The Wrath of Jesus
By Kent Hughes
Mark 11:12-21 Through the years, excessively critical minds have found reasons to reject the account of Jesus cursing the fig tree as spurious. They say Jesus was acting like a spoiled child who didn't get his way. They find it shocking that Jesus would blast a poor, innocent tree simply because it was fruitless.
The fact is, Jesus didn't spitefully curse the tree just because He was hungry and found no figs there. He could do without food no less that morning than when He refused to satisfy His hunger by turning stones into bread, even though He had fasted forty days in the wilderness. Jesus was a man who would forgo food and rest to minister to a soul, as He did at Jacob's well (John 4:6-8).
No, the reason Jesus cursed the barren fig tree was that He wanted it to become a visual parable of what was happening to Israel.
In actuality He honored that tree; He has made it the most useful tree that has ever grown! It was, and is, a tree from which thousands have learned of themselves and turned back to God. If only one soul has been made to consider its life as a result, it did not wither in vain.
So, let's see what God is teaching us here.
Jesus curses the fig tree (vv. 12-14)
Three years earlier, at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus had cleansed the Temple. Using a whip made out of cords, He drove all the merchants and the animals they were selling from the temple area, and overturned the tables of the money
changers.But when He went to the Temple after His Triumphal Entry the day before, He found that it was doing business as usual. There was no change, and Jesus was grieved. Because it was already late in the day, He went back to Bethany with the Twelve.
This morning, as they return from Bethany to Jerusalem, Jesus is hungry. He sees a fig tree in full leaf. Though He knows it is not yet time for figs, He heads for that tree because it offers Him a perfect opportunity to illustrate what He wishes to prophesy. And He expects the fulfillment of His prophecy to stimulate His disciples' curiosity about its deeper significance.
The fig tree is a symbol of Israel, as numerous Old Testament passages attest (Jer. 8:13, 29:17; Hos. 9:10; Joel 1:7; and Micah 7:1-6). That it has luxuriant foliage but bears no fruit portrays exactly what Jesus has seen in Jerusalem.
Barren nation. Israel was a barren fig tree, and the leaves only covered its nakedness. The magnificence of the Temple and its ceremonies hid the fact that Israel had not brought forth the fruit of righteousness demanded by God. So, Jesus says, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again."
The curse on the luxuriant but fruitless tree means that judgment was inexorably coming. The Lord may well have had Jeremiah's words in view, "I will take away their harvest, declares the Lord...There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them" (8:13).
This is a visual parable not only to Israel, but to the church and us individually as well. Just because we look good, because we have a beautiful exterior, because our leaves are large and shinyit does not follow that we are bearing fruit pleasing to God. It is something for us to ponder.
But whatever the application to us, it was a perfect frame for Jesus' visit that day to the Temple, because He would return to the tree the next day to see His prophecy fulfilled.
Jesus cleanses the Temple (vv. 15-19)
Having pronounced the curse, Jesus walks on toward Jerusalem. As He approaches the Temple walls, He sees the cream of its marble walls and the gleaming gold of its pillars' capitals illuminated by the morning sun. Already huge Passover crowds are flowing up the steps to the great Court of the Gentilesa walled, marble-paved area adjacent to the south side of the Temple.Great throngs surge against the tables of the money changers, and huge crowds line around the stalls selling livestock, fowl, wine and salt for the sacrifices. The noise in this court is terrific. Merchants shout from their stalls to customers, and noisy, haggling, pushy pilgrims jostle one another for position.
The Lord sees this for what it isa monstrous desecration of holy ground. This has been holy ground for a thousand years since King Solomon finished his great dedicatory prayer and the glory of the Lord so filled the Temple that the priests could not enter, and all Israel knelt on the pavement outside as they saw the fire of glory descend on the Temple (II Chron. 7:1-3).
And it was there 750 years before that Isaiah, mourning the death of Uzziah, was caught up in a vision of the sovereign Lord majestically enthroned above him with the train of his robe carpeting the Temple floor. And this is where Isaiah was smitten with the trauma of God's holiness, and cried, "Woe to me, I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty" (Isa. 6:5).
House of prayer. Jesus agonizes as He surveys the vast court! In His earlier cleansing of the Temple, the disciples remembered that it was written: "Zeal for your house will consume me" (John 2:17). Jesus was being burned up, eaten up with zeal for the Lord's House. His veins were running with liquid fire!
So once again He begins driving out those who are buying and selling there. He overturns the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the Temple courts. And He teaches them, saying: "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers'" (v. 17).
That the Temple is to be "a house of prayer for all nations" is a direct quotation from Isaiah 56:7. It stresses that the Court is meant to be a place where the Gentiles could come for prayer and meditation in seeking God. But it is impossible for anyone to concentrate on anything there, much less pray and worship. This desecration of the Court of the Gentiles was a major national sin against God and the lost people of the world! And it was especially pronounced at this Passover time when the heart of Jewish religion was revealed!
What a graphic warning! A fig tree with its full foliage drooping dead and sagging. The disciples never forgot Instead of the Temple being a house of prayer, they had made it "a den of robbers". The high priests' family had perverted Temple worship into a means of extortion. But the real, lasting robbery, was spiritual robbery. The Gentiles, and indeed all seeking Israel, were victimized because they had perverted the Gospel.
Application. This brings Jesus' words right to where we live. First, it tells us how important our corporate worship is. Our worship must be authentic and from the heart. When we hear the Holy Word read, our hearts should stand at attention, and we should attempt to absorb every syllable. When we pray, we should piggy-back the one praying with our silent "amens". And we should sit with "ears to hear" under the preaching of God's Word. There must be in all of this a willingness to bend, and devote the will to God's service.
And may what we do and say in our daily lives reflect the fact that God is alive, that God is holy, that God is loving. May our lifestyle say to every seeking heart that there is something special about being a Christian. If not, may Jesus come to us and drive away the distractions.
Inner peace. Which brings to mind one final word about our hearts. It is so easy for our faces to look so worshipful, and yet for our hearts to be as disrupted and distracted as the Court of the Gentiles. Proverbs 5:14 says, "I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly." The danger, you see, is always among us.
What Jesus did and said that day came with power, and it did two things: It sealed His rejection by the religious leaders; and it momentarily captured the people's hearts. Verse 18 says, "The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching."
Jesus confirms His prophecy (vv. 20,21)
Tragically, the religious establishment and the people came to reject Jesus, nailing Him to the Cross at the end of the week, thereby sealing their fate as a nation.Jesus returned to Bethany that night, having cleansed the Temple. But then came the morning. "In the morning," we read in verses 20 and 21, "as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!'"
Mark is careful to tell us that it was withered from the roots, emphasizing the totality of its destruction. What a graphic warning! A fig tree with its full foliage drooping dead and sagging. The disciples never forgot it!
What a lesson to us as we appear to be sprouting new branches and turning green leaves. The question is: Is there spiritual fruit? Is there internal fruit? "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law" (Gal. 5:22,23).
Is there external fruit? Namely, holy lives. Are our lives an invitation to meet a holy God? Or are you liable to be forever cursed? o
Dr. R. Kent Hughes is pastor of College Church in Wheaton, 330 East Union Avenue, Wheaton, IL 60187.