Jesus' actions with the fig tree and in the Temple are about a change of season for Israel, and for all nations. His words to his disciples are an attempt to prepare them to act and speak with authority in the new season. 

I used to feel sorry for the fig tree, assuming it was a healthy tree. I had never considered that its normal appearance might mask a disease that had made it barren. And I failed to connect what Jesus did with what he had seen the night before in the temple courts, and with what he did there the next morning. The moneychangers, market sellers  and ‘carriers’ were all using the Court of the Nations—the one court in the Temple where people of other nations could worship Israel's God and make requests to him. This court was considered just as sacred as the other courts, yet the temple leaders had allowed it to become secularized to make things more convenient for Jewish worshippers, and more profitable for themselves[iii].

Now Jesus had ‘cleansed’ this court once before, at the beginning of his ministry (John 2, Med.#26), yet these leaders had again allowed ‘business as usual’ to compromise God's intercultural missionary purposes for the Temple. Because the Temple was not bearing fruit even in the old season, it would no longer serve as the place for all the nations to come to learn God's ways. Instead, the Father would establish his new multi-cultural family kingdom by having Jesus’ followers go and disciple all nations, in the authority of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus' actions with the fig tree and in the temple challenge the way we think about spiritual authority.

We tend to think that spiritual authority, like social authority, is connected to a position. Like the disciples and the crowds, we see Jesus' authority connected to his position as the Messiah, or as a prophet like John. Yet when the Judean elders, priests and scribes—out of their positions of authority over the Jewish nation and its institutions—question Jesus' actions, he demonstrates that spiritual authority (‘from heaven’) is different from social authority (‘from men’). If these men—who presume they automatically have both through their ‘ holy’ positions—answer his question one way it will show that their spiritual authority has been compromised; if they answer it the other way it will undermine their social authority over the people.

To underscore his point Jesus uses a parable about a father and two sons. Through John and Jesus, God—as a Father to Israel (Med.#C)—is calling his ‘sons’ to enter and exercise a new level of spiritual authority in the Messianic kingdom (working in the Father's vineyard). Yet spiritual authority is based on doing the Father's will, not on holding a position (being a ‘son’), nor on using the religiously correct and respectful words (‘Yes, Sir’). ‘The way of relational righteousness’, as demonstrated by John and by Jesus, is not about obeying a set of righteous principles and rules, but about practicing a lifestyle of repentance and obedient faith in our Father—regardless of the religious or social status category we occupy. Those who rely on a religious status from a previous season will eventually lose whatever ministry authority and fruitfulness they once had, like the fig tree.

How do I exercise spiritual authority in a righteous relationship of faith in God, my Father? In his teaching about the fig tree, Jesus identifies five key elements that undergird spiritual authority: (1) spending time in prayer, (2) asking; (3) believing that I have already received what I request; (4) forgiving people who’ve done something against me; (5) and acting on what our Father gives me to do—even when it seems like an un-climbable ‘mountain’, or when nothing happens right away. And Jesus himself practices all five elements:

1. When he first sees that the sellers and money changers are back, he doesn’t act right away, even though he has driven them out once before. Instead, during the evening in Bethany, he most likely spends time in prayer.
2. There, he asks his Father how to deal with the situation and prepare his Jewish disciples for the new multi-ethnic kingdom. The answer involves a certain fig tree and again ‘cleansing’ the Court of the Nations.
3. He then believes that the Spirit will work in the hearts of his disciples and of those in the temple courts.
4. And he forgives the buyers, sellers, moneychangers and baggage carriers who—after being chased out of the Court of the Nations two years earlier—have gone back to defiling his Father's house.
5. The next morning he looks for the fig tree and acts in faith on what the Father has told him to do—even though it seems irrational and nothing happens right away. He also challenges the sellers and moneychangers in the Temple, even though bringing change to this religious institution is like trying to move a mountain.

      Are you facing a new season: personally, or in your family, church or nation? Are you exercising spiritual authority in a righteous relationship with your Father using all five elements that Jesus modeled and taught?

Father, in Jesus' name, ·show me what you are doing so that I may work with you, ·and say only what I hear from you. ·I know you always hear me ·and that I already have what I ask according to your will. ·I forgive those who have sinned against me. (Jn.16:26; 5:19; 8:28; 11:42; 1 Jn.5:14-15; Mat.6:14)

[i] The whole Scripture Passage is taken from J.K. Mellis, The Good News of the Messiah by the Four Witnesses, pp.199-203,205.

[ii] Greek dikaio-sunee = ‘righteous-with’ or ‘relational righteousness’ with God, or with people, or with both (See note [ii], Med.#11).

[iii] According to the Jerusalem Talmud: there were moneychangers in this court for three weeks before Passover so visiting Jews could convert their currencies to pay the temple-tax (Sheq. I.3); and the sale of sacrificial animals in this court was controlled by the family of the High Priest (Taan.IV.8; Ker. I.7; Chag.78a; Sheq.I.7; cf. esp. Rosh ha Sh.31.a,b; Pea I.6; also Josephus, Antiquities XX.9.2-4.