ally is the question that concerns us most. What does Ood see in us year after year P Let us take heed so to live that He may see in us fruit.
Notes. Ltjkb XIII. 6—9.
6. — [A certain man had a Jig tree, So!] There can be no doubt that our Lord's primary obfect m this parable was to show the danger of the Jewish Church and nation, at the time when He spoke. It is worthy of remark, that "the barren fig tree" to which our Lord said, no man eat fruit of thee for ever. (Mark zi. 13.) was meant to be an emblem of the Jewish Church. But the primary application of this parable must not shut out the secondary one. It was meant for individuals, as well as for the Jewish Church.
l.^-{These three years.] The meaning of these " three years," has cidled forth much ii^enious conjecture from commentators. Gregory thinks that the three years signify, the times of Israel before the law, in the law, and after the law. Ambrose thinks that they signify the times of natiu'al law, of written law, and of evangelical law. — ^Theophylact applies them to the times of children, of youth, and of old age. — Stella explains them to mean the times before the Babylonian captivity, the times after the return from Babylon, and the times of our Lord's own first advent Others apply them to the three years of our Lord's earthly ministry. — If any of these senses is true, the last appears most likely. U may, however, be seriously questioned, whether our Lord had any of these meanings in His mind^ when He spoke this parable, and whether we ought not to regard the *• three years " as simply an accessory circumstance of the story, the interpretation of which must not be carried too far.
[Cumbereth.'] The Greek word so translated is only rendered thus in this passage. It is generally translated, " make void," — '*make of none effect," — "destroy," — "bring to nothing," — " abolish."
The expression is probably intended to teach the deej> lesson, that unfruitful members of God's chinrch are not merely injuring themselves and perilling their own souls. They are an injury to the church generally, and do public harm. The common idea that an unconverted person "does no harm," — is "no man's enemy but his own," — and the like, is a miserable man-made delusion, based on no warrant of Scripture. To be unfruitful is to he a cumberer of the ground. We are always doing either good or harm.
S. — [Lord, let it alone, dc] Who is meant by the dresser of the vineyard, who thus intercedes, is a question on which wide and
118
BXFOSnO&T THOUGHTS.
Strange differenoes of opinion preTaiis. Augustine says that it signifies "everjr saint," because all intercede. — ^Ambrose and Stella say that it signifies the " apostles." Jerome sajs that it signifies " Michael and Gabriel, the archangels, who had the special charge of the Jewish synagogue. — Alford thinks that it signifies the Holy Spirit. — All these interpretations appear to me incorrect The most probable view is that of Euthymius and Theophylact, who consider the interceding vineyard dresser to be an emblem of Christ Himself. Matthew Henry says truly, '* that had it not been for Christ's intercession, the whole world had been cut down."
[Dig about it and dung it.] This part of the parable signifies the extraordinary means which were used wiUi tiie Jewish Church at the latter period of its existence, in order to awaken it to repentance.
9. — [After that thou shalt cut it down.] It is Yerj probable that all unconverted members of Christ's Church will be found at the last day to have had their special " time of visitation,** and to have oeen ''digged about" by special providences, at some period of their lives. Hence their final condemnation will be proved most just.
The final cutting down of the tree of the Jewish Church, was, undoubtedly, most justly brought on the Jews by their obstinate neglect of all the messages which God sent them in the fifty years immediately preceding the destruction of Jerusalem by the ministry of John the Baptist, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Apostles. If ever there was a fig tree which was long spared, and patiently djgged about, and had every means used to make it fruitful, that tree was the Jewish Church.