The Gospel of Mark tells about Jesus cursing a fig tree for being without any fruits to eat. He then goes into the temple and expels the money changers but as He departed from the temple, the disciples noticed that the fig tree had withered and died (Mk. 11:12-25; cf. Matt. 21:12-20).1 What prompted Jesus’ extreme actions? Why would the Lord supernaturally destroy a fig tree? Expelling money changers from the temple is quite the daring thing to do, but if He did it twice, and I think He did,2 such is epically extreme! Why draw that kind of attention to Himself?
Jesus Christ foresaw the time of the temple sacrifices in Jerusalem coming to an end and the great calamity that would leave the city and temple in ruins. He then employed the use of living parables to let His community know about the things to come. Both the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple were then living parables about the coming destruction of the second temple.3
The practice of communicating through living parables goes back to the Old Testament prophets. Isaiah prophesied naked and barefoot to symbolize the destruction of Assyria and Egypt (Isa. 20:1-6). Jeremiah constructed and put on yokes of wood and iron as a living prophecy concerning the subjugation and exile of sinful Judah (Jer. 27-28). Ezekiel rationed out his food and drink along with baking his bread with dung to predict conditions in a forth coming siege of Jerusalem (Ezek. 4:9-17). To be certain there are many other symbolic acts of Old Testament prophets.
Mark tells us that Jesus looked for fruit on a fig tree in leaf but “it was not the season for figs” (Mk. 11:12).4 The Lord is pilgrimaging to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. Something to note is that “the leaves of the fig-tree in Palestine appear in March, and are accompanied by a crop of small edible knobs called taksh which drop off before the true figs form, which ripen in June” but “an absence of taksh indicates that the tree in question will bear no figs.”5 Unable to find edible knobs, Jesus realizes the tree would be fruitless at the harvest, which prompts the cursing “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (Mk. 11:14). The barren fig tree represents the fruitlessness of the temple worship in Christ’s day.
When Jesus entered into the temple, He saw the moneychangers doing business inside the Court of the Gentiles, and chased them out. He said, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mk. 11:17; cf. Matt. 21:13; Lk. 19:46). “A house of prayer” alludes to Isaiah 56:3-8. Those once excluded from temple worship were eunuchs and foreigners, and the prophet Isaiah anticipates a day when even they could participate in the offering up of sacrifices. Speaking through the prophet, the Lord said, “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isa. 56:4-8). Jesus drove out the moneychangers because they were desecrating the Court of the Gentiles where non-Jews could gather to worship.
Jesus said that the temple had been turned into a “den of robbers.” This hints at Jeremiah 7:11. The Old Testament prophet stood at the gates of Solomon’s temple and said, “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord” (Jer. 7:8-11). Here the prophet “condemns the idea that the temple is a safe haven for Judah in its sin.”6 The people thought they were fine so long as their temple stood, but the Lord tells them, “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched”(Jer. 7:20). The people still ignored the warnings of the prophet, they continued in unbridled sin, and God destroyed their temple.
First century Jewish pilgrims came from faraway places to worship at the Jerusalem temple, and moneychangers were necessary for the exchange of currency along with purchase of sacrifices as provided under Mosaic Law (Deut. 14:22-27), but the sin was in the negligible converting of the sacred space into a marketplace. All the problems with temple worship at the time was ultimately rooted in a rejection of God. God came to dwell with His people, but His people rejected Him. Jesus performed miracles, but the religious leaders declared Him to be possessed by Beelzebub the prince of demons (Mk. 3:22-27; cf. Matt. 12:22-29).
