And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.
The morning after the curse, as Jesus and the disciples passed by toward the city again, Peter remembered and called Him Master and pointed out that the tree was dried to its roots with blasted branches. The disciples were astonished because the act stood alone among His works, for they had known Him only as Restorer and Healer who came to save and not to destroy, and the tree had put forth full leaves unusually early when fruit should have appeared before the leaves, yet bore none. The leafy but fruitless tree was an acted parable of Israel and Jerusalem, whose showy foliage represented outward religious profession and claims of superior piety without humility, love, good works and the fruits of righteousness. Its withering from root to branch under the curse revealed the nation's true condition and its certain, sudden ruin when grace was withdrawn, fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple after long abuse of privileges and opportunities to bless the world. It stands as a living warning to all churches and Christians to the close of earth's history, for God looks beneath outward appearance for piety, self-sacrifice, compassion and unselfish service, and hollow profession without repentance, faith and ministering to others is hateful to Him and will be brought low.
Tree Peter Saw Withered
The morning after the cursing, as Jesus and the disciples passed by on the way to the city again, they found the fig tree dried to its roots. Its blasted branches and drooping leaves drew their attention, showing the tree withered away. Its rapid withering by the next morning completed the parable and confirmed the result of the symbolic act.
Peter, calling the curse to remembrance, addressed Jesus as Master and pointed out that the tree He had cursed the day before had withered away. His words expressed the astonishment of the disciples, who questioned what the purpose of cursing the tree could be. The act seemed unlike Jesus and stood alone among His ways and works. They had known Him only as Restorer and Healer whose wonderful works restored and never destroyed, for He had come not to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved, and not to destroy lives but to save them, to save and restore and not to destroy.
The tree had displayed full leaves unusually early, when fruit could be expected because figs appear before leaves, but it bore none. The other leafy trees around represented the Gentiles, who made no claim to know God and whose time to bear fruit had not yet come.
Judgment on Fruitless Israel
The leafy but fruitless tree was an acted parable of Israel and Jerusalem, showing the disciples their true condition and the retribution awaiting the city. Its showy, pretentious foliage represented outward religious profession and claims of superior piety, with forms of worship but without humility, love, benevolence, piety, good works and the fruits of righteousness. The tree stood in full leaf unusually early, when fruit could be expected because figs appear before leaves, yet it bore none, just as the nation made an outward display that concealed corruption and lack of spiritual fruit. Its leaders were corrupting the people with false principles while professing devotion to God.
God had granted Israel many privileges, truth, gifts, spiritual advantages and opportunities to bless the world, bringing them from Egypt to become trees of righteousness for His glory. What He sought from them was self-sacrifice, compassion, zeal for God, concern for others, love to God and man expressed in unselfish service, and willingness to share His gifts. Instead in pride and apostasy they separated from God, lost discernment, failed to recognize their Redeemer, withheld blessing from the world, and by refusing to share blessing ceased to receive it. After more than a thousand years of abusing mercy, inviting judgments and determining their own destruction, punishment must come, in harmony with Christ's lament over Jerusalem missing its day of peace.
The tree's withering from root to branch under Christ's curse completed the parable and exposed Israel's condition when grace was withdrawn. Peter's noticing the withered tree is presented as the sign of a doomed people, whose doom would be sudden and certain like the sudden withering that confirmed the curse. That ruin was the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. The withered tree served as an object lesson about Israel's rejection of Christ and the judgment that would follow.
The rapid destruction was purposeful, not a usual work of a ministry marked by mercy and restoration, but a display of Christ's disappointment, mournful reluctance, and righteous anger and vengeance against a rejected God. The barren, leafy tree symbolized Jerusalem as outwardly flourishing but without the spiritual fruit God sought, teaching the disciples of its final doom. The nation remained outwardly alive for forty years after the event but was spiritually dead. Pretentious hypocrites will be brought low.
Warning to Christians Today
The withered tree stands as a living warning for all time to all churches and to all Christians to the close of earth's history, and its lesson repeats in every age because present churches are in the same fruitless condition as the Jews were in Christ's day. What was judged in Israel is judged again wherever outward religious display conceals lack of good works and genuine devotion, in professed Christians who appear godly yet remain selfish, hypocritical and fruitless. The tree with pretentious branches but no fruit was condemned and destroyed for bearing nothing, and so formal profession without fruit to God's glory falls under the same sentence.
