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“You Are the Salt of the Earth!”
Categories: Christian life, obedienceOur Lord Jesus the Anointed One preached, “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).
How are Jesus’ disciples “the salt of the earth”?
For one thing, salt gives taste and flavor to make foods more palatable and even delicious. Who doesn’t like a little salt along with their meat? Bland food can be made enjoyable with a few dashes of salt.
For another thing, salt preserves. Before refrigeration, men packed their raw meat in salt containers, which preserved it for long periods of time. Salt staves off bacteria.
For the Israelite, Jesus’ statement had meaning even beyond flavor and preservation because God had mentioned salt several times in relation to their covenant. Notice Leviticus 2.13: “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.” Did God really need salt? Did it make the grain taste better to God? God didn’t actually eat it, but He demanded that no grain offering be offered to Him without the proper seasoning.
Later, God said to Aaron and his household (the High Priest line among the Levites), “All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you” (Numbers 18.19). What does that mean—that it was a “covenant of salt”?
Interestingly, Abijah schooled King Jeroboam using the same kind of language in 2 Chronicles 13.5: “Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt?”
If you put those two together, you see that God gave a “covenant of salt” to the family of the High Priest (Aaron) and the family of the King (David). The priest and the king were two major leaders among the Jews—the first was their highest spiritual leader who ministered before the Lord on behalf of the nation; the second was the highest political authority. God gave to both a covenant of salt, meaning a perpetual covenant—a covenant which would always be preserved before the Lord.
But then a terrible thing happened. Assyria overthrew the northern kingdom of Israel, and then a hundred years later (or so) Babylon overthrew the southern kingdom of Judah. From that point on no son of David ruled as King in Israel. How could God say He had given them a covenant of salt which would last forever?
Enter Jesus, the True High Priest and True King from the house of David. In Christ, the High Priesthood and the Kingdom converge beautifully and eternally. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed (Daniel 7.14).
On top of that, God has made His people (you and me!) into a kingdom of priests (Exod. 19.6; Rev. 1.6; 5.10).
God’s covenant of salt remains fully in effect, never broken, in the reign of Jesus Christ and through His people who still walk in this world as the salt of the earth. Let us continue to season this world and preserve it by keeping the covenant of our Lord.
