I was privileged recently to be conducted through some experimental plots belonging to the College of Agriculture of the University of California by a member of its faculty who is a devout Christian. The trip was very interesting and supplied examples of some well-known truths of Scripture, which opened up material for thoughtful consideration.
One plot was a row of large, fully developed pear trees. They gave evidence of being well cared for and their foliage was a good green color. At one end of the row, the trees were loaded with beautiful and almost perfect fruit. Such healthy pear trees would have been an asset in any man’s pear orchard. At the other end of the row, the pear trees appeared to be healthy and vigorous, but here the Christian plant pathologist paused and plucked some fruit; it was worthless. The fruit was shriveled and knotty. It was astounding that trees so near to each other and of the same outward appearance as to foliage and vigor should bear such vastly different fruit. What was the explanation? Could there be a simple answer for the seeming mystery?
The Bad Tree
The scientist explained the reason for the bad fruit. We will quote his words: “Those trees are bad, and there is nothing that can be done for them; they have a viral disease that pervades them from the roots to every extremity. They cannot produce good fruit.” Together we then spoke of the Lord’s words: “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Matt. 7:18). A tree is judged according to the quality of its fruit, and so with men. John the Baptist searched the hearts of his would-be followers by saying, “The ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matt. 3:10). Mere religion or profession will not correct the root cause. Adam fell and pulled down his whole posterity, and every man from that day onward has been born with an evil nature which can bring forth only evil fruit. What man needs is a complete change, a new birth, a new life, so he can bring forth fruit for God. Otherwise he will be cut down and cast into the lake of fire.
Hopelessly Bad
Another comment by the scientist gave emphasis to a picture of man’s hopeless condition apart from a complete rebirth. Referring to the bad trees he said, “No amount of pruning, watering, spraying or fertilizing will improve those trees or their fruit. To give them special culture would only increase the bad fruit they would bear.” Here was food for meditation: Could not man be improved by education? by environment? or by any of the means so often tried? Alas, no. Man by nature is as hopelessly bad as those diseased trees. He may indeed present an outward appearance which compares favorably with those who have a new life from God, and yet his heart be unchanged; it is enmity toward God. This led us to reflect on all that had been done to improve man, apart from God and new birth. Many and varied are the means that have been tried to give the world a moral uplift — to stop things like vice, crime, blasphemy, murder and war. Have they changed man? No. In fact, it might be said that educated man has only become more prolific in the production of bad fruit. Wars, for instance, were bad enough before men became so civilized; now they are frightfully worse. Men used to kill one another by club or sword in hand-to-hand combat; now with a higher degree of civilization men have discovered how to wipe out the inhabitants of a whole city with one blast, or to destroy all the crops of another country with chemicals and so bring famine upon the populace, or to spread the worst plagues by biological warfare and thus wipe out a people by disease. It is just as true of the highly civilized people of the mid-twentieth century as it was of the heathen world before Christ came — “The way of peace have they not known,” and “destruction and misery are in their ways.”
Sin From Within
The disease pervading those bad pear trees is like sin, the root and nature in fallen mankind, which in activity produces wicked acts. “From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22). The Epistle to the Romans carefully distinguishes between sins (the acts committed) and sin (the nature which bears bad fruit). Romans 5:11 concludes that portion of the epistle dealing with the subject of sins, and the next verse begins the subject of sin. For sins God has forgiveness for all who believe in the Lord Jesus, and He has been proved righteous in forgiving their sins because of the work of Christ. For sin, God has only condemnation; He “condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). He treats the old nature as beyond improvement, and passes sentence on it. Chapter 7 of the epistle shows the struggles of one trying to mend what is unable to be mended, and then the struggling one finds full deliverance in the last verse of that chapter and the first verse of chapter 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” He is now in a new position entirely — “in Christ Jesus” — and has power to walk after the Spirit (vs. 4).
The Progeny
There was another comment of interest on the bad pear trees, and that was that they could not produce progeny that would be any better. No young trees derived from those bad ones would be better than the parent stock. How true that is of the human pattern we have been considering! The offspring of fallen man is also fallen. The innocent babe has within it the bad stock that will in maturity bring forth the same evil fruit.
The plant pathologist’s final comment on the pear trees pointed up another likeness to the human family. He said, “Even grafting in a branch from a good tree will not improve the condition of a bad tree.” In like manner, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6); it can never be anything else. And when a man repents and believes the gospel, and consequently receives a new life from God which can bring forth good fruit, that does not improve his old nature one particle. It is a lie of the devil to say either that the old nature can be improved, or that because one is saved the old nature can be burned out. We Christians have a wholly new life, but we also carry the flesh with us, and if it is not judged and kept in the place of death it will bear the ugly fruit of which it is only capable.
P. Wilson (adapted)