Jesus saw a fig tree that differed from the rest of the many fig trees of the region in that it was in full leaf though the season of fruit had not yet come. It is well known that the fruit-buds of a fig-tree appear earlier than do the leaves, and that by the time the tree is in full foliage the figs are well advanced toward maturity. It would be reasonable, therefore, for one to expect to find edible figs even in early April on a tree that was already covered with leaves. The unripe fruit is relished in the Orient at the present time.
When Jesus and His party reached this particular tree, they found on it nothing but leaves; it was a showy, fruitless, barren tree. Jesus pronounced upon that tree the sentence of perpetual barrenness. "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever" He said according to Mark's account; or, as Matthew records the judgment, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever" The latter writer tells us in immediate sequence that "presently the fig tree withered away"; but the former makes it appear that the effect of the curse was not observed until the following morning, when Jesus and the apostles were once again on the way between Bethany and Jerusalem.
Peter called attention to the blasted tree, and, addressing Jesus, exclaimed: "Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away." Applying the lesson of the occasion, Jesus said, "Have faith in God"; and then He repeated some of His former assurances as to the power of faith, by which even mountains may be removed. The blighting of a tree was shown to be small in comparison with the greater possibilities of achievement through faith and prayer. But to so achieve one must work and pray without reservation or doubt, as the Lord thus made plain: "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them
The blighting of the barren fig tree is regarded by many as unique among the recorded miracles of Christ. While all the others were wrought for relief, blessing, and beneficent purposes generally, this one appears as an act of judgment and destructive execution. Nevertheless, in this miracle the Lord's purpose is not hidden; and the result, while fatal to a tree, is of lasting blessing to all who would learn and profit, by the works of God.
If no more has been accomplished by the miracle than the presenting of so impressive an object lesson for the instructions that followed, that smitten tree has proved of greater service to humanity than have all the fig orchards of Bethphage. To the apostles the act was another and an indisputable proof of the Lord's power over nature, His control of natural forces and all material things. He had healed multitudes; the wind and the waves had obeyed His words; on three occasions He had restored the dead to life. It was fitting that He should demonstrate His power to smite and to destroy.
The fate that befell the barren fig tree is instructive from another point of view. The incident is as much parable as miracle. That leafy tree was distinguished among fig trees; the others offered no invitation, gave no promise. For those who responded to its ostentatious invitation, for the hungering Christ who came seeking fruit, it had naught but leaves.
Even for the purposes of the lesson involved, we cannot conceive of the tree being blighted primarily because it was fruitless. It was made the object of the curse and the subject of the Lord's instructive discourse, because, having leaves, it was deceptively barren. Were it reasonable to regard the tree as possessed of moral agency, we would have to pronounce it a hypocrite. The leafy, fruitless tree was a symbol of Judaism, which loudly proclaimed itself as the only true religion of the age. When in truth it was but an unnatural growth of leaves, with no fruit of the season, nor even an edible bulb held over from earlier years. Such as it had of former fruitage was dried to worth
The religion of Israel had degenerated into an artificial religionism, which in pretentious show and empty profession outclassed the abominations of heathendom. Within the temple grounds Jesus was filled with indignation at the scene of tumult and desecration which the place presented. The fig tree was a favorite type in rabbinical representation of the Jewish race, and the Lord had before adopted the symbolism in the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree, that worthless growth which did but cumber the ground.
Within four days of the cross, He cleared the courts again by casting out all "them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves" "Is it not written," He demanded of them in wrath, "My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves." On the former occasion, before He had declared or even confessed His Messiahship, He had designated the temple as "My Father's house"; now that He had openly avowed himself to be the Christ, He called it "My House"
The means by which the later expulsion was accomplished are not stated, but it is plain that none could withstand His authoritative command. He acted in the strength of righteousness, before which the forces of evil had to give way. His wrath of indignation was followed by the calmness of gentle ministry. There in the cleared courts of His house, blind and lame folk came limping and groping about Him, and He healed them. The anger of the chief priests and scribes was raging against Him; but it was impotent. They had decreed His death, and had made repeated efforts to take Him. They were afraid to touch Him because of the common people, whom they professed to despize yet heartily feared.
