The Parable of the Fig Tree

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This brief parable belongs to the Olivet Discourse, delivered on the Mount of Olives during the last week of Christ's earthly ministry. Leaving the temple with His disciples, Christ had just pointed toward its buildings and met their admiration with a plain prophecy of ruin. "And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down."¹ The disciples then asked Him a direct question. "And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"² What follows in the discourse, wars, false messiahs, famines, earthquakes, and persecution among them, is Christ's answer. The fig tree parable comes near the end of that answer, and it is His own summary of how the answer is meant to be used.

The Fig Tree’s Ordinary Sign

"Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh."³ The fig tree was common throughout Palestine, and unlike an evergreen it lost its leaves entirely through the winter, so that a tender branch and new leaves were an unmistakable and dependable sign. Luke records that Jesus extended the image beyond the fig tree alone, to all the trees, so that the principle is not confined to one species but stated as a rule of nature generally. Nobody needed instruction to read that sign. It required only that a man be paying attention to what was in front of him.

The Tree He Had Already Cursed

Jesus had used a fig tree once already that same week, to make a different point. Walking from Bethany two days earlier, He came upon a fig tree in full leaf and found nothing on it to eat. "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 henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away."⁴ That tree displayed every outward sign of readiness and had nothing behind the display. The parable on the mount of Olives uses the same tree for the opposite purpose. There the leaves are not a false claim to fruit already present. They are an honest sign of a season still approaching, and the difference between the two trees is the difference between counterfeiting a harvest and correctly announcing one on its way.

These Things Drawing Near

"So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."⁵ "These things" are the signs Christ had just finished describing earlier in the same discourse, the wars and rumors of war, the persecution of His followers, and the desolation to come upon the temple itself. The comparison Christ draws is exact. As the budding branch requires no further proof that summer is coming, the appearance of these signs requires no further proof that what He foretold is coming. "Near, even at the doors" states a proximity, not a certainty about the calendar, and the parable trades in the first without claiming the second. Luke records the same saying with the point made explicit rather than implied: "So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand."⁶ What Matthew leaves as an image of a door about to open, Luke names outright as the arrival of the kingdom itself.

This Generation

"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."⁷ This sentence has been read three ways: as the generation of people alive when Christ spoke, as the generation alive when the signs described earlier in the discourse begin to appear, or as a reference to the Jewish people as a continuing nation enduring until the end is reached. Much of what Christ had just described did in fact fall within the lifetime of the men listening to Him. Within a single generation, in the year seventy, the city and the temple were destroyed by the Roman armies, precisely as He had said. Biblical prophecy elsewhere blends a near fulfillment with a far one in exactly this way, the two events sitting close together in the prophet's field of view the way distant mountain peaks appear to stand side by side though a valley separates them. The destruction of Jerusalem was the near peak. The coming of the Son of man, described a few verses earlier in the same discourse, is the far one, and the generation that saw the first was given, in that very sign, a pledge that the second stands just as certain.

The Word That Does Not Pass Away

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."⁸ Heaven and earth are the two most permanent fixtures in ordinary human experience, and Christ sets His own words above them without qualification. Isaiah had already said as much of the word of God generally: "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."⁹ Christ applies the same permanence to what He Himself had just spoken, which is itself a claim to an authority no mere teacher could rightly make. The signs will pass, the generation that sees them will pass, heaven and earth will pass, and His words concerning all of it will still stand when everything else named in the sentence is gone.

Readiness in the Meantime

Paul draws the same lesson from the same events. "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."¹⁰ The suddenness of that coming does not excuse a believer from readiness. It is the reason for it. "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober."¹¹ Peter answers the objection that the coming has been delayed too long to expect it any further. "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."¹² The delay a man measures by his own years is not delay at all when measured against the patience that ordained it. What passes away does not simply end. It is replaced. "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."¹³ The heaven and earth Christ said would pass away give way, on His own promise, to a heaven and earth that will not need to. John closes the last book of the canon with the same expectation Christ taught His disciples to hold on the mount of Olives. "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."¹⁴ The fig tree's lesson was never a timetable. It was training in attention, given so that when the promised sign appeared, no follower of Christ would be the one caught asking what it meant.