Page 6 - BV15

6

(3) Christ was at the moment hungry. Orientals do not eat early in the morning.
Labourers and artificers come fasting to their work, and often toil an hour or two
before eating. So it is presumable that our Saviour, in his morning walk of two
miles from Bethany to Jerus., had not broken his fast. The physical sensation of
hunger as a basis gave direction to his thoughts, as he happened to see a most
familiar spectacle, a fig tree, at a distance, with fresh, young foliage. The fact that
it is mentioned that "the time of figs was not yet" (RV), WOULD SEEM TO
PROVE THAT CHRIST WOULD NOT HAVE THOUGHT IT STRANGE HAD
HE NOT FOUND WINTER FIGS OR PRECOCIOUS FIRST FRUITS. It is
hardly conceivable that he could have condemned the tree for that. But, when he
arrived, he found no fruit at all. Immediately the disappointment of unsatisfied
hunger was lost in the moral lesson which flashed across his mind. A fig tree with
leaves should have at least green fruit. This one had none. There was pretension,
which, in the moral sphere, is hypocrisy. Having leaves and no fruit, it was a
deceiver. The ripeness of the fruit is not the point. If it had unripe fruit, it would
not have been condemned. It was condemned because it had nothing but leaves. --
Vol.II, 1958. Page 5-6.

The bottom line here is CONFUSION! There are as many interpretations of this
event as there are interpreters! All because they have not SOUGHT OUT the real
significance, origin, and symbolism of the fig tree.

A Miracle With Great Symbolic Importance

Looking at the cursing of the fig tree with an open mind, it is without a doubt that
the whole event was a MIRACLE from start to finish. Why would the Messiah go to all
this trouble with a nondescript fig tree growing alongside the road into Jerusalem? For
the Messiah to go to all this trouble to produce a sign of this nature, there must have been
some great, symbolic importance and meaning to it. If there was no symbolic importance
to this event, then it simply makes NO SENSE at all and has no RELEVANCE to the last
days of Yeshua on this earth! But it does, as we shall see, have GREAT symbolic
importance in understanding the tremendous sacrifice of our Lord and Savior.

Ernest L. Martin, in his book Secrets of Golgotha, has this observation:

The fact that the fig tree had leaves was in itself a miracle because leaves would
not have naturally been on the fig tree for at least a month later. Also, there should
not have been any figs on the tree. Since the tree was located on a main
thoroughfare into Jerusalem and with the heavy population around the city at that
Passover season, it is not to be imagined that Christ expected to find a few dried
figs of last year's crop on the branches. The tree would surely have been stripped
clean of its fruit. Christ MUST HAVE KNOWN that he would NOT find any figs
on this unusual fig tree. The truth is, however, the lack of figs and the abundance
of leaves were important FACTORS in a miraculous occurrence. In this scene we
are provided with a most important symbolic teaching by Christ with his actions. -
- ASK Publications, Alhambra, CA 1988. p.259-260.