Main news for 18 November 2025

According to the Law, sacrificial meat, before being placed on the altar, had to be salted. Salt became a symbol of purity and readiness for sanctification not by chance: it prevents spoilage and decay in many foods, including meat, just as the keeping of the commandments prevents the spiritual corruption of a person. But salt by itself is not enough for meat to become sacrificial: for this it must be sanctified by the presence of God that dwelt by the altar.

Jesus, however, compares His followers with sacrificial meat prepared for sanctification. The issue is life in that Kingdom which He brought into the world. It is impossible to enter this Kingdom without sanctification and transformation, and participation in its life takes place according to the measure of the fullness of such transformation. The breath of the Kingdom that accompanies the Christian on his spiritual path is sometimes called grace.

In the New Testament books Christians are usually called "saints" not by chance, meaning not righteousness as we understand the word today, but the fact of their sanctification as a result of belonging to the Kingdom. Sanctification was always regarded in the early Christian church as a distinguishing feature of Christians. And the Savior speaks of the same thing: a Christian cannot fail to be ready for sanctification; if he loses this readiness, he is no longer a Christian.

Salt that has lost its strength is something utterly incredible. Salt does not lose its properties under any circumstances; it can only become unnoticeable if its concentration, for example in a solution, is too small. Salt that has lost its strength is no longer salt, and most likely it was not salt from the very beginning. The same is true of a Christian: a Christian who does not desire sanctification, who does not seek the life of the Kingdom, is not a Christian at all. Most likely such a person never was a Christian, having come to the Church by mistake or through misunderstanding. For Christianity is not a new religion and not a new morality, but a new life.