“The Case for Christ - Salt/Fire and Light of the World”

Our text for this evening is in Mt 5:13-16 - Mt 5:13-16: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith will it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot. 

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ 

Jesus talked about the influence of salt in the Sermon on the Mount. 

And, you notice, that although He did not connect a Christian’s influence in Mk 9:50 with ‘light’, He did so in this discourse of Mt 5.

Here, He pronounced His followers as ‘the light of the world’. 

But, at another time, He spoke of Himself as the ‘Light of the world’ also. 

What did He mean when He said this of Himself?

What did He mean when he spoke of His followers as being ‘the light of the world?’

Was He pronouncing them as ‘light’ in lieu of His place as ‘Light of the world’?

When and how are His followers the ‘light of the world’? 

To answer these questions, let us first start by seeing what Jesus meant when He said of Himself, in John 8:12: ‘I am the Light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of life.’

Generally, I think most of us tend to gloss over this statement of His with some indifference when we speak of Him as the ‘Light’ of the world.

But I want you to know that when this statement was made, the personal pronoun ‘I’ is documented in the emphatic: ‘I am’!

When the Old Testament writers used this term, they were recording, in the emphatic, the words God Himself spoke.

When God said: ‘I am that I AM’, it was a highly distinctive, forceful, resounding ‘I am’!

This is what is true here, too. Jesus, the Son of God, used the emphatic ‘I am’ in the same way when He made this very profound and jolting statement: ‘I am the light of the world’!

He was using the imagery of the great Feast of the Tabernacles in Jerusalem to underscore His point. 

A very spectacular part of the celebration were the lights of the candelabra. They were high and brilliant enough to illuminate practically all of Jerusalem.

So, in those ancient days, seeing the effect of these lights was a rare and major event. 

But when it was over, the lights went out, darkness fell back over all the city and the best they could do was to wait patiently for the next great feast to enjoy the sight of the lighted city once again. 

So when Jesus used this imagery of lights shortly after the Feast of the Tabernacles was over, He was implying that they - along with the whole world - were in perpetual darkness, a darkness they could not change for themselves.

The prophet, Isaiah, complained of the groping and stumbling about at noon day as if it were night and said: ‘...we wait for light, but behold, obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.’ (Isa 59:9-10)

‘Christ’ was the moment Isaiah looked and longed for - it was He Who would exchange ‘obscurity’ for brightness. 

Then Christ did come and things did change!

He was not a temporary illumination of the revelation of God. He was not a passing, fleeting ray of light as the candelabra was during the feast.

Oh - no! He was the Light Who came to bring men out of darkness. 

He was the effulgent, blazing, brilliant light that was lighting up the whole world for all time and for all people.

Thus, it was the emphatic ‘I am’ that was so all-important!

‘For He [Christ] Whom God sent speaketh the words of God’. (Jn 3:34)

It was an astounding piece of news - in fact, ‘breaking news’, if you please!

But how did the Light of Christ change things?

Above all other things, it meant that people would come out of their lack of clarity about God.

Men were - and are - steeped in error and deception about Him.

Men were - and are - living in ‘a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and in the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.’ (Job 10:22)

Jesus changed that: He brought the truth of the knowledge of God: ‘...the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.’ (Jn 1:18)

‘For judgment I am come into the world, that they which see not might see...’, He said in Jn 9:39.

I am sure any one of us can testify of how there was a time when we did not know the way, when we were groping - when even the ‘light’ of Christ was darkness to us - can we not affirm that?  

What did the world really offer, other than a ‘temporary’ light which did not one iota of spiritual or eternal good?

It was not until the light of Jesus stopped us somewhere along the way. That is when things changed to where we can testify, as the blind man did, ‘...one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see!’

We finally were made to realize that He is the ‘fountain of life’; in His ‘light’, we saw ‘light.’ (Ps 36:9) Our darkness was dispelled!

His divine revelation and His divine presence changed our sacrilege, our denial, our disrespect and irreverence, our cynicism of God in Christ to belief and trust. 

It changed the direction of life for His light that points the way to life became a ‘lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths.’ 

It changed smut, squalor, vice, and all the other impurity of darkness to a life and thought of purity and righteousness.

For ‘Light is sown for the righteous’ and ‘unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness...’. (Ps 97:11 and 112:4) 

It changed the merely external light, as the festival lights were, to an internal light. 

It is not an illumination coming from an outside source that helps the one walking along life to see certain things, like a flashlight does that is used only when needed.

Oh - no! It is actually having the ‘Light’ within, light that is intimately involved with life itself.

John helped to explain this in Jn 1:4-5: ‘In Him, [that is, in Christ] was Life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in darkness...’. 

Darkness cannot understand nor overcome that Light, John continued to say.

And - then, in v 9 - ‘He is the true Light which lighteth every man which cometh into the world.’

