Mark 11:13, commentary and pictures

Hungry, Jesus saw afar off a fig tree covered with leaves, came to it expecting fruit, and searched it thoroughly but found nothing but leaves, for ripe figs were not yet generally in season. Since figs normally appear before the leaves open, a tree already in full foliage promised well-developed fruit and its show of leaves proved deceptive. The leafy but fruitless tree was an acted parable of the Jewish nation, richly favored with truth and opportunity yet barren in piety and good works, whose outward religion of ceremony and temple concealed pride, selfishness, hypocrisy and oppression. Its leaves stand for profession without inward life, while the fruit Christ hungers for and must have is humility, love, righteousness, self-sacrifice, obedience and souls won to salvation. Therefore His cursing and withering of the tree declares the certain doom of fruitlessness, fulfilled in Jerusalem's destruction, and stands as a living warning to all churches and professors to the close of history that show without service brings judgment.

Setting and Natural Meaning

Hungry, Jesus saw afar off a fig tree having leaves, came to it expecting to find fruit upon it, and searched its branches thoroughly from topmost twig to lowest bough but found nothing but leaves. Its rich foliage promised abundant fruit, yet it flaunted its flourishing branches in the very face of justice with only a show of leaves to satisfy His need. The journey was from Jerusalem to Bethany. Those who place it the other way hold it was from Bethany to Jerusalem.

Figs normally begin to grow and appear before the leaves open, so a tree already covered with full foliage gave reason to expect fruit and promised well-developed fruit. The other trees had not yet put forth leaves, while this tree appeared unusually advanced and likely to have well-developed figs. Ripe figs were generally not yet in season, especially on the elevated height of Olivet and the highlands near Jerusalem, though they could be found in some places. Its full covering of leaves therefore raised an expectation that its branches did not meet, for its lush appearance falsely suggested that fruit was present.

The tree's beautiful, flourishing leafiness was deceptive and concealed its barrenness. Jesus used it as a symbol to teach divine truth.

Judgment Upon Fruitless Israel

Finding nothing but leaves declares the doom of a fruitless people, and the withering that followed was an acted parable and a miracle given within hours to open the disciples' eyes to Israel's true condition and the retribution to fall upon Jerusalem after the vain last appeal. That last appeal had come when priests and rulers heard the multitude echo the prophetic voice in answer to who He was, yet refused it as inspiration and tried to silence the people and denounce Jesus to Roman officers as a rebel about to seize the temple and reign as king in Jerusalem. Against temporal kingship He declared He had not come to establish temporal rule, that He would soon ascend to His Father and His accusers would see Him no more until He comes again in glory, when too late for salvation they will acknowledge Him. He then passed unnoticed to the temple, looked upon it with sorrowful eyes while it stood quiet, withdrew with His disciples to Bethany, and was not to be found when the people sought Him to place Him on the throne. For the time He gave the dumb, unconscious tree moral character and made it a responsible agent to teach truth, so the disciples would ever remember the terrible result of fruitlessness.

The leafy, fruitless tree represents the Jewish nation and its kingdom, richly favored by God with truth, gifts, and opportunities yet barren in piety and good works. Its foliage gave reason to expect fruit, for figs normally appear before the leaves open and the other trees had not yet put forth leaves, so full foliage promised well-developed fruit even though ripe figs were generally not yet in season. Its pretentious appearance and lack of fruit became a sign of judgment, rejecting Christ and bringing destruction upon itself and Jerusalem, and the lesson also stands that greater light brings greater obligation and religion without fruit is vain. Its leaves showed a profession of faith, but it bore no fruit, and although the Jews continued for forty years after the event, they were spiritually dead.

Its leaves represented impressive outward religion, ceremonies, traditions, temple, and priests, concealing pride, self-sufficiency, vain-glory, selfishness, corruption, hypocrisy, greed, cruelty, oppression, and ignorance of God's requirements. The people were consumers, not producers, and the priests as representative men corrupted others by false principles. Their attractive, flourishing foliage with no fruit made a beautiful and promising show, while temple worship and ceremonies were only an outward covering for pride, oppression, and iniquity. Jesus searched the tree thoroughly from topmost bough to lowest branch but found nothing but leaves, exposing pretentious profession without fruit.

