In this apparent difficulty lies the main truth and zest of the parable. The doom of sterility, be it carefully noted, was uttered by Jesus, not so much because of the absence of fruit, but because the tree, by its premature display of leaves, challenged expectations which a closer inspection did not realise. “It was punished,” says an able writer, “not for being without fruit, but for proclaiming, by the voice of those leaves, that it had such. Not for being barren, but for being false.”[32]
Graphic picture of boastful and vaunting Israel! This conspicuous tree, nigh one of the frequented paths of Olivet, was no inappropriate type, surely, of that nation which stood illustrious amid the world’s kingdoms—exalted to heaven with unexampled privileges which it abused—proudly claiming a righteousness which, when weighed in the balances, was found utterly wanting. It mattered not that the heathen nations were as guilty, vile, and corrupt as the chosen people. Fig-trees were they, too—naked stems, fruitless and leafless; but then they made no boastful pretensions. The Jews had, in the face of the world, been glorying in a righteousness which, in reality, was only like the foliage of that tree by which the Lord and His disciples now stood—mocking the expectations of its owner by mere outward semblance and an utter absence of fruit.
The very day preceding, these mournful deficiencies had brought tears to the Saviour’s eyes—stirred the depths of His yearning heart in the very hour of His triumph. He had looked down from the height of the mountain on the gilded splendours of the Temple Courts beneath; but, alas! He saw that sanctimonious hypocrisy and self-righteous formalism had sheltered themselves behind clouds of incense. Mammon, covetousness, oppression, fraud, were rising like strange fire from these defiled altars!
He turns the tears of yesterday into an expressive and enduring parable to-day! He approaches a luxuriant Fig-tree, boasting great things among its fellows, and thus through it He addresses a doomed city and devoted land,—“O House of Israel,” He seems to say, “I have come up for the last time to your highest and most ancient festival. You stand forth in the midst of the nations of the earth clothed in rich verdure. You retain intact the splendour of your ancestral ritual. You boast of your rigid adherence to its outward ceremonial, the punctilious observance of your fasts and feasts. But I have found that it is but ‘a name to live.’ You sinfully ignore ‘the weightier matters of the law, judgment, justice, and mercy!’ You call out as you tread that gorgeous fane—‘The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord are we!’ You forget that your hearts are the Temple I prize! Holiness, the most acceptable incense—love to God, and love to man, the most pleasing sacrifice. All that dead and torpid formalism—that mockery of outward foliage—is to me nothing. ‘Your new moons and Sabbaths—the calling of assemblies—I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting.’ These are only as the whitewash of your sepulchres to hide the loathsomeness within—‘the rottenness and dead men’s bones!’ If you had made no impious pretensions, I would not, peradventure, have dealt so sternly with you. If like the other trees you had confessed your nakedness, and stood with your leafless stems, waiting for summer suns, and dews, and rains, to fructify you, and to bring your fruit to perfection—all well; but you have sought to mock and deceive me by your falsity, and thus precipitated the doom of the cumberer. ‘Henceforth, let no man eat fruit of thee for ever!’”
The unconscious Tree listened! One night only passed, and the morrow found it with drooping leaf and blighted stem! On yonder mountain crest it stood, as a sign between heaven and earth of impending judgment. Eighteen hundred years have taken up its parable—fearfully authenticated the averments of the August Speaker! Israel, a bared, leafless, sapless trunk, testifies to this hour, before the nations, that “heaven and earth may pass away, but God’s words will not pass away!”[33]
But does the parable stop here? Was there no voice but for the ear of Judah and Jerusalem? Have we no part in these solemn monitions?
Ah! be assured, as Jesus dealt with nations so will He deal with individuals. This parable-miracle solemnly speaks to all who have only a name to live—the foliage of outward profession—but who are destitute of the “fruits of righteousness.” It is not neglecters or despisers—the careless—the infidel—the scorner—our Lord here addresses. He deals with such elsewhere. It is rather vaunting hypocrites—wearing the garb of religion—the trappings and dress of outward devotion to conceal their inward pollution; like the ivy, screening from view by garlands of fantastic beauty—wreaths of loveliest green—the mouldering trunk or loathsome ruin! We may well believe none are more obnoxious to a holy Saviour than such. He (Incarnate Truth) would rather have the naked stem than the counterfeit blossom. He would rather have no gold than be mocked with tinsel and base alloy! “I would,” says He, speaking to one of His Churches at a later time, “I would thou wert cold or hot.” He would rather a man openly avowed his enmity than that he should come in disguise, with a traitor-heart, among the ranks of His people. Oh that all such ungodly boasters and pretenders would bear in mind, that not only do they inflict harm on themselves, but they do infinite damage to the Church of God. They lower the standard of godliness. Like that worthless Fig-tree, they help to hide out from others the glorious sunlight. They intercept from others the refreshing dews of heaven. They absorb in their leaves the rains as they fall. Many a tuft of tiny moss, many a lowly plant at their feet, is pining and withering, which, but for them, would be bathing its tints in sunshine, and filling the air with balmy fragrance!
