The doctrine of salt

1. Salt was very common in Bible times, that is why salt is used so extensively. For example, the dead sea has one of the largest salt deposits in the world. Salt was used in the ancient world for a number of reasons, all of which are brought in by way of illustration of Bible doctrine. Salt was used in the ancient world for preserving food. It was the original system of refrigeration, it was the means by which food was preserved. It was also used for the seasoning of food. It was used for the expression of fidelity in the ancient world. Eating salt with a king or a VIP meant allegiance to that king. Enlistment in armies often included eating salt, meaning I will be faithful to my commanders. Making a peace treaty or a covenant of friendship was used by eating bread and salt together. Salt was an expression of hospitality, and when you ate salt with someone, even though it was an enemy and under their roof, they couldn’t kill you until you left their property. Salt was used as an expression of judgement. For example, Carthage was sowed with salt after the Roman conquest of that city. Sowing the ruins of a captured city with salt was a picture of judgement. All of these uses add up to the fact that salt, therefore, is found in the scripture as an analogy and an illustration of many different things.

2. The biblical use of salt as a seasoner of food, Job 6:6,7. You don’t eat something tasteless if you can help it. What Job is saying in is that there are certain things he will not do, it is like trying to eat food without salt. He won’t run around with the wrong crowd, he won’t buy something that is wrong in the sense of a wrong idea to advance himself. He won’t get involved with antiestablishment principles in order to get along with people. In effect, he is saying, My soul refuses to touch them — because he has salt in his soul. Salt in his soul is Bible doctrine. His life has been savoured with salt, it has been seasoned with salt, and since he now has a seasoned life he cannot go back to the tasteless things of socialism and liberalism and do-goodism, and all of the other principles that are minus salt or minus grace. So salt as a seasoner of food is used as an analogy for separation from false concepts.

3. Salt was used in the Levitical offerings. The food offering of Leviticus chapter two, which portrays propitiation with emphasis on the person of Christ, used salt. Salt was also used in the other offerings as well. Salt in the food offering, however, has a special meaning, it follows the concept of preservation or eternal security. Leviticus 2:13. Salt in the Levitical offerings indicates the principle of eternal security. Because of who and what Christ is, because of what He did on the cross, eternal security is the seasoning of the various sacrifices with salt. The burnt offering which portrays propitiation with emphasis on the work of Christ also used salt. Salt was used in the burnt offering to indicate eternal security as well as the efficacy of the work of Christ and the importance of understanding this doctrine in orientation to grace. Ezra 6:9. The same principle occurs in the Millennial sacrifices which in the future will commemorate the work of Jesus Christ, Ezekiel 43:24. The salt, again, has the connotation of eternal security.

4. Salt is used in three categories of judgement. Personal judgement: Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt, Genesis 19:26. Temporal judgement: the judgement of cities, Deuteronomy 29:23, “all its land in brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive...” Judges 9:45. Salt is also used in eternal judgement. The eternal judgement of the lake of fire is described in terms of salt in Mark 9:47-49. Salt is used for the eternal judgement of the unbeliever, they are “salted with fire.”

5. Salt is analogues to the supergrace believer as the preserver of his nation, Matthew 5:13. If there are no believers with salt (with doctrine in the soul) there is no hope for the nation. Mark 9:50, “Have salt in yourselves” is having maximum doctrine in the soul, this is the preservation of the nation, “and be at peace with one another,” in other words, the salty believer is at peace with everyone else.

6. Unsaltiness is analogous to reversionism and is used to portray his discipline, Luke 14:34,35. GAP it.

7. Salt is analogous to the supergrace believer in the expression of divine viewpoint, Colossians 4:6.

8. In birth procedure salt was used as an antiseptic, Ezekiel 16:4. In the analogy of the birth of Israel, the birth of grace, we have: “As for your birth, on the day you were born, your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed down with salt, nor even wrapped in clothes.” Bible doctrine in the soul is a spiritual antiseptic.

9. The salt of the covenant was used to express the eternal relationship between God and the believer. It is related to the Levitical offerings in Numbers 18:19, “… it is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord, to you and to your seed after you.” So the eating of salt was the basis for setting up a contract. It is also related to the Davidic covenant, 2 Chronicles 13:5.