The rage of the officials was further aggravated by a touching incident, which seems to have accompanied or to have immediately followed His merciful healing of the afflicted folk at the temple. Children saw what He did; with their innocent minds yet unsullied by the prejudice of tradition and their sight yet undarkened by sin, they perceived in Him the Christ. They burst forth into praise and worship in a hymn that was heard by the angels: "Hosanna to the son of David." With ill-concealed anger the temple officials demanded of Him: "Hearest thou what these say?" They probably expected Him to disclaim the title, or possibly hoped that He would reassert His claim in a manner that would afford excuse
Jesus answered, with an implied rebuke for their ignorance of the scriptures: "Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" It was now Monday evening; Jesus left the city and retired again to Bethany, where He lodged. This course was a prudent one, in view of the determination of the rulers to get Him into their power provided they could do so without arousing the people. This they could not accomplish by day, for wherever He appeared He was the center of a multitude. But had He remained in Jerusalem over night the vigilant emissaries of the hierarchy might have succeeded in taking Him, unless He withstood them by some miraculous action.
On the following day, that is on Tuesday, He returned to the temple with the Twelve, passing the withered fig tree on the way and impressing the moral of the combined miracle and parable as we have already seen. As He taught in the sacred place, preaching the gospel to all who would hear, the chief priests with a number of scribes and elders came upon Him in a body. They had been debating about Him over night, and had resolved on at least one step; they would challenge His authority for what He had done the day before. They were the guardians of the temple, both the material structure and the theocratic system for which the holy edifice stood. So this official deputation, with plans matured
and who gave thee this authority?" This action was doubtless a preliminary step in a preconcerted attempt to suppress the activities of Jesus, both of word and deed, within the temple precincts. It will be remembered that after the first cleansing of the temple, the Jews had angrily demanded of Jesus a sign by which they might judge the question of His divine commission. To ask a further sign would have been to flagrantly expose themselves to the ridicule of the people. They knew what authority the Lord claimed; their question was of sinister purpose.
Jesus did not condescend to voice an answer in which they could possibly find further excuse for antagonizing Him. They consulted among themselves as to what answer would best serve to extricate them from an embarrassing position. No mention is made of any attempt to ascertain the truth and reply accordingly. They were thoroughly nonplussed. Should they answer that John's baptism was of God, Jesus would probably demand of them why then they had not believed in the Baptist, and why they did not accept John's testimony concerning Himself.
On the other hand, should they aver that John had no divine authority to preach and baptize, the people would turn against them, for the martyred Baptist was revered by the masses as a prophet. In spite of their boasted learning, they answered as puzzled school-boys might do when they perceive hidden difficulties in what at first seemed but a simple problem. "We cannot tell" said they. Then Jesus replied "Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things." Chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people were outwitted and humiliated. The tables were completely turned upon them; Jesus, whom they had come to question, became the examiner; they a class of cowed and unwilling listeners.
The opening sentence, "But what think ye?" was a call to close attention. It implied a question soon to follow: Which of the two sons was the obedient one? There was but one consistent answer, and they had to give it, however loath. The first. John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans and the harlots believed him. And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.
The application of the parable followed with convicting promptness. They, the chief priests, scribes, Pharisees and elders of the people, were typified by the second son. The publicans and sinners upon whom they vented their contempt, whose touch was defilement, were like unto the first son, who in rude though frank refusal ignored the father's call. But afterward relented and set to work, repentantly hoping to make amends for the time he had lost and for the unfilial spirit he had shown.
John's call had been to no particular class; but while self-confessed sinners had repented and sought baptism at his hands, those very Pharisees and elders of the people had rejected his testimony and had hypocritically sought to ensnare him. The Lord's affirmation, "Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you," was condemnatory of the corrupt though sanctimonious polity of the hierarchy throughout. He did not say that the repentant sinners should enter, and the priestly hypocrites stand forever excluded. For the latter there was hope if they would but repent, though they would have to follow, not lead, in the
In a continuation of the same discourse the Lord presented the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. "Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower"
They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. The husbandmen could be none other than the priests and teachers of Israel. The Lord of the vineyard had sent among the people prophets authorized to speak in His name; and these the wicked tenants had rejected, maltreated, and, in many instances, cruelly slain.
In the more detailed reports of the parable we read that when the first servant came, the cruel husbandmen "beat him and sent him away empty" When the Lord sent other messengers, "more than the first," or in other words, greater than the earlier ones, the husbandmen rejected them with evil determination more pronounced than ever. At last the Son had come in person; His authority they feared as that of the lawful heir, and with malignity almost beyond belief, they determined to kill Him.
