Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
Salt is good because it has preservative power that prevents corruption. Salt that has lost its savor is useless and worthless, cannot be restored to usefulness, and is fit only to be cast out. The salt is the preserving moral influence of Christlike character by which the world is kept from corruption.
Christ is the light of the world and the propitiation for the sins of those who believe in him, and he sanctified himself so that they might be sanctified through the truth. Christians learn from Jesus as their example and should pray in faith to be connected with his saving grace. With life and character purified through the truth and the righteousness of Christ imparted to them, the Holy Spirit can use them to communicate the truth as it is in Jesus.
The savor is living faith in Christ as a personal Saviour, shown in devotion and consecration to Christ, genuine love, reality of experience, connection with heaven, actual service, the grace of Christ in the life, and the Holy Spirit's transforming work using the person as an agent to bless and uplift others and communicate truth for the blessing and uplifting of mankind. Faithful helpers who remain steadfast when the work is difficult are salt that retains its savor, while outward enthusiasm that fades is not enough, and followers must retain the qualities that make them useful. People who profess Christianity but do not reveal Christ's qualities in words and actions, lacking genuine faith and the Spirit's work, are salt that has lost its savor. Though they claim to be religious, their lives contradict that claim and they are insipid and disagreeable to people and angels.
Such savorless profession has no influence for good and no power to help, so efforts to advocate truth carry no weight because connection with God is lost, and influence cannot be felt in a skeptical world. By lacking sanctifying power it misrepresents God, can make witness worse than that of unbelievers, testifies that the believed truth has no power to sanctify, and so far as that influence goes makes the Word of God of no effect. The Jewish religion became salt without savor when it retained outward forms and sacrifices but lost faith in Christ, whom the offerings symbolized as the slain Lamb. By rejecting Christ, its faith and doctrines lost essential faith and power and its service could no longer express faith in God's promise.
Those who claim to accept Christ while refusing to obey God's law are in a similar savorless condition, rejecting the law Christ came to vindicate even though it is the foundation of God's government. Ministers who remain over the churches instead of going out to active labor become like salt that has lost its savor, so their influence no longer preserves or strengthens the churches. Their spiritual weakness comes from failing to drink from pure streams, and they give the churches no spiritual help. With vital connection to God, Christians possess saving qualities that keep the world from utter moral corruption, save it from much crime and iniquity, communicate saving truth, and work the reformation of many souls.
Salt is good because it has preservative power that prevents corruption. Salt that has lost its savor is useless and worthless, cannot be restored to usefulness, and is fit only to be cast out. The salt is the preserving moral influence of Christlike character by which the world is kept from corruption.
Christ is the light of the world and the propitiation for the sins of those who believe in him, and he sanctified himself so that they might be sanctified through the truth. Christians learn from Jesus as their example and should pray in faith to be connected with his saving grace. With life and character purified through the truth and the righteousness of Christ imparted to them, the Holy Spirit can use them to communicate the truth as it is in Jesus.
The savor is living faith in Christ as a personal Saviour, shown in devotion and consecration to Christ, genuine love, reality of experience, connection with heaven, actual service, the grace of Christ in the life, and the Holy Spirit's transforming work using the person as an agent to bless and uplift others and communicate truth for the blessing and uplifting of mankind. Faithful helpers who remain steadfast when the work is difficult are salt that retains its savor, while outward enthusiasm that fades is not enough, and followers must retain the qualities that make them useful. People who profess Christianity but do not reveal Christ's qualities in words and actions, lacking genuine faith and the Spirit's work, are salt that has lost its savor. Though they claim to be religious, their lives contradict that claim and they are insipid and disagreeable to people and angels.
Such savorless profession has no influence for good and no power to help, so efforts to advocate truth carry no weight because connection with God is lost, and influence cannot be felt in a skeptical world. By lacking sanctifying power it misrepresents God, can make witness worse than that of unbelievers, testifies that the believed truth has no power to sanctify, and so far as that influence goes makes the Word of God of no effect. The Jewish religion became salt without savor when it retained outward forms and sacrifices but lost faith in Christ, whom the offerings symbolized as the slain Lamb. By rejecting Christ, its faith and doctrines lost essential faith and power and its service could no longer express faith in God's promise.
Those who claim to accept Christ while refusing to obey God's law are in a similar savorless condition, rejecting the law Christ came to vindicate even though it is the foundation of God's government. Ministers who remain over the churches instead of going out to active labor become like salt that has lost its savor, so their influence no longer preserves or strengthens the churches. Their spiritual weakness comes from failing to drink from pure streams, and they give the churches no spiritual help. With vital connection to God, Christians possess saving qualities that keep the world from utter moral corruption, save it from much crime and iniquity, communicate saving truth, and work the reformation of many souls.