No. 1
When writing of the wisdom and understanding of Solomon, of his proverbs and songs, the writer of 1 Kings adds, "And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall" (1 Kings 4:32-33). The Lord Jesus also spake of trees, of the good and corrupt trees, the green and the dry trees, the mustard seed that became a tree, the vine, "the fig tree, and all the trees" (Luke 21:29). There is much to be learned from the consideration of that which has been written of trees in Scripture, some of which we shall particularly notice.
After God had created Adam He put him in the garden of Eden, commanding him, saying, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:15-17). God, in His goodness, allowed Adam to eat of every tree in that wonderful garden that He had planted, where there was everything to delight and gratify his heart; to maintain His claim as Creator, God only reserved one tree for Himself. Moreover, it was best for man to remain in the condition of innocency in which God had created him, without the knowledge of good and evil, for in the bliss of innocency he could rejoice in all the work of God's hand without the exercises of soul that the knowledge of good and evil would bring.
Alas! it was not long before Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, and brought upon themselves the dire consequences of their guilt. There was the sin of disobedience that made man guilty before God; there was the distance that separated the guilty sinner from God: there entered into the nature of man the evil principle that has been transmitted to every child of Adam, with the knowledge of good and evil there was neither power to resist the evil nor to do the good; there were entirely wrong thoughts of God implanted in the mind of man and with it the hatred of God that was soon evinced by Cain; there was exclusion from the garden of delights; there was the curse on the ground and with it a life of toil and sweat; and the sentence on Eve of sorrow in her conception.
Not only was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden, there was also the tree of life, and this tree had not been forbidden. When Adam sinned the tree of life was forbidden, and God sent the cherubim with the flaming sword to guard the way of the tree of life. This was a merciful intervention of God. How awful it would have been if man in sin had been allowed to avert the sentence that God had pronounced, and that a sinful race, with all the accumulated knowledge and results of sin, had polluted God's fair earth for ever. What a defeat it would have been for God! What a triumph for Satan! What awful misery and degradation for the human race!
As things appeared, the enemy no doubt thought he had gained a great victory over God in bringing such ruin upon the creature of His hands, but the wisdom of God allowed the enemy to gain this temporary advantage so that His final triumph over him might bring to men the most wonderful blessings, blessings infinitely beyond anything that could be connected with the first creation. Even while pronouncing His various judgments, God announced the coming of the mighty Deliverer, who would undo the works of the devil, and lay the basis for the accomplishment of God's hidden counsels for His own glory and the eternal blessing of men. The great Deliverer was to be the seed of the woman, who would crush the serpent's head, but who in doing so would have His own heel bruised. What a blessed announcement of the coming of God's own Son, and of His great work on the cross!
Coming to the New Testament we learn of the fulfilment of the announcement made by God in Eden, and that in connection with another tree, for in 1 Peter 2:24 it is written, "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." The tree whereon the Son of God died has become for us a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for there has been manifested the wonderful goodness of God, but also the dreadful evil of the creature of God. It was there too that the great conflict of good and evil came to its head, and where the goodness of God triumphed over the evil of man and Satan.
Israel's wickedness and guilt were brought home to its rulers when Peter and the other apostles, arraigned before the high priest and the council, said to them. "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree" (Acts 5:30). Stephen also brought before the high priest and the council of Israel the enormity of their guilt when he spoke to them concerning "the Just One; of whom ye have now become the betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7:52).
Evil rose to its heights in the treatment meted out to the Son of God, and while Israel bore a special part in the guilt because of its special place of favour before God, the Gentiles also had their part. The leaders of Israel, Herod and Pilate all had their part in the reviling of the Son of God, and in the grave sentence of death passed upon the innocent and righteous One. What can be said of all the dishonour of the cross, and of the revilings and tauntings when the Holy One was treated worse than the malefactors with whom His murderers had associated Him in their contempt and evil?