It was after the temple cleansing that the disciples took notice of the fig tree that Jesus cursed had withered to death. Here there is an allusion to Jeremiah 8:8-13. The apostates of Jeremiah’s day had the Word of the Lord but they shamelessly disobeyed what it taught without even a blush. “When I would gather them, declares the Lord, | there are no grapes on the vine, | nor figs on the fig tree; |even the leaves are withered, |and what I gave them has passed away from them” (Jer. 8:13). Also comes to mind is the lament of the prophet Micah over corrupt leadership: “Woe is me! For I have become | as when the summer fruit has been gathered, | as when the grapes have been gleaned: |there is no cluster to eat, |no first-ripe fig that my soul desires…Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; | the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, |and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; |thus they weave it together” (Mic. 7:1, 3). The cursing and withering of the fig tree served as a sign of doom. Put it another way: “Just as the land producing no fig trees often stood for judgment against Israel in Jewish literature (esp. Micah 7:1; Jer. 8:13), and just as Jesus had earlier told a parable of a fig tree threatened with destruction (Luke 13:6-9), so now he uses an enacted parable or object lesson to demonstrate the imminent doom of the current Jewish nation if it does not repent.”7
The point of Lord’s living parables is chilling: “Jesus’ specific actions of overturning tables, forbidding the use of the Temple as a short-cut, and the cursing of the fig tree, were likewise all designed as prophetic and eschatological symbolism, indicating both the arrival of the kingdom and the doom of the city and Temple that refused it.”8
What Jesus does through living parables is subsequently restated without any ambiguity. The Lord publicly lamented: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:37-37). Admiring the fine stonework of the temple complex, the disciples said, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” But Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mk. 13:1-2; cf. Matt. 24:1-2; Lk. 21:5-6). The Word of the Lord never returns empty, and Jerusalem along with the temple were destroyed in AD 70.
Ironically, the miraculous destruction of the fig tree becomes an occasion for rediscovering the beauty of authentic worship. Jesus taught us to “Have faith in God” (Mk. 11:22). Those who had turned the Lord’s house into a den of thieves lacked faith, and doom would come upon them should they continue on that path. However, unimaginable and impossible things can be accomplished by people who have faith in God. The Lord says, “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him” (Mk. 11:23).
Commanding rocks to lift up off the ground and sink into the ocean is obvious hyperbole. It is not some power to levitate objects. Just as Theanthropos (the God-man) could perform the unimaginable and impossible with the fig tree, the unimaginable and impossible are experienced by people who have faith in God. Many in Christian ministry can testify of being in circumstances wherein they thought it was the end of the sort of ministry they were doing, but they prayed, and one by one all the obstacles unexpectedly disappeared.
Faith connects us to God and we fellowship with God through prayer. The Lord says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mk. 11:24) Not really a positive confession formula for health and prosperity. Rather, we pray knowing the one who hears our prayers does the unimaginable and impossible. Moreover, the people of faith pray or the Lord’s will to be done. Even Jesus prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mk. 14:36; cf. Matt. 26:39; Lk. 22:41-42).
Forgiveness flows from authentic faith. Jesus says, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mk. 11:25).9 Sin separates us from God, but God extends forgiveness to the penitent. Those who have been forgiven much can forgive others. Here is the way it all comes together: “Effective prayer must be offered in faith — faith in the all-powerful God who works miracles. But it must be offered in the spirit of forgiveness. Faith and the willingness to forgive—these are the two conditions for efficacious prayer.”10
Jesus curses the fig tree and clears the temple of moneychangers in the first half of Holy Week. It is on Good Friday that He is put to death upon the cross. It is this death that signifies the last sacrifice of all sacrifices that ever need to be performed upon the altar of God. Easter Sunday marks the ultimate reversal of the curse of sin — Christ is resurrected from the dead. Christ resurrection is the first of many resurrections to come. All those who put their faith in Christ have the blessed hope of being resurrected to everlasting life. God’s purpose for the temple ends with Christ, and it is unnecessary for God’s people to continue offering sacrifices in the temple maintained by the Levitical priesthood. The temple in Jerusalem is subsequently destroyed in AD 70.