Christ came seeking the fruits of righteousness in return for the gifts and opportunities God had given so Israel could bless the world, but pride and self-sufficiency kept them from love, benevolence, self-sacrifice, compassion, and concern for others and for others' salvation. The lack of fruit represented the absence of humility, love, benevolence, self-sacrifice, and concern for others. Refusing to impart blessing, they would lose God's grace, for refusing to share blessing would leave them without it, and the tree's withering showed the ruin that would follow when grace was removed.

The curse and withering, pronounced with mournful reluctance under an offended God, shows sudden and certain ruin, righteous anger, and the sentence on the nation, with the tree withered and dead by the next morning under the power of its Creator. Its blighting represented God's righteous anger and pointed to Jerusalem's doom and destruction. That doom was joined with the cleansing of buyers and sellers from the temple courts, prefiguring future punishment of the nation. The tree's curse represented condemnation and judgment on a people given sacred responsibilities and spiritual advantages yet remaining fruitless, a nation that had separated from God through pride and apostasy and had lost the ability to recognize its Redeemer.

Brought by God's power from Egypt to become trees of righteousness for His glory and favored with every spiritual advantage and every advantage from Heaven for more than a thousand years, the nation abused mercy, invited judgment, and determined its own destruction. The tree's destruction showed the result of their choice. The curse of withering declares the punishment that must come on fruitless profession and agrees with His lament that Jerusalem did not know the things belonging to its peace.

Contrast With the Gentiles

The other trees around it, leafless as well as fruitless, stand for the Gentiles, who did not share Israel's advantages and made no boastful claim to superior piety or to knowledge of God. Unlike the single tree in full leaf, they put forth no profession of serving God and therefore promised no godliness to be found.

The clause that the time of figs was not yet describes their condition, for they had not yet received the light and their time to bear fruit as a blessing to the world had not yet come. Conscious of need and weakness, they longed for a better day and for clearer light and hope. They waited in that expectancy rather than in pretended fullness, still looking for the day of light to dawn.

Their lack of fruit therefore raised no expectation and brought no disappointment, since no show of leaves had invited search. By contrast, Israel's greater blessings, privileges, and profession made its failure more culpable, because it had abused what God had given while claiming to be fruitful.

Meaning of Leaves and Fruit

Leaves without fruit are outward show and profession of faith without inward life. They are habit without heart, as when prayer and presenting Bible truth become mere habit after first love is left, under spiritual blindness, hardness of heart, stubbornness of mind and deficiency of service. They are a show of religion without the grace of God working in the heart, exerting a harmful influence, and knowledge and religious form without repentance and faith or without God's inner work. They are saying but not doing, and honoring the law in profession while obedience is lacking, so that an apparently faithful, flourishing profession brings no glory to God.

The fruit sought is humility, love, goodness, righteousness and truth, answering goodness with heart devotion and service. It is benevolence, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion and concern for others, unselfish service, obedience, and Christlike character and works. It is piety, zeal for God and a deep yearning of soul to save fellow men from unbelief and ruin, with souls led to light and salvation. Those who truly keep the commandments are like flourishing, fruit-bearing trees.

Christ still comes to His people hungering to find in them the fruits of righteousness, and He must have fruit, not leaves alone. Leaves may appear ever so inviting, but they are not satisfying to His divine soul. When only leaves are offered, the spiritual needs of people remain unsupplied, though He pledged His life to save them by His grace and righteousness. The fruit He searches for in families, workers and institutions is virtue revealed in the life that tells in the saving of the soul unto eternal life, borne when the vineyard is worked through training and hopeful evangelistic labor.

Greater light brings greater obligation, so profession, privileges or religious appearance not matched by practice is vain. Outward claims without the fruit of a faithful life, pretension without goodness or obedience, bring judgment.

Prophetic Setting and Fulfillment

The cursing belongs to what was done after the triumphal ride into Jerusalem, recorded together with the accounts of the entry and the withering by the next morning. That ride was the dim foreshadowing of the coming in the clouds of heaven with power and glory amid the triumph of angels and the rejoicing of the saints. Then will be fulfilled the words that they would not see Him until they say Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, and Zechariah's vision of looking on Him whom they pierced and mourning for Him will be fulfilled. This is what was foreseen when the city was beheld and wept over, seeing in the temporal ruin of Jerusalem the final destruction of the people guilty of the blood of the Son of God.