Solemn, then, ought to be the question with every one of us—every Fig-tree in the Lord’s plantation—How does it stand with me? am I now bringing forth fruit to God? for remember what we are now, will fix what we shall be when our Lord shall come on the Great Day of Scrutiny! We are forming now for Eternity; settling down and consolidating in the great mould which ultimately will determine our everlasting state; fruitless now, we shall be fruitless then. The principle in the future retribution is thus laid down—“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still.” The demand and scrutiny of Jesus will on that day be, not what is the number of your leaves, the height of your stem, the extent of your branches? not whether you have grown on the wayside or in the forest, been nurtured in solitude or in a crowd, on the mountain-height or in the lowly valley: all will resolve itself into the one question—Where is your fruit? What evidence is there that you have profited by My admonitions, listened to My voice, and accepted My salvation? Where are your proofs of love to Myself, delight in My service, obedience to My will? Where are the sins you have crucified, the sacrifices you have made, the new principles you have nurtured, the amiability and love and kindness and generosity and unselfishness which have supplanted and superseded baser affections? See that the leaves of outward profession be not a snare to you. You may be lulling yourselves to sleep with delusive opiates. You may be making these false coverings an apology for resisting the “putting on of the armour of light.” One has no difficulty in persuading the tenant of a wretched hovel to consent to have his mud-hut taken down; but the man who has the walls of his dwelling hung with gaudy drapery, it is hard to persuade him that his house is worthless and his foundation insecure. Think not that privileges or creeds, or church-sect or church-membership, or the Shibboleth of party will save you. It is to the heart that God looks. If the inner spirit be right, the outer conduct will be fruitful in righteousness. Make it not your worthless ambition to appear to be holy, but be holy! Live not a “dying life”—that blank existence which brings neither glory to God nor good to men. Seek that while you live, the world may be the better for you, and when you die the world may miss you. Unlike the pretentious tree in our parable-text, be it yours rather to have the nobler character and recompense, so beautifully delineated under a similar figure three thousand years ago—“He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf, also, shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”[34]
Let us further learn, from this solemn and impressive miracle, how true Christ is to His word. We think of Him as true to His promises, do we think of Him, also, as true to His threatenings? Judgment, indeed, is His strange work. Amid a multitude of other prodigies already performed by Him, this “cursing” of the fig-tree formed the alone exception to His miracles of mercy.[35] All the others were proofs and illustrations of beneficence, compassion, love. But He seems to interpose this one, in case we should forget, in the affluence of benignity and kindness, that the same God, whose name and memorial is “merciful and gracious,” has solemnly added that “He can by no means clear the guilty.” He would have us to remember that there is a point beyond which even His love cannot go, when the voice of ineffable Goodness must melt and merge into tones of stern wrath and vengeance. The guilty may, for the brief earthly hour of their impenitence, affect to despise His divine warnings, laugh to scorn His solemn expostulations. Sentence may not be executed speedily; amazing patience may ward off the descending blow. They may, from the very forbearance of Jesus, take impious encouragement to defy His threats, and rush swifter to their own destruction. But come He will and must to assert His claims as “He that is holy, He that is true.” The disciples, on the present occasion, heard the voice of their Master. They gazed on the doomed Fig-tree, but there seemed at the moment to be no visible change on its leaves. As they took their final glance ere passing on their way, no blight seemed to descend, no worm to prey on its roots. The fowls of Heaven may have appeared soaring in the sky, eager to nestle as before on its branches, and to bathe their plumage on the dew-drops that drenched its foliage. But was the word of Jesus in vain? Did that fig-tree take up a responsive parable, and say, “Who made Thee a ruler and a judge over me?”
The Lord and His apostles passed the place a few hours afterwards on their return to Bethany.[36] But though the Passover moon was shining on their path, the darkness, and perhaps the distance from the highway, veiled from their view the too truthful doom to be revealed in morning light. As the dawn of day (Tuesday) finds them once more on their road to Jerusalem, the eyes of the disciples wander towards the spot to see whether the words of yesterday have proved to be indeed solemn verities. One glance is enough! There it stands in impressive memorial. One night had done the work. No desert simoom, if it had passed over it, could have effected it more thoroughly. Its leaves were shrivelled, its sap dried, its glory gone. Ever and anon afterwards, as the disciples crossed the mountain, and as they gazed on this silent “preacher,” they would be reminded that Jehovah-Jesus, their loving Master, was not “a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent.”