The Salted Sacrifice

For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good—but if the salt has lost his saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another." Mark 9:49, 50

Does not this text strike you as having something strange and mysterious in it? Being "salted with fire," and the sacrifice being "salted with salt"—is there not something in the very sound of the words, that appear extraordinary and difficult of comprehension? Well, perhaps it may help us to understand the meaning of this difficult and mysterious text if we look shortly at the context, trace the connection, so as to gather up some consistent idea of our Lord's meaning, for he speaks here. And it will be our wisdom and mercy if we can not only understand but give heed to his words of grace and truth, for surely no man ever spoke like this man.

In the preceding verses, then, the Lord had been speaking of matters of offence, that is, stumbling blocks, over which we might fall into evil—"And if your hand offends you, cut it off—it is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." (Mark 9:43.) The hand here is used typically and figuratively of an instrument of evil, whether of violence, or theft, or any other sin which may be perpetrated by it. If, then, says the Lord, your hand be to you an instrument of evil, cut it off—it is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. The Lord does not mean that we are to lay our hand literally down upon a block or chop it off with axe or hatchet; but that we are to do that violence to our sins, to our inclinations, to our tempers, and to our lusts, as we should do literally to our hand if we were to cut it off at a stroke. So, "if your foot offends you," be to you a cause of stumbling—and the foot here signifies those deviations from the straight and narrow path, whether into unbelief or into error, or any other departure from the way of truth and righteousness to which we are prone—"if your foot offends you," do what? "Cut it off." Do to it as to the hand—"It is better for you to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." Then comes the solemn iteration, "Where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched."

"And if your eye"—that inlet to evil, whether to covetousness, as in the case of Achan, or sinful lusts, as in the case of David—if your eye cause you to offend, pluck it out—not literally. If you could tear it out and trample it under foot, as so much "vile jelly," as one of our poets calls it, that would not pluck out the lust which is seated far beyond our reach, and would still exist in all its vigour, making to itself an eye of imagination when the eye of sense was gone. No, the Lord does not bid us injure the eye, which can read the word of truth and guide us upon errands of mercy and love, as well as be an inlet to evil. He would have us spare the eye, but not spare the lust which is in the eye, but do it as much violence as you would do to the literal eye if you tore it from the socket. "It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." Then again comes for the third time that solemn iteration, which someone has well called "an emphasis of terror," "Where their worm dies not and the fire is not quenched." What worm but the worm of a guilty conscience that ever feeds upon the never-dying soul? What fire but the eternal fire of God's displeasure, which no remorse will ever quench?

Now come the words of our text—"For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." What is the connection between these words and those which I have just been explaining? I believe this. The worm is a type of corruption, as feeding upon it; the fire is a representation of the anger of God, who is a consuming fire. From this corruption you must be preserved by salt; from this fire you must be delivered by being salted with fire. If you die in your sins, unsalted, unseasoned, the undying worm of remorse, bred from your corruptions, will ever gnaw your guilty conscience. Unless salted with fire, you will not be preserved from that corruption which is in the world through lust, and which, if not delivered from it, would plunge body and soul into the lake of fire.

But not only must you be salted, but your sacrifices also. Every sacrifice, to be acceptable with God, must be salted with salt. Following up this connection, our Lord then says, "Salt is good," but he adds a solemn caveat that even when salted the salt may not be permanent; and then where is the remedy? "If the salt has lost his saltiness, with what will you season it?" He then closes the whole with a gracious exhortation—"Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another."

In endeavouring to open up the mind and meaning of our blessed Lord here, as I have thus simply sketched it, I shall,

First, show you, from his own words, the goodness of salt. "Salt is good," and in what that goodness consists.

Secondly, the salting of the sacrifice—"Every one shall be salted with fire."

Thirdly, the salting of the sacrifice—"Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt."

Fourthly, the case assumed—"If the salt has lost his saltiness, with what will you season it?"

Lastly, the exhortation—"Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another."

I. The goodness of salt—"Salt is good." How is salt good? Literally and figuratively, naturally and spiritually. We will look at both the cases in which we have assumed the goodness of salt.

A. Why is salt good LITERALLY? What is the conspicuous point, the most prominent feature of its goodness? It is an efficient preservative from corruption. There is a tendency in everything here below to decay. Life, whether vegetable or animal, is ever tending towards death. It seems like a law impressed upon every living thing, that as soon as born it hastens to die; and with death immediately begins corruption. In spring, how green the leaf! but when death touches the stalk, and it drops from the autumnal bough, how soon reduced to rottenness and dust! How active and energetic are body and soul of man in a state of health and strength. But let death strike the fatal dart, how corruption at once lays hold of the human frame, and the stouter and stronger the body the quicker and more immediate its effects. Thus there is a natural 'tendency to corruption' in everything here below, for nothing seems to escape the gnawing tooth of time. Dissolution, decay, and corruption press hard upon life, and unceasingly dog its every footstep. But there is an antidote against corruption, and that is salt. To illustrate this, let me bring before you two or three familiar instances—

1. First cast your eyes over that wide-spread ocean, which covers perhaps nearly three-fourths of this globe. What would it be without salt? A seething mass of corruption. But God has well and thoroughly salted it, and has thus preserved it from being what else it would be—a mass of putrid water, spreading desolation over the earth.

