Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 9:49
For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
49. every one shall be salted with fire ] Salt and fire have properties in common. Salt, like a subtle flame, penetrates all that is corruptible, and separates that which is decaying and foul, whilst it fixes and quickens that which is sound. Fire destroys that which is perishable, and thereby establishes the imperishable in its purest perfection, and leads to new and more beautiful forms of being. Thus both effect a kind of transformation. Now “every one,” our Lord saith, “shall be salted with fire;” either (1) by his voluntary entering upon a course of self-denial and renunciation of his sins, and so submitting to the purifying fire of self-transformation; or (2) by his being involuntarily salted with the fire of condemning judgment (Heb 10:27; Heb 12:29), as the victims on the altar were salted with salt (Lev 2:13; Eze 43:24). See Lange.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 9:49
For everyone shall he salted with fire.
The salt and the fire
The Lords people are represented as being themselves offered up to Him, as His spiritual sacrifices, both by Isaiah and St. Paul. It was a custom ordained of God in the Levitical code (Lev 2:13) that Every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt. Collecting, then, the points to which we have adverted, we have seen that believers are represented as the Lords sacrifices: that His sacrifices were anciently purified by the typical salt; that the object of the salt, or grace, is to preserve them from the corruption of the worm of indwelling sin and the fire of ultimate judgment; and that in the whole chamber of imagery is inculcated the duty of sacrificing the lusts of the flesh in order to our being edified in the spirit, and promoting the edification of others. We recognize in the text a force and a beauty not discernible to the superficial student, in the declaration of the gracious effect of those sanctifying trials and mortifications in which all believers have their share; for everyone shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Let us, therefore, consider the teaching of the Spirit in this text to imply, first, an awful denunciation on the man of unmortified lusts-Every such one shall be salted with fire; secondly, the gracious result of fleshly mortification-every sacrifice shall be salted with salt; that is, every believer who presents his body a living sacrifice, shall be salted with salt-that is, not with fire to consume, but with salt to preserve. This is the contrast: on the one hand penal destruction; on the other, gracious preservation.
I. The career of unfortified lust entails a fearful penalty. This declaration of Scripture is continually receiving fearful illustrations in the premonitory dealings of Providence. Days of indulgence are succeeded by nights of pain; a youth of profligacy, if not prematurely cut short, entails a feeble, diseased, and miserable old age. Sin receives judgment by installments; the salting fire of the Divine displeasure falls upon the wretched sinner, in many a striking instance, even in this life, presenting, like the shock before the earthquake, prelusive warning of the catastrophe about to follow. It is admitted that the expression in the text is figurative. But the figures of Scripture never exaggerate the facts of reality. The lost, unransomed soul, exposed to the searching and protracted agonies of a fire that salts, that is, perpetuates the anguish of its miserable victims, exhibits the torments of the unbelieving in a broad glare of horror, as if the letters were illuminated by the reflection of the lake that burneth.
II. The gracious effects of fleshly mortification. The believer is to be also salted, but with constraining love, with preserving grace, with sanctifying trial. The grace of mortification is that to the soul which salt is to the body; it preserves it from putrefaction, and renders it savoury. Inferences:
1. That there is in every believer some lust to be subdued-for every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. We do not apply salt except to those things which have a natural tendency to corruption. If believers must have salt in themselves, it follows that there is in them the principle of corruption. One man is attacked through the medium of his ambition; the lust of secular distinction desolates his heart of all piety. Another man is drawn aside by his avarice. Another man is seduced by his animal lusts, and the unchecked vagrancy of the eye. Another man is tempted through the medium of temper, and his ebullitions of frightful rage shock the ears of his household. Another man is led astray by his pride. Lastly, the figure suggests the doctrine, that the spiritual health of the believer is to be promoted and attained by fleshly mortification. It is by this means that the soul is to be clarified from sin and preserved in grace. (J. B. Owen, M. A.)
A double salting, either with fire or with salt
Every man that lives in the world must be a sacrifice to God. The wicked are a sacrifice to Gods justice; but the godly are a sacrifice dedicated and offered to Him, that they may be capable of His mercy. The first are a sacrifice against their wills, but the godly are a free-will offering, a sacrifice not taken but offered. The grace of mortification is very necessary for all those who are devoted to God.
I. That the true notion of a Christian is that he is a sacrifice, or a thank offering to God (Rom 12:1). Under the law, beasts were offered to God, but in the gospel men are offered to Him; not as beasts were, to be destroyed, slain, and burnt in the fire, but to be preserved for Gods use and service. In offering anything to God, two things were of consideration.
1. There is a separation of ourselves from a common use. The beast was separated from the flock or herd for this special purpose (2Co 5:15).
2. There is a dedicating ourselves to God, to serve, please, honour, and glorify Him.
We must be sincere in this-
1. Because the truth of our dedication will be known by our use; many give up themselves to God, but in the use of themselves there is no such matter; they carry it as though their tongues were their own (Psa 12:4).
2. Because God will one day call us to account.
3. Because we are under the eye and inspection of God.
II. That the grace of mortification is the true salt wherewith this offering and sacrifice should be seasoned.
1. Salt preserves flesh from putrefaction by consuming that superfluous and excrementitious moisture, which otherwise would soon corrupt: and so the salt of the covenant doth prevent and subdue those lusts which would cause us to deal unfaithfully with God. Alas! meat is not so apt to be tainted as we are to be corrupted and weakened in our resolutions to God, without the mortifying grace of the Spirit.
2. Salt hath an acrimony, and doth macerate things and pierce into them; and so the grace of mortification is painful and troublesome to the carnal nature. We either must suffer the pains of hell or the pains of mortification; we must be salted with fire or salted with salt. It is better to pass to heaven with difficulty and austerity, than to avoid these difficulties and run into sin, and so be in danger of eternal fire. The strictness of Christianity is nothing so grievous as the punishment of sin.
3. Salt makes things savoury, so grace makes us savoury, which may be interpreted with respect either to God or man. We must be seasoned by the grace of Christ, and so become acceptable in the sight of God; the more we are salted and mortified, the more we shall do good to others.
III. There is a necessity of this salt in all those that have entered into covenant with God and have dedicated and devoted themselves to Him.
1. By our covenant vow we are bound to the strictest duties, and that upon the highest penalties. The duty to which we are bound is very strict.
2. The abundance of sin that yet remains in us, and the marvellous activity of it in our souls. We cannot get rid of this cursed inmate till our tabernacle be dissolved, and this house of clay tumbled into the dust, Well, then, since sin is not nullified, it must be mortified.
3. Consider the sad consequences of letting sin alone, both either as to further sin or punishment. If lust be not mortified, it grows outrageous. Sins prove mortal if they be not mortified. The unmortified person spares the sin and destroys his own soul; the sin lives, but he dies. Now to make application.
I. For the reproof of those that cannot abide to hear of mortification. The unwillingness and impatience of this doctrine may arise from several causes.
1. From sottish atheism and unbelief.
2. It may come from libertinism. And these harden their hearts in sinning by a mistaking the gospel.
(1) Some vainly imagine as if God by Jesus Christ were made more reconcilable to sin, that it needs not so much to be stood upon, nor need we to be so exact, to keep such ado to mortify, and subdue the inclinations that lead to it. They altogether run to the comforts of the gospel and neglect the duties thereof. Christ died for sinners, therefore we need not to be troubled about it.
(2) Another sort think such discourses may be well spared among a company of believers, and they need not this watchfulness and holy care, especially against grievous sins; that they have such good command of themselves that they can keep within compass well enough.
(3) A third sort are such as think believers are not to be scared with threatenings, but only oiled with grace.
3. It may arise from another cause, the passionateness of carnal affections. There is no hope; it is an evil and I must bear it. Consider the doleful condition of those that indulge their carnal affections; and that either threatened by God, or executed upon the wicked.
(1) Consider it as it is threatened by God. If God threaten so great a misery, it is for our profit, that we may take heed and escape it. There is mercy in the severest threatenings, that we may avoid the bait when we see the hook, that we may digest the strictness of a holy life, rather than venture upon such dreadful evils.
(2) Consider which trouble is most intolerable-to be salted with salt, or to be salted with fire; with unpleasing mortification, or the pains of hell; the trouble of physic, or the danger of a mortal disease. Surely to preserve the life of the body, men will endure the bitterest pill, take the most loathsome potion. Better be macerated by repentance, than broken in hell by torments. Which is worse, discipline or execution? Here the question is put: you must be troubled first or last. Would you have a sorrow mixed with love and hope, or else mixed with desperation? Would you have a drop or an ocean? Would you have your souls cured or tormented? Would you have trouble in the short moment of this life, or have it eternal in the world to come? (J. Manton, D. D.)
The church the salt of the earth
The first expression demanding our attention is salt. Salt is an object of external nature, endued with certain properties. It possesses the property of penetration into the masses of animal matter, to which it shall be applied in sufficient abundance and with sufficient perseverance; and it possesses the property of extending a preserving savour as it pervades the mass. Here is the basis of its suitability to represent Christs church on the earth, a characteristic of the population of this fallen world is, moral corruption. The men of this world, even those who are most advanced in morals and in respectability amongst their fellows, are nevertheless described in the Word of God as being corrupt according to their deceitful lusts and defilements. Selfishness, ostentation, envy, jealousy, taint their boasted morals; and as surely as a mass of animal matter left to its natural tendencies in our atmosphere would proceed from one degree of corruption to another, until it reached the putrefaction of dissolution, so surely would the population of this world, left to its own natural tendency, make progress from one degree of moral corruption to another, until they all reached the putrefaction of damnation. Christs church is the salt of the earth; it is the Lords preserve and the Lords preservative. This brings us to the next word here, which is fire. Fire is another object of external nature possessing certain properties. It possesses the properties of penetrating and melting, and separating the dross from the pure ore; and so in this respect it becomes suitable as an emblem of sanctified affliction, which separates a man from the common and downward course of a heedless and worldly population, and causes him to pause and meditate, and take himself to task, and look around and look before him, and to fall upon his knees and cry to God to have mercy upon him. I have said sanctified affliction; because affliction itself, considered apart from the special use made of it by the Spirit of God, has no such power over a mans character. The sorrow of this world worketh death; mere trouble considered in its natural operation upon man, however it may subdue him for a season, however it may make him pause in his course, does not change him. But this is not all, the Lord says in our text. Everyone-not every Christian only, but-everyone shall be salted with fire. This leads us to remark, that fire possesses other properties, the power of consuming the stubble and all the rubbish; and it is thereby suitable to express those tremendous judgments, which shall overwhelm the adversaries at the second glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus, when, as the apostle sublimely tells us, The Lord shall be revealed from heaven in flames of fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power. Every ungodly man shall, as it were, be salted with fire-shall be seasoned with fire-rendered inconsumable in the fire that burneth-preserved in burning. Salted with fire! This is a tremendous saying, a dreadful thought. Immortalized in endurance! preserved from burning out! Salted with fire! Well, well might He call upon them to cut off right hands, pluck out right eyes, to separate themselves from the dearest lust, from the most fostered and cherished indulgence, rather than be cast into that eternal fire. But how shall this exhortation be obeyed? There is no native power in man, whereby he can rescue himself from what he loves. He must love something; and except he be supplied with something better to love, he must go on to follow what he now loves. It is only the power of something he loves better, that can separate him from what he loves well. What can induce him to part with his sin, which is as precious to his corrupt heart as his eyes are to the enjoyment of his body? What can induce him to do it? Everyone then, both he that believeth and he that believeth not, shall be salted with fire. He that believeth shall be purified by affliction, and he that believeth not shall be immortalized in the endurance of agony. And every sacrifice shall be salted with fire. Here is another figure, not derived from external nature, but derived from the Mosaic ritual-a sacrifice. A sacrifice is an offering devoted to God. Hence a sacrifice is suitable to represent a member of Christs Church. He is not separated from the common actions and lawful actions of the world, for that would be to take him out of the world; but he is separated from the common state of mind in which those actions are performed. Instead of withdrawing from the duties of life, it engages him in them for conscience sake, as well as for convenience or reputation or gum. It makes every action of his life religious; it invests the very drudgeries of the lowest grade of life with a sanctity, as being done in the service of God. So then, a believer becomes a sacrifice, and so the Apostle Paul having enlarged upon the glorious blessings of the gospel, whereby men are so separated, improves the statement thus: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service; and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. All the sacrifices of the Jewish ritual were seasoned with salt. In the second chapter of the book of Leviticus and at the thirteenth verse you will find the commandment, And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thy offerings thou shalt offer salt. Every sacrifice, every true believer, shall be salted with salt. Now what is the force of this expression, salted with salt? We have seen that to be salted with fire signifies to be personally purified; to be salted with salt signifies to be made relatively a blessing. The Christian is salted with fire for his own personal purification, and he is salted with salt for his extended usefulness among others. He shall be blessed and he shall be a blessing, as was said of the father of the faithful, Abraham. We inherit this blessing of Abraham, to be salted with fire and to be salted with salt. To this our Lord clearly refers, when He calls His church the salt of the earth. (H. McNeile, M. A.)
