What does salt represent in the Bible?

This well known and valuable condiment is found in abundance near the Dead Sea. In scripture salt is used as symbolical of moral savour and thus of a preservative. Every oblation of the meat offering was to be seasoned with salt. Lev. 2:13. The heave offerings given to the priest are called 'a covenant of salt.' Num. 18:19.

Christians are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savour it is of no use whatever.* Matt. 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34-35. It is typical of freshness and savour in a Christian, his heart being maintained in the sense of grace, the loss of which nothing else can supply.

Salt, as we have seen, was to be used with all the offerings of Jehovah’s redeemed people, Israel, and, generally speaking, it was a divinely-given symbol of truth in regard to preservative and moral savour. It was used in the oblation of the meat-offering, and in other offerings (Lev. 2:13), also in connection with covenants (Num. 18:19; 2 Chr. 13:5, etc.); and in judgments (Gen. 14:3; Deut. 29:2; Jud. 9:45; Jer. 17:6). These uses eloquently proclaim the enduring nature of that which is thus strikingly typified.

The words of our Lord Jesus Christ consequently come to us with freshness and forcefulness, making their meaning and connection of teaching pointed and clear. He said, “Every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. SALT IS GOOD: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another” (Mark 9:49-50). Eastern salt was different to that which is commonly used now. It was not pure chloride of sodium, but was mixed with vegetable and earthy substances, and, when exposed to the adverse influences of sun and rain, might become savourless and useless. This gives point therefore to the words of Matthew 5:13, too—“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.” These words, which speak with such wholesome warning, are similar to those of Luke 14:35, “Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that has ears to hear, let him hear.”

We do indeed need to use our ears to hear the truth of God in these days of moral corruption, when social, commercial, political, and professedly Christian circles are being invaded with influences, principles and doctrines destructive to the truth. Both Mark and Luke record the Lord’s words, “SALT IS GOOD,” as we have seen. In the former we are exhorted to have salt in ourselves, and “HAVE PEACE ONE WITH ANOTHER.” This is important, and it is what is to characterize us inside—“one with another.” Then what is to mark us outside—“toward them that are without”—is given in Colossians 4:5-6, “Let your speech be with grace seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” Among the children of God, self-judgment and peace are to prevail within; while graciousness of speech (preserved by the truth), wisdom and zeal, are to be become them without. The salt of the covenant of our God is needful for the maintenance of peace inside, and for the presentation of divine grace outside. It is to be applied to ourselves individually in the first instance, and it is to give a savour to our speech in the second.

Salt was in meaning the very opposite of leaven, the symbol of that which opposes corruption, the type, therefore, of what endures, of the holiness which the "covenant of God" implies. A holy God can only go on with what is holy, and therefore salt is the "salt of His covenant." This was never to be lacking, therefore, in any offering.

Elisha, in the power of resurrection, re-enters the scene of Elijah's labours, who had sought in vain — as He also had done who was more excellent than Elijah — to gather Israel unto the God of their fathers (that is to say, to bring back man in the flesh to some faithfulness towards God). Jericho (pleasant in itself yet, as we have seen, an accursed place) ceases to be so; the curse is removed, and the spring of waters permanently healed, by means of salt brought in a new cruse: a type, I doubt not, of the purifying power of grace which separates man from evil, and which removes evil, as contrary to the relationship of man with God; a moral power, which will take away the curse from the world, and especially from the Jews, who are the centre of rebellion against God. Salt represents purifying power in the efficacy and the permanency that distinguish the work of God which heals the object of blessing; and it characterises, according to the faithfulness of God, the source of blessing itself. The new vessel is an image of the renewed condition of all things through resurrection.

Of Abijah's evil walk, and that his heart was not perfect with the LORD, the Chronicles has nothing to say. That is found in Kings. That things went from bad to worse under Abijah's brief reign may be learned from the fact that his son Asa had to institute a reformation, and Maachah, the mother of Abijah and grandmother of Asa, had to be put away, because she had put up an Asherah, a vile idol-image in a grove (1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chron. 15:16). Chronicles gives an account of Abijah's war with Jeroboam. The two armies of Judah and Israel faced each other; Abijah had 400,000 men and Jeroboam 800,000. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of these figures, as some critics have done. Both sides were confident of victory. Jeroboam had twice as many men as Abijah, and they were "mighty men of valor." He trusted in his superior number. It was different with Abijah, King of Judah. Before the battle began the king delivered a remarkable address in which he expressed his confidence in Jehovah. The LORD had given the kingdom to David and to his sons by a covenant of salt, said Abijah. The covenant of salt refers to a very ancient custom. When a guest had been entertained in a tent and partaken of salt with his host, the obligation of the latter towards his guest was one of inviolable sanctity. The covenant of Jehovah with David was like a covenant of salt, that is, inviolable. Abijah believed in that covenant. Then he mentioned Jeroboam, whom sarcastically he calls "the servant of Solomon," his revolt, his idolatry, his opposition to the priesthood. He closed his address with a confident statement. "Behold, God Himself is with us for our captain, and His priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you." Then the warning: "O children of Israel, fight ye not against the LORD God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper." Abijah won the battle. When they were encircled by the enemy they cried to Jehovah in their hour of need, and He was faithful to His own word (Numb. 10:9). When the priests sounded with the trumpets, when they shouted, no doubt in faith and anticipation of Jehovah's interference, then God smote Jeroboam and all Israel and delivered them into their hands. They had prevailed because they relied upon the LORD God, and so shall we prevail if we trust in the Lord. With that battle Jeroboam's strength was broken. The wicked king, whose awful idolatry was the ruin of Israel, never recovered his strength. The LORD struck him and he died.

