Salt of the covenant–of Jesus. Leviticus 2.13
Jesus throughout the Scriptures: Leviticus/Numbers (1)
Pray Psalm 84.1-4.
How lovely is Your tabernacle,
O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, even faints
For the courts of the LORD;
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Even the sparrow has found a home,
And the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young—
Even Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
My King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in Your house;
They will still be praising You.
Selah
Sing Psalm 84.1-4.
(Holy Manna: Brethren, We Have Met to Worship)
LORD of hosts, how sweet Your dwelling; how my soul longs for Your courts!
Let my soul with joy keep telling of Your grace forevermore.
Like a bird upon the altar, let my life to You belong.
Blessed are they who never falter as they praise Your grace with song!
Read Leviticus 1.1-2.13; meditate on Leviticus 2.13.
Preparation
1. What were the people to do for every offering?
2. Of what did this remind them?
Meditation
Our reply to reading through the book of Leviticus is perhaps something like, “So many sacrifices and offerings!” If we become impatient or exasperated reading this book, imagine how weighed down the people of Israel must have felt to carry out the teaching of Leviticus! Indeed, so many sacrifices and offerings. Why?
To remind the people that their sins were many, a fact they too easily lost sight of, as we see in every book of the Old Testament (caveat lector). No one could keep all these offerings. To do so would be literally all one ever did! God understood this, and so the annual atonement offering covered the many sins not offered for in the preceding year. Where Israel’s sin was concerned, God had them covered.
But the focus here is on one word: salt. The offerings of the people were not savory to God. He needed salt. The salt reminded the people of the covenant God made with Abraham and extended through Moses on Mt. Sinai. It was a gracious covenant, brimming with exceedingly great and precious promises, and God insisted that His people remember that, not their sacrifices and offerings but His grace and promises were the means for their having favor before Him. Their offerings represented their lives, which they were to give freely according to God’s Word and for His promises and glory.
Jesus is the salt of the covenant. He makes our lives acceptable to God as we offer them to Him in faith. In all we do, we seek the grace of the Lord to realize the promises of God in Jesus, for the praise and glory and honor of God unto our peace and joy.
Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
Lot and his wife lived in one of two exceptionally ungodly cities. God decided to judge these cities for their wickedness; but Abraham pled with Him to save his relatives from the destruction. So, God did. But as Lot and his wife were fleeing from the impending doom the angels said to them: “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed…Hurry, escape…Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities…” (Gen. 19.17, 22, 24, 25).
But there was one glitch in this drama. Lot’s wife looked back. Did she think she’d forgotten to turn off the stove? Or did she long for the life she was leaving behind? Was she just curious to see the mayhem? Who knows for sure? What we do know is that she disobeyed. And she paid a steep price. The Bible says, “But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” (Gen. 19.26).
God could have turned her into anything He wanted; but He chose salt. God never does anything whimsically or for no purpose. He is always doing things to remind His people of a Truth. No words or actions wasted with Him. Salt is a recurring theme. Thus, we are to remember all the good and the bad things about this product.
Salt is a grand preserver and flavor enhancer; and in Mrs. Lot’s case, it was a sincere preserver. Who could ever forget her story? Certainly not God’s children back then. Even we, this far removed, give her dire consequence a remembrance.
Jesus taught the same to a multitude that was following Him: “Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Lk. 14.33-35). Don’t look back. Forsake what you’ve left behind and follow Me! “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9.62).
And why is this important? Why should this salt issue be one that we remember? Because we want to be savory to God. Jesus says to us, “You are the salt of the earth…” (Matt. 5.13).
And because we long to be a sweet aroma to God, presenting ourselves as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to [Him] which is [our] reasonable service” (Rom. 12.1).
“The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.
The way of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but He loves him who follows righteousness” (Prov. 15.8, 9). We are to be His love and give Him delight through “salty” prayer and obedience.
But most of all it is important because, as Paul taught, we are to:
“…be imitators of God as dear children.
And walk in love,
as Christ also has loved us
and given Himself for us,
an offering and
a sacrifice to God
for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Eph. 5.1, 2).
He is The Savor of Salt.
He is the Offering and Sacrifice.
He is the Savior we love and long to be like.
He is the Savior so we can be salt—
preferably not in pillar form—but free-flowing and sweetly aromatic.
Reflection
1. How is God using you as salt in your Personal Mission Field?
2. What can we learn from Jesus about what it means to be the salt of the earth?
3. Whom will you encourage today in being salty to their world?
Blessed be God that we have the substance, of which these observances were but shadows. There is that excellence in Christ, and in his work as Mediator, which no types and shadows can fully represent. And our dependence thereon must be so entire, that we must never lose sight of it in any thing we do, if we would be accepted of God. Matthew Henry (1662-1714), Commentary on Leviticus 2.13
Pray Psalm 84.5-12.
What’s ahead of you today in your journey with the Lord? Commit all your work to Him. Call on Him to light your path and shield your way. Pray for those you will be with today. Devote yourself as a living sacrifice to the Lord in all your ways.
Sing Psalm 84.5-12.
(Holy Manna: Brethren, We Have Met to Worship)
Blessed are they whose strength is founded in Your strength, O LORD above.
All whose hearts in You are grounded journey in Your strength and love.
Though they weep with tears of sadness, grace shall all their way sustain.
In Your Presence, filled with gladness, they shall conquer all their pain.
LORD of hosts, my prayer receiving, hear me, help me by Your grace!
In Your courts I stand believing; turn to me Your glorious face!
LORD, our sun, our shield, our glory, no good thing will You deny
to those who proclaim Your story, and who on Your grace rely.
T. M. and Susie Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.