How is the body, it may be said, to become a sacrifice
Let the eye look upon no evil thing, and it has become a sacrifice; let the tongue speak nothing filthy, and it has become an offering; let thy hand do no lawless deed, and it has become a whole burnt offering. Or, rather, this is not enough, but we must have good works also. Let the hand do alms, the mouth bless them that curse one; and the hearing find leisure evermore for the lections of Scripture. For sacrifice allows of no unclean thing. Sacrifice is a first fruit of the other actions. Let us then from our hands, and feet, and mouth, and all other members yield a first fruit unto God. (Chrysostom.)
Preservation from corruption
Christ is not, in either of these terms (salted, fire), referring to the literal realities. It is salting and fire, metaphorically viewed, of which He speaks. Among the various uses of salt, two are popularly outstanding-seasoning and preserving from corruption. The reference here is to the latter. In hot countries, in particular, killed meat hastens to a tainted condition, and could not be preserved from spoiling, for any appreciable length of time, were it not for salting. It is on this antiseptic property of salt that Christs representation is founded. Every one of His disciples shall be preserved from corruption by fire. The fire referred to, however, is not penal, like the inextinguishable fire of Gehenna. It is intentionally purificatory, But, though not penal, it is painful. It scorches, and pierces to the quick. What, then, is this fire? It is the unsparing spirit of self-sacrifice-the spirit that parts, for righteousness sake, with a hand, a foot, an eye. Every disciple of Christ is preserved from corruption, and consequent everlasting destruction, by unsparing self-sacrifice. (J. Morison, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 49. For every one shall be salted with fire] Every one of those who shall live and die in sin: but there is great difficulty in this verse. The Codex Bezae, and some other MSS., have omitted the first clause; and several MSS. keep the first, and omit the last clause – and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. There appears to be an allusion to Isa 66:24. It is generally supposed that our Lord means, that as salt preserves the flesh with which it is connected from corruption, so this everlasting fire, , this inconsumable fire, will have the property, not only of assimilating all things cast into it to its own nature, but of making them inconsumable like itself.
Scaliger supposes, that instead of , , every sacrifice (of flour) should be read, “Every sacrifice (of flour) shall be salted, and every burnt offering shall be salted.” This, I fear, is taking the text by storm. Some take the whole in a good sense, as referring to the influence of the Spirit of God in the hearts of believers, which shall answer the same end to the soul, in preserving it from the contagion that is in the world, as salt did in the sacrifices offered to God to preserve them from putrefaction. Old Trapp’s note on the place pleases me as much as any I have seen: – “The Spirit, as salt, must dry up those bad humours in us which breed the never-dying worm; and, as fire, must waste our corruptions, which else will carry us on to the unquenchable fire.” Perhaps the whole is an allusion to the purification of vessels, and especially such metallic vessels as were employed in the service of the sanctuary. Probably the following may be considered as a parallel text: – Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shalt make go through the fire, and it shall be clean; and all that abideth not the fire, ye shall make go through the water, Nu 31:23. Ye, disciples, are the Lord’s sacrifice; ye shall go through much tribulation, in order to enter into my kingdom: but ye are salted, ye are influenced by the Spirit of God, and are immortal till your work is done; and should ye be offered up, martyred, this shall be a means of establishing more fully the glad tidings of the kingdom: and this Spirit shall preserve all who believe on me from the corruption of sin, and from eternal perdition. That converts to God are represented as his offering, see Isa 66:20, the very place which our Lord appears to have here in view.
If this passage be taken according to the common meaning, it is awful indeed! Here may be seen the greatness, multiplicity, and eternity, of the pains of the damned. They suffer without being able to die; they are burned without being consumed; they are sacrificed without being sanctified – are salted with the fire of hell, as eternal victims of the Divine Justice. We must of necessity be sacrificed to God, after one way or other, in eternity; and we have now the choice either of the unquenchable fire of his justice, or of the everlasting flame of his love. Quesnel.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The phrase of this text is so difficult, and the sense of it so necessary to be understood, that it hath deservedly exercised the parts of many interpreters, and given them a latitude to abound in interpretations. Those who would rightly understand it,
1. Must have a retrospection to the six verses immediately preceding, where our Lord had persuaded to the mortification of our most beloved and profitable or pleasant lust, under the notion of cutting off the right hand or foot offending, and plucking out the right eye, under the penalty of going into a fire that shall never be quenched: as also to the law, Lev 2:13, which runs thus: And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
2. They must next consider the nature of salt and fire. It is of the nature of salt, by drying up the over much moisture in meats, to preserve them from putrefaction; and to cause smart to living flesh. And of fire, to separate things not of the same kind in compounded bodies, and also to cause pain and smart.
3. They must know, that every one in the former part of the verse is the same with every sacrifice in the latter part; for every man and woman living will, or shall, be a sacrifice to God. Godly men are not only priests, 1Pe 2:5,9; Re 1:6; 5:10, but sacrifices, Rom 12:1.
Wicked men, though indeed they be no priests, (voluntarily giving up themselves unto God), yet they shall be sacrifices, like the sacrifice in Bozrah, Isa 34:6, or in the north country by the river Euphrates, Jer 46:10; see also Eze 39:17; Zep 1:7. The saints are both priests and sacrifices. These things premised, the difficulty of the text is not great. Our Lord had been in the former verses persuading the mortification of mens dearest lusts, under the notions of cutting off the right hand or foot, and plucking out the right eye; and pressing this exhortation, from the eligibility of it, rather than (keeping them) to be thrust into hell, where the worm never dies, and where the fire never goeth out. Now saith he in this verse, For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. God hath a fire, and a salt, which every man must endure. He hath a purging fire, to take away mens dross and tin. Some he baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, Mat 3:11; Luk 3:16. And he hath a consuming, tormenting fire, a fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries, Heb 10:27. It is true, the Lords sacred fire of his Holy Spirit will, like fire and salt, cause smart while it purgeth out our lusts, like the cutting off of a right hand or foot; but judge you whether it be not better to endure that smart than to endure hell fire, for every one must endure one of these. Yea, and every one must be salted with fire. The saints shall be seasoned with influences of grace, Eph 4:29; Col 4:6; and they shall by the Holy Spirit of God be preserved by faith through the power of God to salvation, till their purity of heart and holiness of life shall issue in an incorruptibility of being and blessed state, 1Co 15:52-54. They shall be salted in or with fire, that is, preserved in or by the holy fire of Gods Holy Spirit; (nor is salting with fire so hard a metaphor as being baptized with fire seems to be, nothing being so contrary to fire as water is); others, viz. wicked and ungodly men, who will not endure this fire, nor be salted with this salt, shall yet be salted with another fire, and with another salt, which is the fire that never goes out mentioned Mar 9:44,46,48, which will cause them a much greater pain and smart, and in which, being separated from all their comforts and satisfactions, they shall be salted, that is (as to their beings) preserved, that they may be the objects of the eternal wrath and justice of God; for every one must go through one or the other fire, every soul must be seasoned with the one or other salt. Now judge you then whether it be not more advisable for you to be seasoned with this salt, though you indeed shall endure some smart in your acts of mortification and self-denial, than to endure hell fire, where you will be salted too, as well as burned; that is, not tormented only, but preserved in torments, so as you shall never consume, but be ever dying; for with one or other of these fires every person, every man or woman breathing, must be salted and seasoned, as of old every sacrifice was to be with salt.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
49. For every one shall be saltedwith fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with saltAdifficult verse, on which much has been writtensome of it tolittle purpose. “Every one” probably means “Everyfollower of mine”; and the “fire” with which he “mustbe salted” probably means “a fiery trial” to seasonhim. (Compare Mal 3:2, c.). Thereference to salting the sacrifice is of course to that maxim of theLevitical law, that every acceptable sacrifice must be sprinkled withsalt, to express symbolically its soundness, sweetness,wholesomeness, acceptability. But as it had to be roastedfirst, we have here the further idea of a salting with fire. In thiscase, “every sacrifice,” in the next clause, will mean,”Every one who would be found an acceptable offering to God”and thus the whole verse may perhaps be paraphrased as follows:”Every disciple of Mine shall have a fiery trial to undergo, andeveryone who would be found an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrificeacceptable and well-pleasing to God, must have such a salting,like the Levitical sacrifices.” Another, but, as it seems to us,farfetched as well as harsh, interpretationsuggested first, webelieve, by MICHAELIS, andadopted by ALEXANDERtakesthe “every sacrifice which must be salted with fire” tomean those who are “cast into hell,” and the preservativeeffect of this salting to refer to the preservation of the lost notonly in but by means of the fire of hell. Their reasonfor this is that the other interpretation changes the meaning of the”fire,” and the characters too, from the lost to the saved,in these verses. But as our Lord confessedly ends His discourse withthe case of His own true disciples, the transition to them in Mr9:48 is perfectly natural; whereas to apply the preservative saltof the sacrifice to the preserving quality of hell-fire, is equallycontrary to the symbolical sense of salt and the Scripturerepresentations of future torment. Our Lord has still in His eye theunseemly jarrings which had arisen among the Twelve, the peril tothemselves of allowing any indulgence to such passions, and thesevere self-sacrifice which salvation would cost them.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For every one shall be salted with fire,…. That is every one of those that transgress the law of God, offend any that, believe in Christ, retain their sins, and sinful companions; every one of them that are cast into hell, where the worm of conscience is always gnawing, and the fire of divine wrath is always burning, with that fire every one of them shall be salted: that fire shall be to them, what salt is to flesh; as that keeps flesh from putrefaction and corruption, so the fire of hell, as it will burn, torture, and distress rebellious sinners, it will preserve them in their beings; they shall not be consumed by it, but continued in it: so that these words are a reason of the former, showing and proving, that the soul in torment shall never die, or lose any of its powers and faculties; and particularly, not its gnawing, torturing conscience; and that the fire of hell is inextinguishable; for though sinners will be inexpressibly tormented in it, they will not be consumed by it; but the smoke of their torments shall ascend for ever and ever; and that they will be so far from being annihilated by the fire of hell, that they shall be preserved in their beings in it, as flesh is preserved by salt:
and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt; referring to Le 2:13. “With all thine offerings thou shall offer salt”; not only the meat offerings, but the burnt offerings, and all others, were to be offered with salt n; of which, the Jews say the following things o:
“It is an affirmative precept to salt all the sacrifices, before they go up to the altar, as it is said, Le 2:13. With all thine offerings thou shall offer salt; and there is nothing brought to the altar without salt, except the wine of drink offerings, and blood, and wood; and this thing is a tradition, and there is no Scripture to support it; and the commandment is to salt the flesh very well, as one salts flesh for roasting, who turns the part, and salts it; though if he salts the whole, with even one grain of salt, it is right; he that offers without any salt at all, is to be beaten; as it is said, “thou shall not suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking”: and though he is to be beaten, the offering is right, and acceptable, except the meat offering.–The salt, with which they salt all the sacrifices, is from the congregation, as the wood; and a private person does not bring salt, or wood, for his offering, from his own house: and in three places p they put on salt, in the chamber of salt, and upon the ascent of the altar, and upon the top of the altar: in the chamber of salt they salt the skins of the holy things; and upon the ascent of the altar they salt the parts (of the sacrifice); and upon the top of the altar they salt the handful, and the frankincense and the meat offerings, that are burnt, and the burnt offerings of fowls.”
Something of this kind also obtained among the Heathens, who thought their sacrifices were not rightly offered, nor acceptable to God, unless salt was used with them q. Now our Lord in this has either respect to the same persons, as before; and signifies hereby, that the wicked in hell shall be victims to divine justice, and sacrifices to his wrath and vengeance; and that as the sacrifices under the law were salted with salt, these shall be salted with the fire of hell, and shall never be utterly destroyed; but shall ever remain the objects of God’s sore displeasure; and fiery indignation: or he may have respect to a different sort of persons, even to the saints and people of God, who are an holy, living, and acceptable sacrifice to him; and in the prophecy referred to in the context,
Isa 66:20, they are said to be brought for “an offering to the Lord–as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord”: and so as the sacrifices of the Jews were salted with salt, and became acceptable to God; such who are seasoned with the grace of God, are preserved from the corruptions of the world, are acceptable in the sight of God, and are kept safe to his kingdom and glory.
n Piske Toseph. Ceritot, c. 1. art. 3. o Maimon. Hilch. Issure Mizbeach, c. 5. sect. 11, 12, 13. Vid. ib. in Misn. Menachot, c. 3. sect. 2. p T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 21. 2. & Baal Hatturim in Lev ii. 13. q Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 2. p. 568, 569. & in l. 12. p. 1751. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 4. c. 17.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “For every one shall be salted with fire,” (pas gar puri halisthesetai) “Because everyone with fire shall be salted,” or preserved by affliction, self-denial, foregoing personal liberties, for the good of others, for the influence of others, and the cause of Christ, 1Pe 1:7; 1Pe 4:12-17; 1Co 10:31.
