Why a Pillar of Salt?
Lot’s wife stood in her sad tracks with head looking backward as a pillar of salt on the plain. She directly disobeyed God’s command to “not look back” at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and she was turned into a statue of salt. Dead on the spot. Memorialized as a hunk of rock near cities still burning under the judgment of God.
Jesus minced no words about how we are to process what happened to Lot’s wife. “Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.” (Luke 17:32-33)
Clearly, Jesus is setting this example before us to warn us that true salvation leads to a devotion to the cause of Christ that is unmistakable. We must be willing to leave behind our sinful and selfish life to follow the Lord and His plan. We cannot “look back” longingly on the “old life” or the “familiar sins.” We must yield our heart, mind, and body to Jesus and to the work of His kingdom.
Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt. Why salt in particular? Could it have something to do with what Jesus said in Matthew 5:13? “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”
Christians are to be the preservative of the world. (Salt was used in Bible times as a critical source of food preservative, for there existed no refrigerators or freezers.) We are also to show to the world the flavor of righteousness. By our living differently and righteously, we both present the reality of what Jesus can do in making us new creatures, and we help preserve the world from God’s judgment.
Right before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham interceded for those sinful cities. However, it was determined that not even ten righteous people remained in these places, and so God decided the time for judgment had arrived. He would have spared it for even ten righteous people still standing as a testimony to God, but since there was not enough “preservative,” destruction fell.
When believers do not act as believers, or when people who profess Christianity act just like the world, what use is the profession of Christianity? When the salt loses its flavor, how damning is the outcome! If Christians are not holy – set aside for God’s purposes – and showing the world what righteousness is, they do more damage to the world than good! A person who says they are Christian but acts like an unsaved sinner leads more astray than an atheist! People look at the “worldly Christian” and say, “So that’s what Christianity is?” And the truth is perverted and hidden.
In the days of Sodom, Lot’s family lost its saltiness. There is myriad fallout from Lot’s compromised life. We have not the space here to discuss the sadness of it all. And because of the lack of righteous people, God brought judgment, for the place would now self-implode from rampant and degrading sin.
Apparently, Lot’s wife looked back longingly at the familiar place of sinfulness, when she should have been running for her life toward the will of God and His escape route! Therefore, having lost her saltiness, she became “good for nothing” as far as a testimony to the world is concerned. Instead of being the salt of the world in vibrant, forward motion with the Lord’s will, she became a statue of salt – stuck in a backward glance – with a totally divided heart toward the Lord. It’s as if God said, “If you won’t be a part of preserving the world like salt does, you will be preserved as a monument to disobedience and half-heartedness.” The very thing you rejected will be the thing that damns you.
My friend, there is no place for indecisive discipleship. When we decide to trust Jesus as Savior and Lord, we must move forward. We must not long for what “used to be,” but for what the will of the Lord is! We must run toward righteousness and Heaven, and never look back at sinfulness and Hell.
– Shelli Prindle
But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:26)