If the dreadful evil of man reached its height in the cross of Christ, so that we see it as a tree of evil, there was also seen in all its richness and glory the wonderful goodness of God, so that the tree on which Christ died is also for us a tree of good. Truly good and evil are found together on the cross on which Jesus died.
God was not taken by surprise at the temerity, rebellion and unrestrained evil that rejected, ill-treated and crucified His only Son. In Eden He had spoken of the bruising of the heel of the Seed of the woman, and His prophets had clearly foretold what would take place. Through the cross, God took the opportunity to manifest His infinite goodness, and to lay the basis for the accomplishment of all His eternal purposes of love. Because of this, Peter was able to say to the Jews on the day of Pentecost. "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" (Acts 2:23). The Jews were not relieved of their guilt, but God took the occasion of the expression of their dreadful evil to manifest the fulness of His goodness.
For the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the tree on which He died has also become a tree of life, even as the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). Apart from the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross we never could have eternal life, even as the Lord said in John 6:53-54, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
The dying thief who turned to the Lord when He hung upon the cross found Christ's cross to be for him the tree of life, for after he had said to the Lord, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," Jesus replied, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:42-43). Having by his life of sin forfeited his life on earth, the repentant thief by faith in Jesus obtained eternal life, and that with Him in the paradise of God. That very day the erstwhile thief left the world, where man's paradise was lost, and where death reigned, to enter a heavenly paradise that God had prepared for those who trusted in His Son.
Jesus, the eternal Word, in whom life subsists, was once here incarnate, the tree of life in a barren wilderness, and in Him life was available for men, but men refused Him. In richest grace, God has made the cross of Christ, because Christ was there, the tree of life for all who trust in Him. Now Christ is in heaven, the tree of life is in its own heavenly place, and the Spirit of God says to the overcomer, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God" (Rev. 2:7). Very soon the Lord Jesus will come for His own to take them to be for ever with Him in the paradise of God, where the river of life is, and where the tree of life is, with its precious fruits, and with its leaves that never fade for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2).
At the close of the prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet says, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail … yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. 3:17-18). Three trees are spoken of, the fig tree that was used for food, the vine which yielded grapes for wine to rejoice the hearts of men, and the olive tree which produced the oil for the anointing of the head. These three trees are prominent in Scripture, and are sometimes used symbolically to illustrate the relationships into which Israel had been brought with Jehovah their God. Habakkuk was no doubt saying that even if all human resources failed, he would still find His resource and joy in the Lord Himself. Looked at symbolically, can we not also see the attitude of the godly remnant of Israel at all times of the nation's failure? Whatever the state of the nation, they would still confide in the Lord, rejoicing in Him.
In Isaiah 5 it is written regarding Jehovah and Israel, "My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes" (Isa. 5:1-2). The key to the interpretation of the song is found in verse 7, "For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant."
Although the men of Judah are specially viewed in Isaiah as God's pleasant plant, His choicest vine, and that because the prophet was prophesying to Judah, it seems clear from Psalm 80:8 that the whole nation is also viewed as God's vine, where Asaph writes, "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it."
God shows the reason for His judgment on Judah in Isaiah 5, telling what He was about to do. Judah, like the ten tribes, had brought forth wild grapes, after having had the special care and attention of God; and He would remove His protection and allow the nations to invade the land, to take away the spoils and to leave His inheritance desolate. After bringing Israel from Egypt, God had removed the stones from the land, even the heathen which had corrupted themselves and the land, and had given them His protection. Jerusalem is likened to a tower, and the temple to a winepress, but in spite of all that God had done for His people they did not bring the fruits for His pleasure, but instead they dishonoured His holy Name and brought grief to His heart.
The wild grapes were the product of their corrupt nature, the oppression and unrighteousness that raised a cry to God, instead of the praise, thanksgiving and worship for which the Lord looked. Moreover, the history of Judah, like the history of the ten tribes, was one of idolatry. At the end of his days Solomon allowed idolatry in the land, and although some of the kings of Judah took away the idolatrous altars, the hearts of the people never seem to have been right with God, for as soon as restraint was weakened they returned to worship strange gods. Is it any wonder that God threatened to leave the land to "briers and thorns," and to "command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it" (Isa. 5:6)?
