The Exposition of Matthew (Matthew 5:13-16)
(Sermon on the Mount)
Questions to be answered in this study
- How was thew scribes’ and Pharisees’ teaching a distraction from true Bible theology?
- What kind of people was Jesus calling out in the beatitudes?
- Can we live by the standards of the Sermon on the Mount?
- What does the presence of light signify in Scripture?
- Why is it important to let the light that God brings into our life shine out?
- By what means do we show the light of God in our lives?
- What is the motivation for serving the Lord?
- What are the identifying marks of a true believer?
- What does it mean to be the salt and light of the world?
Introduction
Today we continue our study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We began with the first section of the sermon called the Beatitudes. In the Beatitudes, Jesus makes nine statements, which characterize the person included in the kingdom of Heaven. The character traits which Jesus describes are opposite of those taught by the Pharisees. The Pharisees were by no means poor in spirit; they were quite the opposite; they were proud of their spiritual accomplishments. Instead of mourning over their sins, they were proud that they were worthy before God. They set themselves apart as being different from everyone else. They claimed to be the perfect example of what it took to please God. Theirs was a religion of keeping artificial rules and placing heavy burdens on others that they were not always willing to bear themselves. They were religious hypocrites.
Their teaching distracted others from what the Word of God taught concerning the love and mercy of God. When Jesus came along and began teaching the pure Word of God, it contradicted the authority of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus declared the Scribes and Pharisees’ teaching was of Satan; theirs was an opposite doctrine from the Scripture.
In the Gospel of Luke: Luke 6:24-26, we see some additional statements Jesus made concerning the false teachings of the Pharisees: “But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.”
The Pharisees were rich at the expense of others. In many cases today, television preachers beg for the money from people struggling to make ends meet so they can live in luxury, in some instances owning expensive cars and having mansions at different locations. They are like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. According to Jesus, these were false prophets, not actual men of the gospel. The tension between Jesus and these false prophets grew each day and is one of the main features of the gospels.
In the beatitudes, Jesus is calling out a very different kind of people, those born again, a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. These are those who set their sights on the kingdom of Heaven, which was to come, and not on the temporal world filled with lies and the deceit of Satan. Jesus describes those faithful citizens of Heaven beginning with verse 13:
Matthew 5:13, “Ye are the Salt of the earth: but if the Salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”
Jesus’ message now takes a turn, and He begins to address those who meet the qualities listed in the nine beatitudes, who are part of the kingdom of Heaven. He commands them to conform to two metaphors that have become axioms of the truth: He compares them to Salt and light. Salt enhances the taste of food, making the flavor stand out. Food that is salted tastes much better than unsalted food. A combination of two toxic elements, Chloride and sodium, are the ingredients of table salt. These two elements by themselves are both poisonous; combined, they provide a mineral that the body needs to survive. We are to be the Salt of the earth, providing that one essential thing, which without there cannot be spiritual life, is the gospel of Christ.
The metaphor Jesus used is only part of the story; the analogy goes much more profound when we understand how they used Salt in the time of Jesus. Our primary use of Salt today is for seasoning food, but during the time of Jesus, it was mainly used as a preservative to prevent food from spoiling. This preservative nature of Salt more clearly explains the comparison Jesus is making. Jesus says those in the kingdom of Heaven are to be like Salt, which means we are to act as a preservative, preserving life. Jesus addressed the remnant of the Jews who believed in Him and told them they would preserve others to keep them from destruction. We today have the secret of life, life everlasting, and we are to maintain others that they may avoid the destruction of body and soul in hell. We, as believers, are to a preservative across the world to keep the world from self-destructing. We are to rescue the perishing one at a time from the fate of dying unprepared to meet God.
In the second half of v.13, there is a challenge that we need to consider. What good is Salt if it has lost its savor or its saltiness. The analogy is what good is a believer if he has lost his effectiveness as a preservative. How does Salt lose its saltiness and become ineffective as a preservative? Scientifically it can’t because sodium chloride is a stable substance. We must understand in context what Jesus is saying here. When I was traveling across Utah, a Morten Salt company was to my right along the highway. There were huge mounds of pure Salt waiting to be processed and packaged. Opposite to this, in the time of Jesus, pure Salt in the land of Israel was not plentiful and was not used as a preservative. Whereas, Salt used as a preservative was plentiful. It came from sediment in salt marshes. The Salt mined from these sources was polluted with impurities and was for use only as preservatives. This impure Salt used for preservatives could lose its saltiness if it became wet; the water-soluble salt crystals dissolved, leaving only the impurities that were useless for a preservative and therefore had to be cast out. Therefore, what once was salty was no longer and of no use.
The comparison Jesus is making here is concerning His disciples that they could lose their saltiness, their effectiveness as Christians. He is not just talking about living the Christian life, which is essential, but it goes beyond that: We are to be a preservative, preserving the world from sin and destruction of the soul. When our life is not characterized by the traits given in the beatitudes, we cease being useful in God’s kingdom. Unconfessed sin is an impurity in the life of a Christian, which causes ineffectiveness and renders a person no longer useful as a preservative of life.
