid, and
useless. From the manner in which it is gathered, much earth and other impurities
are necessarily collected with it. ot a little of it is so impure that it cannot be used
at all; and such salt soon effloresces and turns to dust—not to fruitful soil, however.
It is not only good for nothing itself, but it actually destroys all fertility wherever it
is thrown; and this is the reason why it is cast into the street. There is a sort of
verbal verisimilitude in the manner in which our Lord alludes to the act—“it is cast
out” and “trodden under foot”; so troublesome is this corrupted salt, that it is
carefully swept up, carried forth, and thrown into the street. There is no place about
the house, yard, or garden where it can be tolerated. o man will allow it to be
thrown on to his field, and the only place for it is the street; and there it is cast, to be
trodden under foot of men.1 [ ote: W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, chap.
xxvi.]
2. What is a saltless Christian? A saltless Christian is one who has gone back to the
earthly, the worldly, the carnal. The heavenly element is no longer in the ascendant;
the salt has lost its savour.
(1) One sign of deterioration is to be found in a lowered and attenuated ideal. Christ
has little by little become almost a personal stranger. We do not seek His company,
watch His eye, listen for His voice. The thought of Him does not send a thrill of joy

into the heart. We have not renounced Him or consciously taken another Lord in
His place. But we have lagged so far behind in the journey that He is quite out of
our sight and reach. We can no more honestly say, as once we could say with a kind
of rapture, “He is chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely.” It is the
inevitable result from this changed relationship to Christ that the cross has dropped
from our back (we did not feel it drop, nor do we miss it now that it is gone); there is
nothing in our lives, or activities, or general profession, that is irksome or
troublesome, compelling sacrifice, and earning joy. The world is apparently neither
worse nor better for us. Really it is worse. The candlestick is still in its place, the
candle is still feebly burning, but in a moment it may go out, and then where shall
we be?
If you take a red-hot ball out of a furnace and lay it down upon a frosty moor, two
processes will go on—the ball will lose heat and the surrounding atmosphere will
gain it. There are two ways by which you equalize the temperature of a hotter and a
colder body; the one is by the hot one getting cold, and the other is by the cold one
getting hot. If you are not heating the world, the world is freezing you. Every man
influences all men round him, and receives influences from them; and if there be not
more exports than imports, if there be not more influences and mightier influences
raying out from him than are coming into him, he is a poor creature, and at the
mercy of circumstances. “Men must either be hammers or anvil”;—must either give
blows or receive them. I am afraid that a great many of us who call ourselves
Christians get a great deal more harm from the world than we ever dream of doing
good to it. Remember this, you are “the salt of the earth,” and if you do not salt the
world, the world will rot you.1 [ ote: A. Maclaren.]
(2) Another sign of deterioration is a growing indifference to all great enterprise for
Christ. Few things are more exhilarating, more invigorating, more uplifting, more
solemnizing, than a mighty gathering of Christian people, met, let us say, for a great
missionary anniversary, to hear the glad tidings of the progress of the Redeemer’s
kingdom, and to return to their homes, stirred, joyful, thankful. The man whose
heart is cold to all this, sceptical about it, indifferent to it, and who yet looks back on
days when every word spoken, every blow struck, every triumph won for Jesus, was
a joy which few things else equalled, has good reason for asking himself what has
happened to him to make the growth of the Kingdom of Christ so small and dull
and unattractive and commonplace a thing. The change is assuredly not in the
purpose of Jesus, or in the value of the soul, or in the duty of the Church, which is
His Body.
If, as can be reasonably argued, the historian may trace an increasing deterioration
in the moral worth of Alexander Borgia from the period when the influence of
Cesare at the Vatican replaced that of Juan, the fact has its obvious explanation.
Rodrigo Borgia was a man of extraordinary vitality, with unusual reserves of power
for his years. His energies had found their chief outlet in keen interest in the
functions of his office as he understood them. His sensual indulgences, however
disreputable, were never the first preoccupation of his nature; they were rather the
surplusage of a virile temperament to which such interests as art, letters, or building

made no serious appeal. In any position but that of the Vicar of Christ his excesses
would have passed unremarked. If they weakened, as they undoubtedly did, his
spiritual authority, they had hitherto scarcely detracted from the respect due to his
political capacity. But in proportion as he surrendered his initiative in affairs and
shared the control of policy, of FI A CE, and of ecclesiastical administration with
Cesare, the less worthy elements of his nature asserted themselves more forcibly. It
was inevitable that in such a man abdication of responsibility should have this
result, till in the end Alexander became a thoroughly evil man; evil, in that under
guise of natural affection, in reality through cowardice, he allowed his authority,
both spiritual and political, to be shamelessly exploited. Thus knowingly and
without resistance Rodrigo Borgia steadily yielded to the worst impulses of his
nature.1 [ ote: W. H. Woodward, Cesare Borgia, 136.]
3. When the salt has lost its savour it is good for nothing. There are some things, the
chemist tells us, which, when they have lost their own peculiar form and utility, are
still of some good, for they can be put to other and baser uses. But to what use can a
dead Church be put? You may try to galvanize it into newness of life by artificial
means, but, after all, it is nothing more than a corpse. All that can be truly said of
such an attempt is that it was an interesting experiment. A mere profession of
religion is either an embarrassment or, what is worse, a fatal delusion. This old
world of ours has undergone many material changes during its existence, yet it has
grown more and more beautiful, in spite of them, as the forces of evolution have
unfolded themselves. But there is one change it could hardly survive as the
habitation of man, and that is the lost consciousness of the presence and power of
God with the people, or the loss of the sweetness and beauty of the Redeemer of men
as revealed in the lives of those faithful souls who sincerely love Him. For the
Church which has lost its savour there will come a day when men, overwhelmed by
their disappointment, and maddened by their sense of its lost savour, will tear it to
pieces, just as the enraged mob in Paris is said to have torn the fillet from Reason’s
brow and trampled it under their feet.
If the salt should lose its savour, if the regenerative force should die out of the
Church—if there were a Church into which the spirit of the world had passed, a
Church which had become assimilated by the world, a Church which had somehow
learnt to speak the world’s language and to justify the world’s morality, and to echo
the world’s phrases, a Church which are and drank at the world’s table without the
world becoming aware of any protest, or any discomfort, or any fear, a Church
which, instead of awakening consciences, sent them to sleep, instead of exposing the
world’s plagues flattered them into excusing or forgetting them: in the name of God
what use, or place, has such a Church on the face of the earth? Such a Church has
falsified the first law of its existence. It has killed out the very conscience which it
was created to sustain. It has destroyed the very power of remedy from sin which it
alone held in charge. It has poisoned the wells of human hope. “If the very salt have
lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but
to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.”
The really amazing thing is that such immense numbers of people have accepted

Matthew 5 13 22 commentary

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