2. Our very bodies as now constituted must have salt in them, or even life itself would not keep them from corruption. "Salt in our bodies?" say you; "what do you mean by that? Have we salt in our flesh?" Let me give you two simple proofs of it. When the harvestman is engaged in the field, reaping the corn or loading the wain, how salty are the drops of sweat which fall like so many beads from his manly brow! When the poor widow sits beside her husband's corpse, how briny the tears that roll down her cheek! Are these not plain evidences that we must have salt in our bodies, salt in our blood, or why are sweat and tears so salty which are formed out of the blood? Yes, the very salt in our bodies, which he who made us has put into us, keeps them from corruption.

3. But I will give you one more proof of which perhaps you have never heard. There was a punishment formerly inflicted upon criminals in Holland of this nature. When condemned to death, the prisoner was taken back to his cell, and debarred of all salt to his food. Not a single grain was allowed to enter into anything which he ate or drank. What was the consequence? In a short time worms bred in his inside, and he miserably perished by a slow and lingering death, every part of his body full of corruption.

4. But take the familiar instance of preserving meat. Is not that preserved from corruption by salt? Salted meat is familiar to us all as arrested from corruption by the entrance of salt into every part and pore.

Now look at this in a spiritual sense. Unless we have something rubbed as it were into us to preserve the soul from corruption, will it not perish in its lusts, and be thus forever unfit to enter into the glorious presence of a holy God? How good, then, must salt be in a spiritual sense to preserve our souls from becoming here and hereafter a loathsome mass of corruption and putrefaction! I shall show you by and by how the Lord uses fire instead of salt thus to save and purify the soul.

But take this first as the leading idea of salt, that it is an antidote against corruption. I may observe here that in a figure it is always well to catch the leading idea, as that not only enables us to see the mind and meaning of the Spirit prominently therein, but casts also a ray of light on secondary and subsidiary meanings.

B. But salt is good in another sense—it gives savour and flavour to our daily food. Job asks, "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?" (Job. 6:6.) From the banquet of kings to the poor widow's cold potato, salt is on the table—food would be flavourless without it. In the interior of Africa salt is extremely scarce—so scarce that you may almost buy a slave for a handful of it. Children there will run for miles after the traveller for a few grains of salt, which if they get they will suck with as much relish as children here the richest confections made from sugar. In this sense, perhaps, the Lord said to his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13), meaning thereby that by them was the earth not only preserved from corruption, but even by their presence upon it was made to have flavour and savour before God, and thus be acceptable before him.

C. But take another idea of the figure, closely indeed allied to the first, that is, health. I have shown you before that the presence of salt in our bodies is indispensable to a state of health, and that the absence of it engenders disease and death. What salt is to the body that grace is to the soul. "Have salt in yourselves," the Lord says in our text, that is, "have the grace of God in your hearts"; for without this there is neither life nor health. So holy John, writing to his well-beloved Gaius, breathes for him this prayer—"Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." (3 John 2.) But without grace there can be neither soul health nor soul prosperity.

D. But take now another meaning of the emblem, which is more especially a Scriptural one, that of perpetuity and lasting endurance. We read in the Scripture sometimes of a "covenant of salt." "Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even to him and to his sons, by a "covenant of salt?" (2 Chron. 13:5.) And again, "All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given you, and your sons and your daughters with you, by a statute forever—it is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord unto you and to your seed with you." (Numbers 18:19.) A covenant of salt signifies a covenant which never can be broken, for as salt is a natural preservation from corruption, it became an emblem of perpetuity and lasting endurance.

E. But I must name one more meaning of the figure salt. It is an emblem of friendship and peace. As such, even to this day in Oriental climates, salt becomes, when eaten between two parties, a token of friendship; and I understand that the wild Arab will never plunder or ill use the traveller with whom he has eaten salt. I have read a remarkable anecdote to illustrate this. A robber once broke into the palace of a prince, and having collected a very large booty was on the point of carrying it away, when he struck his foot against something on the ground. Stooping in the dark to touch it, and then tasting his fingers, he found it was a lump of salt. He was so struck with having eaten salt in the house of his victim, that at once he fled away, leaving all his booty behind. Salt thus being an emblem of peace, our Lord said in the text, "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another."