2) “And every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.” (an interpolation by the translators.) Every deed of every child of God, because he ”belongs to Christ,” Mar 9:41, should be done in a context or setting of life, so as to preserve his positive influence for good, in both winning men to Christ and guiding them in a safe path of Spiritual maturity, seeking not one’s own eye, hand, feet or bodily self-will, but the will of Jesus Christ; Paul did, 1Co 9:19-22; 1Co 10:24; 1Co 10:32-33; 1Co 3:10-15; Gal 5:13; Php_2:49.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Mar 9:49
. Every man shall be salted with fire. I have connected these words of Mark with the passage in Matthew which we have just considered: not that I look upon them to have altogether the same meaning, or to have been spoken at the same place and time, but rather to enable the reader to understand better, by means of comparison, the different applications of the same sentence. According to Mark’s narrative, our Lord, having spoken of eternal fire, (Mar 9:48,) exhorts his own people, on the contrary, to offer themselves now to God to be seasoned with fire and salt, that they may be devoted sacrifices, (379) and that they may not draw upon themselves, by their sins, that fire which is never extinguished. To be salted with fire is an incorrect phrase; but as salt and fire possess the same quality of purifying and refining, Christ applied the same term to both. Such was the occasion on which this sentiment was uttered. It was, that believers may not refuse to be purified by fire and salt; since, without this seasoning, they cannot be holy to God. He alludes to an enactment of the Law:
“
Every oblation of thy meat-offering shalt thou season with salt, neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat-offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt,” (Lev 2:13.)
But now he shows, that believers are salted by the word of the Gospel, that they may be sanctified.
He next adds, salt is good This extends generally to all, whom God has once been pleased to season with his own word. He exhorts them to retain always their savor. To give the name of salt to what is salted is rather a harsh metaphor, but it creates no doubt as to the meaning. When men have lost, by their carelessness, that savor which they obtained by the grace of God, there is no farther remedy. Those who lose their faith, by which they were consecrated to God, and become without savor, are in a desperate condition: for the good savor cannot be acquired by any other seasoning. Besides, those who have become corrupted, by making void the grace of God, are worse than unbelievers, as salt spoils the land and the dunghill
(379) “ Sacrifices ou offrandes sacrees;” — “sacrifices or sacred offerings.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(49) Every one shall be salted with fire.The verse presents considerable difficulties, both as regards the reading and the interpretation. Many of the best MSS. omit the latter clause; one of the best omits the first. It is as if transcribers felt that either clause was more intelligible by itself than the two taken together. Accepting both clauses as, on the whole, sufficiently authenticated, we have to deal with their meaning. (1) The most generally received interpretation of the first clause is that which eliminates from the process of salting the idea of purifying, or preserving from corruption, and sees in it only the symbol of perpetuation. So taken, the words become an emphatic assertion of the endlessness of future punishmentas in Kebles lines:
Salted with fire, they seem to show
How spirits lost in endless woe
May undecaying live.
Against this, however, it may be urged (a) that it arbitrarily limits the every one of the sentence to those who are finally condemned and are cast into Gehenna; (b) that it is scarcely conceivable that the same word, salted, should be used in such contrasted senses in the same verse; (c) that the uniform symbolism of salt, as representing the spiritual element that purifies and preserves from taint (see Mat. 5:13; Luk. 14:34; Col. 4:6; Lev. 2:13), is against this application of it. We have to ask whether fire appears with a like symbolism and with an application as universal as that of this verse. And the answer is found partly in the baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, of which the Baptist spoke (Mat. 3:11); the fire already kindled of our Lords teaching (Luk. 12:49); the fire which shall try every mans work of what sort it is of 1Co. 3:13; the fire that tries mens faith of 1Pe. 1:7. In these passages there can be no shadow of doubt that fire represents the righteousness of God manifested as punishing and chastisingthe discipline, in other words, of suffering. Of that discipline, our Lord says every one shall be a partaker. He shall thus be salted with fire, for the tendency of that fire, the aim of the sufferings which it represents, is to purify and cleanse. Even when manifested in its most awful forms, it is still true that they who walk righteously and speak uprightly may dwell with everlasting burningsi.e., with the perfect and consuming holiness of God (Isa. 33:14). (2) The second clause is obviously far simpler. The sacrifice throws us back upon the ritual of Lev. 2:13, which prescribed that salt should be added, as the natural symbol of incorruption, to every sacrifice. Here our Lord speaks of the spiritual sacrifice which each man offers of his body, soul, and spirit (Rom. 12:1), and declares that salt, the purifying grace of the Eternal Spirit, is needed that it may be acceptable. Punishment, the pain which we feel when brought into contact with the infinite Righteousness represented by fire, may do its work in part; but it requires something more for completeness. The sacrifice must be salted with salt, as well as with fire. To use another figure, there must be the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as well as that of fire (Mat. 3:11).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
49. Salted with fire As salt, from its antiseptic qualities, was an ancient emblem of purification, so salted here is equivalent to purified, and “salted with fire” is equivalent to “purified with fire.” Now every one (who is purified) is indeed purified by the fire of the Spirit of God. See note on Mat 3:11. And that same fire of God’s holiness which purifies the saint, constitutes the penal fire of the obdurate sinner, so that the essential base of the fire in Mar 9:48-49 is the same. The particle for connects Mar 9:49 with Mar 9:47, and shows that the severity of the purgation which is expressed by fire here is the same as that expressed by cutting off in the previous verses. Undergo this purgative severity of cutting off and plucking out all the members of sin, for it is by this severe and fiery ordeal that we are purified, as a meat offering is purified by salt. And every sacrifice shall be salted with salt The Greek word for and might better be rendered as. There is a comparison thus introduced. Every soul is purified with fire as every sacrifice is salted with salt. See Lev 2:13.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“For everyone shall be salted with fire.”
There are a number of questions to be asked about this small, rather enigmatic, phrase. Firstly as to whether this is to be seen as continuing the thoughts which have preceded it, secondly as to what is meant by being ‘salted’, thirdly as to who are involved in ‘everyone’, and fourthly as to what being ‘salted with fire’ adds to the equation.
We will first consider what it might mean to be salted. There is no doubt that to the ancients salt could be seen as a preservative, in which case ‘being ‘salted’ might be seen as signifying being treated in order to be preserved. The fire would then here indicate the purifying fires of persecution and tribulation (see Mar 10:30; Joh 15:20; Joh 16:2) which would purify the righteous (see Rom 5:1-5; Heb 12:4-11; Jas 1:2 ; 1Pe 1:7; 1Pe 4:12). But this interpretation by itself assumes that the saying is a semi-independent one, for it does not specifically connect it up with what has gone before.
However, it was also recognised in those days that where ground had been salted nothing could grow in it, and the picture here might well, in the light of the context, have Deu 29:23 in mind. There salt and fire are closely connected, so that the result is seen to be that nothing grows in the land that has been salted and subjected to burning, and the picture is connected by Moses with the area around the Dead Sea, where the salt lands themselves were equally seen as places lacking in life (see Eze 47:11). Thus as an alternative to the picture of preservation we have the picture of ‘salting’ as something that results in barrenness and death, something which is also then connected up with the idea of destructive fire. Taking this view the verse would be carrying on the theme of judgment and Gehenna, emphasising its inevitability for all who sinned.
‘Everyone’ may here be seen as referring to ‘everyone who has caused others to stumble’, in which case again we may see this as referring to the inevitability of their judgment, which would fit well with what has gone before. (Another suggestion has been for the cauterising of their wounds with fire, although the latter must be seen as very unlikely and does not really fit the illustration).
Alternatively ‘everyone’ may be seen as indicating ‘all men’ with the idea that in one way or another this is what will happen to all men. It might then be seen as including the ideas of on the one hand preservation and purifying through suffering, and on the other destruction through destructive fire, the case varying with the recipient. But this entails it as being seen as a fairly sudden break with what has gone before, although in view of the verse that follows a good case could be put for that.
Some, however, have seen in it a reference to salt as used in sacrifices (Lev 2:13), with the idea that all believers are to become a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God and ever faithful to the covenant. This would certainly tie in with the fact that salt was connected with covenants, so that people could speak of ‘the salt of the covenant’.
A good number of ancient manuscripts are restricted to the phrase as we have cited it, which is probably the original wording, but some few add a further phrase, although even then they differ in the wording of the phrase, which suggests that they are explanatory additions. One rendering is ‘and every sacrifice will be salted with salt.’ In this case they saw Jesus’ words as connected with Lev 2:13. There sacrifices are salted with salt, that is, salt is offered with them because it is a preservative and thus it symbolised the preserving element of the covenant. It is there called ‘the salt of the covenant’, thus tying in with the idea of preservation through faithful endurance. But the differences in the manuscripts confirm that this is an addition intended to make clear something that was otherwise not clear, so that we would be unwise to see it as decisive.
A third group of manuscripts have an abbreviation of the two clauses combined. But these additions would again all seem to be explanatory, and to be an attempt from other Scripture to explain and expand on words that were found difficult. They could be seen as indicating that as men offered up themselves as a sacrifice to Christ (Rom 12:1) they would endure chastening and tribulation which would purify their lives and cause the covenant to endure. The essential thought is the same as the last alternative above.
All in all, however, it would seem best to see it as continuing the theme of the passage and as pointing to certain and inevitable judgment, especially in the light of Deu 29:23, with the thought that all who sin against others will finally be ‘salted with fire’ (be made barren and fruitless by the fires of judgment and only fit for destruction).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mar 9:49. For every one shall be salted This difficult text has been interpreted very variously: I shall lay before the reader only such explanations of it as appear to me most reasonable. I. The proper translation of this passage, says Dr. Macknight, is, Every one shall be salted for the fire, , namely, by you my apostles; for here is the dative, not the ablative; as it is likewise 2Pe 3:7 where the same construction is found, , reserved for the fire.“Every one shall be salted for the fire of God’s altar;” that is to say, shall be prepared to be offered a sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable: For though the proposition be universal, it must be limited by the nature of the subject, thus, “Every one who is offered a sacrifice unto God, shall be salted for the fire, as every sacrifice is salted with salt;” nor is it any objection against this interpretation, that the word will thus stand construed with different cases in the same sentence; for both sacred and profane writers make use of such constructions; nay, they often affix different senses to the same word in one sentence. See Jam 4:8. But the reader will have no doubt of the meaning of the passage, when he considers that our Lord is not giving a reason of the unquenchableness of hell-fire, as is commonly supposed, but a reason why his apostles and followers should cut off their hands, and pluck out their eyes, if these members prove the occasion of sin, either to themselves or others. This I think is plain from the clause that follows: If the salt have lost its saltness; if you, who are the salt of the earth, and whose office it is to season others, have lost your saltness, that is to say, your grace and goodness, wherewith will you season it?Have salt in yourselves, &c. According to this interpretation, the argument stands thus: “That ye, my apostles, do mortify yourselves, is absolutely necessary, not only on account of your future well-being, but for the sake of mankind, who are to be salted by you for the fire;” that is, seasoned with piety, holiness, and virtue, by means of your doctrine and example, and so put into a fit condition for being offered unto God; in opposition to the condition of the wicked, who, being an abhorrence unto all flesh, must be consumed by the worm that never dies, and the fire that is not quenched. The necessity of men’s being thus seasoned with grace, in order to their becoming acceptable sacrifices unto God, you may learn from its being typically represented under the law, by the priest’s salting the sacrifices for the fire of the altar with salt. Having therefore this high honour, of salting mankind for the altar of heaven, conferred upon you, it is fit that you contain in yourselves the spiritual salt of all the graces, and particularly the holy salt of love and peace, in order that you may be, as much as possible, free from the corruption of ambition and pride, contention, and every evil work. II. Dr. Doddridge, following many learned commentaries, translates and paraphrases the passage thus: “For as the flesh burned on the altar has salt rubbed upon it, in consequence of which it burns so much the more fiercely; so every one of those unhappy creatures, the victims of divine justice, shall be, as it were, salted with fire; and instead of being consumed by if, shall, in those wretched abodes, continue immortal in the midst of their flames. Whereas every acceptable sacrifice shall be seasoned with another kind of salt, even that of divine grace, which purifies the soul, and preserves it from corruption.” Sinners are represented as victims of divine justice, Isa 34:6. Jer 12:3; Jer 46:10; Jer 46:28 and good men, as in this place, are exhibited as acceptable sacrifices, consecrated to God. See Rom 12:1; Rom 15:16; Rom 15:33. The version of 1729 translates this verse, Such a one shall be consumed by fire; but the offering that is salted, shall be preserved from corruption: but it does not any where appear that , bears the sense of consumed. The learned reader will find in Wolfius a multitude of different interpretations of this text.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mar 9:49 . Without any parallel; but the very fact of its enigmatical peculiarity [128] tells in favour of its originality (in opposition to de Wette, Weiss, and many others). See on the passage, Schott, Opusc. II. p. 5 ff., and Dissert. 1819; Grohmann in the bibl. Stud. Schs. Geistl. 1844, p. 91 ff.; Bhr in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 673; Lindemann in the Mecklenb. Zeitschr. 1864, p. 299 ff. In order to its correct interpretation the following points must be kept closely in view: (1) The logical connection ( ) is argumentative, and that in such a way that is related to the in Mar 9:48 (because to this the must correspond), not to the entire thought, Mar 9:43 ff. (2) cannot be every disciple (Lindemann), nor yet can it be every one in general, but it must, in accordance with the context, be limited to those who are designated in the 48th verse by (comp. Luk 6:40 ), because afterwards with another class is distinguished from that meant by , and something opposed to what is predicated of the latter is affirmed of it. (3) and are contrasts; like the latter, so also the former can only be explained instrumentally (not therefore: for the fire, as Baumgarten-Crusius and Linder in the Stud. u. Krit. 1854, p. 515, will have it), and the former can, according to the context, apply to nothing else than to the fire of hell , not to the fire of trial (1Co 3:13 ), as Theophylact and others (including Kstlin, p. 326 f.) would take it, nor yet to the sanctifying fire of the divine word (Lindemann). (4) may not be taken as: just as ( , ), to which, following the majority, Lindemann also ultimately comes, but which never expresses; but rather: and , joining on to those who are meant by and its predicate others with another predicate. (5) The two futures must be taken in a purely temporal sense; and in accordance with the context (Mar 9:43-48 ) can only be referred to the time of the Messianic decision at the establishment of the kingdom. Hence, also, (6) it is beyond doubt that cannot apply to actual sacrifices, but must denote men , who in an allegorical sense may be called sacrifices. (7) The meaning of may not be apprehended as deviating from the meaning (presupposed by Jesus as well known) which the application of salt in sacrifices had (see Lev 2:13 , where meat-offerings are spoken of; comp. in respect of the animal offerings, Eze 43:24 ; Joseph. Antt. iii. 9. 1; and see in general, Lund. Jd. Heiligth. , ed. Wolf, p. 648; Ewald, Alterth. p. 37; Bhr, Symbol. d. Mos. Cult. II. p. 324; and Stud. u. Krit. l.c. p. 675 ff.; Knobel on Lev. p. 369 f.) It was, namely, salt of the covenant ( ) of God (comp. also Num 18:19 ; 2Ch 13:5 ), i.e. it represented symbolically the covenant with Jehovah as regarded its imperishableness, represented that the sacrifice was offered in accordance therewith, and for the renewing thereof. Comp. Pressel in Herzog’s Encykl. XIII. p. 343 f.
