12 And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: 13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. 14 And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.
Mark 11:12-14
Jesus walked the earth as a man. He got hungry. In these verses we see that He stopped by a fig tree hoping to gather fruit. There are people who spend hours trying to figure out why. It may simply have been because He was hungry!
Fig trees will sometimes maintain their leaves even when it is not the season for figs. The ones that did will usually have fruit. This was probably true in Jesus’ day as well so He had every right to find figs when He saw the leaves.
And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.
Jesus spoke to the fig tree when He was unable to find fruit! He pronounced a curse on it. We are not told why and so I will not provide any thoughts on why He chose to do this.
Can you imagine what the disciples must have thought when they saw Jesus speak to a tree?
Jesus spoke to the fig tree and then continued on His journey to Jerusalem. There is no record of any discussion at that time about His speaking to the fig tree. The next day the disciples noticed a change in the tree as they traveled along the same path.
20 And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 21 And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. 22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
Mark 11:20-22
The fig tree “dried up from the roots”. Change was not immediate and probably not noticeable in the first hour or two. It wasn’t until almost twenty four hours had passed that Peter noticed the fig tree had responded to Jesus.
Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.
Jesus’ response to Peter is interesting. He did not acknowledge the fig tree had withered away. His focus was on faith.
Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
This is important and something we need to pay attention to.
Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
1 Peter 1:21
Jesus told Peter to have faith in God. Peter told his readers their faith and hope must be in God.
It is true that our faith must be in God alone but the literal Greek text of Mark 11:22 does not actually state this.
And Jesus answering saith to them, ‘Have faith of God’
Mark 11:22 (YLT)
And answering Jesus says to them Have faith from God
Mark 11:22 (Interlinear)
- Have faith of God
- Have faith from God
This seems to change the meaning. Do you agree?
Jesus’ answer tells us that He had had demonstrated the faith of God in cursing the fig tree. He had demonstrated it because they could have the same faith and do the same thing. He will go on in verses 23 and 24 to tell them how this faith works. We will look at that in the next post.
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