This is characteristic of many. They may be getting too much of that sodium chloride poisoning. Too much salt is not good. But our natural like for the taste of salt often makes us ask for the salt. When one starts salting, even before tasting, you may be sure his sense of taste has been over tried and is now dulled, so he needs more than a good cook would put in during preparation.

All of this brings us to the theme for this article. The text at the head of this article says that Jesus taught his disciples, actually His church, even at that early point in His ministry, that they are the salt of the earth. On another occasion, or maybe Mark’s record just adds this detail, He said,

“Salt [is] good: but if the salt have lost his saltiness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.” (Mark 9:50).

What We Are
This influence will not stem merely from what we know or think we know. It is not just a product of our purposeful teachings or arguments. It is a product of what we are. Education may definitely show up in it. But perhaps our background in our homes will be more nt. We do not live in glass houses. If we are living at all it is in the open air.

The Bible shows a consistent strain of insisting that we all live to the Lord. “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.” (Romans 14:8 ). The Book of Romans is addressed to churches at Rome, but the principle we are mentioning is not just of saints; it is of all men. All men are God’s by creation.

“Yea, surely, God acteth not wickedly, and the Almighty eth not judgment. Who hath entrusted to him the earth? and who hath disposed the whole world?" (Job 34:13).

People have a strange way of thinking that if one makes no profession of faith in God, no connection with any church, they then are free to do as they please as long as they are not violating the law of the land. They need to realize that God is the God of the whole earth. “That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25 ).

Perhaps the worst sort of misinformation about God is that He fails to be God indeed. Being God He can only do right. If we do not agree with what He does the problem is not with His system of judgment, or His words. The problem is with us.

Why Is Having Salt In Ourselves Important?
If properly salted food is satisfactory, making the food delicious, then the seasoning is important. We avoid those eating places where the food is not palatable. If the saints are the salt of the earth, then surely they exude “good taste.”

“Let your speech [be] alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” (Colossians 4:6 ).

Our speech reflects our thoughts, even our feelings. This is the taste which the world needs. The saints manifest that essence of good taste which God s for all men. But just what is this primary seasoning. Salt! I gather that God’s grace provides this tastefulness to our language and our emotions, so that we know how we ought to answer every man. That other expression which says we should “have salt in ourselves” (Mark 9:50) explains that so we have peace with all men.

What can give us peace? Those of us who have taken a strong stand for God, for home, for righteousness, for the Lord’s church, know that the world does not like our “taste.” But at least they know what the taste is. To them our speech is offensive. Instead of recognizing its Truth, for they are blind to that, they see us as prejudiced, biased, trying to palm off on others what we prefer and not giving them the choices which they demand. If we give them occasion to be offended at us because of our failing to show our position in “grace- salted” speech, then we, in lacking that salt in ourselves, do not have peace with them. If our proof of our position is only debate, argument, logic, even when we point to passages of Scripture, they say, “That is just your interpretation,” and they go on rejecting our God, our Bible and the Truth. What is lacking. “It is “salt in ourselves.” In other words, God’s grace must show up in us in the form of the fruits of righteousness, peace, love, goodness, meekness, good works, etc. The testimony of a holy life is the tastiness of grace-salted living.

The Savor Is Not Always Sweet

"Now thanks [be] unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one [we are] the savour of unto ; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who [is] sufficient for these things?" (2 Corinthians. 2:16).

This passage should convict each of us who profess to be Christ’s. We are to manifest the sweet flavor of a knowledge of Him, for we are to be a sweet savor of Christ. This is to extend to all men. To those who are being saved, meaning His salt-grace is delivering us from day to day sins of the flesh. To those who are perishing because they have rejected the sweet savor of the knowledge of Him, we are the smell of judgment .

From “death unto ” means the pains and evidences of their is being unfolded in their natural lives and the tastefulness of the saints causes a man to recognize his own dying even now and to know the certainty of it in judgment to come. With such a testimony in us and by us, who of us is sufficient to manifest Christ’s sweetness as He was.

