The next day when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to find out if there was anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And his disciples heard it. 11:12-14
This is one of those passages that can be a real puzzler. Why was Jesus unhappy with the fig tree, and why curse it when the passage says it was clearly “not the season for figs?” Later on (a few verses down) they actually come back on another day and find the tree completely withered after being cursed by the Lord Jesus. The answer rests in the context of the passage and the connection with His clearance of the temple. The problem was not that the tree did not have fruit; it was not the season for fruit. The problem was that the tree promised fruit by being in full leaf, but it was just an illusion.
This was exactly how Jesus felt about his contemporaries and their temple worship. It had all the appearance of righteous religion. It was a flurry of activity; hustle and bustle with sacrificial animals, money changers and a thriving economic system. Yet, under the surface, it was dead and fake. Like a “whitewashed tomb” it looked to be alive and real, but underneath it was just a dead religion for people who had no true spiritual life. If there was anything that Jesus hated it was the sin of hypocrisy. He loved hypocrites and every other kind of sinner, but make no mistake, He had no patience for the sin of hypocrisy.
This tree was a symbol of hypocrisy. It claimed to be alive and it claimed to produce fruit. From a distance, it had all of the telltale signs of life; particularly lots of leaves. Yet on closer inspection, there was no fruit and it was promising something that it could not deliver. After being cursed by Jesus it’s outward appearance of being withered and dead matched its reality. How many people do you pass every day who are like that tree? They appear to be alive and vibrant, and many even claim to be Christians. However, a closer inspection reveals that there is no spiritual fruit in their life and so they are not what they claim to be. Make no mistake about it, the bible is clear that if you are in Christ you will bear fruit. If your life never bears any spiritual fruit for Jesus then you are living a lie. It doesn’t matter how alive you look, or how full your leaves are, if the fruit is not there then neither is the Holy Spirit.
