The first time the fig tree shows up in the Bible is in Genesis 3 and it sets up the pattern. It’s fig-tree religion, or “Operation Fig Leaf,” as Jordan likes to call it.
As he explains, “Adam and Eve have lost their covering. They had this (other-worldly) garment, this light of many colors, and now they realize their garment’s gone. They need a covering so they go out and get the fig leaves. Now I’ve thought about that many times, how of all the trees that they could have used, that was a kind of an odd one. It has big leaves but they are real prickly. They are not comfortable.
“Growing up my mom used to pick figs from our backyard but she always wore yellow rubber gloves up to her elbows, because if you just reach in there and pick a bunch of figs, they’ll just eat your arms to pieces, so I’m thinking Adam and Eve weren’t really the greatest designers at making clothes.
“The fig tree is a type of religion. Man’s attempt at covering himself. But there’s only one religion God ever gave and He gave to the nation Israel through Moses and it’s His religion.
“The fig tree represents the issue of the religious life, and for Israel and her religion, it was designed for them. . . ‘my sweetness and good fruit.’(Judges 9:11) What does it do? It nourishes you. It refreshes you.
“Now you will hear this stuff taught differently than the way I’m presenting it to you. If you read Clarence Larkin or Scofield, especially Larkin and people who follow him, they have a fig tree as a representative of the nation (the national life of Israel) and the vine tree representing the spiritual life.
“The fig tree does not represent the national life of Israel; it represents the religious life. You remember the parable Jesus told in Matthew 24 about ‘this generation that sees the budding of the fig tree’?
“Everybody wants the budding of the fig tree to be 1947 and 1948 when
Israel became a nation. Because then they can figure a generation from that, and figure when the rapture and tribulation are going to be and that kind of stuff. The date-setters want it to be Israel becoming a nation in 1947-48.
“So they say, ‘See, there’s the budding of the fig tree!’ The problem with that is if the fig tree is the national life of Israel, Jesus in Matthew 21 cursed the fig tree. Remember that? And He said, ‘You’ll never again bear fruit.’ If the fig tree represents the nation, then what Jesus did was curse the national life of Israel and the nation can never bear fruit with God again. Consequently God would have to be through with Israel and replace it with the church and you have the basis of Replacement Theology. Well that just won’t get it.
“That’s what years ago got me thinking, ‘Well, that can’t be what the fig tree represents.’ Genesis 3 pegs it as man’s attempt to cover up before God. There’s the religious life. By the way, that’s exactly what God did. He cursed the religious life of Israel and the Mosaic covenant and the religion that Israel got through it will never bear fruit. God set it aside.
“The budding of the fig tree DOES have to with the Judaic system, the sacrificial system, the temple worship, being reestablished. Well in II Thessalonians 2, what does it say the Antichrist is going to do? He’s going to rebuild the temple and sit in it, declaring himself to be God. Reinstitute the daily sacrifice (Daniel 9:27).
“So with the Antichrist they’re going to reinstitute the Mosaic system. When you see that temple rebuilt, and that system set back up, that generation is going to see the Second Advent of Christ. It’s got nothing to do with the national life of Israel. Israel as a nation, in the Bible, is represented by the vine tree.
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Psalm 80, a psalm about the Lord coming again, says, in part, 8] Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.
[9] Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.
[10] The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.
[11] She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river.
[12] Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?”
Isaiah 5:2 says, “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.”
Jordan says, “Notice it says wild grapes. You plant a choice vine, what kind of grapes do you want to get off it? Choice grapes, premium grapes, A-grade. What happened? It brought forth sour grapes. It brought forth wild grapes. It acted like it never did anything for it after it did all that.
“The passage in Isaiah 5 goes on, ‘And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
[6] And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
[7] For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.’
“So what is the vineyard to the Lord? It’s a figure describing the nation Israel that He planted in the land and then blessed and did all these things for. The vine tree is looking at Israel in its life as a nation among the nations of the earth.
“And you see here in the passage God blessed them, put a hedge of protection around them out of the nations as a separate nation and then blessed them and then what’d they do? Instead of appreciating it and responding in faith, they corrupted it.
“Jeremiah 2:21 says, ‘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?’
"You get the idea. They’ve become a degenerated plant of a strange vine. Now you’re back in Deut. 32 (‘Their vine’s not our vine, their rock’s not our rock). They failed spiritually, which corrupted them.
“I just want you to see this vine terminology is something that when Jesus said, ‘I’m the true vine,’ they knew exactly what He was talking about. This is not something He just sucked out of the end of His thumb. This is scriptural terminology that these apostles (in the gospel of John) would have understood instantly.
“Hosea 10:1: ‘Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.’
“What’s happened? They’ve degenerated, they’ve failed; they’ve become empty. They have no fruit that God can accept.
“So when you come to John 15, Jesus, having brought them into an understanding of what’s coming for them, taught them in John 14 about the new covenant ministry they’re going to have when they’re in Him and the new relationship the Holy Spirit’s going to give them, He’s reminding them that, ‘When you’re in me and the Holy Spirit comes and the new covenant is inaugurated, I’m the true vine. The one you’re going to be in is the real true Israel.’ ”
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