Consequently we must translate and explain: “With warrant I speak of their fire (Mar 9:48 ); for every one of those who come into Gehenna will be salted therein with fire, i.e. none of them will escape the doom of having represented in him by means of fire that which is done in sacrifices by means of salt, namely, the imperishable validity of the divine covenant, and (to add now the argumentum e contrario for my assertion concerning the fire, Mar 9:48 ) every sacrifice, i.e. every pious man unseduced, who, as such, resembles a (pure) sacrifice (comp. Rom 12:1 ), shall be salted with salt, i.e. he shall at his entrance into the Messianic kingdom (comp. . , Mar 9:43-47 ), by reception of higher wisdom (comp. Mar 9:50 ; Col 4:6 ; and as to the subject-matter, 1Co 13:9-12 ), represent in himself that validity of the divine covenant, as in the case of an actual sacrifice this is effected by its becoming salted.” Accordingly, it is in brief: for in every one of them the ever-during validity of the divine covenant shall be represented by means of fire, and in every pious person resembling a sacrifice this shall be accomplished by the communication of higher wisdom . It is to be observed, further: (1) that the figure of the salt of the covenant refers, in the case of those condemned to Gehenna, to the threatening aspect of the divine covenant, in the case of the pious, to its aspect of promise ; (2) that Jesus does not accidentally set forth the pious as a sacrifice, but is induced to do so by the fact He has just been speaking of ethical self-sacrifice by cutting off the hand, the foot, etc. And the conception of sacrifice, under which He regards the pious, suggests to Him as a designation of its destined counterpart the sacrificial expression . (3) Analogous to the twofold distinction of in the passage before us, although different in the figurative conception, is the and , Mat 3:11 .
Of the many diverging explanations, which in the light of what has just been stated are opposed to the context, or to the language of the passage, or to both, we may note historically the following: (1) Euthymius Zigabenus: , , (corruption) , , , , , (2) Luther: “In the O. T. every sacrifice was salted, and of every sacrifice something was burnt up with fire. This Christ here indicates and explains it spiritually, namely, that through the gospel, as through a fire and salt, the old man becomes crucified, seared, and well salted; for our body is the true sacrifice , Rom 12 .” He is followed by Spanheim, Calovius, L. Cappel, and others: a similar view is given by Beza, and in substance again by Lindemann. [129] (3) Grotius: “Omnino aliqua desumtio homini debetur, aut per modum saliturae (extirpation of the desires), aut per modum incendii (in hell); haec impiorum est, illa piorum;” the godless are likened to the whole burnt-offerings, the pious to the mincha . He is followed by Hammond, comp. Clericus and Schleusner. (4) Lightfoot: “Nam unusquisque eorum ipso igne salietur, ita ut inconsumtibilis fiat et in aeternum duret torquendus, prout sal tuetur a corruptione: at is, qui vero Deo victima, condietur sale gratiae ad incorruptionem gloriae.” Wolf and Michaelis follow this view; comp. also Jablonsky, Opusc. II. p. 458 ff. (5) Rosenmller (comp. Storr, Opusc. II. p. 210 ff.): “Quivis enim horum hominum perpetuo igni cruciabitur; sed quivis homo Deo consecratus sale verae sapientiae praeparari debet ad aeternam felicitatem.” (6) Kuinoel (taking , with Flacius and others, as a figurative designation of sufferings ): “Quilibet sectatorum meorum calamitatibus (these are held to be the pains that arise by suppression of the desires) veluti saliri, praeparari debet, quo consequatur salutem, sicuti omnes oblationes sale condiri, praeparari debent, quo sint oblationes Deo acceptae.” (7) Schott: “ Quivis illorum hominum (qui supplicio Geennae sunt obnoxii) nunc demum hoc igne sale (quod ipsis in vita terrestri versantibus defuit) imbuetur, i.e. nunc demum poenis vitae futurae discet resipiscere. Alio sensu illi salientur, quam victimae Deo sacrae, de quibus loco illo scriptum legitur: victima quaevis sale est conspergenda . His enim similes sunt homines in hac vita terrestri animis suis sapientiae divinae sale imbuendis prospicientes.” (8) According to Fritzsche, assigns the reason of the exhortation to suffer rather the loss of members of their body than to let themselves be seduced, and the meaning is (in the main as according to Kuinoel, comp. Vatablus): “Quippe omnes (in general) aerumnis ad vitae aeternae felicitatem praeparabuntur, sicut omnes victimae e Mosis decreto sale sunt ad immolationem praeparandae.” So in substance also Bleek. (9) Olshausen: “On account of the general sinfulness of the race every one must be salted with fire, whether by entering voluntarily upon self-denial and earnest cleansing from sins, or by being carried involuntarily to the place of punishment; and therefore [in order to be the symbolical type of this spiritual transaction] every sacrifice is (as is written) to be salted with salt.” [130] Similarly Lange. (10) According to de Wette, is nearly (?) tantamount to “the receiving by purification the holy seasoning and consecration (of purity and wisdom),” and is comparative. (11) Grohmann takes the first clause in substance as does Olshausen, and the second thus: “as every sacrifice shall be made savoury with salt, so also shall every one, who desires to offer himself as a sacrifice to God, be salted, that is, shall from without, by sufferings, privations, and the like, be stirred up, quickened, and pervaded by a higher, fresh spiritual power.” (12) Bhr: “As according to the law there must in no sacrifice be wanting the symbol of the covenant of sanctification that consecrates it the salt; so also must every one be purified and refined in and with the sacrifice of self-surrender; this refining process, far from being of a destructive nature, is rather the very thing which preserves and maintains unto true and eternal life.” (13) According to Ewald, the meaning is that every one who yields to seductive impulses, because he allows the salt wherewith from the beginning God has seasoned man’s spirit to become insipid, must first be salted again by the fire of hell, in order that this sacrifice may not remain without the salt which, according to Lev 2:13 , belongs to every sacrifice; no other salt (no other purification) is left save the fire of hell itself, when the salt in man has become savourless. (14) By Hilgenfeld the fire , is alleged to be even that of internal desire, through which (this is held to mean: by overcoming the desire!) one is said to be salted, i.e. led to Christian wisdom; thereby one is to offer a sacrifice of which the salt is Christian discernment.
This great diversity of interpretation is a proof of the obscurity of the utterance, which probably was spoken by Jesus in an explanatory connection which has not been preserved.
The second clause of the verse has been held by Gersdorf, p. 376 f., on linguistic grounds that are wholly untenable, to be spurious; and, as it is wanting also in B L , min. and some vss. (on account of the twice occurring by transcriber’s error), it is declared also by Schulz to be a gloss.
[128] Baur judges very harshly on the subject ( Markusev. p. 79), holding that Mark in this independent conclusion, ver. 49 f., gives only a new proof how little he could accomplish from his own resources, inasmuch as the thought only externally annexed is obscure, awkward, and without unity of conception. By Hilgenfeld the discourse is alleged to be a mitigation of the harsh saying as to cutting off the hand and the foot, and so to confirm the later position of Mark after Matthew. According to Weiss, vv. 49, 50 are “an artificial elaboration” of Mat 5:13 . But how specifically different are the two utterances! And what would there have been to elaborate in the plain saying of Mat 5:13 ? and to elaborate in such a way? According to Weizscker, ver. 49 f. is only added here “on account of the assonance as respects the figure.” This would amount to mere mechanical work. Holtzmann, however, justly maintains the independent conception of the (primitive-) Mark.
[129] “As every sacrifice is salted by salt, i.e. by the word of God is made a holy offering, so also every disciple is to be salted by fire [of the divine word].”
[130] According to Olshausen, we are to find here an authentic explanation as to the significance of the sacrifices, and of the ritual of their salting.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1437
CHRISTIANS TO HAVE SALT IN THEMSELVES
Mar 9:49-50. Every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
TO understand this subject aright, we must take into consideration the whole context. The Disciples had disputed amongst themselves about precedency in their Masters kingdom, which they supposed to be of a temporal nature; every one of them coveting for himself the highest post of dignity and power [Note: ver. 3337.]. They had also, through jealousy and narrowness of mind, forbidden a person to cast out devils, merely because he did not exercise that power in concert with them, and in subserviency to them [Note: ver. 3841.]. These evil dispositions our Lord had reproved, by appropriate and weighty observations: and then he proceeded to declare to them, that the exercise of such corrupt feelings would issue in the everlasting destruction of all who should indulge them, and would plunge them into that fire of hell which never should be quenched [Note: ver. 4248.]. After repeating, no less than five times, that the fire into which they should be cast should never be quenched, he told them that he expected very different tempers from them. The terms which he used on this occasion you have just heard: they contain a solemn admonition, and suitable advice; each of which we will consider in its order. Let us notice, then,
I.
His solemn admonition
This is somewhat difficult to be understood. Commentators, supposing that the word for, with which my text is introduced, is to be taken as connecting the text with the words immediately preceding, explain the first clause of our text thus: The fire, into which the persons before spoken of shall be cast, shall never be quenched: neither shall the persons that are cast into it be consumed: for every one of them shall be salted with fire: and, as salt preserves from putrefaction the things that are impregnated with it, so shall the fire preserve from dissolution those who shall be subjected to its power.
This interpretation is far from satisfactory, because it places two perfectly similar expressions, that which I have read, and that which follows it, in direct opposition to each other, (the one as referring to the destruction of the soul, and the other to the preservation of it,) when they are evidently intended to convey the same truth under two different figures.
To get rid of this difficulty, one commentator [Note: Macknight.] would translate the word thus: Every one shall be salted for the fire. But any one, who looks at the original, will see that such a translation is utterly inadmissible.
The translation, as it stands, is right: nor will the sense be difficult, if only the word for be taken as connecting the text with the whole subject contained in the context. The whole may be explained thus: I expect of you, in future, a different state of mind from that which you have recently indulged. You are offered up as living sacrifices to God; and, as such, must be holy, and without blemish: and as the sacrifices under the law were offered through the instrumentality of fire, and always with the accompaniment of salt, so must you be salted with fire, and salted with salt, in order that your savour may come up with acceptance before God.
