The original promise to Abraham was twofold: "I will bless thee,"
"Thou shalt be a blessing" (Gen. xii. 2). The beatitudes correspond to
the former, the passage before us to the latter. The beatitudes are,
so to speak, the home affairs of the kingdom of heaven; the passage
which follows is occupied with foreign relations. Those spoke of
blessedness within, this speaks of usefulness without; for the
disciples of Christ are known not only by their personal character and
disposition, but also by their influence on others.
The relations of the members of the kingdom to "those that are
without" is a complex and difficult subject; but the essence of it is
set forth with surpassing clearness, comprehensiveness and simplicity
by the use of two unpretentious but most expressive figures, almost
infinite in their suggestiveness--salt and light. This is our first
experience of a well-known characteristic of the teaching of
Christ--viz., His use of the simplest and most familiar objects of
nature and circumstances of daily life, to convey highest and most
important truth; and at once we recognise the touch of the Master. We
cannot fail to see that out of all nature's infinity He has selected
the two illustrations,--the only two, which exactly fit and fill the
purpose for which He employs them. To the thoughtful mind there is
something here which prepares for such tokens of mastery over nature
as are found later on in the hushing of the storm and the stilling of
the sea.
"Salt" suggests the conservative, "light" the liberal, side of the
politics of the kingdom; but the two are not in opposition, they are
in fullest harmony, the one being the complement of the other.
Christian people, if they are what they profess to be, are all
conservatives and all liberals: conservators of all that is good, and
diffusers of all that is of the nature of light. Each of these sides
of Christian influence is presented in succession.
"_Ye are the salt of the earth._" The metaphor suggests the sad fact
that, whatever tendency to upward development there may be in the
world of nature, there is a contrary tendency in the world of men, so
far as character is concerned. The world has often made great advances
in civilisation; but these, unless counter-acted by forces from above,
have always been accompanied by a degeneracy in morals, which in
course of time has brought about the ruin of mighty states. All that
is best and most hopeful in mere worldly civilisation has in it the
canker of moral evil,
"That rotting inward slowly moulders all."
The only possible counteractive is the introduction of an element into
society which will hold in check the forces that make for
unrighteousness, and be itself an elevating and purifying influence.
Such an element Christians were to be in the world.
Such, to a large extent, they have been. That they were the salt of
the Roman empire during the evil days of its decline, no student of
history can fail to see. Again, in the "dark ages" that followed, we
can still trace the sweetening influence of those holy lives which
were scattered like shining grains of salt through the ferment and
seething of the times. So it has been throughout, and is still. It is
true that there is no longer the sharp distinction between Christians
and the world which there was in days when it cost something to
confess Christ. There are now so many Christians in name who are not
so in reality, and, on the other hand, so many in reality who are not
so in name, and moreover so many who are Christians neither in name
nor in reality, but who are nevertheless unconsciously guided by
Christian principles as the result of the wide diffusion of Christian
thought and sentiment--that the conservative influence of distinctive
Christianity is very difficult to estimate and is far less appreciated
than it should be. But it is as real and efficient as ever. If
Christianity, as a conservative force in society, were to be suddenly
eliminated, the social fabric would fall in ruins; but if only the
salt were all genuine, if Christian people everywhere had the savour
of the eight beatitudes about them, their conservative power as to all
that is good, and restraining influence as to all that is evil, would
be so manifest and mighty that none could question it.
If the salt would only keep its savour--there is the weak point. We
know and feel it after the experience of all these centuries. And did
not our omniscient Lord lay His finger on it at the very outset? He
needed not that any one should tell Him what was in man. He knew that
there was that in His truth which would be genuinely and efficiently
conservative; but He knew equally well that there was that in man
which would to a large extent neutralise that conservative power, that
the salt would be in constant danger of losing its savour. Hence,
after the encouraging words "Ye are the salt of the earth," He gives
an earnest warning which necessarily moderates the too sanguine
anticipations that would otherwise have been excited.
Alas! with what sad certainty has history proved the need of this
warning! The salt lost its savour in the churches of the East, or it
would never have been cast out and trodden underfoot of the Mohammedan
invaders. It lost its savour in the West, or there would have been no
papal corruption, growing worse and worse till it seemed as if Western
Christendom must in turn be dissolved--a fate which was only averted
by the fresh salt of the Reformation revival. In modern times there is
ever the same danger, sometimes affecting all the churches, as in the
dark days preceding the revival under Whitefield and Wesley, always
affecting some of them or some portions of them, as is too apparent on
every hand in these days in which we live. There is as much need as
ever to lay to heart the solemn warning of the King. It is as pungent
as salt itself. "Of what use," He asks, "is tasteless salt? It is fit
only to be cast out and trodden under foot of men." Equally useless is
the so-called Christian, who has nothing in character or life to
distinguish him from the world; who, though he may be honest and
truthful and sober, a very respectable citizen of an earthly kingdom,
has none of the characteristic marks of the kingdom of heaven, none of
the savour of the beatitudes about him. It is only because there are
still so many savourless Christians that the value of the Church as a
conservative influence on society is so little recognised; and that
there are so many critics, not all unintelligent or wilfully unfair,
who begin to think it is time that it were cast out and trodden under
foot of men.
