Salt and Light, Not Honey and Shade

Read Matthew 5:13-16

One of the things that is clear from the Beatitudes is that they cannot be practiced in total isolation. Evidently, the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount were not designed primarily for monastic living. You cannot be meek or merciful alone. It is impossible to follow those norms of the Kingdom in a purely private way. They are all to be lived among other people. And living this way among others will have a decided witness.

As Jesus continues in his sermon, this implicit assumption from verses 3-12 is made explicit in verses 13-16. If the Beatitudes describe the essential inner character of the disciples of Jesus, the metaphors of Salt and Light here indicate their outer influence or witness for good in the world. In our Lord’s mind, there is a connection between attitude and action; in fact, there is no separation. In this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we move on to consider the function or purpose of the Christian in this world. In preview, it is this: All those to whom God gives the internal attitudes described in verses 3-12 will also have an external influence described in verses 13-16.

As my title suggests, Christ did not say you are the milk-toast of ineffectiveness. He did not say you are the honey or sweetener of the world. The Christian who lives the Beatitudes will not be some sweet nothing who has no troubling effect on the world. Instead, we may aggravate wounds like salt in a cut. The Beatitudes-person will be an irritant often because the world in which we live is decaying and putrefying. The world needs salt—not sugar. Although salt and sugar may look somewhat alike, when analyzed or when applied they are certainly different.

Neither did Christ call Christians to be the shade of the world. We are not to muffle or encumber the light of the world. Rather we are to broadcast it. The metaphor of light clues us that we are to distribute the good news as widely as possible, given the means that God provides.

Christ taught his original disciples and later disciples that Christians are to have a definite, lasting impact on the world because the character and person of Christ lives in us.

Now before we examine these two metaphors, there is one giant presupposition that lies behind them and is common to them. Don’t overlook it. This giant unwritten truth is that the church—made up of Beatitude Christians—and the world are different and distinct communities. They are not confused but significantly different.

The simple grammar bears this out. The salt of the earth refers to a small class from within the greater whole. The same is true of light from the world. If we are the salt and light of the world, then the world must be destitute of those commodities. Most fundamentally, we are recognized as being different from or a subset of the world. Christians are not identifiable with the world. We are, as the Bible says, in the world but not of it. This distinction or difference is real, and Jesus’ plan is for the subset to influence the greater part. His intention is for the Salt and Light to influence this other distinct community. Jesus believed that a little salt went a long way.

Now as soon as we say that this world needs the influence of Salt and Light, we admit by implication that the world is in a bad state. If Jesus purposed to send the salt community into the world community then that world must be in need of salt. Why would something be in need of salt? Only if it were rotting and decaying without its influence, or tasteless. So we must recognize here that the world is characterized by rottenness, pollution, deterioration, its tendency to putrefy, festering, and being putrid or in need of a preservative or antiseptic. Hidden within this saying was Jesus’ condemnation of the world as a system. He did not believe the world was good but in need of redemption. The very calling of Christians as salt and light assumes that the world is spoiling on its own and dark. The light of the world is only needed if the world is dark, blind, and in need of illumination.

So Jesus realizes clearly that the Christian is to be different from the world and yet in it for a positive good. The Church—collection of saints—in this world will have two roles to society:

• A negative one. To arrest decay. To combat deterioration.
• A positive one. To dispel darkness. To point the way.

How well do we do that in our homes and in this community?

We are not to be conformed to this world or let the world set the agenda for the Church. Rather the Church follows her Lord’s agenda and call to be different from the unredeemed world, while yet seeking to witness, influence it. As we look more carefully at these two metaphors, we must never lose sight of our first point: We are to be unlike the world. Salt is essentially different from the surface to which it is added. The very nature of salt is that it is different in substance from what it seeks to influence.

So let’s examine two metaphors illustrating how a Christian influences society. As we look at both, I’ll call your attention to its function, effect, and what happens when it doesn’t function properly.

I. Salt of the Earth. In the ancient world of Jesus, the pre-technological and pre-refrigerated world, salt was a highly valuable substance. In that culture, it had two main uses that are compared by Jesus here to the relation of a Christian to the world.  

The Function of salt in ancient culture was for:

1. Preservation.

People used to rub salt on food as a preservative when they had no refrigeration. It was used to prevent decay, particularly in the curing of meats. The application of sodium chloride, a strong and influential chemical compound, brings preservation to meat. Salt was used as a preservative. The ancient historian Plutarch said when one applies salt to meat which is a dead body that it is “like a new soul inserted into a dead body.”[1]

Thus when Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, we could understand him to say, “You are the new soul or principle of life put into a decaying, dead world to preserve it. Christians are to have an antiseptic impact on our society.”[2] You as individuals, who are described by the Beatitudes are to influence the earth as a preservative.

