Mark 9:49: “For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.”

Mark 9:50: “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.”

The context is going to be referring to hell here because of verses 42 all the way through 48 talk about burning in hell for eternity.

And then the Bible talks about in verse 43, if your hand offends you, cut it off. Otherwise, if you don’t do that, then you can enter into life maimed and you can burn.

Mark 9:44: “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

Mark 9:45 “….if your foot offends you, cut it off.”

If you don’t, then you can burn into hellfire. So whatever body part that sins, you have to cut it off. In verse 47, this includes the eye.

Dr. Gene Kim does know that throughout the Bible, it actually mentions about Christians who can use salt for two things:

One, the tastiness, the saltiness. It tastes good. That’s positive aspect.

Two, it hurts. Because it’s supposed to heal you, purify and clean you. That’s the negative aspect.

Matthew 5:13 “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”

If you’re hanging out with a fellow brother in Christ, why are you hanging around him? Because he’s salty – fun, loving brother in Christ. The point is that when you’re enjoying fellowship with one another and then that kind of peace, and not only that when you season it, people get blessed by your saltiness. They’ve got to see you as something salty that they’re attracted to.

Now, obviously, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to offend them. One day you will offend them. You can make it bitter and you can become sour to them because salt also hurts.

We need to show to the world we’re peaceable people. We’re not some kind of rabble-rousers causing a ruckus and deliberately causing problems and we’re going to overthrow the government.

So that’s the kind of testimony we give is that even though they don’t like us for being religiously fanatic, they at least know that we’re loving people, we’re peaceful people.

Whereas right here at verse 49:

“For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.”

Fire sacrifice

So we see that sacrifice is mentioned and then the salt is supposed to be cast into there because it makes the sacrifice better. Notice that this is the case at the book of Ezekiel they do this and this will take place in the millennium:

Ezekiel 43:24: “When thou hast made an end of cleansing it, thou shalt offer a young bullock without blemish, and a ram out of the flock without blemish. And thou shalt offer them before the LORD, and the priests shall cast salt upon them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the LORD.”

So within this cleansing process and the sacrifice offering process, salt is associated with this because salt can also purify.

Now, Dr. Gene Kim has two theories in mind.

1.) Salt in purgatory hellfire

Matthew 3:12: “Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Doesn’t that match with Mark chapter 9 that we read? Look at

Mark 9:48: “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

Unquenchable fire which is hell.Right before it talks about salt in the fire. Because Matthew 3 told you it’s about purging. Catholics got it wrong, purgatory is eternal. God cannot allow sin in His creation, but the soul is eternal and the soul is eternally infected with sin. So what can God do to keep it pure? The soul burns forever.

2.) A saved believer who is a sacrifice to the Lord as salt

Mark 9:49 “For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.”

Then at verse 50, we can see a picture concerning a Christian who is on the sacrifice for God because he is represented as the salt, because Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, 6 and 7 in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:13: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”

Saved people are the salt.

Romans 12:1: “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.”

Jesus, what did he say to the disciples James and John? You will be baptized with suffering. If you look at 1 Peter 1, the Bible likens suffering to a fiery trial.

So we can see here as a picture, a second theory is that this can picture a saved believer who is a sacrifice to the Lord as a salt. Our sacrifices here on this world is as a sweet incense to the Father.

Whether you’re saved or lost, you’re going to be a sacrifice to God either way.