If it be said that the term salting with fire is a strange expression; I answer, it is no more strange as applied to the preservation of the soul from sin, than as applied to the preservation of the body from destruction. On the contrary, it is expressly sanctioned by the Holy Scriptures in the sense now put upon it; whereas it is nowhere sanctioned in the sense which I am now controverting. John the Baptist says, Christ shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire [Note: Luk 3:16.]. And it is no more strange to be salted with fire, than to be baptized with fire. If it be said, that baptizing with fire means only the enduing with grace, which shall purify as fire; I answer, this is the precise meaning which I annex to the salting with fire; namely, the enduing with grace, which shall purify as fire. The two expressions are precisely parallel, both in terms and import. And, this interpretation brings unity into the subject in the place of discord; and simplicity in the place of inexplicable confusion.
Having, I hope, thrown the true light upon this difficult passage, I now proceed to comment upon it, as an injunction from our blessed Lord.
[Under the Mosaic Law, this was Gods command: Every oblation of thy meat-offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat-offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt [Note: Lev 2:13.]. To that ordinance our Lord refers, when he says, Every one shall be salted with fire; and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. But as salt, however good, may possibly lose its saltness, so as to become unfit for the service of God; so may immortal souls lose the divine savour which is pleasing to God: and, as the salt in that case is fit for nothing, not even for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; so those professors of religion, who lose the spirituality of their minds, must be regarded as the most unprofitable and contemptible of mankind [Note: Luk 14:34-35.]. Now, the allowed indulgence of such base feelings as the Apostles had lately manifested was incompatible with spiritual-mindedness; and therefore our Lord warned them, that, if they would be useful as ministers, or be accepted as men, they must mortify all such corrupt affections, and shew themselves to be under the influence of a purer principle. And the same admonition is proper for us also: for we, it is to be feared, are, for the most part, as worldly and as carnal as they. Look at the state of the Christian world: see how ready men are, yea, even good men, to dispute and quarrel about every thing that concerns their interests in the world See, too, how ready Christians are to decry and to discourage those who move not in their line, and belong not to their party in a word, let the spirit of Christians, both of individuals and communities, be seen at this day; and it must be acknowledged, that the admonition in my text has in no degree lost its force, or its applicability to the souls of men.]
In connexion with this solemn admonition, we must consider,
II.
His suitable advice
The advice here given evidently refers to the whole context, and, in this respect, confirms the interpretation which we have given of the preceding clauses of our text. The Disciples had given way to very evil tempers and dispositions; and, to counteract such corrupt propensities in future, our Lord says to them, Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. The same counsel is proper for us also:
1.
Have salt in yourselves
[We, whether as ministers or as private Christians, are to be the salt of the earth [Note: Mat 5:13.]; not only richly imbued with grace in our own souls, but operating, all of us in our respective spheres, to keep the world around us from corruption. But how can we fulfil our office for the benefit of others, or how can we answer to our proper character as true believers, if there be not a savour of divine grace abiding in us, and diffused around us? In all our intercourse with God, we must exercise a spirituality of mind: for what is prayer without devotion? or what is praise without fervent love and adoring gratitude? In truth, what are any services whatever, if sin be unmortified, and corruption unsubdued? If we retain any iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us [Note: Psa 66:18.]. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: it is the prayer of the upright only that is his delight [Note: Pro 15:8.]. The same may be said of all our intercourse with men. Gods direction to us is, Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt [Note: Col 4:6.]. It is not necessary that we be always conversing about religion: but it is necessary that there always be found in us a religious frame of mind, and that not a word escape from our lips that is inconsistent with it. As sons of God, we must be blameless and harmless, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, shining among them as lights in the world [Note: Php 2:15.]: and if we attain not to this character, all the labour that has been bestowed upon us will be in vain [Note: Php 2:16.].
But, that we may come more directly to the point which our Lord had chiefly in view, I add,]
2.
Have peace one with another
[Love ought to be the one habit of the Christians mind, and the very element in which he moves. It is a shame to him to betray ambitious, envious, contentious dispositions; or to value his brother less on account of some minor differences, when he is evidently, in his own sphere, doing the Lords work. These, and such like dispositions, are the fruitful sources of contention and hatred; as St. James has said: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts which war in your members [Note: Jam 4:1.]? Now the Christian world need exceedingly to be instructed on this point. All will admit that they need to have salt in themselves; whilst yet they imagine that that will consist with bigotry and contention. But I must say to all such characters, If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above; but is earthly, sensual, devilish [Note: Jam 3:14-15.]. If we would approve ourselves upright before God, we must walk worthy the vocation wherewith we are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace [Note: Eph 4:1-3.]. This is necessary to the enjoyment of Gods presence here: for then only, when we are of one mind, and live in peace, will the God of love and peace be with us [Note: 2Co 13:11.]. It is necessary, also, for our acceptance with him in a better world; according as it is written, Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord [Note: Heb 12:14.]. Remember, brethren, this is essential to your character, as living sacrifices [Note: Rom 12:1.]: and without this ye will in vain hope to be acceptable offerings before God [Note: Rom 15:16.]. What then God has joined together, let no man put asunder; but seek first to have salt in yourselves, and then to live in peace and love one with another.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
(49) For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. (50) Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
Various have been the sense given to those verses, by different writers. I presume not to speak upon them decidedly. All I shall propose, I would propose by way of humble enquiry, looking to GOD the SPIRIT to guide me and instruct me through the whole passage; and if I err, to pardon my errors, and suffer them not to be the means of leading others into the same.
And first, I humbly conceive, that as our LORD all the way through this discourse, from the 43rd verse, is speaking of the misery of hell, and the blessedness of heaven; I apprehend that he is still preserving the view of both in what he saith here of the person and the sacrifice. The one, is said to be salted with fire, the other is distinguished from this in being salted with salt. The former, salted with fire, it should seem (for I humbly ask the question) hath reference to those whose everlasting misery is expressed under the similitude of a worm that dieth not, and the fire not quenched. Salted with fire will then imply, that as the common salt hath power to preserve flesh from corruption, so this fire shall be, to preserve in being those persons from being consumed. And while, as was before said, the worm of a guilty conscience shall grow upon them with inexpressible anguish, they shall never die the fire which is not extinguishable shall be as salt to preserve, while it shall burn with divine wrath to punish, and never go out; but the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever ever Rev 14:11
In relation to the latter; every sacrifice shall be salted with salt I humbly conceive, that these sweet words have reference to the re deemed in CHRIST. It is a truth too well known, and too firmly ascertained to be questioned, that the whole law was but a shadow of good things to come; but the body is CHRIST. Hence, therefore, strictly and properly speaking, there was no real sacrifice, but the one offering of the body of JESUS CHRIST, once for all: for by that one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Heb 10:1-14 . So that every offering under the law, was offered, with an eye to CHRIST: and HE was the one glorious substance of all. Laying this down as a foundation, which cannot be questioned, we can now enter into some apprehension at least of our LORD’s gracious words, if (as I have ventured to suppose) they refer to the redeemed in CHRIST: Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. CHRIST the sacrifice; shall be offered by faith, with the salt of the Covenant. For so the LORD enjoined the Church when setting forth the sacrifice of CHRIST in type and shadow. Every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt: neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the Covenant of thy GOD to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt. Lev 2:13 . So that while the salted with fire acts upon the persons of the unredeemed, as salt to flesh to preserve in being, and yet in unextinguishable torments, the salt of the Covenant with which the sacrifice is offered, preserves to everlasting happiness the souls and bodies of the LORD’s people; being saved and accepted in CHRIST. Oh! LORD JESUS! say to my soul, and in saying it, confirm thy word unto thy servant, wherein thou hast caused we to hope; have salt in ourselves. Let never the salt of the Covenant of my GOD be lacking, but may Jesus in all his person, offices, grace, and spiritual seasonings, be in all my poor offerings: then shall I be as the salt of the Earth, preserved in thee, and by thee, not only from the corruption of the world around, but the corruptions within, and have peace with thee, and all thy people.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
49 For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
Ver. 49. For every one shall be salted with fire ] The spirit, as salt, must dry up those bad humours in us that breed the never dying worm; and as fire, must waste our corruptions, which else will carry us on to the unquenchable fire.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
49. ] In order to understand this difficult verse, it will be necessary first to examine its connexion and composition. (1) What is ? It connects it with the solemn assertions in Mar 9:43-48 , and furnishes a reason why it is better for us to cut off and cast away, &c. then is every one , absolutely: referring back both to the , and the above is (not opposed to (Meyer), but) parallel with , and equivalent to just as . (2) This being stated, let us now enquire into the symbolic terms used. FIRE is the refiner’s fire of Mal 3:2 , to which indeed there seems to be a reference; the fire of Mat 3:11 and Act 2:3 ; of Eze 28:14 (see my Hulsean Lectures for 1841, pp. 9 12). Fire is the symbol of the divine purity and presence : our God is a consuming fire , not only to his foes, but to his people: but in them , the fire shall only burn up what is impure and requires purifying out, 1Co 3:13 ; 1Pe 1:7 ; 1Pe 4:12 ; 1Pe 4:17 . This very fire shall be to them as a preserving salt . The SALT of the covenant of God (ref. Levit.) was to be mixed with every sacrifice ; and it is with fire that all men are to be salted . This fire is the divine purity and judgment in the covenant , whose promise is, ‘I will dwell among them.’ And in and among this purifying fire shall the people of God ever walk and rejoice everlastingly. Rev 21:23 . This is the right understanding of Isa 33:14-15 , ‘Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? &c. He that walketh in righteousness,’ &c. And thus the connexion with the preceding verses is, ‘it is better for thee to cut off,’ &c. ‘for it is part of the salting of thee, the living sacrifice ( Rom 12:1 ), that every offence and scandal must be burnt out of thee before thou canst enter into life.’
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 9:49-50 . Salting inevitable and indispensable . These verses appear only in Mk. as part of this discourse. The logion in Mar 9:50 corresponds to Mat 5:13 , Luk 14:34-35 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mar 9:49 is a crux interpretum , and has given rise to great diversity of interpretation ( vide Meyer, ad loc. ). Three questions may be asked. (1) What is the correct form of the saying? (2) Was it spoken at this time by Jesus? (3) If it was, how is it to be connected with the previous context? As to (1) some important MSS. ( [78] [79] [80] [81] and the new Syr. Sin [82] ) omit the second half of the sentence, retaining only “every one shall be salted with fire”. D and some copies of the old Lat. omit the first part and retain the second. W. and H [83] retain only part 1. Weiss and Schanz think that the text must be taken in its entirety, and that part 2 fell out by homoeoteleuton , or was omitted because of its difficulty. Holtzmann, H. C., is inclined to favour the reading of [84] . It is difficult to decide between these alternatives, though I personally lean to the first of the three, not only because of the weighty textual testimony, but, as against D, on account of the startling character of the thought, salted with fire , its very boldness witnessing for its authenticity. As to (2) I think it highly probable that such thoughts as Mar 9:49-50 contain were spoken at this time by Jesus. The two thoughts, salting inevitable and salting indispensable, were thoroughly apposite to the situation: a master teaching men in danger of moral shipwreck through evil passion, and unless reformed sure to prove unfit for the work to which they were destined. I cannot therefore agree with Holtzmann (H. C.) that Mk., misled by the word in Mar 9:48 , has brought in here a logion spoken at some other time. As to (3) I see no necessity to regard , Mar 9:49 , as binding us down to a close exclusive connection with Mar 9:48 , requiring us to interpret Mar 9:49 a thus: every one that does not cut off the offending member shall be salted by the fire of hell; itself quenchless, and not destroying its victim, as it is the nature of ordinary fire to do, but rather preserving him for eternal torment, like salt. Thus viewed, Mar 9:49 a is a mere comment on the words . The saying should rather be taken in connection with the whole course of thought in Mar 9:43-48 , in which case it will bear this sense: “every one must be salted somehow , either with the unquenchable fire of gehenna, or with the fire of severe self-discipline. Wise is he who chooses the latter alternative.” If we ignore the connection with Mar 9:48 , and restrict to the disciple-circle, this alternative rendering will be avoided, and the idea will be: every man who is to come to any good, will, must, be salted with fire. In that case, however, it is difficult to account for the unusual combination of salt and fire, whose functions are so opposed. 49b is of quite subordinate importance, merely at best a parabolic aid to thought. Grotius and others divide the sacrifices into two classes answering to the two forms of salting: burnt offerings typifying those consumed in hell, peace offerings those preserved by self-discipline.
[78] Codex Sinaiticus (sc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.
[79] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.
[80] Codex Regius–eighth century, represents an ancient text, and is often in agreement with and B.
[81] Codex Sangallensis, a Graeco-Latin MS. of the tenth century, and having many ancient readings, especially in Mark.
[82] Sin. Sinaitic Syriac (recently discovered).
[83] Westcott and Hort.
