THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE - Chapter 14 - Verse 34

Verses 34,35. See Barnes "Mt 5:13"; See Barnes "Mr 9:49,50".

Salt is good. It is useful. It is good to preserve life and health, and to keep from putrefaction.

His savour. Its saltness. It becomes tasteless or insipid.

Be seasoned. Be salted again.

Fit for the land. Rather, it is not fit for land—-that is, it will not bear fruit of itself. You cannot sow or plant on it.

Nor for the dunghill. It is not good for manure. It will not enrich the land.

Cast it out. They throw it away as useless.

He that hath ears, &c. See Mt 11:15. You are to understand that he that has not grace in his heart; who merely makes a profession of religion, and who sustains the same relation to true piety that this insipid and useless mass does to good salt, is useless in the church, and will be rejected. Real piety, true religion, is of vast value in the world. It keeps it pure, and saves it from corruption, as salt does meat; but a mere profession of religion is fit for nothing, it does no good. It is a mere encumbrance, and all such professors are fit only to be cast out and rejected. All such must be rejected by the Son of God, and cast into a world of wretchedness and despair. Comp. Mt 7:22,23; Mt 8:12; 23:30; 25:30; Re 3:16; Job 8:13; Job 26:13.

{d} "but men cast it out" Joh 15:6