As Christians bring their beliefs to bear, they offer a distinct perspective that non-Christians never offer. For example, when we look at the problem of crime, many times we will focus on the role of the family as a crime preventative. That institution, created by God, for so many things, also has a salting effect. Strengthen family life, and crime goes down. However, those who do not follow biblical patterns rarely consider the preventative role of the family. Similarly, Christians have definite views about civil punishment. Believing that parts of the Mosaic law still have general equity, we believe in real punishment and restitution. No other secular view opts for those measures. Christians, with their distinctive beliefs, can salt many areas of society.

Now, if Christians abdicate this area, and stay out of this debate, secularists carry the day, and we end up looking something like the naked public square of today. Instead, God wants us to be salt in this society. He wants Christian criminologists, who will apply biblical principles to this world around us. He wants Christian social workers to salt the teenagers at risk. He calls us to be salt, even if only a small number, wherever we live, and in whatever issues we are involved. If we withdraw from society, or if we avoid these tough issues, we are not salting, and we become good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled down.

2. Taste.

Those who are or have been on salt-restricted diets know what this means. Have you ever tried not using salt in food for a week? You’d be surprised. Salt can dress up many things. I remember the first time I ever ate liver voluntarily in the 7th grade. For years (prior to that) my parents tried to get me to eat liver. It just would never go down. The only time I finally did was in late summer during two-a-day football practices when we took salt tablets like bubble gum. We perspired so much that we craved salt. I discovered that if you put enough salt on liver, even liver was palatable with much salt. Salt flavors!

Jesus meant for Christians not only to preserve the decaying world, but to flavor, enliven, and make tasty a bland insipid world of vice. So we are to see ourselves as flavoring agents. This is part of our identity. Amidst a society in decay, we are to have a characteristic flavoring ministry. Jesus begins Matthew 5:13 with “you” (and with emphasis of grammatical structure) and you alone are the salt of the earth. This is our function and role to society—to preserve and flavor. Without this leaven there will be putrification and blandness.

Also, let me mention two things about salt’s effect. Salt blends and causes pain in wounds.

1. In taste, salt does its work by being consumed or blended into the food. If salt stayed on the top of meat (liver) or food and did not blend, then it would exert no influence on that food. It would remain distinct. To have an effect on flavor, the salt must be mixed or blended. It must expend itself. Thus a Christian must be willing to expend him/herself if they desire to flavor the world. We must come out of the salt-cellar and mix into the world.
2. Secondly as to its effect, salt does not preserve without eating away germs. That is why it is painful on an open cut.

The hope for summertime’s conclusion reminds a lot of us of homemade ice-cream. Years ago, I made a batch of home-made ice cream. At the time, I had a small cut on my finger. The rock salt really caused irritation. Jesus knew this. Sometimes when we Christians are trying to salt the dying world, those in the world will welcome us as much as they desire pure salt on an open cut. We may have the effect of causing pain. So don’t shrink back if the salt has a bite. This stinging effect should remind us that we’re not the honey of the world. Salt bites and the unadulterated message of God has always been a biting thing. You ought to know that in advance and expect that kind of response.

Finally in this verse, note what happens when its function is canceled or does not work. If salt doesn’t flavor, it is useless and can only be thrown out and trampled on. It is no good. It is not functioning as it should. I think Jesus is speaking subtly here. He knows that salt will never become useless unless it is absorbed by its surrounding; thus it has the desired effect or is contaminated. Salt will not cease being salty unless it reproduces a salty effect in its surrounding. Thus he seems to be saying, if salt is not salting then throw it out, for it is no true salt. It is contaminated. Otherwise if it is true salt it will continue to influence the world. Here we have a good test or evaluation of our faith. If one truly trusts in Christ, one’s life will show it. That person will be true salt and influence the world around them for the good of Christ. If you are not doing this, pause to see if you are on the way to uselessness.

Are you one grain in the salt shaker being poured out onto this sin-ridden spoiling world? If you are, then you are one of Jesus’ children.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones summarized this passage well: “For effectiveness the Christian must retain his Christlikeness as salt must retain its saltiness. If Christians become assimilated as non-Christians and contaminated by the impurities of the world, they lose their influence. The influence of Christians in and on society depends on their being distinct, not identical. . . . The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.”[3] Otherwise, if we Christians are indistinguishable from non-Christians, we are useless. We might as well be discarded like saltless salt, and be ‘thrown out and trodden under foot by men.’ “‘But what a downcome,’ comments A. B. Bruce, ‘from being saviors of society to supplying materials for footpaths!’”[4]