“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” Matthew 5:13
The word moraino carries the idea of ‘to “play the fool” or “to become foolish”. The noun, moros, means dull. In the mind it is sluggish. When it is used to refer to taste it means insipid or flat. This is what true followers of God are when they lose their saltiness. The Bible says “a fool has said in his heart ‘there is no God’”. The believer forsakes the way God made them to be covered with the impurity of the world. They lost the reason for which they were designed to exist. That is a staggering thought and one which can bring great despair when one squanders His life by loving he world more than God.
How shall its saltiness be restored? The Lord asks the question that would be top of mind. This question is much like the questions in Hebrews so that trouble us. ” It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance.” Salt is the essence that God gives the believer. There is nothing more that can be gained to confront the world for Christ. If one takes salt away then there is not another gift form God that He will give to use in its place.
Be restored The word restore means to be made pleasing to God. The idea is salt cannot be re-salted, It is either salty or it is not. If one were to lose his saltiness there would not be another way to be
pleasing to God. This des not mean that a person can sin and therefore never be useful to God again. What this does emphasize is the extreme urgency to be and do what God designed us to be. There is no other way. It is no longer good for anything Salt that is not salty is worthless. The word good refers to strength. Unsalty salt has no value or strength to perform. The word for nothing or anything means absolutely not one”. It denies absolutely the possibility that the salt find another way to be useful.
What can we learn? True believers cannot lose their essential nature as salt, since Christ dwells in him with a perfect bond. A believer can lose his effectiveness by mixing with the world. The process begins with leaving one’s love for the Lord. Then one develops friendship with the world (James 4:4) and love is placed there. (This is idolatry, something with which the nation of Israel knew well) Eventually the believer becomes stained by the world system (James 1:27). Finally the believer becomes fully conformed to the world (Romans 12:2) and there is no distinction between the world and the believer. A believer in that state is of no use to God in reaching the world with His message.
This is what had happened to Judaism in Christ’s day. The religion of love of God and love for one’s brother had turned into a rule book of do’s and don’ts. The highly valued “salt” of God was not visible to the world due to the impurities of works. As Malachi said in chapter 3, the refiner comes to take the impurities away. This happens to the church at Laodicea as well. It can happen to any believers. This is why the Lord encourages us to guard our hearts in terms of what we love and to abide close to Him. Imagine hearing the Lord at the Bema Seat saying, “your life lost its saltiness, it was good for nothing”.