The Symbolism of the Withered Fig Tree

Let’s start with my answer to why Jesus cursed the fig tree and then flesh things in afterwards.

So what’s the answer?  Jesus was symbolically condemning mankind’s decision to live by the Law instead of relying on the grace of God.

The story can be found in Mat 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-14,20-21. Jesus is with his disciples and sees a fig tree. He is hungry so he approaches it to get some fruit even though it is not the right time of year for figs. He then curses the tree saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” Later, the disciples see the tree and find that it is has withered from the roots.

This is either a very odd story, catching Jesus in a rare “hangry” mood, or it’s a living parable and Jesus is trying to make a point to his disciples and, in turn, the world.

To understand this fully, one must put together several other lessons and ideas from the Bible and Jewish history.

1. In the Garden were two special trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (TKGE) (Gen 2:8). Eating from the Tree of Life apparently allowed one to live forever (Gen 3:22), while eating from the TKGE opened one’s mind to the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 3:5), a knowledge which they were not given by God and about which God did not want them to know (Gen 2:17).
2. According to Jewish tradition, the Tree of Life was thought to be an Olive tree and the TKGE was thought to be a fig tree by the Jews (see prior post). (Note: the Jews had other guesses as to what the fruits of the two trees were, but these seem to be the ones Jesus adopted)
3. God created Adam and Eve initially with the Holy Spirit (Gen 1:26-27, 2:7). The Holy Spirit (the same spirit of the New Covenant) allowed them to relate to God and know him. (Rom 7 and 8 are great in that they compare and contrast what it’s like to relate to God by obedience to the Law versus through God’s Spirit living in us)
4. Without the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve were incapable of sinning since there were no laws except the one which protected them from getting the knowledge in the first place. The knowledge of good and evil is not the law but laws seek to codify it—an impossible task because people can always find new ways of sinning (Rom 1:30: “they invent new ways of doing evil”; Gal 5:21: “and the like”).  Without this knowledge one exists in a childlike state of innocence.  Sin is impossible.  Right and wrong and good and bad are possible, but not sin (Rom 5:13 or “charged sin”), which is knowingly violating a Law of God.
5. Once they ate from the tree and gained the knowledge of good and evil, they could no longer relate to God through his grace. As God had said, they immediately died (Gen 2:16-17), though it was a spiritual death–God’s Holy Spirit had to depart from them (Gen 3:4).  Had they been allowed to stay in the Garden, they could have eaten (or continued to eat) the fruit of the Tree of Life and live forever separated from God.  Therefore God cast them out of the Garden and guarded them from ever returning (Gen 3:22).
6. It’s important to notice the twofold the consequences of eating from the TKGE: gaining the knowledge of good and evil and spiritual death.  Spiritual death came because the Holy Spirit departed from them because it had to—it was no longer living in a pure, sinless body, and God cannot coexist with sin (Isa 59:1-2, Col 1:21).  In their new state, they and all men after them could only relate to God through living blameless, sinless lives—something impossible for us because we are weakened by our flesh (Rom 8:3).
7. Mankind was therefore destined to live dismal lives separated from God, no longer being acceptable to him (Eph 2:1-3), until such a time that God would restore things closer to what existed before the Fall. This is prophesied directly in Jer 31:31-34 and Eze 36:24-27.
8. God chose the Jews as the only culture on the planet to receive the Law (Deut 4:5-8). It was through the Jews that God would prove that mankind cannot relate to him through obedience.  As it is impossible to codify the knowledge of good and evil, the 613 laws of the Old Covenant were just a sample of it.  Even so, had the Jews been able to follow it, they would have been blessed (Deut 28:1-14).  However, since they could not, they ultimately received the curses instead (Deut 28:15-68, Gal 3:10).
9. After living through plagues, wars, exiles, the destruction and plundering of the temple, and living under the control of other nations, it was clear that all of the Law could not be followed all of the time. But as the people of God, what other choice did they have but to continue to try?  A group of well-meaning Jews, the Pharisees, believed they had worked out a system to follow the Law.  They created a large set of oral traditions that were designed to keep followers far outside the boundaries of ever breaking a law.  It sounds like a good idea, but it had two intrinsic flaws: 1) Since man is incapable of following the Law, it was by necessity that some of their teachings would contradict the Law (Mat 15 is an example of this), 2) Since the knowledge of good and evil cannot be codified, it had to be incomplete (see Mat 5 “you have heard it said…”), and 3) As one turns their focus to the rules of the Pharisees’ traditions, they would lose connection with the underlying laws of God and miss the point of the Law.
10. It was at this time that Jesus came into the world (Rom:5:6-9).  Unlike all of us who are weak in our sinful nature, Jesus was God in the flesh and was the only human equipped to live a fully obedient life (Rom 8:3-4).  Thus he fulfilled the Law (Mat 5:17-18) and ended it (Heb 8:13), and provided a way to relate to God through faith and grace by way of the restoration of the God’s Spirit in us (John 16:7-11, Rom 8:1-13).

These ideas set the foundation to be able to understand, first and foremost, the Gospel–the great and awesome news of God–and secondly, why Jesus cursed the fig tree: It was a statement that condemned mankind’s decision in the Garden to try to be more like God, knowing good and evil, and to relate to God by being good through obedience to the Law. Like the cursed fig tree, the way of the Law never produced any fruit (i.e. closeness to God)–this can only be accomplished through the connection of the indwelling Holy Spirit.