Salt was to be used with all the sacrifices. Cf. Ezekiel 43:24; Mark 9:49.
I. WHAT IT RECALLED TO THE MIND OF THE OFFERER. The eating of bread and salt together being the ceremony which finally ratified an agreement or covenant (as it still is in Arabia), salt was associated in the mind of the Israelite with the thought of a firmly established covenant. Each time, therefore, that the priest strewed the salt on the offering there would have been a reminder to all concerned of the peculiar blessing enjoyed by the nation and all members of it, of being in covenant with God, without which they would not have been in a state to offer acceptable sacrifices at all.
II. WHAT IT SYMBOLIZED. The effect of salt being to preserve from corruption, its being sprinkled on the sacrifice taught the offerer the necessity of purity and constancy in his devotion of himself to God.
III. THE SYMBOL TAKEN UP AND APPLIED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
1. The Christian's speech is not to be corrupting, but edifying. "Let your speech be always seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man" (Colossians 4:6). "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, hut that which is good for the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" (Ephesians 4:29).
2. Christian men are to be salted with fire, as the sacrifices are salted with salt (Mark 9:49), and the life of the collective body of Christians, the Church, is to be, in its effects upon the world, as salt. "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13). "Have salt in yourselves" (Mark 9:50). Men influenced by the Spirit of Christ, having been themselves salted with fire, have now become the salt which saves the world from perishing in its own corruption.
IV. THE SALT MAY LOSE ITS SAVOUR. This is the case when "doctrine" being no longer characterized by "uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity" (Titus 2:7), religion becomes changed into superstition, thenceforward debasing instead of elevating mankind; or when it stirs men to acts of fanaticism, or rebellion, or cruelty; or when the spiritual life becomes so dead within it that it abets instead of counteracting the wickedness of the world.
V. SALT SYMBOLIZES PERMANENCY AS WELL AS PURITY. Our love for Christ must be, St. Paul teaches us (Ephesians 6:24), a love "in sincerity," or rather, as the word should be translated, "in incorruption," that is, an abiding love, without human caprice or changeableness; and our obedience to God must be constant, without breaks in its even course, and lasting to the end of life. "Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved" (Matthew 24:12, Matthew 24:13). "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life" (Revelation 2:10).
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR