The Function of the Christian in the World

By David J. MacLeod [1]

An Exposition of Matthew 5:13–16

Introduction

It began suddenly, in the autumn of 1979. Young homosexual men with a history of promiscuity started showing up at the medical clinics of New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco with a bizarre array of ailments. Some had Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), a rare parasitic lung infection seen almost exclusively in cancer or transplant patients taking drugs that suppress their immunity. Others bore the purplish skin lesions of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancer that is usually confined to elderly men of Mediterranean extraction and young males in Equatorial Africa. Still others had developed strange fungal infections or other rare cancers. All had one thing in common: an immune system so severely impaired that they were living playgrounds for infectious diseases. As soon as one bug could be brought under control, these patients would fall prey to another, gradually wasting away. [2]

By 1981 medical experts had put a label on the strange new disease: Aids, or “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.” It has proven to be a deadly plague that has triggered one of the most intensive investigations of an epidemic in medical history. In 1983 the death toll stood at 489. By 1986 24,000 cases of the disease had been reported. Then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was projecting that by the year 2000 the number who would die from Aids worldwide could reach 100 million. [3]

What we know is this: In the marrow of our bones are factories that turn out a variety of defensive cells so specialized that each is able to recognize and attack one type of germ. These sentinels spend their whole lives prowling through our blood vessels, looking for their own type of invading enemy. As Dr. Paul Brand, the famed leprosy doctor, says, “The whole system is fantastic in beauty, and we need to pause in thankfulness.” Aids is caused by a retro virus, similar to many other viruses. But this one has the unique ability to seek out and kill just those cells of the immune system that ordinarily defend the body. When these are destroyed the body is defenseless, and many common infections suddenly become serious and even fatal. [4]

The immune system of the human body and its destruction by Aids serves as a good introduction to our Lord’s words in Matt. 5:13–16.5 The Bible tells us that the world is plagued by the disease of ungodliness and unrighteousness (cf. Rom. 1:18–23). Strangely, the Lord has not removed His people from the corrupt influences of this world. Instead He has placed them in the world to be its immune system. Society would disintegrate if it were not for the presence of the people of God, the divine immune system, in its midst.

Yet Christians face a problem. The danger is worldliness. Dr. J. I. Packer calls worldliness “spiritual Aids,” and he says: “It is pulling us disastrously down.” He points to these symptoms of worldliness or spiritual Aids in Christian believers:

Man-centeredness as a way of life, with God there to care for me; preoccupation with wealth, luxury, success and lots of happy sex as means to my fulfillment; unconcern about self-denial, self-control, truthfulness and modesty; high tolerance of moral lapses, with readiness to make excuses for ourselves and others in the name of [love]; indifference to demands for personal and church discipline; prizing ability above character, and ducking out of personal responsibility. [6]

So Christ has left His people in the world to help to immunize it against the poison of decay and corruption. [7] In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord describes, in the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3–12), the essential character of His disciples. Now, in vv. 13–16 he uses two metaphors (salt and light) to describe their influence for good in the world. [8] The one metaphor (salt) describes a negative function; the other (light) describes a positive function. [9]

The Negative: We Are God’s Saltshaker to Retard Corruption in the World

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men (Matthew 5:13).

The Description of Christians

The Designation “Salt”

“You are the salt of the earth” (̔Υμεῖς ἐστε τὸ ἅλας τῆς γῆς, hymeis este to halas tēs gēs). The disciples would have been startled to hear these words. Jesus had just described them as the poor, the gentle, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, and the persecuted. What can they accomplish whose greatest passion is an appetite for righteousness, and whose only weapon is purity of heart? [10]

They are the little people of the world. Their leader is a carpenter/preacher who is not much older than thirty. They are the same age. They are not political leaders. They aren’t well educated. Some speak with country accents. They don’t come from wealthy or aristocratic families. They have what we would call today small business and “blue-collar jobs” (fishermen, possibly a few farmers, and [one white collar man] a tax collector). [11] In verses 3–11 the Lord has been telling them how favored they are to be in the future day in the kingdom of heaven. In verses 13–16 He tells them that they are to be used by God in the world now in the present day. [12]

The pronoun “You” is strongly emphasized in the Greek text. [13] “You are … salt.” Jesus uses two domestic metaphors. Every home, however poor, uses salt and light. During His boyhood our Lord must have often watched His mother use salt in the kitchen and light the lamps when the sun went down. Pliny (a.d. 23–79), the Roman naturalist, had a dictum, a kind of jingle with a play on words, “There is nothing more beneficial than sun and salt” (nihil [est]utilius sole et sale). [14] The Romans sometimes paid their soldiers with salt. If a soldier did not carry out his duties, others would say, “He is not worth his salt.” [15] Even today when we wish to say that someone embodies genuine quality and goodness, we say, “He [or she] is the salt of the earth.” [16] For our Lord to say that His disciples were “salt” was to suggest that they had a very important role to play in His purposes for this world.

The Use of Salt

In the ancient world salt had two uses: it was used as a condiment to flavor food, and it was used as a preservative. It is that second use that our Lord has in mind here. [17] Salt was used by the ancients to keep meat from going bad, to keep it from putrefying or rotting. Freshly killed meat was salted down to retard corruption. The disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, would immediately grasp what was in Jesus’ mind. Every day they would come in with the night’s catch and pack it in salt for dispatch from Capernaum up to the Jerusalem market. They encased their fish in salt, lest it go bad on the journey. [18]

Today we have refrigerators and freezers for this process. [19] Every year around Thanksgiving time a friend of Emmaus Bible College gives every staff and faculty family a turkey. They are wonderful turkeys, and I look forward to this because my wife makes a fantastic turkey dinner. There is only one problem. She doesn’t like to cook turkey dinners! So, many years the turkey goes into the deep freeze, and we wait — sometimes for five or six months. Finally she gives in to the demands (of husband and children) for a big turkey dinner, and that turkey, thawed out, is as fresh as the day it was killed. The modern freezer, like salt, has preserved the meat for later use.

The Incrimination of the World

The phrase, “You are the salt of the earth,” is not only a description of the Christian. It is an indictment or incrimination of the world. The teaching of our Lord and His apostles is that the world is in a state of corruption. It manifests a constant tendency to deteriorate. It is putrefying. It cannot stop itself from going bad.

Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the Welsh-born, London-trained physician who became one of the great preachers of our time, has said that there has never been a century like the 20th century which has so proved this Biblical truth. [20]

It began on a note of evolutionary optimism. War was going to be abolished. Diseases would be cured. Suffering would be eradicated. Through education, alcohol and drug dependency, and sexual diseases and vices would cease. Paradise would be regained.

But what happened? The 20th century has been the age of war. Wars continue to rage at this very moment. Education has not solved man’s problems. It is, says Malcolm Muggeridge, the noted English commentator, “the great mumbo-jumbo and fraud of the age.” [21] Disease has not been eradicated nor chemical dependency ended. In fact, the century is ending with mankind facing one of the truly great plagues of history, and it is related to sexual vice.

The Bible has a number of illustrations of the festering germs of evil that lurk in the body of mankind. At one point the pollution was so terrible that God destroyed the earth with a flood (Gen. 6–8). On another occasion, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah became involved in such unthinkable sinfulness that God burned them to the ground (Gen. 19).The world is bad, sinful, and evil, and any optimism about it is thoroughly unscriptural and is falsified by history itself.

The Admonition to Christians

Jesus States a Fact: “You Are Salt”

The corporate impact of the church. [22] “You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus is not issuing a command. He is simply stating a fact. He does not say, “You ought to be the salt of the earth,” or “You must be the salt of the earth.” No, he says, “You are the salt of the earth.” Christians, by the simple fact that they are in contact with Christ, are the salt of the earth. Simply to hear His word with faith is to be salted. [23]

From time to time someone in the press will observe that 40-50 million Americans profess to be evangelical believers, and four out of five profess to be “Christians.” “If this is so,” they ask, “why don’t they have more of a positive impact on society?” My response is that they do have an impact! Christians (the genuine ones, at least) are the salt of the earth, and they do have a restraining effect on the corruption of society. In 2 Thessalonians 2:6–7 the Apostle Paul says that this restraining influence will one day be removed from the earth, and the result will be the appearance of Antichrist and the disintegration of society.

I think the Lord is speaking both to the church as an institution and to each of us as individuals. I do not believe that the church does its work as salt by becoming political and becoming involved in a variety of social causes. The primary work of the church as a divine organization is to teach the Word of God to believers, to worship, to pray, to fellowship with one another, and to evangelize. It is not to spend its time and energies denouncing in political forums communism, militant feminism, racism, or abortion on demand. If it does, it closes the evangelistic door to these groups. Communists, militant feminists, racists, and abortionists all have souls that need to be saved as everybody else. The moment the church begins to intervene in political, social, and economic policies, she hinders herself in her God-appointed task of edification and evangelism.

This is not to say that an individual believer is not to play his/her part as a citizen. He or she may vote, belong to the PTA, or join a political party if he or she so chooses. [24] The church is not concerned about these things. The church is to be concerned about sin in all of its manifestations. And the church confronts sin in all of its forms — but it does so as the church and not as a political action group. Sin is as terrible in a capitalist as in a communist, in a heterosexual as in a homosexual, in a non-racist as in a racist, in a submissive homemaker as in a militant feminist, and in a poor man as in a rich man.

When the church is most distinctly the church, it has a tremendous impact on society. This is illustrated in the effect of the great revivals. When the church concentrates on the preaching of the Word and evangelism, men and women get saved. In turn they act as salt in society. One of the most notable examples of this is the history of France and England in the 1700s. [25] French culture was in the process of decay with the royalty and nobility living in opulent splendor and decadence and the people living in poverty and resentment. The Marquise de Pompadour [Jeanne, Mme. de Pompadour] (1721–64) is reputed to have said to King Louis XV, “After us the deluge” (Aprs nous le déluge). [26] She was right. The deluge came and France was ripped apart by the French Revolution.

Just twenty miles across the English Channel, the English culture was in an even worse state of rottenness. The age was one of moral and spiritual eclipse. It has been called the “age of…expiring hopes.” [27] The slave trade was a national disgrace. The preaching of the gospel was practically dead, and most ministers were given to wealth and Deism. Prisons were cruel and punishment was barbaric. Infant mortality brought a spirit of hopelessness. Three out of four of all children born died before their fifth birthdays. There was a national orgy of gin drinking. Many gin shops had a sign: “Drunk for 1d [1 penny]; Dead Drunk 2d; Free Straw.” On numerous occasions Parliament adjourned early because “the honorable members were too drunk to continue the business of state.” Perverted conceptions of sport dominated the day. One advertisement read: “A mad bull to be dressed up with fireworks and turned loose in the game place, a dog to be dressed up with fireworks over him; a bear to be let loose at the same time, and a cat to be tied to the bull’s tail.” The baiting (attacking by dogs) of bulls, bears, badgers, etc., was common. Gambling was a national obsession. Adultery, lewd dress in aristocratic circles, coarse language in public, and mob behavior were all common. [28]

Yet England did not follow France into revolution. What saved her? Her universities? No, in fact, scholarship at the universities was at an all-time low. Was it politically active clergy? No, they were all corrupt. Was it the navy, the diplomats, the military, and the politicians? No. The country was spared, humanly speaking, because of two men, John Wesley (1703–91) and George Whitefield (1714–70). Through their preaching thousands were converted to a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thousands of Christian families salted English society, and over the next hundred years that society was changed. Slavery was abolished. Schools were founded for all classes. Orphanages were established. Child labor was abolished. The prison system was humanized. The liquor trade was severely restricted. Working conditions improved. Sport became more refined.

One of the most definitive studies of Wesley demonstrates that the Evangelical Revival was the true mother of the spiritual and character values that have created and sustained democracy throughout the English-speaking world. [29]

The individual impact of the believer. I as an individual am salt in the world just by being a Christian man or woman: by having biblical standards of honesty, standards of diligence on my job, standards of conscientiousness, not being lazy. I must have the standard of purity in speech, rejecting smutty humor. I should be the last to return a barbed reply. The believer cannot depart from the standard of strict honesty. He cannot lower his/her moral standards in the entertainment he/she uses. He/she cannot flirt with infidelity to his/her wedding vows.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones calls this “the principle of cellular infiltration.” [30] It is something done by the individual Christian. Just a little salt can affect a great mass. Because of its unique qualities it somehow or another permeates everything. Salt, of course, cannot change corruption into incorruption. It has no power to do so. But it prevents it from spreading. [31]

President Woodrow Wilson (president 1913–21) once told the story of a visit he paid to a barbershop.

I was sitting in a barber chair when I became aware that a powerful personality had entered the room. A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself to have his hair cut and sat in the chair next to me. Every word the man uttered, though it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him. And before I got through with what was being done to me I was aware I had attended an evangelistic service, because Mr. D. L. Moody (1837–99) was in that chair. I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular effect that his visit had brought upon the barbershop. They talked in undertones. They did not know his name, but they knew something had elevated their thoughts, and I felt that I left that place as I should have left a place of worship. [32]

The church is salt with its unadulterated message of the judgment and grace of God. Salt bites. So much so that men have revolted against it and even bitten back. In his famous novel, The Diary of a Country Priest, Baenanos says that it is significant that Jesus did not say, “You are the honey of the world,” but rather, “You are the salt of the earth.” The world wants honey-jar Christians — effeminate, sweet with an easy-loving God. Such Christians soften the harshness of guilt and retouch hell out of existence. [33]

Through His common grace God has established certain institutions in the world to curb man’s sinful tendencies and prevent human society from slipping into anarchy. There is the state, which frames and enforces laws (Rom. 13). There is the home, including marriage and family life, that exerts a wholesome influence in the community. But, the most powerful of all restraints within sinful society is God’s own redeemed, regenerate, and righteous people. [34] As New Testament scholar, R. V. G. Tasker, puts it, Christians are “to be a moral disinfectant in a world where moral standards are low, constantly changing, or non-existent.” [35]

You and I are the salt of the earth — in our own personal characters. The emphasis, it seems to me, is not so much on what we say as what we are. You and I are to be Christians, wherever we are — at home, in the office, in the classroom, on the playing field. By being a Christian I am playing my part in the restraint of evil in the world.

Sometimes a believer will complain, “I am the only Christian in a difficult work situation.” Don’t run. You are salt, the very thing a corrupt spot needs. [36] And, to anticipate verses 14–16, God needs our light where the world is darkest. [37]

Some time ago (January 22-24, 1993) I participated in the thirtieth anniversary of Littleton Bible Chapel in Colorado. I listened to the many testimonies of those who were involved in that great work of God. One of the early leaders was a businessman named John Henry. Two of the young men who later became elders of that local church were led to Christ in the office of John Henry, and another was grounded in the faith. John Henry was being salt and light in the world of business.

Jesus Sounds a Warning: “Don’t Lose Your Saltiness”

Although the Lord does not challenge us to become salty (“You are the salt of the earth”), He does challenge us to stay salty. [38] The Lord speaks of salt becoming “tasteless” (AV, “lost his savor;” NIV, “loses its saltiness”). Pure salt or sodium chloride is a stable compound and does not lose its taste. [39] However the salt used in Palestine was taken from salt marshes around the Dead Sea and contained many impurities. It was quite possible for the sodium chloride to be leached out in that it was more soluble than the impurities. The remaining residue was tasteless. [40] Such tasteless salt would be taken and scattered on the road (“the garbage dump of the ancient east”), [41] or on the soil of the flat roofs which served as playgrounds and places for public gathering. [42] In either case it was trodden under foot. What a comedown, comments A. B. Bruce, “from being saviours of society to supplying material for footpaths!” [43]

Salt has only one use. It is not so with other substances. For example, grapes may be too unripe to eat, or they may be too dry as raisins. Yet unripe or dry grapes will make a good wine. If unfit for wine, they will make good vinegar. Or if they are unfit for vinegar they are still useful for fertilizer for the vines. It is not so with salt. If it isn’t used for its one purpose, it is useless. There is no alternate use. [44]

How do Christians lose their saltiness? Let me suggest two ways: First, they stay in the salt shaker. Or, they stay in a salt warehouse. This is the approach of monasticism. It is the view that says believers are to cut themselves completely off from society. [45] Second, they lose their distinctiveness. They succumb to pressures to tone down their Christianity, or they become contaminated by the impurities of the world. Salt is different from the medium into which it is placed. The Christian is a person who is different from those around him. He/she should glory in the difference.

Dr. Anthony Evans, the outstanding preacher and president of The Urban Alternative, says in his own inimitable way:

The tragedy in our world today is not that sinners sin. Sinners are supposed to sin. The job description of a sinner is to sin. Watch out for sinners who don’t sin! The real tragedy, he says, is that the Christians are sinning. The salt is losing “its saltiness” (NIV). [46]

The Positive Function: We Are God’s Lighthouse to Reveal Truth to the World

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house (Matt. 5:14–15).

The Description of Christians

“You are the light of the world” ( Υμεῒς ἐστε τὸ φῶς τοῢ κόσμου, humeis este to phōs tou kosmou). What a remarkable and glorious thing it is to be a Christian. [47] Here is this little band of unimportant and insignificant men. Yet in God’s mind they are of cosmic significance. They (WE!) are “the light of the world.” Christians are the world’s light. [48]

Light in the New Testament symbolizes purity as opposed to filth, truth and knowledge as opposed to error and ignorance, and divine revelation and presence as opposed to reprobation and abandonment by God. [49] Elsewhere (John 8:12), Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor of Philadelphia’s renowned Tenth Presbyterian Church, said that when He was in the world the Lord Jesus was like the sun. But when the sun goes down the moon comes up. It shines, but not by its own light. Rather, it reflects the light of the sun. As Jesus speaks here in Matthew 5:14, He is anticipating the time when He will be gone to heaven and the Christians will be the light of the world. James Boice, Dr. Barnhouse’s successor, says that sometimes the church is a full moon. These are the times of revival. Sometimes it is like a new moon and you can barely see it. We shine forth only as we are determined to reflect the glory of Christ. [50]

In our passage, however, the Lord does not compare believers to the moon, but to a lamp and to a city. Houses in Palestine were very dark with only one little circular window not more than eighteen inches across. The lamp was like a gravy dish filled with oil with the wick floating in it. [51] Built of white limestone, ancient towns gleamed in the sun and could not be hidden. Living in the industrialized world we do not realize how black nature can be. For people living in the ancient world darkness was a dangerous and terrifying thing. At night the lights of a city would make the dark a little more bearable and would be a beacon of hope and safety. [52]

The Incrimination of the World

Again the Lord’s metaphor contains an indictment of the world. The Scriptures proclaim that the world is in a state of gross moral darkness. The people of the earth are portrayed as “sitting in darkness” (Matt. 4:16; Luke 1:79). The Lord said that “men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Likewise the Apostle Paul could speak of the “works of darkness” (Rom. 13:12). The ultimate doom of those who reject Christ is described as “outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).

How can this be? The world is always talking about enlightenment! [53]

Modern civilization has concentrated only on mechanical, scientific things. It has ignored the real questions, the fundamental problems of life and living. We are witnessing the tragic breakdown in personal relationships. Cut off from God, people are asking for guidance in things that never concerned those who lived in a more Christian era. Marriage counselors and psychologists are legion. People do not know how to deal with the momentous questions of life: how to avoid evil and sin, how to be clean and straight and pure and chaste and wholesome.

The Admonition to Christians

The Necessity of Light Bearing

Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.” The greatest thinkers of our time are baffled by our problems. They do not understand the real difficulty of man. Only the Christian can give helpful advice to the vexing questions that people face, the reality of their guilt and sin, and their alienation from God. The Lord admonishes us not to hide our lights. The very purpose of being a Christian is to give light. Giving light is not an option, which the disciple may or may not choose.

The lamp in a home was set in a place (a lampstand) where it would be safe (so as not to kick it over) and where it would be conspicuous. [54] It was not easy to rekindle a lamp in the days before matches, so when people went out for a short while they would take the lamp from the lampstand and put it under an earthen “meal-tub” (NEB) or “peck-measure” or “bucket” (J. B. Phillips) so that it could burn without risk until they got back. When they returned, they would uncover the lamp, for the primary duty of a lamp is to give light. [55] We are not to hide our lamps under the “meal-tub” of fear, like Joseph of Arimathea (John 19:38), or under the “meal-tub” of unconcern for those around us, or the “meal-tub” of compromise, like Lot in the city of Sodom, or the “meal-tub” of inconsistency. [56]

“Flight into the invisible,” says Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young German theologian executed by Hitler, “is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow Him.” [57] Putting it under a peck-measure may be due to the fear of men or due to deliberate conformity to the world. Haddon Robinson reminds us that God did not call us into the secret service. “Either secrecy will destroy the discipleship, or the discipleship will destroy the secrecy. We cannot live light-filled lives in our society without standing out, without having people notice us.” [58]

There will always be the temptation to hide our light, to retreat to the monastery. C. T. Studd (1862–1931), the wealthy Cambridge University student and cricket star, who was converted, gave away his fortune, and went to China as a missionary, had an interesting limerick: [59]

Some wish to live within the sound
Of church or chapel bell,
I want to run a rescue shop
Within a yard of hell.

It is often said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The Greek verb for “become tasteless” or “loses its saltiness” (μωρανθῇ [mōranthē], aor. pass. of μωραίνω) literally means “to be foolish, to make or become foolish.” Many Christians are fooling around today while the world is going to hell, says well-know preacher, Stuart Briscoe. [60] From God’s perspective they are “making fools of themselves.” [61] As Dr. Lloyd-Jones says, “There is nothing so useless in the world as a worldly Christian.” [62]

The Effects of Light Bearing

What are the effects of light? They are three in number: [63] First, light exposes the darkness. It exposes the things that are going on in the darkness. When our Lord came into the world, says Matthew, “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light.” If a Christian lives the Christian life before people, it is like a light going on. People will see the error and failure in their own way of thinking and living. Second, light explains the cause of the darkness. The light we have explains the sole cause of the troubles of the world, viz., man’s estrangement from God. The Christian alone has an adequate explanation of the cause of the state of the world. The cause of the trouble is that men love the darkness. Third, light shows and provides the only way out of the darkness (just as a lighthouse guides a ship safely into port, or street lights help the driver of a car). It is not education, political reform, or international treaties. The Christian needs to tell the lost person that there is a way to God. It is to know the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God who came from heaven to earth to “seek and to save that which was lost” in darkness (Luke 19:10). He came into the darkness and bore the guilt of this terrible sinfulness that has involved us in such trouble.

The Motives for Light Bearing

What is the motive for letting our light shine? It is twofold: First, that men might see “your good works.” The word “good” (καλά, kala) [64] is a word that usually describes the attractive form or appearance of a thing, rather than its good content. The way things are done is important to the Lord. The Pharisees did their good works to make sure that others saw them. The good works of the Christian are special because of their modesty and mercy. [65]

D. L. Moody was present at a Bible conference where some young people were in attendance. One night they held an all-night prayer meeting. As they were leaving in the morning they met Mr. Moody, and he asked them what they had been doing. They told him, and then they added, recalling the Old Testament story of Moses, “Mr. Moody, see how our faces shine.” Moody answered gently, “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone” (Exod. 34:29). His kindly admonition was that goodness which is self-conscious, which draws attention to itself, is not Christian goodness. [66]

What are our “good works?” Jesus, no doubt, had two things in mind: (1) The ordinary things of life done in a Christian way: honesty, purity, conscientiousness, kindness, generosity, mercy. (2) Evangelism and teaching the Word. I include this because the New Testament does. Paul described his work of bearing witness to Christ as being “a light to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:47; 26:23).

Our second motive for letting our light shine is that we might glorify our “Father who is in heaven.” Our good works should be transparent. They should point not to their agent (us), but to their source (the Father). [67] This is the first time in Matthew that God is called “Father.” It was not characteristic for Jews in Jesus’ day to personally call God “Father.” Jesus altered forever the way we think of God. [68]

Some Concluding Lessons

Several lessons suggest themselves as we examine this important passage: First, we need to remember that our Lord’s words are permanently applicable. [69] Our text tells us of Christ’s estimate of the need of mankind today. “His words were words for all ages.” The people of the world continue to be “in circumstances of corruption and darkness.” [70]

Second, there is a fundamental difference between Christians and non-Christians, between the church and the world. [71] They are as different as antiseptic and disease, as different as light from darkness, as different as salt from the meat or wound into which it is rubbed. [72] We do not serve God if we try to minimize the difference. Dr. Lloyd-Jones emphasizes this, “The glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.” [73] Tony Evans says:

There’s a big show coming to town someday. Jesus is Director, Producer, and Star. And what a performance it’s going to be! But in the meantime, He’s left you and me here as previews of coming attractions. People are supposed to see us and say, ‘Well, if the clips are this hot, tell me how I can get in on the whole show.’ We are His preview of coming attractions. [74]

Third, we must accept the responsibility which this distinction puts upon us. [75] “You are the salt of the earth…the light of the world.” It has often been pointed out that the Christian ethic is becoming what you are. Greek philosophy said “become what you should be.” Jesus says, “Become what you are.” You are salt and light. Retain your saltiness and do not conceal your light in any way. The world system is crushing and overwhelming people. We have a message to help.

Fourth, the function of the Christian in the world is twofold: [76] first, to be salt. The values and standards of the world steadily decline until it is absolutely corrupt. In Romans 1 Paul says that God gives them up to their own distorted thoughts and passions. In such a world we are to share the gospel, including its severe warnings and admonitions. We must not shy away from rubbing salt into the wounds, denouncing what is wrong and sinful. We are to stand up for what is true, good and decent, whether in our neighborhood, in our schools, in our profession, or in our business. Second, to be light. People need regeneration, new life, through the gospel. They need light and we need to show them the way to Christ.