Jesus carried the story without break from the criminal past to the yet more tragic and awful future. He calmly related in prophetic imagery, as though already fulfilled, how those evil men cast the well beloved Son out of the vineyard and slew Him. The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
The rejected Stone which was eventually to have chief place, "the head of the corner," in the edifice of salvation, was Himself, the Messiah. To some that Stone would be a cause of stumbling; wo unto them, for thereby would they be broken, and only through repentance and works of righteousness could they even in part recover. But upon others, those who would persist in their opposition, the Stone would fall in judgment; and wo, wo to them,for beneath it they would be destroyed as though ground to powder.
We gather from Luke's account that in contemplation of this awful penalty, "they," whether priestly rulers or common people we are not told, exclaimed in despair, "God forbid!" As the chief priests and Pharisees realized the completeness of their discomfiture and the extent of the humiliation to which they had been subjected in the eyes of the people, they were incensed beyond measure. The people in general, while not prepared to openly proclaim Him as the Christ, knew that He was a prophet of God, and their dread of official displeasure and possible penalty did not deter them from friendly demonstrations.
"And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding" "And they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them"
"The invitation of a king to his subjects is equivalent to a command. The marriage feast was no surprize event, for the selected guests had been bidden long aforetime" "The most wicked turned upon the servants who brought the royal summons, mistreated them cruelly, and some of them they killed"
It is plainly evident that the refusal to attend the king's feast was a deliberate rebellion against the royal authority and a personal indignity against both the reigning sovereign and his son. The turning away by one man to his farm and by another to his merchandize is in part an evidence of their engrossment in material pursuits to the utter disregard of their sovereign's will. It signifies further an effort to deaden their troubled consciences by some absorbing occupation; and possibly also a premeditated demonstration of the fact that they placed their personal affairs above the call of their king. The monarch executed a terrible retribution upon his rebellious subjects.
If the parable was intended to be an allegorical presentation of actual events, it passes at this point from the story of the past to that of the future. For the destruction of Jerusalem postdates by several decades the death of Christ. Finding the guests who had some claim on the royal invitation to be utterly unworthy, the king sent out his servants again. These gathered in from the highways and cross-roads, from the byways and the lanes, all they could find, irrespective of rank or station, whether rich or poor, good or bad.
The king in the parable is God; the son whose marriage was the occasion of the feast is Jesus, the Son of God. The guests who were bidden early, yet who refused to come when the feast was ready, are the covenant people who rejected their Lord, the Christ. The later guests, who were brought in from the streets and the roads are the Gentile nations, to whom the gospel has been carried since its rejection by the Jews. The marriage feast is symbolical of the glorious consummation of the Messiah's mission. The earlier story was told in the house of one of the chief Pharisees, probably in some town in Perea; the later one was related within the temple, after Pharisa
The neglect of the invited guests in the first story was accompanied by excuses in which some approach to polite apology appears. The refusal of those bidden in the second parable was markedly offensive, and was coupled with outrageous abuse and murder. The host in one instance was a wealthy though private citizen, in the other the giver of the feast was a king. In the first instance was limited to exclusion from the banquet; in the latter the individual punishment was death, which was followed by the punitive example of the city's destruction.
The king came into the banquet hall after the guests had taken their places in orderly array. His immediate detection of one who was without the prescribed garment implies a personal scrutiny of the guests. The lessons embodied in this section of the parable may be advantageously considered apart from those of the first division.
One may be led to inquire, how, under the circumstances of hurried summoning, the several guests could have suitably attired themselves for the feast. That the unrobed guest was guilty of neglect, intentional disrespect, or some more grievous offense, is plain from the context. Had the guest been able to explain his exceptional appearance, or had he any reasonable excuse to offer, he surely would have spoken; but we are told that he remained speechless.
The king's summons had been freely extended to all whom his servants had found. But the deficient one, by some means had entered by another way. Not having passed the attendant sentinels at the portal, he was an intruder. The Lord spake these words of solemn import: "For many are called, but few are chosen"
The story of the royal marriage feast was the last of our Lord's parables delivered publicly to a mixed audience. Two others were spoken to the apostles, as they sat in solemn converse with the Lord on the Mount of Olives. To the heathen and the sinners the portals of heaven shall open, if by repentance and compliance with the laws and ordinances of the gospel they shall merit salvation.
