Jesus Curses the Fig Tree and It WithersBible World
21:18Matthew 21:18
Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.
In the morning as He returned from Bethany to Jerusalem He hungered, and that hunger led Him to seek fruit on a leafy tree that proved barren. His hunger was hunger of soul for the fruits of righteousness in Israel, for love to God and man, self-sacrifice, compassion and zeal for the salvation of others. The leafy but fruitless tree represented the Jewish nation, covered with profession and ceremony yet bearing nothing to His glory, and with mournful reluctance He pronounced its doom as a sign of Jerusalem's coming judgment. The same barren tree stands as a living warning to Christian churches to the end of time that profession without practice and without fruit brings condemnation. The fruit for which Christ still hungers and searches in His followers, workers and institutions today is piety, unselfish service, character and good works, for only fruit and not outward show will meet the need of the world and fulfill God's will.
Time, Place, and Setting
In the morning as He returned into the city He hungered, and that hunger opens the fig-tree episode that follows. His hunger leads Him to seek fruit on a tree that looks fruitful but proves barren. The return places Him on the way back to Jerusalem in the morning, hungry at the start of that encounter.
The return was after withdrawing to Bethany and spending the night there. It was on the way from Bethany to Jerusalem. That night had been spent in prayer on the Mount of Olives.
The verse belongs to the journey and ride into Jerusalem for His triumphal entry. It is presented together with the barren fig tree and the cleansing of the temple as a subject of instruction. Like the entry and the cleansing, the blighting of the tree pointed to Jerusalem's doom. The return began a significant object lesson that revealed Israel's true condition and the retribution awaiting Jerusalem.
Meaning of His Hunger
His hunger on the way to the city was hunger for the fruits of righteousness in Israel, for love toward God and toward people, for self-sacrifice and compassion, for zeal for God and for concern for the salvation of others. He came seeking food from the tree as He came seeking that fruit from a people entrusted with gifts and privileges to bless the world, but pride and self-sufficiency had kept them from sharing truth or serving others. Their barrenness therefore exposed profession without repentance, faith, obedience, and fruitful service as vain pretense hateful to Him.
That same hunger continues as His present searching for fruit from ministers and people, from followers and workers and institutions. As He then sought fruit on a tree covered with foliage, so now He seeks righteousness in those who profess to serve Him, and finds many offering only a mass of pretentious foliage and leaves of profession because they have left their first love and fallen into spiritual blindness, hardness of heart, and stubbornness of mind. What He seeks is virtue revealed in the lives of His workers that saves souls unto eternal life, character and good works rather than empty profession, for only fruit-bearing branches meet the needs of the world and fulfill God's will for the human family. Where commercial enterprises take over, institutions fall into the condition of that barren tree, showing leaves but no fruit to meet His need, yet He still searches in them for fruit, and those who teach the gospel of salvation must feed the sheep with pure provender so its saving power is represented in every place.
His hunger was hunger of soul for response from the Jewish nation to His message and ministry in their behalf, and finding no fruit to satisfy it brought Him sorrow and discouragement over their wicked spirit and refusal to come. Believers who labor with faith and hope and earnest persevering entreaties to draw souls to Jesus and then meet disappointment after doing all that is possible can understand that sorrow. They are to consent to be partakers with Him in His sufferings, resting and trusting and believing while the Holy Spirit works with souls.
His hunger also stands for the hunger of the people themselves for spiritual fruit they ought to have received but did not receive from an apparently flourishing tree. Their spiritual necessities were not supplied to satisfy them, though He had pledged His life to save them by His grace and righteousness.
Israel and Coming Judgment
The leafy but fruitless tree was the kingdom of Israel, the Jewish nation standing out in proud superiority as a religious nation, clothed with pretentious leaves of profession. Those leaves were the outward evidences of abundant religious life, their religious ceremonies and traditions, their rich temple with its mitered priests officiating in the morning and evening sacrifices, with abundance of ceremonies and instrumental music. They were consumers but not producers, bearing no fruit to repay the Lord for all His love and care and gracious mercy and for His gifts and privileges, and bearing no fruit to His glory nor blessing to the world. Pride, vain-glory, selfishness, and self-sufficiency kept them from sharing the truth or serving others, though Israel had received God's gifts and privileges so that it might bless the world. What the pretentious leaves hid was flaunted as green foliage in the face of an offended God.
