Every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt. - Leviticus 2:13
Every minute detail, both in substance and service in the ceremonial law ordained by God for the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, points to and is a picture of our blessed Redeemer. The significance of salt is obvious in this verse and is no less than required hereafter with every meat sacrifice offered.
Salt has at least two outstanding and beneficial uses. One is to give desirable and satisfying flavor to food. Another is to preserve food from perishing. Not only is the meat offered a type of our substitute, the salt is as well. He is the Salt of the everlasting covenant of grace. Without him there would only be a covenant of works and it would be tasteless and even less satisfying and consequently a ministration of death.
As we eat of Him, he is that meat which is salted with all of his graces in his accomplished work, as he is our Redeemer and satisfies his Father and the taste of the inward man. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg? (Jb 6:6). It is Christ in you that makes his people the salt of the earth. Ye are the salt of the earth (Mat 5:13).
The Lord Jesus Christ is our preservation as well. The covenant of grace is an everlasting covenant because Christ is the salt, or surety of that covenant. As long as he endures we will endure. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed (Jn 6:27). A message without Christ is a message without salt. It has no desirable taste and absolutely no enduring benefits.
In the Salt Room there was an abundance of salt to saturate the sacrifice. In the Gospel there is an abundance of Christ. By God’s grace may we labor for that Meat which satisfies the soul and endureth unto everlasting life.