Fifth, Jesus always expects His people to be faithful. Someday He is going to return. The first thing He is going to do is destroy all salt warehouses and overturn all bushels or peck-measures or meal-tubs. The judgment of God will “begin with the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17). [77]

Sixth, in Matthew 5:3–16 Jesus gives three incentives to righteousness: [78] This is the way we ourselves will be blessed. The beatitudes in verses 3–10 tell us that God blesses or favors those who please Him. This is the way the world will be best served. We shall be the world’s immune system if we seek to live by the qualities laid out in the beatitudes. This is the way God will be glorified.

Christian friend, our world is in darkness, and we have the light. Haddon Robinson says this:

Jesus did not call us to be magnificent chandeliers for people to admire. He called us to be a single bulb in a back hall to keep people from breaking their necks when they go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He called us to make a difference in the darkness. Doing so makes us significant. On June 5, 1910, the American short-story writer O. Henry spoke his last word: “Turn up the lights — I don’t want to go home in the dark.” As lights in the world, our mission is to make sure no one ever does. [79]

Notes

1. Dave MacLeod is a faculty member at Emmaus Bible College and the Associate Editor of The Emmaus Journal. This is the fourth in a series on the subject, “The Christian and the World.”
2. Cf. Claudia Wallis, “The Deadly Spread of AIDS,” Time (Sept. 6, 1982): 55; Jean Seligmann, Mariana Gosnell, Vincent Coppola, and Mary Hagner, “The AIDS Epidemic: The Search for a Cure,” Newsweek (April 18, 1983): 74-79.
3. Cf. Ben Patterson, “The Judgment Mentality,” Christianity Today (March 30, 1987): 16.
4. “The AIDS Plague: What Now?” Christian Herald (April 1986): 43-44.
5. Tony Evans, Are Christians Destroying America? (Chicago: Moody, 1996), 17–45; J. I. Packer, “Decadence à la Mode,” Christianity Today (Oct. 2, 1987): 13
6. Packer, “Decadence à la Mode,” 13.
7. Cf. Helmut Thielicke, Life Can Begin Again: Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), 29.
8. Cf. John R. W. Stott, Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1978), 57; D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 1:149.
9. Ultradispensational interpreters will reject any direct application of the Sermon to church age believers. A more correct dispensational approach, however, recognizes that the Sermon is foundational to New Covenant ethics and that church age believers participate in all the benefits (both present and eschatological) of the New Covenant. Christians are “heirs of the kingdom” (James 2:5) and are to live their lives in obedience to the King—even though His assumption of the earthly kingdom is a thing of the future. Cf. John A. Martin, “Dispensational Approaches to the Sermon on the Mount,” in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, eds. Stanley D. Toussaint and Charles H. Dyer (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 35–48.
10. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 57.
11. Cf. Haddon W. Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1988), 96–97.
12. Cf. Robert Govett, The Sermon on the Mount (London: Thynne and Co., 1934; reprint ed., Miami Springs: Conley and Schoettle, 1984), 24.
13. This is indicated by two things: (1) Pronominal subjects do not have to be expressed. (2) The pronoun is placed at the head of the sentence.
14. Pliny, Natural History 31. 102, trans. W. H. S. Jones, LCL, 10 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard, 1963), 8:440–41.
15. Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company, 97.
16. William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 2 vols. (rev. ed., Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), 1:119; Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company, 97.
17. The commentators have suggested that our Lord may have a number of qualities of salt in mind: (1) It lends flavor to foods. Certain foods without salt are insipid [cf. Alan Hugh M’Neile, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (London: Macmillan, 1961), p. 55]. It is argued that our Lord’s point is that life without Christianity is insipid. The world today proves that. The ceaseless drive to find pleasure shows that many find life dull and boring [Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:154]. Yet that is not the point here in Matthew 5:13. Certainly the church does nothing to make the world palatable to God [cf. R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1943), 199]. Nor does it add tang to the unbeliever’s life. Without Christ, he hates Christianity [cf. the bitter accusations against Christians compiled in Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 1:120–21]. (2) Sodium chloride is used as a fertilizer for the soil [cf. γῆ, Eugene P. Deatrick, “Salt, Soil, Savior,” The Biblical Archaeologist (May 1962): 41-48]. However, γῆ is parallel to κόσμος in v. 14, and refers not to soil but to the earth of fallen mankind. Furthermore, in Scripture salty soil is unproductive [Deut. 29:23; Ps. 107:34, cf. M’Neile, Matthew, 55]. (3) Salt is connected with purity. The Romans said salt was the purest of all things because it came from the purest of all things, the sun and the sea [Barclay, Matthew, 1:119]. This is closer to the intent of the passage and should probably be included under my discussion of salt as a preservative.
