Luke 13:6-9 He spoke also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.… None? Haply not so thick with fruits as the "vines of Engedi"; every land is not a Canaan, to flow with milk and honey. But yet some competent measure, enough to pay the landlord rent for the ground it stands on; no, "none." If there be none to spare, whereof the owner may make money, yet sufficiat ad usum suum, ad esum suum — that he may eat the labours of his own hands; no, "none." If the number be not "as the sand," yet let there be "a remnant" (Romans 9:27). If there cannot be a whole harvest, yet let there be "a tenth" (Isaiah 6:13). If not a tenth, yet let there be some "gleanings" (Micah 7:1); and that is a woeful scarcity. If the gleanings be not allowed, yet let there be here and there a fig, a grape, a berry, "on the outmost branches" (Isaiah 17:6), that the planter may have a taste. It is too defective, when non florebit ficus — the tree doth not flourish; but quando non erit uva in vitibus, non ficus in ficulneis (Habakkuk 3:17) — when there shall not be "a grape on the vine, nor a fig on the tree" (Jeremiah 8:13), this is a miserable sterility. Something hath some savour, but none is good for nothing. Indeed, all trees are not equally loaden; there is the measure of a hundred, of sixty, of thirty; an omer and an ephah; but the sacred dews of heaven, the graces of the gospel, bless us from having none! "I find none." None? Peradventure none such as He looks ,for, no fruits delicate enough for the Almighty's taste. Indeed, our best fruits are never perfect and kindly ripened; still they relish sour and earthly, and savour of the stock from which they were taken. They are heavenly plants, but grow in a foreign and cold climate; not well concocted, not worthy the charges and care bestowed upon us. Set orange or fig-trees in this our cold country, the fruit will not quit the cost of the planting and maintaining. But the complaint is not here of the imperfection or paucity of fruits, but of the nullity: "none." Some reading that text with idle eyes, that after all our fruits, we are still " unprofitable trees" (Luke 17:10), because they can find no validity of merit in their works, throw the plough in the hedge, and make holiday. But shall not the servant do his master's business, because he cannot earn his master's inheritance? Shall the mason say, I will share with my sovereign in his kingdom, or I will not lay a stone in his building? Net good fruits have their reward; though not by the merit of the doer, yet by the mercy of the accepter. Sour they be of themselves, but in Christ they have their sweetening; and the meanest fruits which that great "Angel of the Covenant" shall present to His Father, with the addition of His own "precious incense "(Revelation 8:4), are both received and rewarded. In their own nature they may be corrupt; but being dyed in the blood of Christ, they are made pleasing to God: yea, also profitable to the Church, and useful to men, seem they never so poor. Even a troubled spring doth often quench a distressed soldier's thirst; a small candle doth good where the greater lights be absent; and the meanest fruit of holy charity, even a cup, though it be not of the juice of the grapes out of the vineyard, but of cold water out of the tankard, in the name of Christ, shall have its recompense (Matthew 10:42). But here the complaint is not of the meanness or fewness, but of the barrenness — none at all. (T. Adams.) Parallel Verses KJV: He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. |
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