The nation proudly claimed a goodness and virtue it might have had but had no right to claim, because it had forfeited the promises of God. Those promises are plainly connected with willing obedience and can be fulfilled only when His people hearken to His commandments and walk in the way of His appointment. Refusing to pass on blessing meant no longer receiving it, so the barren fig tree portrayed Israel's sin and the punishment of losing God's grace. He came hungering at the most solemn time of responsibility for the Jewish nation, when the guilty generation that rejected Him was facing the closing of warning, expostulation, forbearance and patience, with blessing given and withdrawn. Though cursed of God it still lived as the Jews lived for forty years after this event yet was dead, continuing as a people yet spiritually dead.
With mournful reluctance He pronounced words of doom upon the pretentious but fruitless tree, and under the curse of an offended God the tree withered and died. It became a seared, withered, blasted tree, withered to its roots, left to symbolize the Jewish nation. Its doom symbolizes the sentence and downfall of the Jewish nation and represents the judgment that comes upon those who reject His mercy. The barren fig tree blighted on that morning visit was a sign pointing to Jerusalem's doom, and like His triumphal entrance and the cleansing of the temple its blighting pointed to that doom.
By contrast the other trees representing the Gentiles were not covered, leafless and making no pretension to having the knowledge of God, because their time of fruit-bearing had not yet come. The tree's curse and withering represented the Jewish nation, whose downfall was made sure. His tears over Jerusalem were for those who would soon suffer, not for Himself.
Warning to Professing Christians
The withering of the barren tree is a parable and a living warning to Christian churches to the end of earth's history, in every age, with a lesson for all times and for all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples, that religious profession without practice and without fruit brings condemnation and judgment. Its leaves picture outward profession concealing inward sin and deformity, to be formal, selfish, boastful, and hypocritical, to go through the form of worship and make a show of religion without repentance, faith, obedience, and the fruit of a holy life, which is hollow pretense and vain, worthless barrenness. Luxuriant leaves do not prove fruitfulness, for the Lord searches critically for good fruit and will expose hypocrisy and spiritual barrenness.
The image describes religious leaders whose careful observance of outward customs concealed hearts filled with malice and no fruits of holiness. It marks Pharisees and hypocrites whose fruit is briers and thorns, and pretenders who profess to have come out from the world and left its works of darkness, whom God has made repositories of His law, yet who flaunt apparently flourishing branches in the very face of the Almighty while cherishing impure thoughts, unholy imaginings, unsanctified desires, and base passions. The soul temple for which He paid the price of His own blood is seen degraded, desecrated, and defiled with deeds of darkness and sin, its Godlike chambers converted into a robber's haunt and den of thieves, and the soul that has been wept over, entreated, and borne with becomes doomed and blighted, a monument of avenging wrath. God hates the fruit borne upon such a tree, while true repentance however great the guilt is never spurned.
Its doom applies to professed believers in the last days who claim greater light than every other people yet whose daily life and unholy character belie their profession of godliness. They show pride and selfishness, peevish fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness and censoriousness, thinking evil and speaking evil of brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin, no mold of Christ upon them, and chambers of the soul desecrated to Satan's control. Such profession is hateful to Christ, and an openly sinful person is in a more favorable condition before God and less guilty than a professing Christian who bears no fruit to His glory.
The act is a lesson to reform while there is still time and to walk in the light while having the light. It calls such to be zealous and repent with true contrition of heart, to humble the heart before God, confess sins, and be converted before it is forever too late, so sins may be blotted out and the name retained in the Lamb's book of life.
Fruit God Requires Today
The fruit for which He hungers is piety, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion for others, and zeal for God to save people from unbelief and ruin. It is love for God and for people, unselfish service, character and good works, and the principles of goodness and sympathy and love which are the principles of heaven. Only such fruit, not profession, will meet the needs of the world and fulfill God's will for the human family, and He is not pleased when His human agencies utterly fail to fulfill the purposes for which they were created. When those principles are revealed in human lives, Christ is formed within, the hope of glory. Then the joy of Christ is in the souls of the members, which they can offer as a sweet oblation to God.