18. Cf. Guy H. King, New Order: An Expositional Study of the Sermon on the Mount (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1943), 22–23.
19. Cf. D. A. Carson, The Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 30.
20. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:150–51.
21. Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), 101.
22. Ultradispensationalists will object to my using the term “church” of the disciples before the church is founded at Pentecost. I would respond that not only were the disciples part of a believing remnant in Israel, but they were also the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20) which began, of course, on the day of Pentecost.
23. Bruner, The Christbook, 160.
24. On the important question of the social and political involvement of Christians, I would concur with Dr. Donald Bloesch who distinguishes the role of the church and the role of the individual believer: (1) The church in its regular ministry of the Word gives direction on moral and ethical issues. (2) The individual believer or groups of believers apply the directives (Personal conversation with Donald Bloesch, Nov. 8, 1992).
25. Cf. Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company, 99–100.
26. Quoted in John Bartlett, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (14th ed., Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1968), 443.
27. H. W. V. Temperley, “The Age of Walpole and the Pelhams,” in The Cambridge Modern History, 13 vols., eds. A. W. Ward, G. W. Prothero, Stanley Leathes. Vol. 6: The Eighteenth Century (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 76.
28. J. Wesley Bready, England: Before and After Wesley (3d ed., London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1939), 99–160.
29. Bready, England: Before and After Wesley, 11, 54.
30. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:158.
31. Cf. G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to Matthew (New York: Revell, 1929), 47.
32. Quoted by MacArthur, Matthew 1–7, 236.
33. Thielicke, Life Can Begin Again, 27–28.
34. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 59.
35. R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, TNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 63.
36. King, New Order, 23.
37. Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company, 106.
38. Bruner, The Christbook, 160.
39. Cf. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 104; D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 8:138.
40. ISBE, s.v. “Salt,” by L. G. Herr, 4 (1988):287; TDNT, s.v. “ἅλας,ς by F. Hauck, 1:229.
41. Carson, Sermon on the Mount, 30.
42. Carson, “Matthew,” 138.
43. Alexander Balmain Bruce, “The Synoptic Gospels,” in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 5 vols., ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 1:102.
44. Govett, The Sermon on the Mount, 29–30.
45. Cf. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:149; Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company, 101.
46. Anthony T. Evans, “Let the Church Be the Church,” Signal (Sept. 1991), 12; Idem., Are Christians Destroying the World? 35.
47. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:159.
48. Cf. Bruner, The Christbook, 161.
49. Carson, “Matthew,” p. 139.
50. James Montgomery Boice, The Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), 80.
51. Barclay, Matthew, 1:123.
52. Cf. Carson, Sermon on the Mount, 30–31.
53. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1: 160–62.
54. King, New Order, 26.
55. Barclay, Matthew, 1:123.
56. King, New Order, 27–28.
57. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (rev. ed., New York: Macmillan, 1963), 132.
58. Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company, 105.
59. Norman P. Grubb, C. T. Studd: Cricketer and Pioneer (Atlantic City: The World-Wide Revival Prayer Movement, 1933), 170.
60. Stuart Briscoe, Now For Something Totally Different: A Study of The Sermon on the Mount (Waco: Word Books, 1978), 61.
61. Carson, “Matthew,” 139, n. 13.
62. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:173.
63. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:165–69.
64. The term καλός (kalos) is used here as opposed to ἀγαθός (agathos) or χρηστός (chrēstos). ᾿Αγαθός is generally used for what is good and useful, especially moral goodness. Χρηστός expresses the material usefulness of things with regard to their goodness, pleasantness, and softness. Καλός stresses more the aesthetic aspect and stands for beautiful, attractive, fine, free from defects. Cf. NIDNTT, s.v. “Good,” by E. Beyreuther, 2:98.
65. Bruner, The Christbook, 162.
66. Barclay, Matthew, 125–26.
67. Bruner, The Christbook, 162.
68. Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, 106.
69. Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, 103.
70. Morgan, Matthew, 46.
71. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 58, 63.
72. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 1:153.
73. Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, quoted by Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 60. Stott’s documentation is in error.
74. Evans, “Let the Church Be the Church,” 13.
75. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 63.
76. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 64–8.
77. Thielicke, Life Can Begin Again, 32.
78. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 68.
79. Robinson, The Christian Salt and Light Company, 106–7.