God looks beneath outward appearance and distinguishes pretenders from those who bear fruit through good works and unselfish deeds. What He looks for is fruit in piety, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion, zeal for God, and a deep yearning to save others from unbelief and ruin, but instead He sees a fruitless fig tree trampling the law of Jehovah. No one can live the law of God without ministering to others, for those who live for self, planning and acting only to please and gather for themselves, are like the tree, full of pretension but fruitless. They observe the forms of worship without repentance or faith, profess to honor the law of God while obedience is lacking, and say but do not, and in the withering of the tree is shown how hateful vain pretense is in His eyes. Outward profession, knowledge and religious form are like foliage without fruit and cannot take the place of repentance and faith, but only conceal inward barrenness.
Formal worship without repentance and faith is hollow pretense, hateful to Christ, and the open sinner is less guilty and in a more favorable condition before God than one who professes to serve God but bears no fruit to His glory. The curse therefore has a personal application calling for conversion, lest that judgment fall on the person, since outward religious profession cannot conceal an unholy character or replace the inward putting away of sin. Only those cleansed in the blood of the Lamb will endure God's test, so God's people are to apply the lesson to themselves, to reform while there is still time and to walk in the light while they have the light. Those who claim great light and godliness but live in sin resemble a tree with leaves and no fruit, and those who do not turn to God face the curse represented by the tree.
The same fruitlessness appears when men make God's memorial, the sign between Him and His commandment-keeping people, a thing of naught to be despised, while exalting the rival spurious sabbath as the great golden image was exalted in the plains of Dura. Claimed Christians call the world to worship the image they have made, which is the mystery of iniquity carried into effect by the man of sin, and all who will not observe the spurious sabbath will be placed under oppressive laws, repeating the ceremony, formalism, vainglory and oppression of Nebuchadnezzar. The blighted tree withered to its very roots under the righteous vengeance of a rejected God pictures what becomes of a person purchased at the infinite price of the agony and death of the Son of God who slights proffered mercy, rejects present privileges and the voice of admonition and warning, and continues in unbelief, impenitence and disobedience, with the soul-temple desecrated by sin as the courts of the Jerusalem temple were desecrated. The withered tree also represents those who defraud the Lord, in contrast to the human helpers and resources God from age to age raises up for His people by His appointed means, which will not prove fraudulent if they themselves do not defraud the Lord as those represented by the barren tree did.
The morning after the curse, as Jesus and the disciples passed by toward the city again, Peter remembered and called Him Master and pointed out that the tree was dried to its roots with blasted branches. The disciples were astonished because the act stood alone among His works, for they had known Him only as Restorer and Healer who came to save and not to destroy, and the tree had put forth full leaves unusually early when fruit should have appeared before the leaves, yet bore none. The leafy but fruitless tree was an acted parable of Israel and Jerusalem, whose showy foliage represented outward religious profession and claims of superior piety without humility, love, good works and the fruits of righteousness. Its withering from root to branch under the curse revealed the nation's true condition and its certain, sudden ruin when grace was withdrawn, fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple after long abuse of privileges and opportunities to bless the world. It stands as a living warning to all churches and Christians to the close of earth's history, for God looks beneath outward appearance for piety, self-sacrifice, compassion and unselfish service, and hollow profession without repentance, faith and ministering to others is hateful to Him and will be brought low.
Tree Peter Saw Withered
The morning after the cursing, as Jesus and the disciples passed by on the way to the city again, they found the fig tree dried to its roots. Its blasted branches and drooping leaves drew their attention, showing the tree withered away. Its rapid withering by the next morning completed the parable and confirmed the result of the symbolic act.
Peter, calling the curse to remembrance, addressed Jesus as Master and pointed out that the tree He had cursed the day before had withered away. His words expressed the astonishment of the disciples, who questioned what the purpose of cursing the tree could be. The act seemed unlike Jesus and stood alone among His ways and works. They had known Him only as Restorer and Healer whose wonderful works restored and never destroyed, for He had come not to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved, and not to destroy lives but to save them, to save and restore and not to destroy.
The tree had displayed full leaves unusually early, when fruit could be expected because figs appear before leaves, but it bore none. The other leafy trees around represented the Gentiles, who made no claim to know God and whose time to bear fruit had not yet come.
Judgment on Fruitless Israel
The leafy but fruitless tree was an acted parable of Israel and Jerusalem, showing the disciples their true condition and the retribution awaiting the city. Its showy, pretentious foliage represented outward religious profession and claims of superior piety, with forms of worship but without humility, love, benevolence, piety, good works and the fruits of righteousness. The tree stood in full leaf unusually early, when fruit could be expected because figs appear before leaves, yet it bore none, just as the nation made an outward display that concealed corruption and lack of spiritual fruit. Its leaders were corrupting the people with false principles while professing devotion to God.
