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The Lord's people are represented as being themselves offered up to Him, as His spiritual sacrifices, both by Isaiah and St. Paul. It was a custom ordained of God in the Levitical code (Leviticus 2:13) that "Every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt." Collecting, then, the points to which we have adverted, we have seen that believers are represented as the Lord's sacrifices: that His sacrifices were anciently purified by the typical salt; that the object of the salt, or grace, is to preserve them from the corruption of the worm of indwelling sin and the fire of ultimate judgment; and that in the whole chamber of imagery is inculcated the duty of sacrificing the lusts of the flesh in order to our being edified in the spirit, and promoting the edification of others. We recognize in the text a force and a beauty not discernible to the superficial student, in the declaration of the gracious effect of those sanctifying trials and mortifications in which all believers have their share; "for everyone shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." Let us, therefore, consider the teaching of the Spirit in this text to imply, first, an awful denunciation on the man of unmortified lusts — "Every" such "one shall be salted with fire;" secondly, the gracious result of fleshly mortification — "every sacrifice shall be salted with salt;" that is, every believer who "presents his body a living sacrifice," "shall be salted with salt" — that is, not with fire to consume, but with salt to preserve. This is the contrast: on the one hand penal destruction; on the other, gracious preservation.

I. THE CAREER OF UNFORTIFIED LUST ENTAILS A FEARFUL PENALTY. This declaration of Scripture is continually receiving fearful illustrations in the premonitory dealings of Providence. Days of indulgence are succeeded by nights of pain; a youth of profligacy, if not prematurely cut short, entails a feeble, diseased, and miserable old age. Sin receives judgment by installments; the salting fire of the Divine displeasure falls upon the wretched sinner, in many a striking instance, even in this life, presenting, like the shock before the earthquake, prelusive warning of the catastrophe about to follow. It is admitted that the expression in the text is figurative. But the figures of Scripture never exaggerate the facts of reality. The lost, unransomed soul, exposed to the searching and protracted agonies of a fire that salts, that is, perpetuates the anguish of its miserable victims, exhibits the torments of the unbelieving in a broad glare of horror, as if the letters were illuminated by the reflection of "the lake that burneth."

II. THE GRACIOUS EFFECTS OF FLESHLY MORTIFICATION. The believer is to be also salted, but with constraining love, with preserving grace, with sanctifying trial. The grace of mortification is that to the soul which salt is to the body; it preserves it from putrefaction, and renders it savoury. Inferences:

1. That there is in every believer some lust to be subdued — for "every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." We do not apply salt except to those things which have a natural tendency to corruption. If believers must have "salt in themselves," it follows that there is in them the principle of corruption. One man is attacked through the medium of his ambition; the lust of secular distinction desolates his heart of all piety. Another man is drawn aside by his avarice. Another man is seduced by his animal lusts, and the unchecked vagrancy of the eye. Another man is tempted through the medium of temper, and his ebullitions of frightful rage shock the ears of his household. Another man is led astray by his pride. Lastly, the figure suggests the doctrine, that the spiritual health of the believer is to be promoted and attained by fleshly mortification. It is by this means that the soul is to be clarified from sin and preserved in grace.

(J. B. Owen, M. A.)

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KJV: For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

WEB: For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.