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“Now in the morning…He [the Lord Jesus] hungered. And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:18-19).
We might wonder why the Lord Jesus would bother to curse the fig tree, simply because He did not find any figs on it. I grew up on a fruit farm, and it was not unusual for a fruit tree to bear very little fruit for one year. But the next year it often produced a good crop. However, it was rare for a tree not to produce any fruit.
In this account, the fig tree is a picture of the nation of Israel, and in the broad sense, it is a picture of all mankind. We can produce plenty of leaves, which are only outward show, but we cannot produce any fruit for God in our natural state. Our old nature can do only bad things in God’s sight. That is why the Lord Jesus said, “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever.” After 4,000 years of testing, man’s trial was over; God knew He could not expect anything from man in his natural condition.
There was only one way that man could produce fruit for God, and that was if God in His grace gave him a new life in Christ. In this chapter (Matthew 21), the Lord Jesus was on His way to the cross, to suffer and die so that you and I could have a new life in Him.
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