2, hanging and ripening late on the tree, even after the leaves were shed, and sometimes gathered in the spring. The two sons are yet alive in every human community—the one openly boastful of his sin, the other a hypocritical pretender. The parable was addressed to the chief priests, scribes, and elders, who had come in hostile spirit to demand of Christ the credentials of His authority.
Jesus did not commend the rough refusal of the first son of whom the father made a righteous demand for service. It was his subsequent repentance attended by works that made him superior to his brother who had made fair promise but had kept it not. There are many today who boast that they make no profession of religion, nor pretense of godly life. Their frankness will not mitigate their sins; it simply shows that a certain species of hypocrisy is not prominent among their numerous offenses. But that a man is innocent of one vice, say that of drunkenness, in no wise diminishes his measure of guilt if he be a liar, a thief, an adulterer, or a murderer.
Let no man think that because he becomes intoxicated at the public bar he is any the less a drunkard than is he who swallows the "beverage of hell" in comparative privacy, though the latter be both drunkard and hypocrite. For these sins, as for all others, genuine repentance is the only saving antidote. 3. Israel Symbolized by Vineyard and Vines.
The worthlessness of a vine save only for its fruit was set forth by the Lord through His prophet Ezekiel. The wood of the grape plant is fit for nothing but burning; the whole vine as wood is inferior to a branch from a forest tree. And Israel is represented as such a vine, precious if but fruitful, otherwise nothing but fuel and that of poor quality. The psalmist sang of the vine that Jehovah had brought out of Egypt and which, planted with care and hedged about, had flourished even with goodly boughs. But the favor of the Lord had been turned from the vine, and it had been left desolate (Psalm 80:8-16). For further allusions see Isa. 27:
The Call to the Marriage Feast. Trench ( Parables , pp. 175-6): "This summoning of those already bidden, was, and, as modern travellers attest, is still, quite in accordance with Eastern manners" Esther invites Haman to a banquet on the morrow (Esth. 5:8), and when the time has actually arrived, the chamberlain comes to usher him to the banquet (6:14).
There is, therefore, no slightest reason why we should make' them that were bidden 'to mean them that were now to be bidden. Such an interpretation not merely violating all laws of grammar, but the higher purpose with which the parable was spoken. Our Lord, assuming that the guests had been invited long ago, does thus remind His hearers that what He brought, if in one sense new, was in another a fulfilment of the old. He claimed to be heard, not as one suddenly starting up, unconnected with aught which had gone before but as Himself 'the end of the law,' to which it had been ever tending.
According to good philological authority, "ministers" or "ministering attendants" is a more literal rendering of the original than "servants" in Matt. 22:13. In the earlier verses 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, "servitors" best expresses the meaning of theOriginal.
Edersheim's reflections upon this subject follow in part (vol. ii, pp. 429, 430): "The King entered to see His guests, and among them he descried one who had not on a wedding garment.... As the guests had been travelers, and as the feast was in the King's palace, we cannot be mistaken in supposing that such garments were supplied in the palace to all who sought them. And with this agrees the circumstance, that the man so addressed 'was speechless.'
All are invited to the gospel feast; but they who will partake of it must put on the King's wedding garment of evangelical holiness. And whereas it is said in the parable that only one was descried without this garment, this is intended to teach, that the King will not only generally view His guests, but that each will be separately examined. In short, in that day of trial, it is not a scrutiny of churches, but of individuals in the Church.
The call comes to all; but it may be outwardly accepted, and a man may sit down to the feast, and yet he may not be chosen to partake of the feast. And so, one may be thrust even from the marriage board into the darkness without, with its sorrow and anguish. The connecting link between them is the wedding garment, freely given in the Palace. Yet, we must seek it, ask it, put it on. And still, to all time, and to all men, alike in its warning, teaching, and blessing, is it true: 'Many are called, but few chosen!' Many words of related meaning, both Hebrew and Greek, are translated 'garment' in our English Bible.
"Bethphage," the name of a village close to Bethany, and therefore near to the Mount of Olives, means "house of figs" For "house" in the literal translation we may read "place" Matt. 21:16; compare Psalm 8:2; see also Matt. 11:25; 1 Cor. 1:27.
21:42-44; see also Mark 12:10, 11; Luke 20:17, 18; compare Psalm 118:22; Isa. 28:16; Acts 4:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Peter 2:6, 7. Matt. 22:1-10. Note 4 , end of chapter. Compare Matt. 25:10; 2 Cor. 11:2; E.ph. 5:32; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9. Luke 14:16-24; page 450.