A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the passage in Mark 11 where Jesus curses a fig tree. With the help of R.C. Sproul, I presented a reasonably good line of thinking as to why Jesus might do such a seemingly capricious thing.
Enter Charles Price to complete that line of thinking.
I watched the final part of his series 'In the Beginning' last Monday, and I have to say it was one of his best (I think I say that about all his sermons, but whatever). He was talking about the Fall, and its various consequences.
To give you an extremely brief overview, Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they ate of the forbidden fruit, and thus ruined things for the rest of us. After they did this disobedient deed, we're told two things in the very next verse - they became aware of their nakedness, and as a result, they did something about it.
Do you remember what they did? Well, just to remind/inform you, they made some clothes for themselves. And more to the point, they made the clothes out of, that's right, fig leaves.
This I find amazing. Not the fact that they managed to sew fig leaves together in order to make clothes (though that is impressive). But the fact that the Bible is so consistent, so beautifully symbolic, right the way through from Genesis to Mark and beyond.
As Charles Price says, 'fig trees represent human effort'. I mentioned in my previous post about the fig tree Jesus encountered appearing to be good based on outward appearance, but on closer inspection is was useless and flawed. As R.C. Sproul points out, this is an object lesson, where the fig tree represents someone who appears to be righteous, but the external appearance is covering over an internal deficiency.
As we see on closer inspection of Genesis however, this wasn't the first time a fig tree performed such a devious task of deception. Adam and Eve, feeling naked and exposed, decided to try and cover over their nakedness by clothing themselves in fig leaves. They tried in their own effort to appear 'righteous' by an outward manifestation. But this didn't work for them, and it certainly doesn't work for us today.
With regards Adam and Eve, God intervened mercifully by shedding the blood of an animal, and clothing them with garments of skin. This was a foreshadowing of what God has done for us, when He intervened by shedding the blood of His Son, that we might be clothed with righteousness.
And so fig trees, from the very beginning, symbolize human effort, which is not what God requires of us in order to be made right with Him, and which gives Him reasonable grounds not to like fig trees very much (though of course there's nothing inherently wrong with a fig tree). I just find it remarkable the way the Bible comes together like this, and the way such profoundness can come from the most simple of details.
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Here's a Youtube link to the aforementioned Charles Price sermon. I recommend you give it a watch (although I haven't actually seen it all yet, but I'll remedy that soon enough).
Enter Charles Price to complete that line of thinking.
I watched the final part of his series 'In the Beginning' last Monday, and I have to say it was one of his best (I think I say that about all his sermons, but whatever). He was talking about the Fall, and its various consequences.
To give you an extremely brief overview, Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they ate of the forbidden fruit, and thus ruined things for the rest of us. After they did this disobedient deed, we're told two things in the very next verse - they became aware of their nakedness, and as a result, they did something about it.
Do you remember what they did? Well, just to remind/inform you, they made some clothes for themselves. And more to the point, they made the clothes out of, that's right, fig leaves.
This I find amazing. Not the fact that they managed to sew fig leaves together in order to make clothes (though that is impressive). But the fact that the Bible is so consistent, so beautifully symbolic, right the way through from Genesis to Mark and beyond.
As Charles Price says, 'fig trees represent human effort'. I mentioned in my previous post about the fig tree Jesus encountered appearing to be good based on outward appearance, but on closer inspection is was useless and flawed. As R.C. Sproul points out, this is an object lesson, where the fig tree represents someone who appears to be righteous, but the external appearance is covering over an internal deficiency.
As we see on closer inspection of Genesis however, this wasn't the first time a fig tree performed such a devious task of deception. Adam and Eve, feeling naked and exposed, decided to try and cover over their nakedness by clothing themselves in fig leaves. They tried in their own effort to appear 'righteous' by an outward manifestation. But this didn't work for them, and it certainly doesn't work for us today.
With regards Adam and Eve, God intervened mercifully by shedding the blood of an animal, and clothing them with garments of skin. This was a foreshadowing of what God has done for us, when He intervened by shedding the blood of His Son, that we might be clothed with righteousness.
And so fig trees, from the very beginning, symbolize human effort, which is not what God requires of us in order to be made right with Him, and which gives Him reasonable grounds not to like fig trees very much (though of course there's nothing inherently wrong with a fig tree). I just find it remarkable the way the Bible comes together like this, and the way such profoundness can come from the most simple of details.
*********************************************************
Here's a Youtube link to the aforementioned Charles Price sermon. I recommend you give it a watch (although I haven't actually seen it all yet, but I'll remedy that soon enough).
Charles Price - In The Beginning
dec. you seem desperate for comments. i'm not a big "commenter", but an avid reader. keep on blogging....and stuff...like...
ReplyDeleteDesperate for comments? Now where would you get an idea like that???
ReplyDeleteAnyway, keep those comments coming........oh, right. THATS where....