(Mark 9:49-50 NKJV) (49) “For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. (50) “Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.”
V49 “For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.” Everyone will be tried in the fire refers to gold and silver needs heat to separate what is pure from what is impure. It is a test to see if the gold and silver are genuine. For a Christ-follower, this is the Bema Seat of Christ:
The Bema Seat judgment is for rewards, not salvation. See Romans 14:10-12, 1 Corinthians 3:10–4:5, and 2 Corinthians 5:1-10.
The fire is to see how believers meet God’s standards. God’s standard is His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the foundation. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 (MSB) “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. [12] If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, [13] his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work. [14] If what he has built survives, he will receive a reward. [15] If it is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as if through the flames.”
Seasoned with salt refers to preserving the sacrifice from corruption or contamination before sacrificing it.
Some verses:
For grain offerings: Leviticus 2:13 (MSB) And you shall season each of your grain offerings with salt. You must not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offering; you are to add salt to each of your offerings.
Ezekiel 43:23-24 (MSB) When you have finished the purification, you are to present a young, unblemished bull and an unblemished ram from the flock. (24) You must present them before the LORD; the priests are to sprinkle salt on them and sacrifice them as a burnt offering to the LORD.”
Pulpit Commentary:
“Salt is commanded as symbolizing in things spiritual, because preserving in things physical, incorruption. It is an emblem of an established and enduring covenant, such as God’s covenant with his people, which is never to wax old and be destroyed, and it is therefore termed the salt of the covenant of thy God. Hence “a covenant of salt” came to mean a covenant that should not be broken (Numbers 18:19; 2 Chronicles 13:5). The use of salt is not confined to the meat offering. With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt. Accordingly we find in Ezekiel 43:24, “The priest shall cast salt upon them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering.”
Pulpit Commentary:
“All the heave offerings of the holy things. Those, viz.; enumerated from Num 18:9. It is a covenant of salt for ever. Septuagint, διαθήκη ἀλὸς αἰωνίου (cf. 2Ch 13:5). Salt was the natural emblem of that which is incorruptible; wherefore a binding alliance was (and still is) made by eating bread and salt together, and salt was always added to the sacrifices of the Lord.”
Keil & Delitzsch:
“Thou shalt not let the salt of the covenant of thy God cease from thy meat-offering,” i.e., thou shalt never offer a meat-offering without salt. The meaning which the salt, with its power to strengthen food and preserve it from putrefaction and corruption, imparted to the sacrifice, was the unbending truthfulness of that self-surrender to the Lord embodied in the sacrifice, by which all impurity and hypocrisy were repelled. The salt of the sacrifice is called the salt of the covenant, because in common life salt was the symbol of covenant…”
V50 “Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.”
Salt that is contaminated is worthless. Sacrificial salt must be pure. Thus, we are to be pure and have peace (God’s peace).
Compare Jesus’s use of salt in Matthew 5:13 and Luke 14:34-35).
Jesus, for us to have this purifying salt in ourselves, that is, our life to be lived in purity and truth. We are to be salt and light in our generation. Salt to spread truth (reality) and light (the Gospel truth).
The Holy Spirit is the salt on our Christian sacrifices: Romans 15:16 (MSB) to be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. (Emphasis mine).
Some Christian sacrifices:
- our bodies and minds: Romans 12:1-2 NKJV – I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
- gifts to help others, especially Christians: Philippians 4:18 NKJV – Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.
- praise to God: Hebrews 13:15 NKJV – Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
- prayer and other worship (singing, etc.): 1 Peter 2:5 NKJV – you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
We learn:
- We must be salt and light in the world, that is, with a goal of preserving culture from sinful rot (salt) and speaking and living the truth (light).
- If we do, we please our Lord Jesus.
Questions:
- How are you salt in today’s world?
- What Christian sacrifices have you offered?