The answer is “None of us” in the detail and the force He manifested the fullness of godhood when he was here in the flesh (2 Corinthians. 4:6). “The light of the knowledge of the glory of God” was shining in His face. That glory of God evidently includes all of God’s attributes, all that it took to make Him God, that is, God in His fullness. It pleased the Father that in Him should dwell the fullness of the Godhead. Godhood was made evident in Him while He was here on earth. The crowning evidence of it was His coming forth from the grave in power (Romans 1:4).

That fullness dwelt in His physical body so that men could behold God as He would appear in human flesh. Why do we need to see what God would look like in human flesh? So that we may learn how God would appear if we submitted to allow Him to live in and show Himself through our bodies offered in living sacrifice to Him (Romans 12:1, 2).

No wonder Paul marveled at the depths of mercy and the heights of glory, all in one resurrection portrait. Our baptism should show just that. We pause in awe at such grace and tremble at such mercy, knowing that we fall short in so many ways. Realizing this is God’s expectation of us who are of His body, the church, demands that our submission be constantly recognized and our prayers continue more devotedly to make us like Christ. (Compare Luke 4:22 and Colossians 4:6.)

The Salt Symbol in the Old Testament
A good principle to follow in interpretation is to find the first usage of any word or expression in the Bible. There we likely will find the first literal usage, but if it is obviously not literal, then there we find the metaphorical or symbolical. The first (Genesis 14:3) refers to the salt sea. The second (Genesis 19:26) describes the pillar of salt which was what Lot’s wife became when she looked back at the home and city she was leaving against her will. We take this to be literal salt. The third mention of salt is Leviticus 2:13.

“And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.”

Every oblation was to be salted, that is seasoned, with salt. They were never to allow the salt of the covenant to be lacking from a meat offering. Meat here does not necessarily mean flesh, but whatever is offered to God, even a grain offering. The salt evidently indicated a sure or firm covenant. Some suppose a small portion of pure salt was eaten by the priests in addition to the salting of the sacrifice. This was literal salt, but its purpose was a sort of token to afford assurance to the offerer that God’s Word was true and His power was available. The promise of God was sure and firm.

The next reference is Numbers 18:19.

“All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it [is] a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee.”

The two references immediately above and the one below are the only ones where salt is mentioned as marking a covenant (2 Chronicles. 13:5).

“Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, [even] to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?”

“Ought ye not to know...?” There is assurance in a covenant in which God makes promises. The symbol of that certainty is salt. But in this one with David it is different. There is no reference to salt in the two passages which describe the covenant which God made with David (2 Samuel 7:1-29 and Psalm 89:1-51). Neither is mention made of a sacrifice nor an offering in these two passages. God is the covenant keeping God. “Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he [is] God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;” (Deuteronomy 7:9). The firm nature of any covenant which He enters into is declared. The reference by Abijah, King of Judah, speaking from the mount Zemaraim, that is Ephraim, to Jeroboam, to a covenant of salt, bespeaks this certainty.

The priests who were faithful to God in all the tribes had left Jeroboam’s Kingdom and gone to Judah. Abijah had gathered an army of 400,000 men and gone up against Jeroboam with an Army of 800,000 men. Before long, however, that army realized they had more than met their match. More than half of the large army, 500,000 men, were ed and the rest fled. So peace prevailed between Judah and Israel for a number of years, though the king of Judah did not live to see it all. The certainty of God’s abiding by any covenant He makes is symbolized by the salt. This shows up in the words “grace” and “peace” which come as evidences of God’s faithfulness to His promises.

A covenant is simply a promise or promises to be kept by the parties involved. The rainbow was the token when God made a covenant with Noah in His day. Circumcision became a token to Abraham and his seed in their day. Such visible symbols served men with human limitations. But the sprinkling of salt on the offerings brought to mind the faithfulness of God and His gracious words.

• “The words of a wise man's mouth [are] gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.” (Ecclesiastes 10:12).
  
• “And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?” “Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.” (Psalm 45:2).

God has shown us in Jesus what it could be like in human beings if filled with His grace. “Have salt in yourselves.” Jesus demonstrates it. We ought to know He is faithful. But we object and say, but He was God and we are weak human beings. This is a wrong defense. If we are willing to have salt in ourselves, His grace moves in to make us like Christ, even while we are still in these bodies. Then can we look forward to glorification in the age to come!