The cursing of the fig tree and temple cleansing in Mark reminds us that Christ can even bring about some disruptions in our own lives to grab our attention to a serious problem which left unchecked will lead to an even greater calamity. Just as those in Christ’s day misplaced their trust in a standing temple but they were disconnected with God, we too can suffer from misplaced trust while being disconnected with God. We might suppose that so long as we have our health, we continue to grow in prosperity, and that we retain the respect of even our enemies that all is well, but never give twice a thought about whether or not we are disconnected from a right relationship with God. Such existence is like a fruitless fig tree that withers away. Christ shows us a life connected to a God would can do the unimaginable and impossible. No matter how healthy we are now, eventually we all die from our last illness, but with God on our side, we have the hope of being resurrected immortal, imperishable, incorruptible. All the wealth in the can never buy us out of death, but it is far better to invest in treasures where neither moth nor rust can destroy. Enemies will eventually go to war, unless they become friends. Moreover, those who have been forgiven by God can extend forgiveness to others. Today is the day for us to reconnect with God through the Son by the power of the Spirit.
— WGN
- Mark tells of the cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14), the cleansing of the temple (Mk. 11:15-19), and the seeing of the fig tree withered (Mk. 11:20-25). The account of the fig tree is then told in two parts and the cleansing of the temple sandwiched in between. On the other hand, Matthew tells of the cleansing of the temple (Matt. 21:12-17) followed by the cursing and witnessing of the fig tree withered (Matt. 21:18-20). One way of working around the apparent contradiction is to say Matthew is organizing his material topically. Gleason Archer writes, “As we study the narrative techniques of Matthew in general, we find that he sometimes arranges his material in topical order rather than in the strictly chronological order that is more often characteristic of Mark and Luke…But Matthew’s tendency to group his material in themes according to a logical sequence is quite clearly exhibited in the series of eight parables of the kingdom of heaven that make up chapter 13. Once a theme has been broached, Matthew prefers to carry it through to its completion, as a general rule” (Gleason L. Archer, New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982], 334–335.). Another plausible work around is to contend that Mark and Matthew are presenting the same event from different vantage points. Craig Blomberg indicates “Matthew telescopes the two-day sequence of events in the cursing of the fig tree into one uninterrupted paragraph which seems to refer only to the second day’s events (Mk. 11:12-14; Mt. 21:18-22). But there is no necessary contradiction unless one reads more into the account than is actually present. Matthew’s introduction, ‘now in the early morning,’ does not specific which day is in view, and there is no reason to exclude an interval of time between verses 19 and 20. Mark does not deny that the fig tree withered immediately, only that the disciples did not see it until the next day” (Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987], 136). There is nary any reason to suppose Matthew and Mark accounts contradict one another. It has been stated once but still worth repeating: When it comes to the Synoptic Gospels, the differences in the telling of events, such as the cursing of the fig tree and temple cleansing, actually bolsters the reliability of eyewitness testimony. In The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel observes, “Ironically…if the gospels had been identical to each other, word for word, this would have raised charges that the authors had conspired among themselves to coordinate their stories in advance, and that would have cast doubt on them,” to which New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg replies, “That’s right…if the gospels were too consistent, that in itself would invalidate them as independent witnesses. People would then say we really only have one testimony that everybody else is just parroting” (Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidences for Jesus [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998], 45).
- See previous post: “Just How Many Times Did Jesus Cleanse the Temple?”
- Whereas the Gospel of John narrates the temple cleansing and then goes into discussion about Jesus’ body being the temple destroyed and raised up in three days, the Synoptic Gospels keep the discussion to the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem.
- All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), unless noted.
- Stephen S. Short, New International Bible Commentary, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), 1172.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Mk 11:17.
- Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1997), 317.
- N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 424.
- Some ancient manuscripts have an additional verse that goes: “But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your trespasses” (Mk. 11:26). The verse is likely something inserted into the Gospel of Mark; however, the words of Jesus in this instance are in concert with Matthew 6:15.
- Walter W. Wessel, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), 729.
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