What God said He would do to the land of Israel is seen to have been done in Psalm 80. There the call is to Jehovah to come and save His people, a call that will be answered in God's good time, and that by the Man of God's right hand, the Son of Man whom He has made strong for Himself (Ps. 80:17). God's judgment is owned upon His people, and Asaph asks, "Why hast Thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?" It was because Israel had turned her back on God, and had become rebellious, idolatrous, unrighteous and corrupt.
When we come to John 15 we hear the Son of God say, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." What God desired from Israel, and which Israel could not produce, was found in perfection in Jesus upon earth. Every moment of the life of the Son of God yielded pleasure for His Father, and this the Father declared both at the baptism of Jesus and from the holy mount. The constant obedience of the Son in subjection to the Father's will, the lovely traits of the perfect Manhood of Jesus, gave unbroken delight to the Father as the Son carried out His will. If God's purpose to secure fruit for His pleasure in man seemed to fail through the wickedness of His earthly people, it was fully vindicated in the Son upon earth, in whom the history of Israel was taken up afresh, so that God was glorified in the Son in that in which Israel had dishonoured Him.
To His disciples the Lord said, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing" (verse 5). It gave great joy to the Lord to have disciples in whom His own life was found and manifested. In themselves the disciples were but poor failing mortals, but as having His life, and in dependence upon Him, they were able to manifest something of the beautiful features that were found in the Son of God. The word of the Son of God had cleansed the disciples, and under the Father's care in dependence upon the Son, they brought forth fruit, more fruit and much fruit.
Although the Son of God is now in heaven, we, like the disciples on earth, are under the Father's care and discipline, and as abiding in the Son, and the Son in us, we can bring forth the fruit that shows that we are Christ's disciples, and here for the pleasure and glory of the Father. If the true vine is no longer in this world, the fruit that was so blessedly found in Him for the Father's joy is found as His own manifest the life that He has given them in its precious, divine and heavenly fruit.
God was no more taken aback by the failure of Israel to produce fruit for His pleasure than He was by the fall of Adam in Eden. In the Song of Moses, before Israel even entered the land of Canaan, God had said of Israel, "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps" (Deut. 32:32-33). All this was before Jehovah before He brought His people into the goodly land, and although the state of Israel demanded His righteous judgment, God would ultimately bring them into blessing, and the Gentiles with them, even as He said, "Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people" (Deut. 32:43).
Even if God foreknew the departure of Israel, and the evil that would mark the nation, which would necessitate its removal from the land it would corrupt, it nevertheless brought sorrow to His heart. Recalling the wickedness of His people, the Lord said, "Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?" (Jer. 2:21). God's care of Israel, and the manifestation of His great goodness to His people, only proved that man under the very best conditions was utterly incorrigible and incapable of bringing forth fruit to please God.
The word of the Lord to Ezekiel in relation to Israel was, "What is the vine tree more than any tree … shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel" (Ezek. 15:2-4). God showed the prophet that even as the vine was unfit for anything but burning, so would He treat Israel, for "As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem" (Ezek. 15:6). Without fruit, a vine can only be used for burning, and if unfit for anything else before burning, what use could it possibly be after it was burned? How it must have grieved Jehovah to speak in this way of Israel.
For God, Israel is compared to an empty vine, one that has been emptied of its fruit (Hosea 10:1). All the bounty of God bestowed on the nation had been used for their own pleasure in idolatry. Is it any wonder that God allowed the Chaldeans to come up against His people to execute His judgment on the ungodly, even as it is written, "He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree" (Joel 1:6-7)?
What a contrast between Israel, the useless, empty vine that brought forth bitter grapes, and the true Vine who ever delighted the heart of God with fruit that glorified Him before the people and constantly rejoiced His heart. How blessed too that He has now a people on earth in which the life of His own Son is found, and through whom the Son brings forth that same fruit for His delight.
