Question: What does Matthew 24:32, 33 teach? (See also Mark 13:28, 29; Luke 21:29.) Does it mean the distress of nations at the present time?
Or is it like Revelation 6? M. D.
Is the olive tree (Rom. 11) Christ or the church? Into what were the Gentiles graffed?
W. G.
Answer: There are three trees specially mentioned in the New Testament. The vine, the fig and the olive; each teaches its own lesson.
1st. The Vine. Israel was the vine brought out of Egypt (Psa. 8:8), but it became a degenerate vine. The Lord setting it aside, said: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman,... and ye are the branches.” This was while He was on earth, and now as crucified, dead, risen and ascended to the Father, He is Head of His body, the church. Our relationship with him is members of His body. (Rom. 12:4, 5; 1 Cor. 12:12-27). This is a living union where no cutting off can be. The lesson now for us in the vine is a lesson on fruit bearing—a lesson on how to walk in communion with the Lord. We all should know how easy it is to get out of communion with the Lord, and we need to remember that He has said, “Without Me ye can do nothing (Ver. 51). The word for us here is, “Abide in Me.”
2nd. The fig tree is Israel in the flesh, that bore nothing hut leaves, though the Lord had taken great pains with it. The Lord cursed it, showing us that it never will bear fruit. (Compare Luke 13:6-9; Matt. 21:17-20; Mark 11:12-14). But in John 1:48-50 we see Nathaniel (the figure of the believing remnant among the Jews), an Israelite in whom is no guile, under the fig tree, showing us how the Lord respects the godly ones, and after the death of Christ, when the Holy Spirit came, those godly Jews were brought into the body of Christ, and into the House of God (1 Cor. 12:12, 13; 1 Tim. 3:15; Acts 2:5-47).
3rd. The olive tree is God’s witness or testimony on the earth. Abraham was called out to be this, then his children, Isaac and Jacob, then Israel, then because of Israel’s failure, some of them were broken off, and the Gentiles were graffed in. Israel had what was of God—the Word of God, Moses and the prophets (Rom. 3:2; 9:4), but now it is in the Christian profession we find what God owns. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and with us, and we have the whole Word of God—the Bible. Then the Gentile assembly is seen to fail, and these wild olive branches will be broken off, and the natural branches grafted in again. So that when the church, the body of Christ, is taken home at the coming of the Lord for His saints, the testimony will again return to the Jews, and Israel as a whole will be saved. No child of God can be broken off from Christ. He cannot cease to he one of His members, he cannot lose his salvation.
When the Jews get back into their land, and are seen prospering, it is the fig tree budding, but they are in unbelief, and do not believe on the Lord Jesus as their king till they see Him.
Till the Lord Jesus comes for to take home His heavenly people, there is no prophecy being fulfilled. The distress of nations spoken of, and Revelation 6 are to be after we are gone.
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