If the saints are the salt of the earth it is because they have salt in themselves so that all of the earth is able to recognize that taste. Only as we are submissive, filled with the Truth, submissive to His Spirit, can we be effective in affording the world some evidence of that savor of His Truth.

If the salt has lost its taste, then it has no savor. I have no experience in dealing with literal salt which no longer has any taste. Perhaps this happened in areas where it was exposed to the elements. It is surely true when a believer of the Lord’s people, a part of His church, is exposed to the elements of the age, and does not regularly and zealously seek in His Truth the essence of the savor of the Lord, that he soon no longer has any savor of Christ. Who is sufficient as a reflector of that sweetness, even when shielded among the saints (2 Corinthians 2:16)?

But one out there in the world evidently loses any signs of his being a believer. Doubtless this explains why so many of the members of the Lord’s church, people who made a profession of faith, and possibly faithfully manifested it for a time, are no longer actively showing a love for God, for the church, for the Truth. They are not ready to give an answer to every man that asks a reason for the hope they once professed to have. “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” (1 Peter 3:15). He has grown slack, assuming that he was saved in the beginning, and is now uncertain of his own state. The context of this passage shows that the hope mentioned is not merely that one has been initially saved, but that he expects to be glorified with Christ as a part of His covenant people.

Perhaps this explains another statement, “salted with fire” (Mark 9:49). “For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.” (Mark 9:49). The Greek word salted, here, ‘alizo, is found three times in the New Testament, twice in this one verse and once in Matthew 5:13. Its meaning is derived from the manner of applying, that is, sprinkling salt. The root word for salt is ‘alas, and the word for season or savor is often ‘alizo. On the other hand the word “season,” is sometimes Greek artuo, which derives from a word which means to raise, or lift up. One gets the idea that food is elevated to a more satisfying taste level when salt is sprinkled on it, or stirred into it.

We are concerned to find this statement that everyone shall be salted with fire, together with the statement that every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. We want to know what is the meaning, for evidently God had a good reason for such statements. A long time ago we learned to take seriously everything which God says. So below we want to arrange some words pertaining to these passages which have to do with salt, so that we can note the sense for our readers.

“Salted with Fire”
For the moment let us examine this Scripture in context. Jesus the Teacher is correcting some ideas which men, because of their sin nature, accept. For example, some wanted to know who was the chief of His disciples, disputing with each other. Obvious errors like this are the product of man’s natural selfishness, or self-centeredness. He then boldly told them that the man who lived and died with the idea of being first, would wind up last, even servant of all (Mark 9:35).

Taking a child in his arms he said, Mark 9:37, “Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.” If a man cannot accept a brother, there is a lack of love, or worse, such an esteem for self until others cannot be tolerated. Our receiving others, specially our brethren, is served the realization that receiving a brother is a way of receiving Christ Himself. Becoming disenchanted of self requires that we come to love our Lord above all.

Self love extends itself into a love of our clique, our denomination, our clan. This makes it very difficult to find any reason to love those who do not see eye to eye with us. Jesus got around this question from John as to whether we should forbid one who does not go right along with us in everything (Mark 9:38). We must learn that another is wrong, even if he agrees with us, or right, even if he does not, depending on whether or not he follows the Lord as set forth in His Word.

Jesus then goes on to speak of those things which mark a servant of the Lord. Whoever shall do any little good thing for us because we belong to Christ shall not lose his reward. These instructions help deliver us from the narrow-minded manners of many of us.

Then he delivered a warning to any professing disciple against causing a weak disciple, “little ones that believe in me,” to stumble and fall. Better he should lose his physical life than that he should so offend.

To whom can such instructions apply? Surely we are hearing him instruct disciples and warning against anything they might do which would cause others to stumble and fall (Mark 9:42). The following verses are also addressed to disciples as warnings against allowing anything to come into our lives which might cause others to stumble (the real meaning of offend). A hand is very dear to us in this physical life. Better to lose it than to allow it to be the occasion of our stumbling. This is not to say that the hand, the foot, or the eye, is the actual cause of our stumbling, but it were better to go into the kingdom without such near and dear members, speaking figuratively, than to go into hell.

