Mark 9:49-50

SAVED WITH FIRE

Mark 9:49-50. “For every one shall be salted with fire.” The E.V. adds the clause, “and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt,” which does not appear in the original, evidently having been interpolated by some one, who thought the salt had a physical signification, which is entirely incorrect; the meaning of it being purely spiritual, natural salt augmenting the force of spiritual truth by the powerful symbolism, appertaining to its economy in the conservation of natural life in the material world; as the salt in the ocean alone prevents putrefaction and stagnation; whereas the watery world is the conservator of atmospheric purity, by which animal life is perpetuated; the sea-breezes carrying out the pure air from the ocean for the inhalation of animals, and carrying back the malarious atmosphere from the continents, to be purified by resting on the salt water. If there were no salt in the ocean, his stagnant and putrefied waters would so contaminate the aerial world as to fill the continents with poisonous malaria, which would quickly kill all the people and all air-breathing animals. Hence the transcendent force of the affirmation, “Every soul shall be salted with fire.” Salted means saved. Hence the only possible evasion of the hell-fire, here revealed by the warning voice of Jesus, is to get well salted; i.e., thoroughly sanctified with heavenly fire. If you have not the humility, courage, and perseverance to seek the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire in this life, you are bound to take hell-fire, as here described, through all eternity.

“Salt is good; but if the salt may lose its savor, with what will you salt it?”

As our Savior well says, in His memorable Sermon on the Mount, “It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be thrown out, and trodden under feet by the people.” You do not want this dead salt in the washes nor the ditches, as it obliterates all hope of restoring their fertility, turning the space of its occupancy into a perpetual desert. As Jesus says, it is fit for nothing but to make walks. The salt here means the Holy Ghost, who is the life of religion. Hence, when your religion is forsaken by the Holy Ghost, Spiritless, lifeless, and dead, it is like the salt which has lost its savor, and fit for nothing but to make walks. In a similar manner, all unspiritual religion is fit for nothing but to pave the road to hell, making it comfortable for travelers, soothing their guilty consciences, blinding their eyes, and even filling them with the false peace and joy of heavenly anticipation, till they plunge headlong into endless woe.

“Have salt in yourselves, and live in peace with one another.” When a community is well salted with the fire of the Holy Ghost, burning up all envy, jealousy, revenge, retaliation, enmity, animosity, strife, bigotry, hatred, rivalry, pride, vanity, folly, and all sorts or Satanic foolery,

“Heaven will come down, all souls to greet, And glory crown the mercy-seat.”