[84] Codex Bezae
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mark
SALTED WITH FIRE
Mark ix. 49
Our Lord has just been uttering some of the most solemn words that ever came from His gracious lips. He has been enjoining the severest self-suppression, extending even to mutilation and excision of the eye, the hand, or the foot, that might cause us to stumble. He has been giving that sharp lesson on the ground of plain common sense and enlightened self-regard. It is better, obviously, to live maimed than to die whole. The man who elects to keep a mortified limb, and thereby to lose life, is a suicide and a fool. It is a solemn thought that a similar mad choice is possible in the moral and spiritual region.
To these stern injunctions, accompanied by the awful sanctions of that consideration, our Lord appends the words of my text. They are obscure and have often been misunderstood. This is not the place to enter on a discussion of the various explanations that have been proposed of them. A word or two is all that is needful to put us in possession of the point of view from which I wish to lay them on your hearts at this time.
I take the ‘every one’ of my text to mean not mankind generally, but every individual of the class whom our Lord is addressing-that is to say, His disciples. He is laying down the law for all Christians. I take the paradox which brings together ‘salting’ and ‘fire,’ to refer, not to salt as a means of communicating savour to food, but as a means of preserving from putrefaction. And I take the ‘fire’ here to refer, not to the same process which is hinted at in the awful preceding words, ‘the fire in not quenched,’ but to be set in opposition to that fire, and to mean something entirely different. There is a fire that destroys, and there is a fire that preserves; and the alternative for every man is to choose between the destructive and the conserving influences. Christian disciples have to submit to be ‘salted with fire,’ lest a worse thing befall them,
I. And so the first point that I would ask you to notice here is-that fiery cleansing to which every Christian must yield.
The salting fire, then, which cleanses and preserves, and to which every Christian soul must submit itself, to be purged thereby, is, as I take it, primarily and fundamentally the fire of that Divine Spirit which Christ Himself told us that He had come to cast upon the earth, and yearned, in a passion of desire, to see kindled. The very frequent use of the emblem in this same signification throughout Scripture, I suppose I need not recall to you. It seems to me that the only worthy interpretation of the words before us, which goes down into their depths and harmonises with the whole of the rest of the teaching of Scripture, is that which recognises these words of my text as no unwelcome threat, as no bitter necessity, but as a joyful promise bringing to men, laden and burdened with their sins, the good news that it is possible for them to be purged from them entirely by the fiery ministration of that Divine Spirit. Just as we take a piece of foul clay and put it into the furnace, and can see, as it gets red-hot, the stains melt away, as a cloud does in the blue, from its surface, so if we will plunge ourselves into the influences of that divine power which Christ has come to communicate to the world, our sin and all our impurities will melt from off us, and we shall be clean. No amount of scrubbing with soap and water will do it. The stain is a great deal too deep for that, and a mightier solvent than any that we can apply, if unaided and unsupplied from above, is needed to make us clean. ‘Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean,’ especially when the would-be bringer is himself the unclean thing? Surely not one. Unless there be a power ab extra , unparticipant of man’s evils, and yet capable of mingling with the evil man’s inmost nature, and dealing with it, then I believe that universal experience and our individual experience tell us that there is no hope that we shall ever get rid of our transgressions.
Brethren, for a man by his own unaided effort, however powerful, continuous, and wisely directed it may be, to cleanse himself utterly from his iniquity, is as hopeless as it would be for him to sit down with a hammer and a chisel and try by mechanical means to get all the iron out of a piece of ironstone. The union is chemical, not mechanical. And so hammers and chisels will only get a very little of the metal out. The one solvent is fire. Put the obstinate crude ore into your furnace, and get the temperature up, and the molten metal will run clear. There should be mountains of scoriae, the dross and relics of our abandoned sins, around us all.
If we desire to be delivered, let us go into the fire. It will burn up all our evil, and it will burn up nothing else. Keep close to Christ. Lay your hearts open to the hallowing influences of the motives and the examples that lie in the story of His life and death. Seek for the fiery touch of that transforming Spirit, and be sure that you quench Him not, nor grieve Him. And then your weakness will be reinvigorated by celestial powers, and the live coal upon your lips will burn up all your iniquity.
But, subordinately to this deepest meaning, as I take it, of the great symbol of our text, let me remind you of another possible application of it, which follows from the preceding. God’s Spirit cleanses men mainly by raising their spirits to a higher temperature. For coldness is akin to sin, and heavenly warmth is akin to righteousness. Enthusiasm always ennobles, delivers men, even on the lower reaches of life and conduct from many a meanness and many a sin. And when it becomes a warmth of spirit kindled by the reception of the fire of God, then it becomes the solvent which breaks the connection between me and my evil. It is the cold Christian who makes no progress in conquering his sin. The one who is filled with the love of God, and has the ardent convictions and the burning enthusiasm which that love ought to produce in our hearts, is the man who will conquer and eject his evils.
Nor must we forget that there is still another possible application of the words. For whilst, on the one hand, the Divine Spirit’s method of delivering us is very largely that of imparting to us the warmth of ardent, devout emotion; on the other hand, a part of this method is the passing of us through the fiery trials and outward disciplines of life. ‘Every one shall be salted with fire’ in that sense. And we have learned, dear brethren, but little of the loving kindness of the Lord if we are not able to say, ‘I have grown more in likeness to Jesus Christ by rightly accepted sorrows than by anything besides.’ Be not afraid of calamities; be not stumbled by disaster. Take the fiery trial which is sent to you as being intended to bring about, at the last, the discovery ‘unto praise and honour and glory’ of your faith, that is ‘much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.’ ‘Every one shall be salted with fire,’ the Christian law of life is, Submit to the fiery cleansing. Alas! alas! for the many thousands of professing Christians who are wrapping themselves in such thick folds of non-conducting material that that fiery energy can only play on the surface of their lives, instead of searching them to the depths. Do you see to it, dear brethren, that you lay open your whole natures, down to the very inmost roots, to the penetrating, searching, cleansing power of that Spirit. And let us all go and say to Him, ‘Search me, O God! and try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me.’
II. Notice the painfulness of this fiery cleansing.
The process is painful because we are weak. The highest ideal of Christian progress would be realised if one of the metaphors with which our Lord expresses it were adequate to cover the whole ground, and we grew as the wheat grows, ‘first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.’ But the tranquillity of vegetable growth, and the peaceful progress which it symbolises, are not all that you and I have to expect. Emblems of a very different kind have to be associated with that of the quiet serenity of the growing corn, in order to describe all that a Christian man has to experience in the work of becoming like his Master. It is a fight as well as a growth; it is a building requiring our continuity of effort, as well as a growth. There is something to be got rid of as well as much to be appropriated. We do not only need to become better, we need to become less bad. Squatters have camped on the land, and cling to it and hold it vi et armis ; and these have to be ejected before peaceful settlement is possible.
One might go on multiplying metaphors ad libitum , in order to bring out the one thought that it needs huge courage to bear being sanctified, or, if you do not like the theological word, to bear being made better. It is no holiday task, and unless we are willing to have a great deal that is against the grain done to us, and in us, and by us, we shall never achieve it. We have to accept the pain. Desires have to be thwarted, and that is not pleasant. Self has to be suppressed, and that is not delightsome. A growing conviction of the depth of one’s own evil has to be cherished, and that is not a grateful thought for any of us. Pains external, which are felt by reason of disciplinary sorrows, are not worthy to be named in the same day as those more recondite and inward agonies. But, brother, they are all ‘light’ as compared with the exceeding weight of ‘glory,’ coming from conformity to the example of our Master, which they prepare for us.
And so I bring you Christ’s message: He will have no man to enlist in His army under false pretences. He will not deceive any of us by telling us that it is all easy work and plain sailing. Salting by fire can never be other than to the worse self an agony, just because it is to the better self a rapture. And so let us make up our minds that no man is taken to heaven in his sleep, and that the road is a rough one, judging from the point of view of flesh and sense; but though rough, narrow, often studded with sharp edges, like the plough coulters that they used to lay in the path in the old rude ordeals, it still leads straight to the goal, and bleeding feet are little to pay for a seat at Christ’s right hand.
III. Lastly, notice the preservative result of this painful cleansing.
And so it is, in regard to that great spiritual influence which Jesus Christ is ready to give to every one of us. It slays that which is slaying us, for our sins destroy in us the true life of a man, and make us but parables of walking death. When the three Hebrews were cast into the fiery furnace in Babylon, the flames burned nothing but their bonds, and they walked at liberty in the fire. And so it will be with us. We shall be preserved by that which slays the sins that would otherwise slay us.
Let me lay on your hearts before I close the solemn alternative to which I have already referred, and which is suggested by the connection of my text with the preceding words. There is a fire that destroys and is not quenched. Christ’s previous words are much too metaphorical for us to build dogmatic definitions upon. But Jesus Christ did not exaggerate. If here and now sin has so destructive an effect upon a man, O, who will venture to say that he knows the limits of its murderous power in that future life, when retribution shall begin with new energy and under new conditions? Brethren, whilst I dare not enlarge, I still less dare to suppress; and I ask you to remember that not I, or any man, but Jesus Christ Himself, has put before each of us this alternative-either the fire unquenchable, which destroys a man, or the merciful fire, which slays his sins and saves him alive.
Social reformers, philanthropists, you that have tried and failed to overcome your evil, and who feel the loathly thing so intertwisted with your being that to pluck it from your heart is to tear away the very heart’s walls themselves, here is a hope for you. Closely as our evil is twisted in with the fibres of our character, there is a hand that can untwine the coils, and cast away the sin, and preserve the soul. And although we sometimes feel as if our sinfulness and our sin were so incorporated with ourselves that it made oneself, with a man’s head and a serpent’s tail, let us take the joyful assurance that if we trust ourselves to Christ, and open our hearts to His power, we can shake off the venomous beast into the fire and live a fuller life, because the fire has consumed that which would otherwise have consumed us.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mar 9:49-50
49″For everyone will be salted with fire. 50Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Mar 9:49 “‘salted with fire'” Salt was a means of healing, purification, and preservation. It also was used to seal covenants (cf. Num 18:19). It was a very important component of life for desert people. The terms salt and fire are synonymous in this context for purification. Mar 9:49 has many manuscript variations. These were probably due to the uncertainty of (1) how the verse related to Mar 9:48 or (2) what the verse itself meant. Possibly a scribe saw a reference to Lev 2:13 and put it in the margin of the text. Jesus often used salt as an analogy to communicate spiritual truth (cf. Mat 5:13; Luk 14:34-35).
Mar 9:50 This verse, like Mar 9:49, seems to be somewhat unrelated to the previous context. As Mar 9:49 was included because of the term “fire,” this verse was included because of the term “salt.” It may refer to Mar 9:35. It matters how Christians live!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
every one shall be salted with fire. Occurs only here in N.T.
