Matthew 5:13 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 5:13

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How much Christ says in so few words! What a novel, powerful, and interesting illustration this is! The earth of course means the inhabited earth, the people who live on it. ‘You, who are my disciples, are the salt of the earth.’ The earth tends to go to putrefaction because of human sin. God’s people are in the world to retard that process by acting like salt, like a preservative. At the same time they fulfil another function of salt and give taste: it is for their sake that God does not immediately judge the world, and lets it go to its final conclusion (Matthew 13:29; Romans 9:22-23). Take away the church, and everything will be hurtling to judgement at the end of time. The Lord has just spoken of persecution. That is unpleasant and hard to face, and there are different ways they might try to avoid it, but Christ’s disciples must not yield to these temptations. One way is to become less distinctive: that is dealt with in this verse. Another way is to hide the fact that they are Christ’s disciples: that is dealt with in the next verse.Salt is pervasive; it permeates and affects what it comes into contact with. You never know what will become of your testimony. If it is added to anything it makes a difference to it. Salt is significant because it is so distinctive. This is all about the believer’s mission and the believer’s work. The believer’s life has been defined by these eight Beatitudes of God’s favour and happiness in Christ, and because these are in such stark contrast with the lifestyle of the unbeliever, that will make a strong impression.The believer must resist the temptation to become like the world. That would certainly remove the offence of the gospel and reduce persecution, but it would be to lose his God given function in the world. The world must be convicted of its sin, and although the Spirit works directly in the conscience of unbelieving men and women, he also does so through the conduct of his people which the world observes. By not doing as they do, we convict them, for we judge the things they do as wrong. That is the salt doing its work, and it may sting in the process, just as salt stings when put in a cut. With what can you salt salt? It is the very thing which is supposed to do the preserving. But if the salt has become corrupt and lost its saltiness, no one would bother to salt the salt. It is not worth preserving, for its one great function is to act as a preservative, and if it has lost that function it is good for nothing. Christ’s disciples are of course those whom he loves, and who he desires greatly to have with him in eternity. However, they are precious just because he has created a new character in them, and that distinctive character has ceased to be there if they are no longer acting as salt to a lost world.‘It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.’ The distinctive lifestyle of the believer does not earn God’s favour, but it marks him out as one who God has converted and changed. There are those who fall away and go back to being like worldlings all over again. Just as men discard salt once it loses its one useful property, so God will reject those whose heart have never truly been changed and who are reabsorbed by the world.

Application

We cannot laugh with them at their unclean jokes; we cannot join them in their unclean activities; we cannot use the same irreverent language that they use. We must be ready to be hated for Christ’s sake, if they will not bow the knee and come to him.

There are a number of books you can read and some of them are fantastic bestsellers. They have sold so many copies in the United States and here. And they will tell you how you can get your church to grow. There are some good books on that theme, but I am thinking of the very popular ones. These books have a formula, a policy you can adopt for church growth, and they state the formula, clearly and repeatedly through their books. For some, the great secret is for the church to become more like the world. They are unashamed to say this. The church must present its services like worldly entertainment. It must use things that the world might use: music and drama. It must cut down on this message of sin and conviction of sin and need of repentance, make that as light as possible. Well, the Saviour here says the exact opposite. Another way of putting it is this. We have to bridge the gap between the world and the church. That does not mean build a bridge in order to go into the world in order to win it. It means bring the world and the church together; make them the same so that the church is no longer threatening or challenging, to the worldling; it is no longer convicting to him, or different in his estimation. That is terrible.

This gospel it is good for every culture, every day and age. People are saying, what about post-modernity? In a post-modern age the very conscience of the person is eradicated and what is right and what is good is what right and what is right for me. Young people are now growing up with no moral instruction whatsoever. Can go and tell them about sin and expect them to respond? Yes, you can because no matter how society tries to program out of people an awareness that they are under absolute standards for life, they still have a conscience and those standards are still engraved upon the heart. When the gospel is preached and explained then a cord is struck.

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Matthew 5:13 Commentary and Bible Study