Mt. 21:18 Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away. 20 And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?” 21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. 22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
On Monday of the first day of Holy Week we have the event of Jesus withering of the fig tree. Matthew places this cursing and withering as simultaneous events. Jesus curses and the tree immediately withers. The context of the fruitless fig tree reveals that the fig tree is serving as a illustration and metaphor for the fruitless ritual of the Temple and the fruitless life of God’s covenant people, Israel. Jesus comes to the Temple and expects to find fruit and instead finds no nourishment for the people. Jesus may have anticipated early fruit on the Fig tree and finding none uses the tree as a illustration to reinforce the cleansing of the Temple.
The idea of a fruitless fig embodying barren Israel was not a completely novel idea. We find this kind of language being used in Jeremiah 8:14 and Micah 7:1. It may very well be the case that Jesus’ action is consistent w/ a framework of understanding that would have been familiar to the Jews.
The idea of the owner coming to find the expected fruit and being disappointed with barrenness or refusal, whether of Temple, or Tree, is articulated a third time in Matthew 21:33f w/ the Parable of the wicked vine-dressers. Here the landowner expects fruit from his vineyard but after the repeated sending of his representatives to collect what is to be expected, finally the landowner resolves to come in judgment upon those who will not yield up the fruit that is rightfully his.
The repeated message in Temple Cleansing, Fig Tree Cursing, and Vine-dresser’ Comeuppance is that eventually judgment falls upon those who are covenantally unfaithful and who participate in a defiant, consistent, and ongoing disobedience. In history that judgment that was promised and prefigured in all of these events came to pass w/ the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
We are reminded in all of this that when salvation comes it means both deliverance and condemnation at the same time. Deliverance for those who have been about the Master’s business but condemnation for those who have been lived w/ self at the center neglecting to yield up to God what He rightly expects and has so abundantly provided for.
There is one thing we want to explore here in conclusion and that is Jesus pronouncement in Matthew 21, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.”
Now, remember in these words Jesus is referring to National Israel. I would submit that Jesus words mean that Israel as a National entity is eschatologically irrelevant. Certainly, Jews as individual Jews have, do and will continue to be converted but these words of Jesus suggest that God is finished with Israel as a National entity. No fruit will grow on them ever again.
If people would pause and think about the implications of that last paragraph they might have to re-think their whole theology.
Original: There is one thing we want to explore here in conclusion and that is JESUS pronouncement in Matthew 21, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.”
Edit: “Jesus’ pronouncement” Showing possession of the pronouncement by adding an apostrophe.