It is of essence that we attempt to exhibit the nine characteristics of the Beatitudes to influence the world about us and be a blessing to others. We actually can be a preservative to our unsaved friends, neighbors, workmates, and all who are struggling in a world that is rushing headlong toward certain destruction. We see hatred, violence, depravity, crudeness, drug addiction, and all manner of evil all around us. As the Salt of the world, we bring love, joy, peace, humility, gentleness, kindness, and goodness. Every day we have the opportunity to get a blessing into the life of others. On the other hand, when we combine with the world’s impurities, we become worthless as a blessing. What good to God are we then?
We have two choices in life. We can commit ourselves to walk in the Spirit and produce the fruit of the Spirit, or we can be disobedient to the call of Jesus and walk in the world among all its impurities rendering ourselves perfectly useless to the kingdom of Heaven. If a person is truly a believer, they process all nine of the characteristics of the beatitudes, but that does not mean they exhibit them consistently. Some may not show them at all. The qualities of the beatitudes are not materializing daily in the life of some because their life is not committed to God’s process of sanctification, the process of conforming one to the image of Christ. It is only when Jesus is living through us that we can live according to the sermon on the mount, but we must first surrender to Jesus and let His light shine through us: Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Jesus once again uses a metaphor to describe how a citizen of the kingdom of Heaven should live. It is in that context that Jesus adds light as His second analogy of a believer in Christ. Light is used in several places in Scripture to signify the presence of God. Moses saw a bush in the desert, which seemed to be afire, but it was not fire, in the true sense. It was the light of God. God spoke to Moses from the bush giving him instructions concerning the children of Israel in bondage in Egypt. God instructed Moses to go to Egypt and lead Israel out of bondage.
Matthew 5:14-15, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”
When Moses secured the release of Israel, and they began their journey. God led them by a cloud of light by day and a pillar of fire by night which signified His presence. When God came down into the Tabernacle in the wilderness, it was filled with light. Light is a reference in Scripture to God’s presence and His glory. When a person converts to Christ, that light of God comes and indwells them via the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Jesus is saying to the children of His kingdom to let the light shine out into the world. This is the fruit of the Holy Spirit revealing His presence in the believer by demonstrating the love of God. God’s love is characterized by joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control, the fruit of the Spirit.
Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Now that the Lord has given light to the life of each believer, He expects the light not to be hidden under a basket, so to speak, but to shine out to others to bring light into their lives and bring glory to the Heavenly Father. We are not to hide that light but let it shine. Light takes away the darkness. It never blends in with it; it cannot coexist with darkness. We live in the world, but we are separate from it and its darkness. We have great potential, but we must be willing to discipline the flesh and the sinful nature to be effective witnesses in the world. Notice in v.16, according to Jesus, letting our light shine is doing good works before men, works not for salvation but as the results of salvation.
The light of God is invisible until it is manifested through us by the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That is why Paul in Galatians 5 says that we should walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. The light shines when we are walking in the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit. That is what the beatitudes are all about, living out the traits. What that amounts to is living a godly life that honors God. It is not living a phony life like the Pharisees described in Matthew 23:13-14,” But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. 14Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.”
Here’s the point: It is not merely doing good works, which any unbeliever can do; it is a spiritual change, an inward change that motivates a person of God to want to do those things that please the Lord out of love for Him and others. That inward change is what results in us being the Salt and the light of the world. Christ calls us to display good works before others, like a lamp or a city set on a hill, which draws attention to God’s love and grace and not our own. James describes this as everything good comes from above. The beatitudes are attributes of the Christian that come directly from God at the new birth.
These works are to manifest themselves daily as we go about our lives. How many Christians nullify the beatitudes by the way they treat others, cursing at them as they drive down the highway on the way to church or cutting them off in traffic. Rudeness is precisely the opposite of what God instilled within us. It is like the Pharisees, who look the part sometimes but defy it by the way they live at other times. The point Jesus is making is, it cost to serve Him. He said in Matthew 16:24, “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Let’s briefly take a look at the things we have talked about in these first 16 verses of Matthew chapter 5:
Jesus starts His great sermon on the mount with the characterization of the true child of the kingdom of Heaven, a person saved by the grace of God, through faith and sanctified daily by the Holy Spirit. They realize that this world is not their home; they are only passing through for a little while in which they are to be a blessing to others. Their purpose is to draw attention to Jesus, who is living within, and to bring glory to the Heavenly Father.
The things that come from Heaven to us are not things that can be faked in the strength of the flesh; they are things of God, love, peace, and joy, etc. Sadly, however, these qualities can be hidden by the believer, never to be seen, never to bring glory to God, and never to bless those around us. Each of us needs to take the time to objectively examine ourselves and see if we are falling short of those nine attributes of the believer and pray that God will give us the faith and strength to be Salt and light unto the world.