Such is the conclusion in the verses from Mark 9:42-48. Sin is serious business and there are consequences. That view of God’s grace which teaches that one act of faith forever preserves one from the consequences of his sins, actions, words, or deeds, is a serious mistake. Yes, Jesus has died for us, but if we cannot receive Him as our teacher and Lord, how can we convince men that He is our Savior?

Jesus brings up this word hell, Gk., geenna. It described a place where refuse was thrown, burned, and even carcasses of animals were thrown, outside Jerusalem. The odors, the maggots, and the fires and e become a lesson which Jesus spoke to disciples. The easy way of thrusting the language aside as only applicable to alien sinners who never trusted Jesus is a very poor reading or believing of what God has told us. It was to disciples such language is given.

We realize that fire is a figure of punishment, of God’s judgment on sins. It would be well for those who have not done so, to take some time and a concordance and study those Scriptures which tell of this place, geenna, the Valley of Hinnom, south and east of Jerusalem. We do not say that saved people are to be cast into that very valley with the other garbage, but Jesus used that place as an illustration of God’s provision for disobedient people, particularly those who professed faith in Him. Even that miserable place would not be worse for the mortal body than the judgment of fire which will come on the disobedient who know that Jesus is Savior but do not trust Him as Lord and Master, but live to serve self instead. Particularly are we speaking of one who has gone along some way in honoring the Lord as Master. “For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.” (Mark 9:49).

Everyone shall be salted with fire. Surely a sprinkling is not the same as being cast into fire. But it is fire, that is, judgment. Why is it necessary to think of this judgment as the lake of fire in the next age where the alien sinners go? That will certainly be more than a sprinkling. “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). “For the time [is come] that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if [it] first [begin] at us, what shall the end [be] of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17). Gathering a few passages like this, and many others could be provided, lets us know that our merciful, loving, kind and tender Lord, is also just, holy, and the exerciser of vengeance, as well as a Father who administers chastisement to His children.

The Sprinkling With Fire Is For “Everyone”
It is the judgment of chastening which “every son” must receive. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Hebrews 12:6). The context of Mark 9:49 requires that we understand this sprinkling of fire as applicable to believers. If those believers will do the reasonable thing and offer themselves a living sacrifice, then he will be sprinkled with salt (Romans 12:1, 2). To have salt in ourselves requires that we become living sacrifices to God. This brings the sprinkling with the salt of God’s firm, sure promises, His covenant of grace. But we must be willing.

“O taste and see that the LORD [is] good: blessed [is] the man [that] trusteth in him.”

If one is to know that God is good, if he is to learn the savor of God Himself, he must taste Him in His goodness. David was willing, though he questioned why God should so bless him (2 Samuel 7:18-21).

A Covenant of Salt
Four verses actually mention a covenant of salt or salt in connection with God’s covenant (Leviticus 2:13; Numbers 18:19; 2 Chronicles. 13:5). One verse (Ezekiel 43:24) mentions prophetically that this business of God’s faithfulness to His Words extends into the next age. There, according to the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning a temple which he was to propose to God’s people, the priests should cast salt on the sacrifices there offered. This casting salt on the sacrifice bespoke an expectation by men of the pouring out of God’s grace typified in the covenant sacrifices and its promises. So even in the Old Testament salt was a symbol of grace, so casting salt on the sacrifice was a confession of their dependence upon God as promised.

Perhaps few people have even considered what it might be like for men in the flesh to live in the Millennium. But would animal sacrifices be there appropriate since the Real Sacrifice was offered in Jerusalem centuries before and now as King sits on David’s throne in Jerusalem. It seems to me that this would be unsuitable with His glory. It rather seems to me that God had Ezekiel propose this temple and its accompanying worship forms to be granted only on condition of their turning away from their idolatrous kings and the practices which those kings had led them into (Ezekiel 43:9). They did not repent as a nation, did not turn back to God, so that prophecy was no more than a proposal. Why offer a bullock when the Lamb of God has already been offered?