It was given as a significant object lesson to open to the disciples the true condition of Israel and the retribution to fall upon Jerusalem, for they saw Jewish hatred but did not yet see where it would lead. It followed the vain last appeal to Jerusalem, when priests and rulers heard the multitude echo the prophetic voice in answer to Who is this, yet refused it as inspiration and tried to silence the people. They denounced Jesus to the Roman officers as a rebel about to seize the temple and reign as king in Jerusalem. Against temporal kingship He declared He had not come to establish temporal rule, but would soon ascend to His Father and His accusers would see Him no more until He comes again in glory, when too late for salvation they will acknowledge Him. He then passed unnoticed to the temple and looked upon it with sorrowful eyes while it stood quiet, then withdrew with His disciples to Bethany and was not to be found when the people sought Him to place Him on the throne.

For the time the dumb, unconscious tree was given moral character and made a responsible agent to teach truth, so the disciples would ever remember the terrible result of fruitlessness. Coming to the leafy tree and finding nothing but leaves testified to disappointment that the Jewish nation bore no fruit to the glory of God despite being favored with every spiritual advantage. Brought by God's power from Egypt to become trees of righteousness for His glory, yet for more than a thousand years abusing mercy and inviting judgment, they determined their own destruction. The rich foliage promised abundant fruit, and the thorough search from topmost bough to lowest branch found only leaves, exposing pretentious profession without fruit. The curse of withering, so that it withered away by the next morning under the power of its Creator, declared the punishment that must come on fruitless profession and agreed with the lament that Jerusalem did not know the things belonging to its peace. Its doom represented the Jewish nation, especially the priests as its representative men who corrupted the people by false principles, whose doom would be as sudden and certain as that of the tree, prefiguring righteous anger and future punishment and joined with the cleansing of buyers and sellers from the temple courts.

Condemned and destroyed for barrenness, the blighted tree was to stand as a living warning appeal to all Christian churches, repeating its lesson in every age to the close of earth's history. The fruitless tree is the condition of the Jews in Christ's day and the present condition of professed Christians who make a show without piety, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion for man, zeal for God, and deep yearning of soul to save fellow men from unbelief and ruin. God with heaven beholds such fruitlessness and will condemn those who trample the law of Jehovah. That includes making His Sabbath memorial and sign and covenant between Him and His commandment-keeping people a despised thing of naught, and exalting a rival spurious sabbath enforced by oppressive laws. To all who trample that ordained law is spoken the sentence spoken to the Jewish nation, Thou hast destroyed thyself.

Warning to Churches Today

The leafy but fruitless tree stands as a living warning to all Christian churches and all Christians to the close of earth's history. It represents professed Christians both in Christ's day and now who make a show without piety, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion, zeal for God, and a deep yearning to save others from unbelief and ruin. It is the formal, selfish, boastful, hypocritical professor whose outward prosperity and signs of life conceal barrenness, whose leaves are pretentious outward religion without repentance and faith. Its fate teaches that God with heaven beholds such fruitlessness and will condemn those who trample the law of Jehovah, make His Sabbath memorial and sign between Him and His commandment-keeping people a despised thing of naught, and exalt a rival spurious sabbath enforced by oppressive laws.

This vain pretense of outward profession without inward reality is hateful to Christ. It is living for self, planning and studying to please self and gathering for self in all the affairs of life instead of performing unselfish service and helping fellow men in every possible way, so that self becomes so large that he cannot see anything else and is not in touch with humanity. It is thinking oneself an excellent Christian yet not living out Christ's merciful, unselfish life and not understanding what constitutes service for God, for no one can live the law of God without ministering to others. It is observing the forms of worship without repentance or faith, honoring the law of God in profession while obedience is lacking, saying but not doing. The open sinner is in a more favorable condition before God and less guilty than he who professes to serve God but bears no fruit to His glory.

The tree pictures ministers and people and church members who profess to serve God and keep His law. Christ still comes to His people hungering to find in them the fruits of righteousness, searching its branches from the lowest bough to the topmost twig, but many have nothing but leaves to offer Him. Their leaves are outward habit without inward life, praying to God and presenting Bible truth from habit while having left their first love and lost what would make their service acceptable, fallen under spiritual blindness, hardness of heart, stubbornness of mind, and deficiency of service. Those who neglect the work entrusted to them risk judgment, withering, and loss, for such defective service is unacceptable to God.