God had granted Israel many privileges, truth, gifts, spiritual advantages and opportunities to bless the world, bringing them from Egypt to become trees of righteousness for His glory. What He sought from them was self-sacrifice, compassion, zeal for God, concern for others, love to God and man expressed in unselfish service, and willingness to share His gifts. Instead in pride and apostasy they separated from God, lost discernment, failed to recognize their Redeemer, withheld blessing from the world, and by refusing to share blessing ceased to receive it. After more than a thousand years of abusing mercy, inviting judgments and determining their own destruction, punishment must come, in harmony with Christ's lament over Jerusalem missing its day of peace.
The tree's withering from root to branch under Christ's curse completed the parable and exposed Israel's condition when grace was withdrawn. Peter's noticing the withered tree is presented as the sign of a doomed people, whose doom would be sudden and certain like the sudden withering that confirmed the curse. That ruin was the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. The withered tree served as an object lesson about Israel's rejection of Christ and the judgment that would follow.
The rapid destruction was purposeful, not a usual work of a ministry marked by mercy and restoration, but a display of Christ's disappointment, mournful reluctance, and righteous anger and vengeance against a rejected God. The barren, leafy tree symbolized Jerusalem as outwardly flourishing but without the spiritual fruit God sought, teaching the disciples of its final doom. The nation remained outwardly alive for forty years after the event but was spiritually dead. Pretentious hypocrites will be brought low.
Warning to Christians Today
The withered tree stands as a living warning for all time to all churches and to all Christians to the close of earth's history, and its lesson repeats in every age because present churches are in the same fruitless condition as the Jews were in Christ's day. What was judged in Israel is judged again wherever outward religious display conceals lack of good works and genuine devotion, in professed Christians who appear godly yet remain selfish, hypocritical and fruitless. The tree with pretentious branches but no fruit was condemned and destroyed for bearing nothing, and so formal profession without fruit to God's glory falls under the same sentence.
God looks beneath outward appearance and distinguishes pretenders from those who bear fruit through good works and unselfish deeds. What He looks for is fruit in piety, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion, zeal for God, and a deep yearning to save others from unbelief and ruin, but instead He sees a fruitless fig tree trampling the law of Jehovah. No one can live the law of God without ministering to others, for those who live for self, planning and acting only to please and gather for themselves, are like the tree, full of pretension but fruitless. They observe the forms of worship without repentance or faith, profess to honor the law of God while obedience is lacking, and say but do not, and in the withering of the tree is shown how hateful vain pretense is in His eyes. Outward profession, knowledge and religious form are like foliage without fruit and cannot take the place of repentance and faith, but only conceal inward barrenness.
Formal worship without repentance and faith is hollow pretense, hateful to Christ, and the open sinner is less guilty and in a more favorable condition before God than one who professes to serve God but bears no fruit to His glory. The curse therefore has a personal application calling for conversion, lest that judgment fall on the person, since outward religious profession cannot conceal an unholy character or replace the inward putting away of sin. Only those cleansed in the blood of the Lamb will endure God's test, so God's people are to apply the lesson to themselves, to reform while there is still time and to walk in the light while they have the light. Those who claim great light and godliness but live in sin resemble a tree with leaves and no fruit, and those who do not turn to God face the curse represented by the tree.
The same fruitlessness appears when men make God's memorial, the sign between Him and His commandment-keeping people, a thing of naught to be despised, while exalting the rival spurious sabbath as the great golden image was exalted in the plains of Dura. Claimed Christians call the world to worship the image they have made, which is the mystery of iniquity carried into effect by the man of sin, and all who will not observe the spurious sabbath will be placed under oppressive laws, repeating the ceremony, formalism, vainglory and oppression of Nebuchadnezzar. The blighted tree withered to its very roots under the righteous vengeance of a rejected God pictures what becomes of a person purchased at the infinite price of the agony and death of the Son of God who slights proffered mercy, rejects present privileges and the voice of admonition and warning, and continues in unbelief, impenitence and disobedience, with the soul-temple desecrated by sin as the courts of the Jerusalem temple were desecrated. The withered tree also represents those who defraud the Lord, in contrast to the human helpers and resources God from age to age raises up for His people by His appointed means, which will not prove fraudulent if they themselves do not defraud the Lord as those represented by the barren tree did.