God demands every power of man subservient to Him and accepts no divided sacrifice, while eternal interests are neglected for earthly and temporal things. A tree with leaves but no fruit represents people who profess faith yet do nothing useful for God, whose neglected responsibilities leave their lives barren of service. They are like an unproductive tree that takes space and shades trees that could bear fruit, and such professed service without lives bearing fruit to His glory is worthless. Gorgeous apparel, fine singing, instrumental music, beautiful music, and splendid decorations without that fruit are like the branches of the unfruitful tree that bore nothing but pretentious leaves, and they do not win heaven's approval. Churches fast being converted to the world and bearing nothing but leaves will be unmasked as He unmasked the fig tree, while a congregation that may be the poorest in the land, without music or outward show, but possessing these principles is accepted.
The warning applies to churches that trample on God's law, despise the Sabbath as His memorial and sign, exalt a rival sabbath, disregard His law, and treat His covenant with His commandment-keeping people as worthless, bringing destruction upon themselves like the Jewish nation. By contrast, those who walk in the way of God's commandments will be like a flourishing fig tree full of fruit. All who keep the commandments in truth and integrity reveal that they are under God's rule and dependent upon Him for temporal and spiritual victories, so that with His presence, favor, goodness, and riches of grace as protection and salvation His people are safe although they may suffer persecution for truth's sake.
A worker must develop and use the abilities God has given so the Master finds real fruit rather than leaves. The human helpers and resources God raises up from age to age by His appointed means for His people, as an inexhaustible fountain of wisdom and strength, will not prove fraudulent if they themselves do not defraud the Lord as those represented by the barren tree did. Those who stand as teachers of the gospel of salvation must feed sheep with pure provender so the gospel's saving power is represented in all places, because only fruit-bearing branches will meet the world's need. When commercial enterprises take over, institutions come into the condition of the barren tree He found, with nothing but a show of leaves and no fruit to meet His need, and Christ still searches in institutions for that fruit.
He is the Son of God come to this world to draw all men to Him, come not to send peace but a sword. His glorious example requires followers to walk in His light without questioning the cost in labor, trial, and suffering, with a work for each and all to maintain truth in its purity, push the triumphs of His cross, and extend His kingdom. He comes to professed representatives who for years have spread their roots far and worked to destroy the influence of the messages the Lord gives His servants, and finds nothing but leaves of profession of righteousness and no fruit bearing for Christ. Many meet Him with a mass of pretentious foliage and nothing but leaves to offer, because they have left their first love and fallen into spiritual blindness, hardness of heart, and stubbornness of mind.
In the morning as He returned from Bethany to Jerusalem He hungered, and that hunger led Him to seek fruit on a leafy tree that proved barren. His hunger was hunger of soul for the fruits of righteousness in Israel, for love to God and man, self-sacrifice, compassion and zeal for the salvation of others. The leafy but fruitless tree represented the Jewish nation, covered with profession and ceremony yet bearing nothing to His glory, and with mournful reluctance He pronounced its doom as a sign of Jerusalem's coming judgment. The same barren tree stands as a living warning to Christian churches to the end of time that profession without practice and without fruit brings condemnation. The fruit for which Christ still hungers and searches in His followers, workers and institutions today is piety, unselfish service, character and good works, for only fruit and not outward show will meet the need of the world and fulfill God's will.
Time, Place, and Setting
In the morning as He returned into the city He hungered, and that hunger opens the fig-tree episode that follows. His hunger leads Him to seek fruit on a tree that looks fruitful but proves barren. The return places Him on the way back to Jerusalem in the morning, hungry at the start of that encounter.
The return was after withdrawing to Bethany and spending the night there. It was on the way from Bethany to Jerusalem. That night had been spent in prayer on the Mount of Olives.
The verse belongs to the journey and ride into Jerusalem for His triumphal entry. It is presented together with the barren fig tree and the cleansing of the temple as a subject of instruction. Like the entry and the cleansing, the blighting of the tree pointed to Jerusalem's doom. The return began a significant object lesson that revealed Israel's true condition and the retribution awaiting Jerusalem.
Meaning of His Hunger
His hunger on the way to the city was hunger for the fruits of righteousness in Israel, for love toward God and toward people, for self-sacrifice and compassion, for zeal for God and for concern for the salvation of others. He came seeking food from the tree as He came seeking that fruit from a people entrusted with gifts and privileges to bless the world, but pride and self-sufficiency had kept them from sharing truth or serving others. Their barrenness therefore exposed profession without repentance, faith, obedience, and fruitful service as vain pretense hateful to Him.