every sacrifice, &c. Some texts omit this clause, but not the Syriac Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 2:13). This is intro duced by “For”, as a reason why the lesser (finite and temporal) evil is “good” compared with the greater (and final) evil. Every sacrifice is salted (to assist the burning), Deu 29:23. It is better therefore to endurethe removal of the stumbling-block now, than to be altogether destroyed for ever.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
49.] In order to understand this difficult verse, it will be necessary first to examine its connexion and composition. (1) What is ? It connects it with the solemn assertions in Mar 9:43-48, and furnishes a reason why it is better for us to cut off and cast away, &c. then is every one, absolutely: referring back both to the , and the above- is (not opposed to (Meyer), but) parallel with , and equivalent to just as. (2) This being stated, let us now enquire into the symbolic terms used. FIRE is the refiners fire of Mal 3:2, to which indeed there seems to be a reference; the fire of Mat 3:11 and Act 2:3; of Eze 28:14 (see my Hulsean Lectures for 1841, pp. 9-12). Fire is the symbol of the divine purity and presence:-our God is a consuming fire, not only to his foes, but to his people: but in them, the fire shall only burn up what is impure and requires purifying out, 1Co 3:13; 1Pe 1:7; 1Pe 4:12; 1Pe 4:17. This very fire shall be to them as a preserving salt. The SALT of the covenant of God (ref. Levit.) was to be mixed with every sacrifice; and it is with fire that all men are to be salted. This fire is the divine purity and judgment in the covenant, whose promise is, I will dwell among them. And in and among this purifying fire shall the people of God ever walk and rejoice everlastingly. Rev 21:23. This is the right understanding of Isa 33:14-15, Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? &c. He that walketh in righteousness, &c. And thus the connexion with the preceding verses is,-it is better for thee to cut off, &c.-for it is part of the salting of thee, the living sacrifice (Rom 12:1), that every offence and scandal must be burnt out of thee before thou canst enter into life.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mar 9:49. , every, all) Every [all] is here put without the noun being added. Some have supplied , bread; others, , man. They seem to have felt, that it is hardly in accordance with usage, that , all or every, should be put thus absolutely in the masculine. For where it seems to be put absolutely, the determining of the subject is left to be sought [gathered] from the predicate. Mat 13:19, , when any (hearer) heareth the word, etc.; Luk 6:40, , …, every (disciple) if he shall be perfected, shall be as his teacher; [Luke] Luk 16:16, , every one, who employs violence, by the employment of violence enters into the kingdom of heaven: Joh 2:10, Every man (who hath a marriage-feast, and sets forth wine) sets forth first the good wine. Phrases of this kind are to be met everywhere. So in this passage, Every one, who shall be salted at all, shall surely be salted with fire. But we will explain the idea of the passage a little more fully. It stands in position midway between the words concerning the fire which is not quenched, and the words concerning salt and its goodness. There are therefore three degrees: to be salted with salt; to be salted with fire; to be cast into the fire that never shall be quenched. The first degree is the most desirable: the third is the most bitter of the three: the second is intermediate, corresponding with the third in the mention of the fire (which in this passage is more often spoken of by Homonymy, i.e., the calling of things that differ in nature by the same name by analogy [Append.], as in Mat 3:10-12), whilst it has a closer correspondence with the first in the mention of the salting. Salting, which is a process most natural and suitable, is effected by means of salt: this salt implies the Divine discipline, gently training us to the denial of self, and to the cultivation of peace and harmony with others. They who are thus salted become thereby a sacrifice pleasing to God, the type of which [spiritual sacrifice] existed in the Levitical sacrifices; Lev 2:13. They who shrink from and evade the salting by salt, are salted by fire (for even salt has in it the power of burning, Deu 29:23; and again, in turn, that there is in natural fire the power also of salting, is shown even by flesh that is roasted; and in Plutarch, fire is said to be , the best and sweetest of modes of sweetening or seasoning); i.e. according to what approaches most closely in analogy, they are salted by a Divine discipline of a severer kind, lest through the stumblingblock, occasioned by the hand, the foot, or the eye waxing stronger, they should go on to the fire that cannot be quenched. Therefore the connection and the idea of the passage stand thus: Without a moments delay, and casting aside all self-indulgence, meet and counteract the stumbling-block occasioned by the hand, the foot, or the eye; for otherwise it will thrust you on into hell, and hells eternal fire. For every one, who is about to be salted in any way, and who is by that salting to be snatched from the eternal fire, shall be salted, if not by salt, the milder remedy, but by fire, the more severe cure, yet still in this life [shall be so salted, not in the life to come]: and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt, which is a most lenient and excellent kind of salting. Therefore submit to [admit within you] and have this salt, so that, every stumbling-block [occasion of offence] having been laid aside, peace may flourish among you. You are certainly about [you are sure] to have to experience the salt and the fire: see that ye require to undergo [defungamini, perform] as lenient a salting as possible.-, shall be salted) The future: by which there is intimated the commandment as to the sacrifices of the Old Test, [which was couched in the future, Lev 2:13], as also their typical bearing in reference to the sacrifices of the New Test.- ) This is extant in Lev 2:13, . Hence the sentiment in the former clause of the verse is inferred, ., which is more universal, inasmuch as the being salted with salt is now in fine added as if in the way of exception [qualification] to , with the limitation standing in apposition [i.e. shall be salted with salt, in apposition to and qualifying the more universal, shall be salted with fire].
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
and every: Lev 2:13, Eze 43:24
Reciprocal: Lev 6:12 – the fire 2Ch 13:5 – a covenant of salt Ezr 6:9 – salt Eze 47:11 – given Mat 5:13 – if Mat 18:8 – everlasting Mat 25:46 – everlasting Luk 14:34 – but
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Chapter 23.
Salted with Fire
“For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.”-Mar 9:49-50.
Some Difficulties.
These two verses are obscure. In Mar 9:49 there is scarcely a word that does not offer difficulty. “For every one” seems to imply some causal connection with what has gone before. What is that connection? To whom does the “every one” refer; to unbelievers or to disciples? “Every one shall be salted.” Which of the two radically different meanings of “salt” are we to accept as correct? And what does “salting with fire” mean? No wonder that expositors lament over this passage. “It is exceedingly difficult,” says Grain. “It is exceedingly vexed,” says Wolf. “It is exceedingly vexing,” remarks another. “It has put to the rack the ingenuity of many learned men,” says Grotius. While an English commentator remarks, “There is perhaps no passage in the New Testament which has so defied all efforts to assign to it any certain interpretation.” In face of all that, it seems perhaps almost presumptuous to attempt to expound it at all. But, accepting the view Dr. Morison suggests, I believe a sound and perfectly intelligible account can be given of this most difficult passage.
The Text.
Let us begin by accepting the text as it stands in the R.V., where the latter half of the verse is omitted. The uncertainty about the correct reading is no doubt due to the fact that, from the very beginning, the passage was felt to be difficult; and so in various MSS. the text was slightly altered, and in some cases an additional sentence was inserted, in the hope of making the meaning a little more clear. That may account for the insertion of the phrase, “and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt,” which you find in the A.V. The scribe probably thought that the old Levitical custom of salting the sacrifice might throw light upon the passage. But we may accept the R.V. view, that Mark only wrote, “For every one shall be salted with fire.”
The Persons Indicated.
But what exactly does that mean? To whom, to begin with, does the phrase “every one” refer? Some commentators confine the reference to the unbelieving. But it is not to unbelieving men that Christ has been speaking; it is to His own disciples. It is not of unbelieving men He has been speaking; it is of His own. He has been warning them that they may find stumbling-blocks in their own natures, and telling them that they must practise unsparing spiritual energy; that they must cut off the hand and the foot and cast out the eye rather than incur the doom of those who yield to their fleshly lusts. “For,” He says, “every one shall be salted with fire.” The “every one” clearly refers to the people who have been the subject of the preceding verses. In other words, this assertion refers to believing men, to Christ’s own disciples.
The Salt.
What, then, does our Lord mean when He says that every one of His disciples shall be salted with fire? “Salt” and “fire” must be used here, not literally, but metaphorically; otherwise, in the conjunction of salt and fire, we should get a conjunction of two incongruous ideas-preservation and destruction. Metaphorically considered, however, they are perfectly congruous. The two ideas that are most prominently associated with salt are those of seasoning and preservation from corruption. Here the whole idea is that of preservation-preservation from the worm which dieth not, and the fire which is not quenched. It is, as Dr. Morison says, “the antiseptic property of salt” that the Saviour has in His mind. So that, substituting for the actual word the idea for which it stands, we might read the sentence thus: “Every one of My disciples shall be preserved from corruption by fire.”
The Fire.
Let us now pass on to the second term, “fire.” It is suggested, no doubt, by the reference to “fire” in the preceding verse. But there is a difference. The fire of Gehenna was destructive, penal. It utterly consumed all the corruption and filth and abominations that were cast into it But this fire is not destructive, it is cleansing; it is not penal, it is purifying. “Every one shall be preserved from corruption by fire.” For fire, as we know, has this cleansing power. It purifies, for instance, the metal cast into it. It cleanses it of the dross mingled with it, so that it issues forth refined silver, pure gold, as the case may be. But while the action of fire in this instance is meant to be regarded as purifying rather than as penal, the idea of pain is still associated with it. You cauterise a wound; it is a cleansing and healing, but it is also a painful process. And so our Lord says that every disciple of His will be preserved from corruption by something which purifies, but which in the process hurts and blisters and burns. What is that something? The Holy Spirit, some commentators say. “Fire” is one of the symbols of the Spirit. When He enters the heart, He flames against all unrighteousness and sin; He burns out all that is unholy and base and foul. He is a Spirit of burning. And that means that the Spirit’s work in the heart is often painful work. It is agonising work, and we shrink from it in fear. “Who among us,” cried the prophet, “shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” (Isa 33:14). We may say, then, that the essential meaning of the passage is this, “Every one of Christ’s disciples is preserved from corruption by the fire of an unsparing self-sacrifice, kindled by the energies of the Spirit of God.”
The Pain of Sacrifice.
Two practical truths are suggested by this explanation. (1) The Christian life involves pain and sacrifice. Here is a truth stamped on every page of the New Testament. It is suggested by every figure used to describe the Christian life. It is emphasized in every appeal to live the Christian life. Christ calls His disciples, not to a velvet path, but to a narrow way. He summons them, not to ease and comfort, but to sacrifice. He promises them, not a smooth and pleasant time, but suffering and a cross. There is much of agonising, cutting, maiming, burning to be done in the Christian life. Everything great and good costs effort and sacrifice. The greatest achievement of all is the attainment of a Christian character. And as it is the greatest, so is it also the costliest. There is no such thing as being a Christian on the cheap. Discipleship costs its price. “Every one shall be salted with fire.”
-And its Profit.
(2) But the pain the Christian disciple undergoes all tends to profit. “Burning”-it does not suggest a pleasant process. It suggests agony, torture. But the end of it all is, cleansing and health. I cannot help thinking that there is between Mar 9:48 and Mar 9:49 a deliberate and purposed antithesis. The two verses present to us alternative fires. As our old commentator puts it, “He sets one fire over against another, the present one against the future.” There is the fire of Gehenna, of which the ceaseless burnings of the Valley of Hinnom were the type and symbol, and there is the cleansing fire of the Spirit of God. And it looks as if Christ meant us to understand that into one of these fires every man must go. If he refuses to part with what is corrupt and sinful, then there waits for him the penal fire, into which everything corrupt and sinful is cast. But if he submits himself to the cleansing fire of the Spirit, that fire cleanses and purifies him of all that is foul and base, and leaves nothing in him on which the penal fire of Gehenna could feed.
The Saltless Salt.
“Salt is good,” our Lord goes on to say, “but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it?” (Mar 9:50). The connection between this sentence and the preceding one is verbal rather than logical. I mean, that it was the mention of the word “salt” that suggested this further remark to Jesus. “Salt” is still in His mind the great preservative. And as He uses the term here, He evidently means by it “the spirit of Holiness, the Christian character”; that which, when men have it, makes them in turn “the salt of the earth.” But what if the salt has lost its saltness? What is the use, He asks, of a profession out of which all the reality has gone, of a nominal Christianity out of which the genuine Christian spirit has evaporated? Is there such a thing as “saltless salt” in the spiritual world? Alas, yes, there is. I read, for instance, of a Church which the Lord of the Church thus described, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead” (Rev 3:1). There was a Church that was not fulfilling its function-“Saltless salt.” I read of another Church of which the Lord said, “I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love” (Rev 2:4). The process was not complete, but the degeneration had commenced. The salt was losing its saltness. I read of some men in St Paul’s second letter to Timothy, “holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof” (iii. 5). There was the profession without the substance; the appearance of salt, with none of its pungency and preserving power.
-Still to be Found.
Saltless salt-there is a great deal of it in the world still; profession without practice, name without deed, fire without life. I do not know but that if we began to examine our own consciences and hearts we might have to confess that this degenerating process has to some extent taken place in us. The salt has begun to lose its saltness. We exercise little preserving and purifying power on the life of the world around us. “Salt is good,” says our Lord. The genuine, vital, and uncompromising Christian is a centre of healthful and healing and purifying influence. By his mere presence he arrests and stays corruption. Dr. Stalker tells about a young lad so transparently and unmistakably Christian that, by his mere presence, within a month he banished the foul speech for which his office had been notorious. There is nothing the world wants more than men and women of the same sincere and unashamed Christian character. But why is it that we Christian folk produce so little effect on the world; that in spite of our presence, evil and base and corrupt practices flourish on every hand? Is it because the salt in us has lost its saltness? Is it because our Christianity is so feeble and compromising and formal? What hope is there for the world, if Christianity fails it? “If the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it?” (Mar 9:50).
Holiness and Peace.
And so our Lord passes on to His practical conclusion. “Have salt in yourselves,” He says, “and be at peace one with another.” Our Lord here has a side reference to their interference with the man who had been casting out devils. It was not their business to interfere with another man, because he worked in what they considered to be unorthodox fashion; it was their business to see to it that they did their own duty in the world, that their own Christian faith was real, that their own lives were such that they would exercise a cleansing and purifying influence upon the world. And this they could only do as they had the spirit of holiness and consecration within them. “And be at peace one with another.” For the disciples had been quarrelling about places. They had been disputing which of them was greatest. And their disputes had threatened to break up the unity of the apostolate, and to militate against the success of their work. “Be at peace one with another,” the Lord says. For real peace would inevitably result, if they had “salt in themselves.”
-Things to be Desired.
The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable. Holiness and peace. Those are the things Christ desires for His disciples. Those are the things that Christ’s disciples need most still. What a change would come over our world if Christian people were only at peace one with another, and gave to the world an example of holy living! A conquered world would be the result. Let us pray for these two things-greater holiness and mutual concord. The world will be ours when we have salt in ourselves, and are at peace one with another.
Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary
9
Salted with fire. Here we see fire used figuratively for salt. Salt, through its preserving qualities, tends to perpetuate an object brought into contact with it. It is thus connected with the fire of perdition because of the perpetual duration of that fire. Salt is used with the idea of perpetuation in Num 18:19.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
[For every one shall be salted with fire.] The great Scaliger is well chastised, and not without cause, by John Cloppenberg, because he changed the reading here into every sacrifice shall be salted. See what he saith.
All; is not to be understood of every man, but of every one of them “whose worm dieth not,” etc.
The sense of the place is to be fetched from those words, and the sense of those words from Isa 66:24; “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” Upon which place thus the Jews write; “‘They shall go forth and look,’ etc. Is not the finger of a man, if it be put into the fire, immediately burnt? But God gives power (or being) to wicked men to receive torments.” Kimchi upon the place thus: “They shall see the carcases of them full of worms, and fire burning in them”: and yet the worms die not.
The words therefore of our Saviour respect this: “Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; for every one of them shall be seasoned with fire itself, so as to become unconsumable, and shall endure for ever to be tormented, as salt preserves from corruption.”
That very learned man mentioned before called the common reading very improper. For what is it, saith he, to season with fire? Let me retort, And what is it to fire with salt? And yet that sense occurs very frequently in the Talmudists. For in them is to burn; (which it signifies properly indeed) and very frequently it is, to corrupt any thing with too much salting; so that it cannot be eaten: to be fired with salt. So in this place, to be salted with fire; that it cannot be corrupted or consumed.
[And every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.] Here the discourse is of salting, which was done at the altar, see Lev 2:13; “In the ascent of the altar, they salted the parts of the sacrifice: and on the top of the altar they salt the handful of meal, of frankincense, of incense, and the mincha of the priests, and the mincha of the anointed priest, and the mincha of the drink-offerings, and the sacrifice of birds.” Yea, the very wood is a corban of the mincha, and is to be salted.
But in the former clause, the allusion was not to the fire of the altar, but to the fire in the valley of Hinnom, where dead carcases, bones, and other filthy things were consumed. Carcases crawl with worms; and instead of salt which secures against worms, they shall be cast into the fire, and shall be seasoned with flames, and yet the worms shall not die. But he that is a true sacrifice to God shall be seasoned with the salt of grace to the incorruption of glory.
Our Saviour speaks in this place with Isa 66:20; They shall bring your brethren out of all the nations for a gift to the Lord, — as the children of Israel offer their sacrifices to me with psalms in the house of the Lord. And Isa 66:24; And they shall go forth, and look upon the limbs of men that transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; etc.
Every sacrifice; saith our Saviour, concerning holy men seasoned with grace: so the prophet, “They shall bring your brethren for a gift to the Lord, as the children of Israel do the sacrifices.”
Shall be seasoned with fire; saith our Saviour of wicked men: in the same sense Isaiah, “They shall be in unquenchable fire, and yet their worm shall not die.”
Their fire and their worm: whose? Concerning the former, it is somewhat obscure in our Saviour’s words, and so, indeed, that it is without all obscurity that he refers his words only to the words of Isaiah: but who they are in Isaiah is plain enough.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mar 9:49-50. These verses, which have no parallel, form the most difficult passage in this Gospel. The difficulty is perhaps lessened, by following the most ancient authorities and omitting the second clause. It is agreed that the interpolated clause, every sacrifice, etc., refers to Lev 2:13. As the salt is there expressly called the salt of the covenant of thy God, a good sense was designed to be given by the interpolation, and Mar 9:50 equally requires such a good sense. As to the fire the immediate connection would point to eternal fire, but as there is a refiners fire also, this sense is not absolutely necessary; nor on the other hand must the fire and salt be regarded as two different figures for exactly the same thing. Nor will any interpretation be satisfactory which does not fully bring out the meaning of the word for.
Explanations: (1.) For (giving a reason why it is better to cut off, etc.) every one (all without exception, those who thus deny themselves and those cast into hell) shall be salted with fire (as the symbol of Divine purity which either purifies or consumes, so that both refining fire and eternal fire are included under the same figure). The interpolated clause will then be explained: And every sacrifice(those accepted of God are here referred to, not those rejected) shall be salted with salt (with the salt of the covenant of thy God). All must enter the fire of Gods purity in some way; those who offer themselves a living sacrifice are seasoned with salt, are preserved in the fire; while others are salted only with fire, the same fire of Divine purity becoming eternal fire of judgment to them. This is a strong reason why the self-denials just enjoined should be made, while the connection with the next verse becomes plain.
Salt is good (see Mat 5:13, and in this case it is the preservative salt, whether the doubtful clause be omitted or not, the salt of the covenant, so that the fire only purifies): but if the salt have lost its saltness (if you profess to be in the covenant and are not, if the failure to cut off the offending member shows this to be the case) wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves (this grace of God, this spirit of adoption, this pledge of the covenant), and (as a fruit, with a reference now to the strife with which the conversation began, Mar 9:34) have peace one with another. This view is unaffected by the omission of the doubtful clause. (2.) Another interpretation agrees with this, except in making the salt and fire identical: this difference appears only in the clause: and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt, which is thus interpreted: this very fire with which every one shall be salted, becomes to Gods people a preserving salt. The objection to this is that it takes and as = just as, and makes two figurative expressions identical. (3.) Another view takes the two clauses of Mar 9:49 as opposed: Every one (i.e., of those condemned) shall be salted with fire, and(on the contrary) every sacrifice(Gods people) shall be salted with salt. This unnecessarily limits the words every one, and does not account for the use of the word salted in the same clause. Such a direct opposition would be expressed by burned with fire and salted with salt Further, the idea of purification is obscured, and the reason presented for the preceding exhortations is less forcible. (4.) The most objectionable view is that which applies the whole of Mar 9:49 to the lost For, in that case, introduces merely a reason for the eternal punishment. This view too takes and asjust as: Every one (condemned) is salted with fire (preserved from annihilation, so that the punishment can be eternal), just as every sacrifice, etc. The connection with Mar 9:50 is very forced on this view: Salt is good (i.e., although thus used as a figure for preservation to punishment, it is also a figure for what is good), etc. Besides, the salt of the covenant, which is the most obvious reference, is thrown out of view, and meanings given to the figures which are contrary to the analogy of Scripture. The first view is to be preferred, as most grammatical, most true to the correct reading, and most in keeping with the context.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Everyone shall be salted with fire; that is, everyone of them mentioned in the foregoing verses, who refuses to cut off a right hand, and pluck out a right eye; that is, to mortify their bosom lusts, and beloved corruptions, which are as dear as a right hand or a right eye; every such wicked and unmortified person shall be salted with fire; that is, thrown into hell-fire, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; as our Saviour speaks, Mar 9:44.
And their being salted with fire, imports and implies, that as to their beings they shall be preserved, even as salt preserves things from corruption, that they may be the objects of the eternal wrath of God. So that for sinners to be salted with fire, is to be given up to everlasting destruction.
Learn hence, That all such unsavoury sinners as indulge their corrupt lust and affections, shall be salted with fire; that is given up to everlasting destruction in hell-fire! but every sacrifice shall be salted with salt; that is, every Christian who has given up himself a real sacrifice unto God, shall be salted, not with fire, but with salt, to be preserved and kept savoury. The grace of mortification is that to the soul, which salt is to the body; it preserves it from putrefaction, and renders it savoury.
Learn hence, 1. That every Christian in this life ought to be a spiritual sacrifice or oblation unto God.
2. That there is a putrid and corrupt part in every sacrifice, in every Christian, which must be purged out, and the sacrifice purified and cleansed from.
3. That the grace of mortification is the true salt which must clarify the soul, and with which every sacrifice must be salted, that will be a savoury offering unto God; Everyone shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Mar 9:49-50. For every one shall be salted with fire These words seem to refer to the preceding, respecting the punishment of those who will not cut off the offending members, which render them obnoxious to future punishment: and so the import of them must be, that all such shall be seasoned with fire itself, so as to become inconsumable, and shall endure for ever to be tormented, and therefore may be said to be salted with fire, in allusion to that property of salt which is to preserve things from corruption. Whitby. This interpretation supposes the word , every one, to signify the same as if the expression had been , for every one of them, namely, whose fire is not quenched; shall be salted with, or in the fire; that is, preserved from corruption, in and by it. So Mar 12:44, , for all, that is, all they, as our translators render it, all those rich men, there spoken of. So Luk 16:16, The kingdom of God is preached, , and every one, (namely, who believes,) presseth into it. And Luk 21:32, This generation shall not pass away, , till all things be done, that is, , all these things, there mentioned. The reader may see many other instances in Grotius. The sense, therefore, of the clause is, Every one, who does not comply with the preceding advice, and consequently is cast into hell, shall be, as it were, salted with fire, preserved, not consumed, thereby. And every sacrifice That is, every person who offers himself unto God in repentance, faith, and new obedience, as a living sacrifice; shall be salted with salt Even with the salt of divine grace, which purifies the soul, (though frequently with pain,) and preserves it from corruption. It is evident that there is an allusion here to that part of the law of Moses which required every meat-offering, or sacrifice, to be seasoned with salt. See Lev 2:13. Salt is good Highly beneficial to the world in many respects: But if the salt Which should season other things; have lost its own saltness; , become insipid; wherewith will ye season it? By what means will ye restore its saltness, or seasoning quality, to it? Thus, if you, whom I have termed the salt of the earth, (Mat 5:13; where see the note,) and have appointed to be the chief instruments in seasoning the rest of mankind with truth and grace, with wisdom and piety, should lose your own grace, and your faith in, and relish for, the truths of my gospel, or should cease to be properly influenced thereby, wherewith can you be seasoned? Beware, therefore, of apostatizing from the truth, and of falling from grace: see that you retain your savour, and the seasoning virtue wherewith I have endued you, and, as a proof of it, have peace one with another.
More largely this obscure text might be paraphrased thus: As every burnt- offering was salted with salt, in order to its being cast into the fire of the altar, so every one who will not part with his hand or eye, shall fall a sacrifice to divine justice, and be cast into hell-fire, which will not consume, but preserve him from a cessation of being. And on the other hand, every one who, denying himself, and taking up his cross, offers up himself as a living sacrifice to God, shall be seasoned with grace, which, like salt, will make him savoury, and preserve him from destruction for ever. As salt is good for preserving meats, and making them savoury, so it is good that ye be seasoned with grace, for the purifying your hearts and lives, and for spreading the savour of my knowledge, both in your own souls, and wherever ye go. But as salt, if it loses its saltness, is fit for nothing, so ye, if ye lose your faith and love, are fit for nothing but to be utterly destroyed. See therefore that grace abide in you, and that ye no more contend, Who shall be greatest?
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
SAVED WITH FIRE
Mar 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.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 49
A dark saying, of which no satisfactory explanation has ever been given. Salt is the emblem of the spiritual influences of Christianity; but what is intended by being salted with fire, and by every sacrifice, we cannot easily imagine. It is true that sacrifices were to be salted, according to the Jewish law; but it is difficult to regard that circumstance in any aspect which will throw light upon this passage.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
9:49 {11} For every one shall be {n} salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
(11) We must be seasoned and sprinkled by God, so that we may be both acceptable sacrifices unto him, and also so that in our being knit together we may season one another.
(n) That is, will be consecrated to God, being seasoned with the incorruptible word.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
This verse evidently alludes to Lev 2:13 (cf. Exo 30:35; Eze 43:24). The "everyone" in view could refer to unbelievers who enter hell. Unbelievers are the immediate antecedent of this verse. As salt preserves food, so God will preserve them forever in torment.
A second possibility is that "everyone" refers to believers living in a hostile world. Jesus’ believing disciples were those to whom He addressed these words. As the Old Testament priests salted the animal sacrifices, so God will season His living sacrifices with fiery trials to purify their faith (cf. 1Pe 1:7; 1Pe 4:12). [Note: Hiebert, p. 234; Lane, p. 349; Lenski, pp. 410-11; Cranfield, pp. 315-16; Taylor, p. 413; Cole, p. 224.]
A third interpretation is that "everyone" refers to every person, unbelievers and believers alike. God will subject everyone to fiery trials. He does this to believers and unbelievers alike during their earthly lives (Jas 1:1-18). He will also do this to believers’ works when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ (cf. Mat 25:14-46; 1Co 3:10-15). He will do this to unbelievers when they stand before Him at the great white throne judgment (Rev 20:11-15). This seems to me to be the best interpretation. It takes "everyone" literally and is consistent with other revelation. The point is that everyone should realize that divine testing is an inevitable part of life. [Note: H. A. W. Meyer, "Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospels of Mark and Luke," in Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, pp. 120-23, listed 15 different interpretations.]
Since this verse appears only in Mark it must have had special significance for the original readers. If they were Roman Christians, it would have encouraged them to realize that the fires of persecution were part of their calling. Everyone will experience trials (cf. Jas 1:1-18). We sometimes say that into every life a little rain must fall. We could change that a little and say that into every life a little salt of testing must fall.