Matthew 5:13You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his flavor, with which shall it be salted? it is thereafter good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. 14You are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light to all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Jesus resorted to two domestic metaphors in teaching this portion of the Beatitudes. Every home, however poor, used and still uses both salt and light. Salt and light are indispensable household commodities.

A Need for Salt in a Decaying World

This is of great significance for our understanding of the nature of true Christianity, especially in our present day. Jesus was saying, those who are my disciples should affect the world positively by the way in which they live. The question remains, in our world today, is there nearly enough of this positive action for good in the world by Christian?

At the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century there was a feeling of confident optimism in the western world, based on the belief that an ongoing biological and philosophical evolution would eventually solve all man’s troubles and lead to something like a Golden Age. The idea was that all of human life was advancing and rising upward. The fact is, it did not happen and has not happened.

According to Jesus, the Christian is clearly to influence his society. And this must be true wherever the principles of the gospel impinge upon the religious, political, economic, or social issues of the Christian’s community.

True Christians Are Salt

In Christ’s day and for many centuries thereafter, until nearly modern times, salt was the most common of all preservatives. The Mediterranean world was largely tropical. In such a climate and in the face of such conditions, salt was used to keep things from going bad and becoming rotten, particularly meat.

Whereas salt per se cannot lose its saltiness, salt can be adulterated. It can lose its effectiveness by being indistinguishable from that which surrounds it. It no longer preserves anything. It is then part of the corruption, so it’s thrown out the door onto the street, which was the refuse pit of the East, and it’s trodden underfoot by men, useless. It is no longer good for anything.

Salt stands as a rather negative function of fighting deterioration, therefore, it itself must not deteriorate.

If we understand this, it will keep us from the two opposing errors that have always gone along with programs to express the Christian’s social responsibility. The first is, the thought that the world is basically good and will gradually become better and even perfect through Christian social action. In opposition to this understanding, Christ says that the world is basically rotten. This means that even though it may appear healthy for a time, it is dead spiritually.

The second error is, because this is so, because the world is rotten, the Christian should try to disassociate himself from the world as much as possible, retreating to a monastery or to a self-protecting church.

The reality, according to Jesus is, the Christian is to be a preserving force in the world wherever God has placed him. The salt never did any good when it was sitting on one shelf and the meat on another. To be effective, the salt had to be rubbed into the meat. In a similar way, Christians must allow God to rub them into the world. This means that they must be Christians at work, Christians in politics, Christians at home, Christians everywhere else that a normal life in their own society would take them.

If a body does not give off salt through perspiration, what happens? It retains water, and it becomes bloated. In the same way, the church will become bloated and desperately unhealthy if the salt is not dispersed in this work of preservation.

The effectiveness of salt is conditional: it must retain its saltness.

If Christians become assimilated to 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.

To be thrown out and trampled by men” neither affirms nor denies anything about “eternal security.” Rather, as Luke 14:35 makes even clearer, this phrase refers to the world’s response to Christians if they do not function as they should. Believers who fail to arrest corruption become worthless as agents of change and redemption. Christianity may make its peace with the world and avoid persecution, but it is thereby rendered impotent to fulfill its divinely ordained role. It will thus ultimately be rejected even by those with whom it has sought compromise.

Salt Adds Flavor

The Christian, through the life of Jesus Christ, living out the beatitudes, lends flavor to a flavorless, insipid world. The pleasures of the world are unsatisfying without Jesus Christ, they might fill for a while, but then, they leave one empty. Christians are to be present as those who know something different and whose satisfaction in Christ can be seen and known by their unbelieving contemporaries.

Salt Creates a Thirst

Salt makes one thirsty. Do we make anyone thirsty for Jesus Christ? The non-Christian tends to feel self-satisfied even if he is not, and he naturally goes through life telling himself that circumstances are wonderful. But when a Christian comes into his sphere of vision, there should be that evidence of joy, satisfaction, and peace that makes him look up and say, “That’s what I want; that is what I want to be like!” Can that be said of us? Do we make people thirsty for Jesus Christ?