II. Now let us carry these leading ideas of salt into that part of our subject which we proposed to consider in the second place; I mean the salting of the sacrifice– "Every one shall be salted with fire."

A. I showed you in my introduction, that there must be an operation of God's grace upon our heart to PRESERVE us from the fire that is not quenched, and that this was by salting the soul with fire; the fire being used in the hands of the Spirit to produce that spiritual effect which I have explained to you, salt sets forth in emblem and figure. The soul has to be preserved from corruption—from the worm that dies not; to have savour and flavour before the Lord; to be made and kept healthy and prosperous; to enjoy a perpetuity of God's favour; and to be blessed with his friendship and peace. Now that these blessings may be brought about, it must be salted and that by fire. Let us now then view the various ways, for there are more than one, by which the soul is thus salted.

1. There is, for instance, the law, which the Scripture calls a fiery law. "The Lord came from Sinai; from his right hand went a fiery law for them." (Deut. 23:2.) We know that when it was given, Mount Sinai "was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire" (Exodus 19:18); and again, "And the Lord spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire." (Deut. 4:12.) But why is it called "a fiery law?" Because therein is manifested the eternal indignation of God, who is a consuming fire. But it is a fiery law, not only in its first manifestation, but in its application to the conscience, for it burns up and consumes all creature righteousness, the wood, hay, and stubble of all human merit. But it also sets fire to our corruptions, making them blaze up and burn with greater strength and fury, as the apostle found—"For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead." (Rom. 7:5, 8.) For these three reasons, its manifestation, its application, and its conflagration, the law may well be called "a fiery law."

But the question may arise, How is the soul salted by the law? In this way. By its application, it is preserved from perishing in the corruption of sin or the corruption of self-righteousness, for the fire it kindles acts in the soul as salt does literally in the body, or as used to preserve meats from spoiling. It delivers the soul from the corruptions of the world; it burns up all creature righteousness, wisdom, and strength, and thus instrumentally preserves it from sinking under the wrath of God, either as laden with all the guilt and weight of a nature corrupt to the very core, or as clothed in a righteousness which he can never accept, as stained and dyed with all our native filth and folly. The law indeed does not sanctify the heart nor purge the conscience, but instrumentally it salts the soul from perishing in its corruptions. It also gives savour and flavour to a man's prayers and conversation; communicates a healthy appetite for the food of the gospel; is a needful preliminary for a knowledge of the everlasting covenant; and leads the way into a state of peace and friendship with God.

2. But take another way in which the sacrifice is salted with fire. There is the fiery trial of which Peter speaks—"Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you." (1 Pet. 5:12.) The "fiery trial," then, is not a strange thing which happens only to a few of the Lord's family, but is more or less the appointed lot of all. Do we not hear the Lord saying to his Zion—"I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction?" (Isa. 48:10.) All, then, that are chosen must pass through the furnace of affliction, and all know experimentally the fiery trial, for by it they are made "partakers of Christ's sufferings." But this is indispensable in order to be partakers of his glory. "If so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together." (Rom. 8:17.) Thus they suffer with him, "that when his glory shall be revealed they may be glad also with exceeding joy." But this suffering with and for Christ in the furnace of affliction salts the soul; preserves it from corruption; communicates health; gives it savour and flavour; is a token of a saving interest in the everlasting covenant—and is a seal of friendship and peace with God.

3. But there is another fire with which you must be salted—the fire of temptation. Temptation is to the corruptions of the heart what fire is to stubble. Sin lies quiet in our carnal mind until temptation comes to set it on fire. There is not a single sin ever uttered by the lips or perpetrated by the hand of man which does not lie deeply hidden in the recesses of our fallen nature; but they do not stir into activity until temptation draws them forth. Well then did the Lord bid his disciples pray—"Lead us not into temptation" (Matt. 6:13); and again, "Pray that you enter not into temptation" (Luke 22:40); for temptation is to our corrupt nature as the spark to gunpowder. Have you not found this sad truth, how easily by it are the corruptions of our wretched heart on fire, in enmity, rebellion, unbelief, infidelity, and every kind of daring and dreadful iniquity which I shall forbear to name?

But the question may well arise, How can this fire of temptation salt the sacrifice? Why, in temptation we learn what sin is, its dreadful nature, its aggravated character, its fearful workings, its mad, its desperate up-heaving's against the Majesty of heaven, and what we are or would be where we left wholly in its hands. The pungent salt of temptation enters into the smarting pores of our conscience, salting it as with fire, and making it sore and tender. By the workings of this tender conscience under temptation we are delivered from becoming a prey to corruption either of sin or of self-righteousness; life and power are put into our prayers; savour and flavour into our words and works; and a clear separation made between faith and unbelief—the strength of the creature and the strength of the Lord—what we are by nature and what we are by grace.

