When our Lord remarked from a distance one fig tree—probably one out of several, for Bethphage was named from its figs—which alone was in full leaf, He was drawn to it; whether this was because He saw occasion for impressing a lesson which He had at heart to give, or because He really expected to find refreshment, we cannot decide. The last motive is not excluded, for though the time of figs was not yet, still we are told that in Judæa the fruit of the fig is ripe by the time the leaves have reached [pg 097] their full size; and this display of foliage therefore gave prospect of fruit. We must not argue that our Lord would, of his superhuman illumination, have known that the tree was barren, for our Lord never uses this source of knowledge to find out what may be learned by ordinary means.
But whether our Lord approached the fig tree with the lesson in His mind or not, the aptness of the circumstance struck Him and the lesson it furnished was given on the spot. It was unusual for a tree to have leaves at that early season: by putting them forth, however, it held out hopes of fruit which it disappointed. This presented in a parable the situation of “the Jews' religion.”[42] They made a show, and contrasted themselves with other nations, they dwelt on the fact that they alone worshipped the true God, and knew and observed His laws—they invited admiration on this ground—but of all this nothing came. So the fig tree seemed to say: “See I am green when other trees are leafless, you may look to me for fruit.” It is said that this precocious putting forth of leaves shews that the tree is diseased and should be cut down, in like manner it was time that the Jewish Hierarchy should lose its office. It is to this Hierarchy that the words “No man eat fruit of thee henceforth and for ever” are really spoken. Mankind was no longer to draw its teaching from the scribes and priesthood of the Jews.
Individual Israelites might of course enlighten the world, as indeed they have done in a most remarkable degree; but the Jewish nation as a body was no longer to be the one recognised channel of God's communication with mankind. The leading people among them had wrapped themselves up in self-complacency and self-sufficiency; they had moreover enslaved themselves to the letter of their canonical books and to rabbinical traditions: they were therefore neither ready nor able to expand when expansion was needed. In other words, they were no longer fitted for a living world; which must, of its very nature, grow and change and discard all that will not change along with it; and so like the pretentious tree they were to wither away, and no man henceforth was to eat fruit of them for ever.
It would have been long before an Israelite could have brought himself to see this meaning in the words of our Lord; but St Peter must have thought over this last miracle, all the more from the apparent harshness of our Lord shewn in it—from its being the solitary instance of a final condemnation from His lips—and he must have asked himself; What did it mean?
There are many other miracles in which the instruction of the Apostles and notably of St Peter seems to be the leading aim. The walking on the water might have taught him how closely failure treads on the heels of impulse: the prophecy, [pg 099] “Before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice,” again conveyed this same lesson together with much beside: and the words “Then are the children free,” which point the moral of the finding of the stater in the fish's mouth, must have recurred to St Peter when the Church at Jerusalem was debating as to how far she could free her Gentile members from the burdens of the Law. Of this I shall speak again. I have adduced sufficient instances to shew what I mean by miracles of instruction and the way in which they worked.
Lastly we come to the important subject of
(7) Miracles as a means of proof.
The signs, worked by our Lord, whatever other functions they fulfilled, had one office which in the eyes of some apologists is so important as to drive all other functions into the back-ground. They are regarded as the main ground of conviction. The Apostles, it is true, make little appeal to the Signs worked by Christ: this may have been because they worked similar Signs themselves, and knew that their enemies ascribed them to magic. Their favourite arguments were the fulfilment of prophecy and the resurrection of the Lord. The earlier hearers were Jews, and the question with them was, “Did Jesus of Nazareth answer to the prophetic notices of the expected deliverer of their race?” The Jews we hear “were mightily convinced” [pg 100] by Apollos, not because he declared Christ's works but because he “shewed by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.”[43]
But in time the early preachers addressed themselves to the Gentiles. The Jewish notion of the Messiah was strange to hearers, who had never heard of the prophets; while the idea that God should love the world and reveal Himself to it commended itself to them, and they would expect that such a revelation would be accompanied by manifestations beyond human experience. The consequence was that, after a century or two, less was made of prophecy and more was made of miracles: and if the question “What makes you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God?” had then been put to all Christendom, the answer of an overwhelming majority would have been, “Because of the wondrous works which He performed.”
We shall see, however, that our Lord does not Himself put Signs in the very forefront of His claims to the allegiance of men. He only appeals to them as subsidiary proofs; on which He would rest His cause when, owing to the situation or the disposition of the hearer, no higher kind of proof was available.[44]