* * * * *
"_Ye are the light of the world._" We need not stay to show the
liberality of light. Its peculiar characteristic is giving, spending;
for this purpose wholly it exists, losing its own life in order to
find it again in brightness diffused on all around.
Observe, it is not "Ye carry the light," but "Ye _are_ the light." We
are apt to think of light in the abstract--as truth, as doctrine, as
something to be believed and held and expounded. We quote the familiar
words, "Great is the Truth, and it shall prevail," and we imagine they
are true. They are true indeed, in the long run, but not as often
understood, certainly not in the region of the moral and spiritual. Of
course truth in the abstract, especially moral and spiritual truth,
ought to prevail; but it never does when men's interests lie, or seem
to lie, in the contrary direction. Such truth, to be mighty, must be
vitalised; it must glow in human hearts, burn on human tongues, shine
in human lives. The King of truth knew this well; and hence He placed
the hope of the future, the hope of dispelling the world's darkness,
not in abstract truth, but in truth incarnate in the true disciple:
"_Ye_ are the light of the world."
In the strictest and highest sense, of course, Christ Himself is the
Light of the world. This is beautifully set forth in discourses
reported by another Evangelist (John viii. 12, ix. 5); and, indeed, it
has been already taught by implication in the Evangel before us,
where, as we have seen, the opening of Christ's ministry is likened to
sunrise in the land of Zebulon and Naphtali (chap. iv. 16). But the
personal Christ cannot remain upon the earth. Only for a few years can
He be in this way the Light of the world, as He expressly says in one
of the passages above referred to (John ix. 5); and He is speaking now
not for the next few years but for the coming centuries, during which
He must be represented by His faithful disciples, appointed to be His
witnesses (Acts i. 8) to the ends of the earth; so at once He puts the
responsibility on them, and says, "Ye are the light of the world."
This responsibility it was impossible to avoid. As a matter of course,
the kingdom of heaven must be a prominent object in the sight of men.
The mountain of the Lord's house must be established on the top of the
mountains (Isa. ii. 2), and therefore may not be inconspicuous: "A
city set on a hill cannot be hid." It has been often said, but it will
bear repeating, that Christians are the world's Bible. People who
never read a word of either Old or New Testament will read the lives
of those who profess to draw their inspiration thence, and will judge
accordingly. They will form their opinions of Christ and of His
kingdom by those who call themselves or are called by others
Christians. "A city set on a hill _cannot_ be hid." Here we have a
truth complementary to that other conveyed in the symbol of salt. It
taught that true Christians exert a great deal of silent, unobserved
influence, as of salt hidden in a mass; but, besides this, there is
their position as connected with the kingdom of heaven which forbids
their being wholly hid.
Indeed, it is their duty to see to it that they are not artificially
hid: "Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on
the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house" (R.V.). How
beautifully does the illustration lend itself to the needed caution
against timidity, without giving the least encouragement to the
opposite vice of ostentation! Why does light shine? Simply because it
cannot help it; it is its nature; without effort or even
consciousness, and making no noise, it quietly does its duty; and in
the doing of it does not encourage but even forbids any looking at
itself--and the brighter it is, the more severely does it forbid it.
But while there is no ostentatious obtrusiveness on the one hand,
there is no ignoble shirking on the other. Who would ever think of
kindling a light and then putting it under a bed? Yet how many
Christians do that very thing when they are called to work for Christ,
to let the light He has given them shine in some of the dark places
where it is most needed!
Here, again, our Lord lays His finger on a weak spot. The Church
suffers sorely, not only from quantities of savourless salt,--people
calling themselves Christians who have little or nothing distinctively
Christian about them,--but also from bushel-covered lights, those who
are genuinely Christian, but who do all they can to hide it, refusing
to speak on the subject, afraid to show earnestness even when they
feel it most, carefully repressing every impulse to let their light
shine before men, doing everything, in fact, which is possible to
render their testimony to Christ as feeble, and their influence as
Christians as small, as it can be. How many in all our Christian
communities are constantly haunted by a nervous fear lest people
should think them forward! For one person who makes a parade of his
Christianity there are a hundred or a thousand who want always to
shrink into a corner. This is not modesty; it is the sign of an
unnatural self-consciousness. The disciples of Christ should act
simply, naturally, unconsciously, neither making a display on the one
hand nor hiding their light on the other. So the Master puts it most
beautifully and suggestively: "Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works" (not the worker--that is of no
consequence--but the works), "and glorify your Father which is in
heaven."
So closes the first great division of the Manifesto of the King. It
had begun with "goodwill to men"; it has shown the way of "peace on
earth"; it closes with "glory to God in the highest." It is a
prolonged echo of the angels' song. The Gospel of the Kingdom, not
only as set forth here in these beautiful paragraphs, but in all its
length and breadth and depth and height, in all its range and scope
and application, is but an expansion of its very first proclamation:
"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill to men."