Salt is the righteously preservative principle. It is sharp rather than sweet, but guards from impurity and decomposition. It gives fixity to what is good and wholesome. It proves all things, and holds fast the right. It keeps aloof from every form of wickedness. When then the disciples are called the salt of the earth, the Lord designates them as set apart to God the Father, and in patient continuance of good work seeking for glory and honour and incorruptibility at Christ's coming. They obey the truth, and are to hold fast what they have till then. If they lose the good savour, it is fatal. Saltless salt (and such a change was familiar in those lands) cannot be restored. It is not fit for anything but to be trodden down on the streets, as it often was.

A. Genesis 19:26 is clearly not the consecrating principle but judicial infliction. For Lot's wife disobeying at such a time became an abiding monument of divine judgment. So too, if Israel rebelled and fell under the curse, Jehovah declared that their whole ground should be brimstone and salt, like the overthrow of Sodom (Deuteronomy 29:23). The N.T. adds the awful figure of salt losing its savour, and hence, as proper neither for land nor for dung, to be cast out. Grace does effect not only love but separateness to God in the believer. Easy-going unbelief destroys all savour in those that bear the Lord's name without self-judgment. What must the end of this be? Not only unrighteousness but apostasy.

The Lord now uses two striking figures to show what His own should be in His absence. "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. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 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. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (vers. 13-16). "Ye are the salt of the earth." Now salt is preservative, it preserves from corruption. When the saints are taken out of the earth there will be nothing left but the dead carcase of a Christless Christendom, nothing but corruption. Salt answers to righteousness. But "Ye are the light of the world," gives another thought. Light answers to grace. Salt merely preserves things pure from corruption, but light is aggressive, it drives out the darkness. So grace goes forth outside and seeks. "It gives light."

It is one thing, however, to seize an opportunity, and another to use it to best advantage. Words not fitly spoken are often more to be deplored than no word being spoken at all. Our words are to be always with grace. Never are we to descend to the censorious, or the bitter, or the cutting remark. But then on the other hand our words, while full of grace, are not to aim at merely pleasing men. They are to be seasoned with that which salt represents — the pungent quality of truth. Grace and truth were found in our Lord and they should mark those who are His, even characterizing their words.

The world was so contrary to Christ, that he who was not against Him was for Him. The Son of man was to be rejected. Faith in His Person was the thing, not now individual service to Him. Alas! the disciples were still thinking of themselves: "He follows not us." They must share His rejection; and if any one gave them a cup of cold water, God would remember it. Whatever would cause them to stumble in their walk, were it even their own right eye or hand, they would do well to cut off; for it was not the things of an earthly Messiah that were in question, but the things of eternity. And all should be tested by the perfect holiness of God, and that in judgment by one means or another. Every one should be salted with fire — the good and the bad. Where there was life, the fire would only consume the flesh; for when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. If the judgment reaches the wicked (and assuredly it shall reach them), it is condemnation — a fire that is not quenched. But, for the good, there was also something else: they should be salted with salt. Those who were consecrated to God, whose life was an offering to Him, should not lack the power of holy grace, which binds the soul to God and inwardly preserves it from evil. Salt is not the gentleness that pleases (which grace produces without doubt), but that energy of God within us which connects everything in us with God, and dedicates the heart to Him, binding it to Him in the sense of obligation and of desire, rejecting all in oneself that is contrary to Him (obligation that flows from grace, but which acts all the more powerfully on that account). Thus, practically, it was distinctive grace, the energy of holiness, which separates from all evil; but by setting apart for God. Salt was good: here the effect produced in the soul, the condition of the soul, is so called, as well as the grace that produces this condition. Thus they who offered themselves to God were set apart for Him; they were the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith can it be salted? It is used for seasoning other things; but if the salt needs it for itself, there is nothing left that can salt it. So would it be with Christians; if they who were of Christ did not render this testimony, where should anything be found, apart from Christians, to render it to them and produce it in them?