That same hunger continues as His present searching for fruit from ministers and people, from followers and workers and institutions. As He then sought fruit on a tree covered with foliage, so now He seeks righteousness in those who profess to serve Him, and finds many offering only a mass of pretentious foliage and leaves of profession because they have left their first love and fallen into spiritual blindness, hardness of heart, and stubbornness of mind. What He seeks is virtue revealed in the lives of His workers that saves souls unto eternal life, character and good works rather than empty profession, for only fruit-bearing branches meet the needs of the world and fulfill God's will for the human family. Where commercial enterprises take over, institutions fall into the condition of that barren tree, showing leaves but no fruit to meet His need, yet He still searches in them for fruit, and those who teach the gospel of salvation must feed the sheep with pure provender so its saving power is represented in every place.
His hunger was hunger of soul for response from the Jewish nation to His message and ministry in their behalf, and finding no fruit to satisfy it brought Him sorrow and discouragement over their wicked spirit and refusal to come. Believers who labor with faith and hope and earnest persevering entreaties to draw souls to Jesus and then meet disappointment after doing all that is possible can understand that sorrow. They are to consent to be partakers with Him in His sufferings, resting and trusting and believing while the Holy Spirit works with souls.
His hunger also stands for the hunger of the people themselves for spiritual fruit they ought to have received but did not receive from an apparently flourishing tree. Their spiritual necessities were not supplied to satisfy them, though He had pledged His life to save them by His grace and righteousness.
Israel and Coming Judgment
The leafy but fruitless tree was the kingdom of Israel, the Jewish nation standing out in proud superiority as a religious nation, clothed with pretentious leaves of profession. Those leaves were the outward evidences of abundant religious life, their religious ceremonies and traditions, their rich temple with its mitered priests officiating in the morning and evening sacrifices, with abundance of ceremonies and instrumental music. They were consumers but not producers, bearing no fruit to repay the Lord for all His love and care and gracious mercy and for His gifts and privileges, and bearing no fruit to His glory nor blessing to the world. Pride, vain-glory, selfishness, and self-sufficiency kept them from sharing the truth or serving others, though Israel had received God's gifts and privileges so that it might bless the world. What the pretentious leaves hid was flaunted as green foliage in the face of an offended God.
The nation proudly claimed a goodness and virtue it might have had but had no right to claim, because it had forfeited the promises of God. Those promises are plainly connected with willing obedience and can be fulfilled only when His people hearken to His commandments and walk in the way of His appointment. Refusing to pass on blessing meant no longer receiving it, so the barren fig tree portrayed Israel's sin and the punishment of losing God's grace. He came hungering at the most solemn time of responsibility for the Jewish nation, when the guilty generation that rejected Him was facing the closing of warning, expostulation, forbearance and patience, with blessing given and withdrawn. Though cursed of God it still lived as the Jews lived for forty years after this event yet was dead, continuing as a people yet spiritually dead.
With mournful reluctance He pronounced words of doom upon the pretentious but fruitless tree, and under the curse of an offended God the tree withered and died. It became a seared, withered, blasted tree, withered to its roots, left to symbolize the Jewish nation. Its doom symbolizes the sentence and downfall of the Jewish nation and represents the judgment that comes upon those who reject His mercy. The barren fig tree blighted on that morning visit was a sign pointing to Jerusalem's doom, and like His triumphal entrance and the cleansing of the temple its blighting pointed to that doom.
By contrast the other trees representing the Gentiles were not covered, leafless and making no pretension to having the knowledge of God, because their time of fruit-bearing had not yet come. The tree's curse and withering represented the Jewish nation, whose downfall was made sure. His tears over Jerusalem were for those who would soon suffer, not for Himself.
Warning to Professing Christians
The withering of the barren tree is a parable and a living warning to Christian churches to the end of earth's history, in every age, with a lesson for all times and for all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples, that religious profession without practice and without fruit brings condemnation and judgment. Its leaves picture outward profession concealing inward sin and deformity, to be formal, selfish, boastful, and hypocritical, to go through the form of worship and make a show of religion without repentance, faith, obedience, and the fruit of a holy life, which is hollow pretense and vain, worthless barrenness. Luxuriant leaves do not prove fruitfulness, for the Lord searches critically for good fruit and will expose hypocrisy and spiritual barrenness.
