Sermon on the Mount 🌄
In 111 Days

Thus he speaks to those whom he enrolls in his kingdom. In their character there is a preserving force to keep the rest of society from utter corruption.

If they were not scattered among men, the race would putrefy. But if they are Christians only in name, and the real power is gone, nothing can save them, and they are of no use whatever to those among whom they mingle.

There is a secret something, which is the secret of the believer's power: that something is savor: it is not easy to define it, but yet it is absolutely essential to usefulness. A worldling may be of some use even if he fails in certain respects; but a Christian who is not a Christian is bad all round, he is "good for nothing", and utterly useless to anybody and everybody. Utter rejection awaits him: He will "be cast out, and trodden under foot of men." His religion makes a footpath for fashion, or for scorn, as the world may happen to take it: in either case it is no preservative, for it does not even preserve itself from contempt.

How this teaches the necessity of final perseverance! for if the savor of divine grace could be altogether gone from a man it could never be restored: the text is very clear and positive upon that point. What unscriptural nonsense to tall; of a man's being born again, and yet losing the divine life, and then getting it again. Regeneration cannot fail: if it did, the man must be for ever hopeless. He could not be born again, and again, and again: his case would be beyond the reach of mercy. :But who is hopeless? Are there any whom it is impossible to restore? If so, some may have altogether fallen from grace, but not else. Those who speak of all men as within the reach of grace may not scripturally or logically believe in total apostasy, since "it is impossible to restore them unto repentance", if any have really apostatized.

The great lesson is, that if grace itself fails to save a man, nothing else can be done for him. "If the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?" You can salt meat, but you cannot salt salt: if grace fails everything fails. Gracious Master, do not permit me to try any experiments as to how far I may lose my savor; but ever keep me full of grace and truth.

- C.H. Spurgeon, Matthew 5 Commentary