Life Project Blog

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16

Jesus has just given us a series of character traits or attributes in the beatitudes, but so far, we have attributes without a purpose; in these verses, Jesus gets to His larger point.

To illustrate, He uses two metaphors, salt and light. Salt had many uses in the ancient world, thus it is very difficult to nail down the exact use Jesus might have been referring to; He just didn’t say. Over the years, people have chosen a possible use and claimed it as the thing Jesus had in mind, but to be perfectly honest, such a position is only a matter of speculation, so let’s try to avoid falling into that trap; we’ll just look at salt as a basic and useful substance. As an example, I’ll mention what were probably the two most common uses of salt, as a food preservative, and as the basic ingredient for seasoning food. For either of these uses, if the salt loses its saltiness, i.e. its usefulness, then it is worthless. If we, as “the salt of the earth” lose our usefulness, then we might fit into that same category.

This image becomes crystal clear in His next metaphor, light. We, as we exhibit the traits of character that Jesus spoke of in the beatitudes, become the “light of the world.” Imagine if you can, a world filled with the meek, the poor in spirit, peacemakers, and all of the rest of those attributes, next to what we are used to… this is what Jesus meant here by “the light of the world.” Light does no good if it is hidden from view; it’s just like salt that has lost its saltiness, so He tells us to let our light shine forth in this dark world as a contrast to the norm, to the glory of God.

That is what “Kingdom” is all about.

I mention this because the Sermon on the Mount is set in the context of Jesus proclaiming the Kingdom, and these verses wrap up the introduction of the Sermon. If you are looking at it from a structural point of view, the first 16 verses of this chapter set forth the thesis of the rest of Sermon, and as we continue, we will see an expansion upon this theme of bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven on this earth in the here and now.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:10

As a rule, do you expect to see a righteous person persecuting another person because the persecuted person is righteous? My guess is probably not. If this is true, then what sort of person persecutes another because they are righteous? Again, my guess is that it would have to be an unrighteous person; it stands to reason, right?

God does not bless unrighteousness.

Righteousness happens when a person lives in accordance with the will of God, and when a person lives this way, he or she is considered by God to be “righteous”, and relationship between that person and God is in place; thus in this life such a person is blessed. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven; they are blessed for all eternity and with this, we are back to where we started in 5:3. In our next post, we will see that verses 11-12 expand on this theme to take us to a whole new level of purpose and blessing; see you then!

We have already seen that as Jesus went forth proclaiming the Kingdom, that healing, and restoration of wholeness went in His wake, for the restoration of wholeness, including the restoration of relationships torn by the hostility of this world is something within the very character of God. A peacemaker is someone who places a high priority on restoring relationships, even with those considered to be enemies; this is also what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

On the other hand, many, maybe even most people of this world are not peacemakers. Look around you, this world is not a peaceful place, for people vie with each other for riches, for position and advantage. Such people are not making peace and restoring relationships, except for personal gain; this is not the behavior of a disciple, and thus the blessing of a restored relationship with God is not present in the here and now, and it is not likely to be found in the hereafter unless changes are made.

For the disciple, blessing in great supply is to be found in restoring wholeness and relationships; it is its own reward, and as a disciple the eternal future is both assured and very bright, for there will be blessing beyond imagination in store.

The expression “pure in heart” refers to a person whose inner most thoughts, motivation and purpose are pure, clean, wholesome and good; this is the one who will see God. To see God is to believe in God, and even more basic, they believe God; such a person is blessed indeed.

The person who is not pure in heart will not see God, possibly because he would rather not see Him. The person who is not pure in heart is one whose inner motivations are not wholesome or good, but are more likely centered on self, gain and getting what they want at whatever cost; they are not blessed because there is little room in their lives for a relationship with Him.