The image describes religious leaders whose careful observance of outward customs concealed hearts filled with malice and no fruits of holiness. It marks Pharisees and hypocrites whose fruit is briers and thorns, and pretenders who profess to have come out from the world and left its works of darkness, whom God has made repositories of His law, yet who flaunt apparently flourishing branches in the very face of the Almighty while cherishing impure thoughts, unholy imaginings, unsanctified desires, and base passions. The soul temple for which He paid the price of His own blood is seen degraded, desecrated, and defiled with deeds of darkness and sin, its Godlike chambers converted into a robber's haunt and den of thieves, and the soul that has been wept over, entreated, and borne with becomes doomed and blighted, a monument of avenging wrath. God hates the fruit borne upon such a tree, while true repentance however great the guilt is never spurned.
Its doom applies to professed believers in the last days who claim greater light than every other people yet whose daily life and unholy character belie their profession of godliness. They show pride and selfishness, peevish fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness and censoriousness, thinking evil and speaking evil of brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin, no mold of Christ upon them, and chambers of the soul desecrated to Satan's control. Such profession is hateful to Christ, and an openly sinful person is in a more favorable condition before God and less guilty than a professing Christian who bears no fruit to His glory.
The act is a lesson to reform while there is still time and to walk in the light while having the light. It calls such to be zealous and repent with true contrition of heart, to humble the heart before God, confess sins, and be converted before it is forever too late, so sins may be blotted out and the name retained in the Lamb's book of life.
Fruit God Requires Today
The fruit for which He hungers is piety, self-denial, self-sacrifice, compassion for others, and zeal for God to save people from unbelief and ruin. It is love for God and for people, unselfish service, character and good works, and the principles of goodness and sympathy and love which are the principles of heaven. Only such fruit, not profession, will meet the needs of the world and fulfill God's will for the human family, and He is not pleased when His human agencies utterly fail to fulfill the purposes for which they were created. When those principles are revealed in human lives, Christ is formed within, the hope of glory. Then the joy of Christ is in the souls of the members, which they can offer as a sweet oblation to God.
God demands every power of man subservient to Him and accepts no divided sacrifice, while eternal interests are neglected for earthly and temporal things. A tree with leaves but no fruit represents people who profess faith yet do nothing useful for God, whose neglected responsibilities leave their lives barren of service. They are like an unproductive tree that takes space and shades trees that could bear fruit, and such professed service without lives bearing fruit to His glory is worthless. Gorgeous apparel, fine singing, instrumental music, beautiful music, and splendid decorations without that fruit are like the branches of the unfruitful tree that bore nothing but pretentious leaves, and they do not win heaven's approval. Churches fast being converted to the world and bearing nothing but leaves will be unmasked as He unmasked the fig tree, while a congregation that may be the poorest in the land, without music or outward show, but possessing these principles is accepted.
The warning applies to churches that trample on God's law, despise the Sabbath as His memorial and sign, exalt a rival sabbath, disregard His law, and treat His covenant with His commandment-keeping people as worthless, bringing destruction upon themselves like the Jewish nation. By contrast, those who walk in the way of God's commandments will be like a flourishing fig tree full of fruit. All who keep the commandments in truth and integrity reveal that they are under God's rule and dependent upon Him for temporal and spiritual victories, so that with His presence, favor, goodness, and riches of grace as protection and salvation His people are safe although they may suffer persecution for truth's sake.
A worker must develop and use the abilities God has given so the Master finds real fruit rather than leaves. The human helpers and resources God raises up from age to age by His appointed means for His people, as an inexhaustible fountain of wisdom and strength, will not prove fraudulent if they themselves do not defraud the Lord as those represented by the barren tree did. Those who stand as teachers of the gospel of salvation must feed sheep with pure provender so the gospel's saving power is represented in all places, because only fruit-bearing branches will meet the world's need. When commercial enterprises take over, institutions come into the condition of the barren tree He found, with nothing but a show of leaves and no fruit to meet His need, and Christ still searches in institutions for that fruit.
He is the Son of God come to this world to draw all men to Him, come not to send peace but a sword. His glorious example requires followers to walk in His light without questioning the cost in labor, trial, and suffering, with a work for each and all to maintain truth in its purity, push the triumphs of His cross, and extend His kingdom. He comes to professed representatives who for years have spread their roots far and worked to destroy the influence of the messages the Lord gives His servants, and finds nothing but leaves of profession of righteousness and no fruit bearing for Christ. Many meet Him with a mass of pretentious foliage and nothing but leaves to offer, because they have left their first love and fallen into spiritual blindness, hardness of heart, and stubbornness of mind.