And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.
And if it bear fruit, [well] - all then will yet be right;
And if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down - I will then no longer interpose: all is over.
Remarks:
(1) The small incidents recorded at the beginning of this chapter bear irresistible marks of historical truth in the Evangelical Records. Who that had been drawing up an unreal Story would ever have thought of inserting in it such incidents as these? Much less would they ever have occurred to such untutored writers as these Records show their authors to have been.
(2) How slow have even Christians been, notwithstanding the explicit teaching of Christ here, to be convinced that extraordinary outward calamities are not necessarily the vengeance of Heaven against unusual criminality! From the days of Job's friends until now the tendency to explain the one of these by the other has been too prevalent. Is it not to this that the prevalent view of Mary Magdalene's character is to be traced? (See the note at Luke 8:2.)
(3) To be within the pale of Revealed Religion and the Church of the living God is a high privilege, and involves a solemn responsibility. The owner of the vineyard, having planted a fig tree in it, "came and sought fruit thereon;" for in the natural course of things fruit, in such a case, was to be expected. But when does God come, seeking fruit from men thus privileged? Not at the day of judgment; for though He will come and demand it then, the parable represents the tree as still in the ground after the lord of the vineyard has come seeking fruit, and as allowed to remain with a view to further trial. It is now, therefore, or during our present state, that God is coming seeking fruit from us. Are we favoured with a Christian education and example? He comes, saying, 'Any fruit?' Have we been placed under a faithful, rousing ministry of the Gospel? He comes, asking, 'What fruit?' Have we been visited with crushing trials, fitted to bring down pride, and soften the heart, and give the lessons of religion an entrance they never had before? He comes, demanding the fruit. Alas, of multitudes the report must still be - "and found none"!
(4) The Lord, we see, notes the length of time that men continue fruitless under the means of spiritual culture. "Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none." Thoughtless men heed this not, but One does. "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?" is His question. "O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved: how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?" "Wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?" "It is time to Seek the Lord, until He come and rain righteousness upon you," (Proverbs 1:22; Jeremiah 4:14; Jeremiah 13:27; Hosea 10:12). (5) To be cut down is the rich desert of all the fruitless: "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" As if they were a burden to the earth that bears them, to the place they fill, deforming the beauty and hindering the fruitfulness of God's vineyard. They are borne with, but with a certain impatience and indignation. And even when the fruitless are borne with, it is because of the good offices of an Intercessor, and solely with a view to fresh culture. Were there no one in the kingdom of God answering to this dresser of the vineyard, who pleads, and as is here supposed successfully, for a respite to the tree, we might take this feature of the parable as but a part of its drapery, not to be pressed into the exposition of it. But, with the great facts of mediation before us, it is impossible not to see here something more than drapery. And what is that fresh culture for which He pleads? Why, anything by which truths and lessons hitherto neglected may come with a force upon the heart before unknown, may justly be so regarded. A change of the means of grace; a change of sphere-sometimes in the way of banishing one from all the privileges in which he basked, leading him in a far distant land, when sighing over removal from dear objects and scenes, to reflect upon religious privileges never before valued-the remarkable conversion of some companion; or a religious awakening within the immediate sphere of one's observation: these and a thousand other such things are fitted to give truths and lessons, never heeded before, a new power to impress the heart. And it is with a view to this that many are in mercy spared after their long-continued impenitence under high religious culture seemed to be but preparing them to be cut down.
(6) It is worthy of notice that the respite sought in the parable was not another three years, but just "one year." As in the natural culture, this would be sufficient to determine whether any fruit was to be gotten out of the tree at all, so in the spiritual husbandry, the thing intended is just one sufficient trial more. And surely it is a loud call to immediate repentance when one has any good reason to think that he is on his last trial!
(7) Genuine repentance, however late, avails to save: "If it bear fruit (well);" and only if not, was it to be cut down. The case of the thief on the cross decides this for all time and for every soul. There is not a sinner out of hell-though the most hardened, the furthest gone, the nearest to the flames-but if he only begin to bear fruit, if he do but turn to God with all his heart in the Gospel of His Son, it will deliver him from going down to the pit, it will stay the hand of justice, it will secure his eternal salvation. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thought, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, and He will abundantly pardon." "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that he should turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel?"
(8) The final perdition of such as, after the utmost limits of divine forbearance, are found fruitless, will be preeminently and confessedly just: "If not, after that thou shalt cut it down." It is the Intercessor Himself that says this. Mercy herself, who before pleaded for a respite, now acquiesces in, if not demands, the execution. "He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy" (Proverbs 29:1). Be wise now, therefore, O ye fruitless; be instructed, ye foolish and unwise: Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him! Beware lest that come upon you which is spoken of by the prophet, "Because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness anymore, until I have caused my fury to rest upon thee" (Ezekiel 24:13).