Many divine thoughts have been conveyed to us through the trees of Scripture, whether trees that provided timber for constructional purposes, or that bore fruit, or that were used for ceremonial occasions. There was the acacia that was used in making the furniture and boards of the tabernacle in which God dwelt among His people, the cedar, the pine and the olive whose timbers were found in the temple of Solomon, and the "boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees … and willows of the brook" (Lev. 23:40), of which the booths were made for the children of Israel in the feast of tabernacles. The Assyrian is viewed as a cedar (Ezek. 31:3), Nebuchadnezzar as a tree that grew strong and high (Dan. 4:11), and the kingdom of heaven is likened by the Lord to a mustard seed that grew into a tree, the fowls of the air roosting in it depicting what the Christian profession would be. We have looked at trees of Eden, and the vine among the fruit trees; we shall now consider something of what Scripture presents of the fig tree and the olive tree.
In Joel 1:6-7 we read of the Chaldeans invading Judah and Jerusalem, wasting them as God's vine and barking them as God's fig tree. The vine was the symbol of God's people as the supplier of fruit for His pleasure, and with this in view God brought them out of Egypt and planted them in a land flowing with milk and honey. The temple, the priesthood and the sacrificial system were all related to God's means of bringing to Him the fruits with which He provided Israel for His delight. Their worship and praise, their lives of righteousness and holiness, would bring pleasure to the God who had blessed them so richly. Alas, instead of righteousness and holiness there was rebellion against Him and corruption, and their praise and worship were given to idols instead of to Jehovah.
The fig tree suggests what Israel was politically among the nations, set up in Canaan to be a testimony for God among the nations, and in this way to bring glory to God. When Israel was taken captive, Judah was left a little longer in the land to be a testimony for Him, but Judah, following in the idolatrous steps of Israel, was also removed from the land. Those left in the land with wicked king Zedekiah, instead of turning from their evil ways, continued in them, and God likened them, to "evil figs, which cannot be eaten" (Jer. 24:8).
When the Lord Jesus was on earth He spoke a par-able that likened the Jews to a fig tree that bore no fruit for God (Luke 13:6-9). For three years the Son of God had worked in the midst of Israel, with the object of bringing fruit to God, but His labours were in vain. When God called for the cutting down of the fig tree, the Lord pleaded for it to be spared for another year so that He might give it special attention. If at the end of this time there was still no fruit, the sentence of cutting it down was to be carried out.
Was it not within the time of this special care that the Lord Jesus showed the wonders of God's grace to the nation? Galilee had rejected Him in spite of all His wonderful works, and coming to Jerusalem and Judea He opened the eyes of the blind beggar and raised Lazarus from death and corruption. How wonderful was the ministry recorded in John 7-12, and also that recorded in the Synoptic Gospels during the Lord's last days in the favoured city, but in spite of all that was done and spoken the nation would not receive the One that God had sent. Instead, they rejected the Son of God, and with wicked hands crucified and slew Him. The time had come to cut down the tree. God still lingered in grace, but when the testimony of the Holy Spirit to the glorified Christ was rejected, all was over with Israel as God's fig tree.
What was about to happen to the guilty nation was seen in the cursing of the fig tree, on which the Lord found no fruit as He was on His way to Jerusalem after having spent the night in Bethany (Matt. 21:19-21).
Like the fig tree with its show of leaves, Israel had much in the way of outward religiousness, but there was no fruit for God from the nation. The Lord knew that God would linger in longsuffering, sending His apostles after His resurrection with a message of mercy, but He also knew that although a remnant would accept the proffered blessing, the nation as such would, with its leaders, still reject the grace of God. The curse on the fig tree brought God's judgment on the nation as carried out by the Romans under Titus.
Yet this was not the end of God's dealings with Israel as His fig tree. It was the end of Israel under the law, under the old covenant which they had undertaken at Sinai, but God had better things for His people under the new covenant that had been spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah. Of this the Lord spoke in Matthew 24:32, "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh." Israel's summer will yet come, and under the blessing of the new covenant there will be fruit for God, when Israel will be the head of the nations, and blessings will flow from Jerusalem, the Lord being there, to all the nations of the earth.
