Mark 11:11

And he entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and when he had looked round about upon all things, it being now eventide, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.

Luke recorded that Jesus went "every night" to the mount of Olives (Luke 12:37), but, of course, Bethany was on the mount of Olives. All such variations are due to the independence of the narratives.

THE WITHERING OF THE FIG TREE

This is one of the most interesting of Jesus' great wonders, exceedingly rich with moral significance, and, in context, a miracle of great mercy and power. Like a bat in a cave at night, however, the unbeliever sees nothing at all in such an event as this. First, we shall note a few "objections" which have been offered.

Jesus is accused of "blasting fruit trees simply because they did not have fruit ready for him at the moment."[5] Such a canard as this, like Satan's lie in Eden, is merely a denial of what the sacred text SAYS. He did not wither the tree for fruitlessness but for FALSENESS, exhibiting leaves (which appeared AFTER the fruit, normally) yet having no fruit and being also an out-of-season freak.

Another is "the unfavorable light in which it seems to put the judgment or common sense of Jesus."[6] To the contrary, nineteen centuries of the history of Israel (the actual object of this miracle) have confirmed and vindicated the Lord's perfect judgment and prophetic insight into the consequences of their rejection of the Messiah.

Manson called this miracle "a tale of miraculous power wasted in the service of and quipped that such power would have "been more usefully expended in forcing a crop of figs out of season."[7] If Manson had ever read the account of Jesus' temptation, he should have known that Jesus never performed a miracle purely for the benefit of himself. Such objections as these just cited are not to be taken seriously. They ignore the sacred records themselves, have no understanding of Jesus' purpose in performing this wonder, and are actually only spiteful reactions against hated truth.

The antagonism of some against this miracle is actually directed against it because it contradicts the popular, stereotyped image of Jesus which views our Lord as loving everything and everybody, a view which is true enough in the highest sense, but which in the perverted application of it makes Jesus a namby-pamby weakling willing to accept anything that evil men may do and yet giving them eternal life no matter what deeds of blood and shame mar their lives. Cranfield commented on the question of whether "this miracle of destruction" should be viewed "as inconsistent with the rest of what we know of Jesus."[8] The view here is that Jesus did this wonder for the very purpose of correcting the false view that might have prevailed if no destructive miracle had ever been wrought. That God will not destroy is a false view. Ask Sodom and Gomorrah, Babylon and Nineveh, Tyre and Sidon. Ask Israel. All of the great writers of the New Testament were fully conscious of the ultimate judgment against sin which God will bring upon the world, as, for example, in the words of Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10. In the last analysis, it is sinful man's rebellion against any such judgment that underlies the cavil directed against this miracle of withering the fig tree.

Inherently, the miracle is one of gracious mercy and forbearance. The rejection of Jesus Christ was dramatically associated with this wonder by the manner of Mark's placement of the second cleansing of the temple right in the middle of it; which, of course, is the exact chronological. sequence of its occurrence; Israel was in the process of rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, but they yet might have repented and accepted Christ after the resurrection. In view of that hope, which was indeed seized by many of them, their long-deserved judgment would be deferred until a whole generation after the resurrection; but it was absolutely necessary that Israel be made aware that eventually the judgment would fall. This miracle made that clear; for the leafy, barren fig tree could not possibly stand for anything else in heaven or upon earth except self-righteous Israel, pretending a fruit they did not have, and out of season (for the Messiah had not come; the sacrifice which alone could save men had not been offered), prematurely professing a righteousness that was not even possible under the law. But note: Instead of striking the Pharisees blind, instead of destroying the whole nation, as the vast majority of them deserved, instead of blasting the hypocrites in the Sanhedrin with the total destruction they so richly deserved - rather than this, Jesus pronounced their doom, promised that God would send his armies and destroy their temple and their city, and put them to death, and showed symbolically the certainty of that judgment by what was here done to a fig tree, which by some freak of nature (or providence) was the exact paradigm of that wicked nation. How full of mercy was the warning! Making the judgment to fall upon an inanimate object still permitted those being judged the opportunity of repentance and salvation. To emphasize the mercy and restraint of such a deed, we recall the words of an old preacher who said that when he was a boy and first read of the mockery of Jesus in the court of Israel's high priest, he threw the Bible down and said, "Why did not God strike the place with lightning?" That would have been the human thing to do; the miracle of the fig tree was the heavenly thing to do, and Jesus did it.

[5] Branscomb, as quoted in The Interpreter's Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1951), Vol. VII, p. 828.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Manson, as quoted by Cranfield, op. cit., p. 356.

[8] C. E. B. Cranfield, op. cit., p. 354.