4. But the word of God also is compared to fire. "Is not my word like as a fire, says the Lord?" (Jer. 23:29.) So the Lord speaking of his word which he would send forth after his resurrection, says, ""I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" The word of the Lord is compared to fire, as being quick and piercing, penetrating into men's hearts and consciences. It is therefore said by the apostle to be "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." (Heb. 4:12.) Of Joseph also when in prison we read that "the word of the Lord tried him." (Psalm. 105:19.) The word of truth when applied to the heart with divine power tries the family of God, whether they be right or wrong, whether they possess the fear of God or not. It is thus sometimes as "a burning fire shut up in their bones" (Jer. 20:9), salting them to the very depth of their conscience, and trying every part of the experience to the very quick.

But by this fire the child of God is well salted, for by it he is preserved from corruption in doctrine, experience, lip, or life. By it also he is made acceptable to the family of God, for there is in his conversation a savour and a flavour which a salting fire alone can communicate. By it, too, health is communicated, for the word of salvation brings with it health and cure; and by the power of the word in the promises he also enters into the blessedness of a covenant of salt, and finds peace and friendship with God.

5. But there is one more fire of which I must speak, as salting the sacrifice, and that is the most blessed salt which can enter into his soul—the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit. This comes down from heaven into the soul, as the fire fell upon the bronze altar, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices when Solomon dedicated the temple (2 Chron. 7:1); or as the blessed Spirit came down upon the apostles when they were baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire on the day of Pentecost. No fire that salts the soul can be compared to this for power and efficacy, for it inflames every holy, tender, and gracious affection, lifts up the heart to where Jesus sits at the right hand of God, and, while it enkindles every affectionate desire of the bosom, burns as in a holy flame of jealousy against everything that God abhors. Thus the apostle, speaking of the effects of godly sorrow for sin, says, "Yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what vehement desire, yes, what zeal, yes, what revenge" it wrought in you. (2 Cor. 7:11.) Does not this fire of love and sorrow, love to God and sorrow for sin, well salt the child of grace? Speaking of the outcast babe in Ezekiel, the Lord says, "You were not salted at all." No, for "no eye pitied you, to do any of these unto you." (Ezekiel 16:4,.5.) But the Lord of his infinite grace and boundless compassion, salts the babe of grace when he spreads his skirt over it.

We have seen, then, how by these different fires the child of God is salted, and we have also seen how by means of them he is preserved from the corruption that is in the world through lust; from the corruption of his own hypocritical heart; and from corruption in doctrine, in experience, and in practice—for none of these corruptions can live in the fire either of wrath or love. For "the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is" (1 Cor. 3:13)—and as nothing carnal, hypocritical, or self-righteous can stand the flame, the believer comes out of them all like gold tried in the fire—his dross and tin purged away "by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." (Isaiah 4:4.)

B. But I showed you also that salt gave SAVOR and FAVOR to the most tasteless food; in fact, that food could not be tasty or re-lishable without it. So it is with God's people—it is by the fire with which they are salted that there is a savour and flavour communicated to them, which cannot be obtained by any other means. What substitute can you find for salt to make your food wholesome and savoury? What substitute can you find for grace, especially grace tried in the fire, to flavour your soul and make it savoury to God and man? I shall show you this more at large when I come to the salting of the sacrifice. I am now showing the salting of the sacrifice; for we are to offer ourselves living sacrifices unto God as well as our offerings, and both we and they are only acceptable as salted with this salt, to give us savour and flavour at his altar.

C. But salt, I before intimated, was an emblem of a covenant, and that one of PERPETUAL ENDURANCE. The Lord has made a covenant with his dear Son on behalf of this people, and this is a covenant of perpetuity, never to be broken, but to endure forever and ever. But this covenant has "bonds" into which we are to be brought. "And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." (Ezek. 20:37.) This is eating the king's salt, or being "salted with the salt of the palace" (Ezra 4:14); for when in the East parties ate salt together, it was a token of a covenant between them. Thus in India it was a common phrase among the Sepoys, or soldiers of the old Indian army, that "they had eaten the Company's salt," and were thus bound to be faithful to their engagements. When, then, we taste the fire we are salted with the King's salt, and are thus brought into the bond of the covenant.

D. But this covenant is also a covenant of peace. "My covenant with him was of life and peace" (Malachi 2:5); and thus, by eating the salt of the covenant, he is brought into a state of reconciliation, by which he obtains peace and friendship with God. We read of "the blood of the everlasting covenant," and this covenant is a covenant of peace; for peace is the fruit of it, peace the substance of it, and peace the blessed effect of it.

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