“You are the salt of the earth…” Matthew 5:13
The Lord has just explained in the Sermon on the Mount that those who live Godly (practice the Beatitudes out of a love for God) are the salt of the earth. His listeners would think about salt as something precious and valuable, about salt as something that was stable in its
composition, that brought flavor out of life and that inhibited corruption. There was another thought about salt that would have pass through the thoughts of at least some of His listener’s minds. Salt has a very significant presence in the covenant relationship with God. God instructs the Israelites in Leviticus 2:13 to season their grain offerings with salt: “You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.” The word the “salt of the covenant” in the Hebrew are MELACH (salt) BERIT (covenant) ELOHEIKA (God). This phrase is a Hebrew idiom that refers to a binding obligation one makes to God. A binding obligation is a covenant. Thus the salt of the covenant is a sign that the believer is in full and complete agreement with his vow to God and with His word.
When the audience hearing the Sermon on the Mount heard the Lord use this idiom they would have immediately thought that if they were the salt of the earth then they were to demonstrate complete devotion to God and His word to the entire world. It was their life that showed forth the covenant with God. Remember God said the use of salt in the offering was not optional. It had to be present and it had to be visible. Those living out the beatitudes would show true worship of God and true fidelity to what God said.
There is a second aspect to this phrase. When men ate a meal together they became friends. It was often said, “There is salt between us” or “He has eaten of my salt.” This shows the fellowship and hospitality of the two parties. Thus believers were to be those who demonstrated to others how to have fellowship with God, in other words to be His friend.
There is is third aspect of the use of salt in worship. During worship an incense was burned in the temple of meeting. We learn in Exodus 30:35 that the incense was composed of sweet spices and frankincense and “blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy.” Thus we see that the believers’ worship of God is to be a sweet smelling fragrance (it attracts other to our God) because it is pure and holy before God.
Finally, we read in Leviticus 2:11 that the sacrifice to God should not contain honey. Including salt and excluding honey shows that the worship which pleases God is first pure (salt is a pure, stable compound), then enduring (salt preserves and makes things
last) and finally expensive (it should cost us something). It needs nothing sweet added for it is pleasing in itself.
So the fact salt is used in presenting offerings to God would remind the Lord’s listeners their worship is not to be a ritual.
Instead is is a remembrance of the covenant we have with God, the purity required to worship God, the fellowship we
have with God, and the way our worship is to please Him (a sweet and pure aroma to God).
What can we learn? Salt is integral to out worship and relationship to God. What happens if worship is not as God decreed? Ancient records tell us if a treaty was broken one of the consequences is that the offending party would have a large volume of his salt thrown out into the fields rendering it unusable. Thus salt could draw men in fellowship[ or drive men away in judgment from God. It could be used to create thirst for God or as a judgment from God. Salt always has fulfills its purpose.