The perfect work of Christ has confirmed for all men the perfection of God and of His Word. The certainty of a covenant which He has made is evident. This fact must be received by men before they can have salt in themselves. The of old, the sprinkling of salt on the carcass to be burned bespoke their belief in the sure word of God. Let us taste and see how good are His words. We do this by faith, not by a box or bag or handful of literal salt. That figure has been shown. The everlasting covenant is sealed by the blood of the Lamb. It is unbelief which would return to that token. A better sacrifice than those challenges our hearts now.

Some Words Which Make the Symbols Clear
In all our using of metaphors, similes, hyperbole, and many more, only the very obvious, as a parable, seems to come through to our thinking as being anything but literal in sense. The sense of a figure is real enough, but we must learn by context and prayer what the sense may be in the figures in the Bible.
A symbol is an object that represents another thing, usually something abstract. A dove is a symbol of peace. Since so much of what God would have us learn is abstract we may expect many tokens or representative ways in which God has taken the real language of men and used it to set forth what may not appear naturally.

The Song of Solomon is overlooked by many because this is done to such a degree. What may appear on the surface to be only a between a peasant maiden and the king, becomes a detailed explanation of the tender, joyous, spiritual relationship between a believer who has come into covenant position with our Lord through faith and submission. The Song became one of the most delightful studies of my life. Love is abstract, but it is very real. Relationship is an abstract but is a very real experience.

Expressions of love, necessarily, become abstract expressions, descriptive words and phrases which reveal deep spiritual experiences. Colors, places, objects as trees, ointments, perfumes, precious metals, and more are used to convey qualities of spiritual life or experience. Such language necessarily is used in prophecy, for the prophet is speaking to people for God and finds words in the language of the people which convey the sense which they need.

A Review of Words in This Article
Salt, salted, seasoned, lost its saltiness, savour, etc. are words and phrases descriptive of the operation of the salt symbol. Note by verses: Leviticus 2:13
Malach, season.
Melach, salt.
Shabath, Be lacking.
Minchah, meat (meal) offering.
Qorban, offering, oblation.
Beriyth, Covenant, salt of, (Numbers 19:19, in addition to some words above)
Teruwmah, heave offering (of grain, money, a contribution.
Yada, to know, perceive (Mark 9:49, 50)
Pas, every (individually or collectively)
Halizo, shall be salted, sprinkled
Pur, fire (a figure of judgment, chastening)
Thusia, sacrifice, literally or metaphorically.
Hals, salt. Only in the light of the context can it be determined that salt, which was designed to enhance the taste, was a symbol of the fact that the parties to a covenant considered the salt a mark of its surety, its certainty, because of its desireableness. Salt is good, then, because it makes a situation, or a person, desirable and acceptable. So a man’s salting a sacrifice of old bespoke his own in the offering. God’s commanding it and making a covenant of it, shows His in the offering which was made by faith.

Every covenant son is such because he has offered himself to God a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1, 2). He is not a burnt offering, but he no longer pleads for and defends self for its own sake.

Pleasure in something which we know God has in giving our hearts peace (Luke 14:34).

Colossians 4:6
Logos, word, saying account, speech.
Charis, grace, favor, beauty, symmetry.
Artuo, seasoned, make savory, prepared. There is no notion of preserving suggested in this symbol.
Halas, salt. The seasoning of speech with salt suggests a careful preparing of the heart and mind, so that the words will likely be tasteful. Since grace is suggested as an element in this preparation, we believe that God supplies what it takes to enable us to talk compassionately, or in whatever way produces a proper answer.
Moraino, be foolish, savorless, insipid. If one who has previously been in the position of giving good speech, but loses that ability, he is savorless, has become foolish. If he willingly offers himself in sacrifice to God, but becomes foolish through carelessness, and claims himself back for himself, then he can no longer be an acceptable sacrifice.

The Taste Of Our Christ
Do men sense the Sweetness of Him in you? In me? Is our life in good taste? For it to be so we must fully drink of Him the Water of life. We must talk with salted speech. Not salty, but salted (Colossian 4:6).