Helmut Thielicke takes up this same theme of the necessarily sharp or ‘biting’ quality of true Christian witness. To look at some Christians, he says, ‘one would think that their ambition is to be the honeypot of the world. They sweeten and sugar the bitterness of life with an all too easy conception of a loving God … But Jesus, of course, did not say, “You are the honey of the world.” He said, “You are the salt of the earth.” Salt bites, and the unadulterated message of the judgment and grace of God has always been a biting thing.’

Salt is a Common Substance

Salt is one of the most common things of life. It is found everywhere. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth,” he was saying, “I delight to use little things.” “You are the salt” a common substance. It is from the common things—from the weak, the foolish, the despised, the things that are not (1 Corinthians 1:26–29) that God brings the greatest glory to his name.

God uses the small things and the small people. God uses you and me that he might do his work in the world. As a matter of fact, the smaller you can become, the more effective his work in you will be. Do you know what we are to be? We are to be picture frames within which Jesus Christ is to be seen. God is not interested in its being a gold frame or a beautifully carved frame. He is just interested in its being an empty frame, because he knows that when you come to him with that, he can put Christ there. And when people look at you, they will see Jesus.

The Light of the World

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:14–16).

The Need For Light in a Darkened World

I have a suspicion that we in our electrified Western world have little idea of what it is like really to be in the dark. If all else fails, we push a switch. There are some many lights everywhere, that most have never experienced true darkness. The kind where you put your hand in front of your face, and you don’t see your hand. You can wait all night for your eyes to get acclimatized, and you still don’t see your hand. In that sort of context, the smoking flickering wick from an olive lamp torch shows a wonderful light.

The world is that dark, the world is that black, and we are its light. Therefore, a city that really is planted clearly on a hill can’t be hidden. It stands in glorious display, shedding its light over the countryside for miles around so that the darkness that once made everything black, even though still very dark, is now a little more bearable than it was before.

In the mid 1700’s religious conditions had sunk so low in England that on Easter Sunday 1740 a total of six people showed up for Communion at Saint Paul’s in London. It is said that in some parts of London, every sixth building was a pub. Slavery was rife, Child exposure was everywhere, and what children were not exposed were sent down in the pits.

What changed that, under the Wesley and Whitfield revivals, peoples lives were changed and virtually every case of major advance, Christians, men and women who had been saved by the grace of God and owned nothing but lordship to Jesus Christ, spearheaded the changes that were introduced from there to the time of Wilberforce.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and praise God.”

The first clear implication of Christ’s words is that the world is in darkness where spiritual things are concerned. The tragedy of the situation is that men actually prefer the darkness to God’s light.

Part of the problem, of course, is that most people will not admit that they live in darkness.

It was the particular achievement of Jesus Christ that he exposed the nature of the darkness in a way that had never been done previously. And, of course, men hated him for it. way to a clearer distinction between good and evil. His coming is a judgment. The light and the darkness are not blended in him, as they are in us, so that opinion can be doubtful.”

The burden of the message is that Christians are to live out the norms of the kingdom whenever and wherever they are. They refuse to take company goods. They are the first to help a stricken neighbor. They honestly desire the other’s interests to be advanced even, if need be, at the expense of their own. They insist on doing a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. They are transparent in their honesty and simplicity and with all they witness, and they spread their light.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse used to say that when Christ was in the world he was a bit like the sun which is here by day and gone at night. But when the sun goes down the moon comes up, and the moon is a picture of the church—of Christians. It shines, but it does not shine by its own light. It shines only because it reflects the light of the sun. Jesus said of himself in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world.” But when he was thinking of the fact that one day he would be taken out of the world he said, “You are the light of the world.” And that is why the world is in such darkness today. At times the church is a full moon, in the midst of revival when a man like Luther or Calvin or Wesley is here. And at other times the church is a new moon and you can barely see it. But whether it is a full moon or a new moon or only a waxing or a waning quarter it glows because of the sun. In the same way, you and I can show forth light only if we reflect the real light of the Lord Jesus.