God looks in man for piety, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion for man, zeal for God, goodness, and a deep yearning of soul to save fellow men from unbelief and ruin. True Christians use their God-given opportunities to do good and serve others, while heart devotion to Him and service answer His goodness and love. Abundant leaves without fruit represent a profession of following Christ that produces no good fruit, and the fruitless tree is therefore fit to be cut down as useless. A life that offers only profession while neglecting this fruit risks losing heaven, for to all who trample that ordained law Christ speaks the sentence spoken to the Jewish nation, Thou hast destroyed thyself.

Young people must develop the abilities God has given them and cultivate heart and character, and work with resolute purpose shaped by Christ's grace joined with intelligent and earnest effort to save souls and not disappoint Him by appearing ready while producing no useful fruit. Leaves without fruit means doing restaurant, medical, and gospel work without giving the moral remedy, the Word of life, to perishing souls and leading them to see light and salvation. To keep up such work is to play at a work of everlasting importance and to work under false pretenses, which God forbids. Fruit that must be found is souls led to light and salvation, and workers and youth must be trained and placed where sacred influences surround them so they watch for souls as those who must give an account.

The same judgment that cursed the tree for lack of fruit threatens a church that fails to bear spiritual fruit, and the Battle Creek church's institutions and outward standing do not excuse worldly influence or failure to obey God. It represents Seventh-day Adventist churches if there is no reconversion, having lost the love of God, which means absence of love for one another, while self is cherished and strives for supremacy, bringing such lack of godliness despite great light given and abundant opportunity for bearing much fruit. Jesus looked upon the pretentious yet fruitless tree and with mournful reluctance pronounced its doom, after which under the curse of an offended God it withered and died. The lesson must be applied to themselves by reforming while there is still time and by walking in the light while they have the light, or the candlestick will be removed.

Leaves-only barrenness is the condition produced when commercial enterprises for gain of means are brought into His institutions, working counter to the purpose for which they were established, bringing spiritual loss and detracting from the influence God desires to attend the work. The fruit Christ searches for to satisfy His need is virtue revealed in the lives of His workers that tells in the saving of the soul unto eternal life, which He still searches for in His institutions, for Christ hungers for fruit and must have fruit, not leaves alone. Leaves mean outward show, like families who spend much time dressing for display and clothing their children in fashionable, worldly attire, while the fruit means the character and works Christ hungers for and must have. The fig tree bearing nothing but leaves pictures churches fast being converted to the world that have beautiful music and splendid decorations yet are fruitless, and as the Lord exposed the fig tree so He will expose these hypocrites. The barren fig tree also represents some of God's appointed human helpers and resources for His people who defraud the Lord and prove fraudulent, whereas God is always an inexhaustible fountain of wisdom and strength who from age to age raises up human helpers by His appointed means, and these God-given agencies will not prove fraudulent when they do not defraud Him.

Leaves picture unconsecrated, unconverted, unsanctified lives in thought, heart, and life whose outward profession and claims conceal a life that yields nothing when examined by God. They are daily characters contradicting great light: pride, selfishness, irritability, discontent, uncharitableness, evil-speaking, and impure thoughts, desires, and passions, revealing no inward victory over sin or likeness to Christ. Their influence harms the church and does not bring glory to God. Such a person who appears promising yet bears no useful fruit is like a worthless tree at the final accounting, while a life bearing fruit brings glory to God.

The full covering of leaves promised well-developed fruit, because figs begin to grow before the leaves open, and although ripe figs were generally out of season on the highlands near Jerusalem, this tree appeared unusually advanced; Jesus found only leaves. The tree represents those who make a show of life but bear no fruit to God's glory, a profession of truth that lacks its power in the life. Its curse applies personally to those who display knowledge and religious form but lack repentance, faith, and the inner work of God, putting outward work in place of God's inner work. Christ searches closely for the good fruit of a changed life, and those who claim to be Christians but reject light and remain fruitless, displaying outward signs of life and prosperity that conceal barrenness, must undergo thorough spiritual renewal, reform, and heart devotion, or face God's curse and lose heaven.