All light of reason, all light of wisdom, all illumination and guiding light that reaches into the perfecting into the image of God is from the Light of Life, Christ Jesus the Lord.  

Thus, He emphatically said: ‘I am the Light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the Light of Life.’

With that background of Christ as the ‘Light of the world’, 
what did Jesus mean, then, when He spoke of His followers as the ‘light of the world?’

In looking at the figure of ‘salt’, we have already seen how Jesus explained privately to His disciples what He meant by that statement that He gave to the general populace in His sermon there on the mountainside.

He showed the disciples how those living in His kingdom, how those expecting to operate in the powerful realm of His Name, must have the moral purity commensurate with Christ.

‘Salt with fire’ within themselves would make the transformation to lift them to a true and consistent spiritual influence in the Kingdom of God, He told them in Mk 9.  

But would His followers replace Jesus as ‘the Light’ in this transformation?

Of course not. 

They are only the representations of His light, reflecting ‘as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord...’. (2 Cor 3:18)

But how could they be, then, the ‘light of the world’?

It starts with this: in the kingdom of God, there is a learning through the application of the Word and the application that comes with ‘fire’ that constrains His followers to learn ‘Christ’ - constrains them to learn ‘Christ’.

Paul spoke of this in Eph 4:17-21. He spoke of people who suffered from blindness. They walk in the vanity of their own minds.

Their understanding is darkened. Through their ignorance, they are alienated from God and are afflicted with a blindness of heart.

And the conclusion of the matter was that they had not ‘learned Christ’. (v 20)

When we combine what Jesus said in Mk 9 with the statement of Mt 5, we see, how, in essence, He singled out His followers to ‘learn Christ’.

‘This is how I kindle you: I am ‘salting you with fire’, (you are learning ‘Christ’) and this will show you how you are a light to My Light and Life’, He said to His disciples in Mk 9. 

And - it is only such learning that imparts the knowledge of Christ: 
      - that is clear -
      - that is of a good, sound judgment
      - that is according to the word of Christ Himself
      - and that creates a ‘new man after the image of
       God in righteousness and true holiness’. 

To illustrate the point, Jesus used two pictures: the first, of a city set high on a hill and, the other, of a lamp put on a candlestick so that it gives light all around.

Yes - He is the ‘City set on a hill’ for all to see. He is the ‘Light’ on a candlestick to light the way of life. I do not argue those points for that is clear.

But - all those in union with Him who have the highest privilege of partaking of His light, light their lights, according to the word of Christ Himself.

And, as Paul described it to the Ephesians, whereas they were one time ‘darkness,...now they are light in the Lord’ and walk as children of light, created ‘as a new man, after the image of God.’ (Eph 4:24; 5:8)

They - individually and as His church - are representing Him as ‘cities set on a hill’ and ‘lights on a candlestick’ to light the way for the world. 

It is true that the ‘inflow of His power and love is correctly measured and represented by the greater or lesser brilliancy of the light which reflects His beauty.’

In those who learn ‘Christ’, there is a brightness, a distinctness of knowledge where the ‘light’ shines through.

And Jesus said: this kind of influence is not lit to be hidden under a bushel.

Oh - no! It is lit to ‘give light unto all that are in the house.’ 

All earnest conviction demands expression, just as much as it affects conduct. 

We make it either our master or we become its slave.

Good, sound judgment works mightily in regard to Christian truth.

He knows it to be the highest, incomparable truth. And - as he learns Christ, he instinctively and naturally relays the Light of Christ to others.

And - the church that knows that power has caught the light of the face of Jesus Christ. It would neither want to hide it nor would it dare hide it ‘under a bushel’ where it does no good to anyone. 

It knows all too well that living in darkness is the prelude to hell.

And it knows that all over the world, including our country, there are countless and countless number of people in total darkness.

There is such hopelessness, such despair, such a maze of directions and counter-directions, such despondency and such order with counter-disorder that hope in anything that makes sense is so unreachable. 

When we see the world progressing onward in certain ways, we see how death stands all around it.

Its shadow darkens any joy that people wish for; it chills hearts and confuses the mind as it terrorizes the future.

Yes - I repeat - living in such darkness is the prelude to hell! 

But - the point is this: when Christ came, He came a ‘Light’, as the light to the revelation of God, the undeniable Light of Life. 

And His followers who make up His church have taken the torch and run throughout the land with that glorious message in their hearts and lives for the world to see.

It is the ‘Light’ of this message Who will judge and dispel the darkness of the world so that ‘they which see not may see.’

Thus - Jesus closed this portion of His sermon by saying: ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’

I will close for tonight with that as a prayer - the prayer that each of us will shine forth the radiance of Christ as we move through this coming week and the weeks ahead.

May the Lord continue to bless you very richly.

Amen!

Let us pray.