The biblical story about Jesus and the fig tree is probably one of the most polemical stories for Christian scholars who believe that Jesus was God. They approach this subject with the assumption that Jesus is God in the flesh, but this assumption presents some very difficult questions to be answered.
Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.
And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.
And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away! (Mat 21:18-20)
In this story we see God, the creator of all things, getting hungry. To here I could give them the benefit of the doubt, since the human body actually gets hungry. And if God had a human body, I suppose this is something that could happen. But then he sees a fig tree in the distance and decides to go and have some figs.
The problem here is that the creator of the fig tree, who is supposed to know all things, didn’t realize or didn’t know that it was not the season for figs. If he were God, he would have known that.
If he were God, being all-powerful and creator of all things, could have done a miracle and caused the fig tree to instantly bear fruit. But would God have cursed the fig tree and made it wither away?
If he were God, who is all-knowing, he would have known before he even got close to the tree that there weren’t any figs on it. God who knows all things and is in every place would have known a thing such as this.
But he didn’t know until he got close enough to see that there were no figs on it. Then, because there are no figs on the tree, he pronounces a curse on the tree for not having fruit, as if it were the tree’s fault that it was fruitless.
For Jesus to put a curse on the tree does show that he had power to do miracles (if this actually did happen), but it doesn’t necessarily prove that he was God. Think about this for a minute. God gets angry at a poor fig tree because it doesn’t have any fruit. Now, would God really get angry at a fig tree? What would be the point in doing this? What message would he be trying to get across by doing this?
Some say it was to show a parable of how unfruitful the Jewish religion was and how God was cursing them for this. However, he didn’t even hint that he was trying to send a message by doing this miracle. if this were the case, then no one got the message — something that was not in any way characteristic of Jesus.
It seems very unlikely that he was doing this since no one even knew that he was trying to get a message across. What seems more likely that he was angered by the tree’s lack of fruit and took it out on the tree (characteristic of a natural man).
This is definitely a human trait that would not have been in keeping with what we know of God. God would have known it wasn’t the season for fruits and that there weren’t any fruits on the tree. In this case, there would have been no reason for God to have become angry with the tree, which is a little ridiculous in itself, and not becoming of God, but more of a human reaction to a natural situation for a man.
Jesus was a normal human being, not God, with characteristics similar to those which all of us have — and NOT the characteristics of Almighty God. For new Christians and those not well-acquainted with the bible, this story presents itself a predicament since anyone who has any idea of what God is like or should be like, would see this as a very difficult idea for them to swallow.
This idea of Jesus being “fully God and fully man” is actually very contradictory. What happened here? Was the “fully” God part of Jesus partially asleep? Where was God when this happened? Isn’t God all-knowing and in all places?
This only goes to show that Jesus was not the god-man that the orthodox church declared him to be. He was merely a man appointed by God, given powers to perform a very important mission, with very human characteristics.
Next: Who Was Jesus Part 2 | Lamb Of God Part 1