Luke 14:33-35

The Application of those two Parables, with a new Figure confirming it. “ So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. 34. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? 35. It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. ”

Here is the summing up of the warning which was intended to calm the unreflecting enthusiasm of those multitudes. The expression: forsaketh all that he hath, natural life, as well as all the affections and all the goods fitted to satisfy it, sums up the two conditions indicated Luke 14:26 (the giving up of enjoyment) and 27 (the acceptance of the cross). Salt (Luke 14:34) corrects the tastelessness of certain substances, and preserves others from corruption; the marvellous efficacy of this agent on materials subjected to its quickening energy is a good thing, and even good to observe (καλόν). In this twofold relation, it is the emblem of the sharp and austere savour of holiness, of the action of the gospel on the natural life, the insipidity and frivolity of which are corrected by the Divine Spirit. No more beautiful spectacle in the moral world than this action of the gospel through the instrumentality of the consistent Christian on the society around him. But if the Christian himself by his unfaithfulness destroys this holy power, no means will restore to him the savour which it was his mission to impart to the world. ᾿Αρτυθήσεται might be taken impersonally: “If there is no more salt, wherewith shall men salt (things)?” But Jesus is not here describing the evil results of Christian unfaithfulness to the world or the gospel; it is the professor himself who is concerned (Luke 14:35: men cast it out). The subject of the verb is therefore, ἅλας, salt itself; comp. Mark 9:50: ἐν τίνι ἀρτύσετε αὐτό; “wherewith will ye season it? ” Salt which has become savourless is fit for nothing; it cannot serve the soil as earth, nor pasture as dung. It is only good to be cast out, says Luke; trodden under foot of men, says Matthew 5:13. Salt was sometimes used to cover slippery ways (Erub. f. 104. 1: Spargunt salem in clivo ne nutent (pedes). A reserved attitude towards the gospel is therefore a less critical position than an open profession followed by declension. In the moral as in the physical world, without previous heating there is no deadly chill. Jesus seems to say that the life of nature may have its usefulness in the kingdom of God, either in the form of mundane (land) respectability, or even as a life completely corrupted and depraved (dung). In the first case, indeed, it is the soil wherein the germ of the higher life may be sown; and in the second, it may at least call forth a moral reaction among those who feel indignation or disgust at the evil, and drive them to seek life from on high; while the unfaithfulness of the Christian disgusts men with the gospel itself. The expression: cast out (give over to perdition, John 15:6), forms the transition to the final call: He that hath ears....

This discourse is the basis of the famous passage, Hebrews 6:4-8. The commentators who have applied it to the rejection of the Jews have not sufficiently considered the context, and especially the introduction, Luke 14:25, which, notwithstanding Holtzmann's contemptuous treatment, is, as we have just seen, the key of the whole piece. Matthew places the apophthegm, Luke 14:34-35, in that passage of the Sermon on the Mount where the grandeur of the Christian calling is described (Luke 14:13-16). Perhaps he was led to put it there by the analogy of the saying to the immediately following one: “ Ye are the light of the world. ” Mark places it, like Luke, towards the end of the Galilean ministry (Luke 9:50); and such a warning is better explained at a more advanced period. Besides, like so many other general maxims, it may perfectly well have been uttered twice.