We have seen that, although there was no fruit for God from the nation, the Lord pleaded with God for them to have His special care, but without result, so that they came under the divine curse and judgment, a judgment under which they still suffer. Soon the nation is to be taken up again by God under the new covenant, after they have passed through the judgments spoken of by the Lord in Matthew 24, and in other Scriptures, but the end will be for their blessing and the glory of the Lord, with abundance of fruit from the fig tree in the millennial day.
The Holy Spirit teaches us in Romans 11:21 that Israel, on whom God has not spared His judgment, were the natural branches of His olive tree, in which were the promises and blessings of God. Abraham, who first received the blessing and promises of God, was no doubt the root of the tree, and the patriarchs who inherited the promises were the stock. The nation of Israel as descended from Abraham were natural branches, but were cut off because of their unbelief, as only by faith was it possible to enter into the divine blessings that were given to faithful Abraham.
Not all who were naturally descended from Abraham had been cut off from the olive tree, Paul himself being a witness to this, for he was "an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin" (Rom. 11:1). Yet his place in the olive tree did not rest on natural generation, but rather on his faith in Christ. All of Israel who, like Paul, had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, had their part in the olive tree, not as natural branches, but as having the faith of faithful Abraham.
Israel had rejected, as a nation, their Messiah, and those who took sides with the leaders of the nation in refusing Christ lost their place as branches in the olive tree. On the other hand, the Gentiles who accepted God's Christ were graffed into the olive tree, in which were the blessings of God. Naturally, the Gentiles had no claim on God's promises, they were branches of a wild olive, "being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12).
God's severity has been manifested in His dealings with the natural branches who believed not in the One whom He had sent to them with richest blessing, and His goodness is seen in His bringing the Gentiles into blessing through faith in His Son. As Gentiles we have no claim on God naturally, for we were sinners far from Him, and we had no claim on the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for we are not of their seed. Gentiles who are blessed of God stand before Him in blessing on the ground of faith alone, the faith that lays hold on God's grace and through which they are found as God's righteousness in Christ.
Paul gives a warning to the Gentiles when he writes, "Thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee" (Romans 11:20-21). The present state of the Christian profession shows how necessary this warning was. The great mass of Christendom today is composed of those who have "a form of godliness," but deny its power (2 Tim. 3:5), and are not standing in faith before God. Such will assuredly be cut off from the good olive tree if they continue without a living link that faith gives with the Christ of God.
The rejection of those who are not vitally united to Christ is clearly taught in Revelation 3, where the Lord says to Laodicea, "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth" (Rev. 3:16). Here is the total rejection of the Christian profession after the true Christians have been taken to heaven by Christ at the rapture. All who are left behind in Laodicea are as branches cut off from the olive tree in which they have taken their place by profession, but in which they have no right to be as not having living faith in the Son of God.
If the professing Gentiles who have no real faith in Christ will be cut off, there is also the prophecy concerning the grafting in again of the natural branches, for "if they abide not still in unbelief … God is able to graff them in again" (Rom. 11:23). This will take place when the Lord comes back again, even as it had been written so long before, "There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom. 11:26).
All Israel is to be saved in the millennial day (verse 26), but it is after the rebels are purged out (Ezek. 20:34-38), and the followers of antichrist have been "cut off" in the land (Zech. 13:8-9). God in His sovereign grace has been pleased to bring the Gentiles into blessing, according to His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus our Lord, but this has not set aside God's purpose for the blessing of His earthly people according to the promises to His servant Abraham, "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (verse 29).
How brightly the sovereign mercy of God shines in His dealings with His people, whether those who are now blest with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, or those who shall have the blessings of the new covenant on earth in the coming day. Well might the Apostle break out in praise to God with the words, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out. … For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom. 11:33-36).
Wm. C. Reid.