A Most Misunderstood Warning From Christ

Prelude

While Jesus made multiple mentions about His second coming, His crucifixion, and even the law, there’s a particular precept that He gave warning about that has been so misunderstood that Paul wrote multiple letters to clarify and it still acts as a stumbling block in many churches today. So what is this precept / warning about?

Fruitfulness.

Making The Case

We could go from the beginning of scripture to the end, and see this theme repeated in its weight and significance to God, but to keep this post short, let’s focus on highlights from the old testament, direct statements from Jesus, and a few snippets from Paul’s letters:

1. “Fruitfulness” in general has its first mention tied to the third day of creation (Genesis 1:11-13), with “three” repeatedly pointing back to God (“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”, three days and nights for Jonah and Jesus, the “three men” of Genesis 18 confirmed to be the LORD in verse 1 making covenant with Abraham, etc.).
2. The unusual law from Leviticus 19:23-25 covering when the Lord was allowing the children of Israel to consume fruit from the trees they would plant in the land they would come to possess - the first three years they weren’t to eat of the fruit, the fourth was holy and reserved for praising the Lord, and the fifth forward was theirs. (*Put a mental pin in this one for later)
3. The Lord reaffirms His promise to the children of Israel to bless the “fruit of thy womb” and the fruitfulness of their land, IF they would listen to, keep, and do His commandments, and terrifying consequences warned if they did not (Deuteronomy 7:12-13, Deuteronomy 28, etc.).
4.  A consistent witness of good and timely fruit being tied to obedience and wicked fruit to destruction from prophet after prophet. (see David - Psalm 1:3; Solomon - Proverbs 1:31, 13:2, 31:16 and 31; Isaiah - Isaiah 3:10, 37:30; Jeremiah - Jeremiah 17:10, 21:14, 32:19; Ezekiel - Ezekiel 36, 47:12; Daniel - Daniel 4:21; Hosea - Hosea 10:1, 10:13; etc.)
5. John the Baptist was made to give a direct rebuke to the religious leaders of the day that came out to see why the people were coming out of the city to be baptized, in there needing to be a “fruits meet for repentance” from them (Matthew 3:7-12, Luke 3:7-8) instead of the fruits they were continually providing to Israel.
6. Jesus directly spoke on fruitfulness testifying of what kind of tree you are and what soil you might be planted in through Matthew 7:17-19 and Matthew 12:33, but in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13), the weeds among the wheat planted by Satan aren’t plucked up as not to also pull out some wheat with it (Matthew 13:29). Let them grow together until the harvest, to be separated and one burns (verse 30). 
7. And finally, Jesus cursing the fig tree in Matthew 21:18-19 that no fruit ever grow on it, since it was seeming to refuse to produce fruit even outside of its season (see Mark 11:13 as it confirms that even though the leaves were proof of the tree’s maturity, it wasn’t yet the season for figs to be produced)! The fig tree could represent the peoples’ resistance to accepting the first fruits of God, Jesus Christ, and a certain fruitfulness was being denied them forever…

Conclusion

The concept of fruitfulness is clearly important to God as it continues in far more examples in scripture, but there’s a sincere danger of that concept being turned into a “works-based” faith and sanctification understanding.

That is a terrible mangling of scripture and an exercise in futility, but allow me to explain:

The notion of faith without works being dead in James 2:17, 20, and 26, seems to be a strong argument from Jesus’ half-brother for your works being what leads to salvation, but what’s being described is a living faith that always produces fruitful works as evidence. The verses between them even give biblical examples of heroes and heroines (Abraham and Rahab) that would’ve surely perished (Rahab) or missed out on the fruitful promises of God (Abraham), if their faith was not followed by actions borne of it.

Likewise, the understanding that “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6) points to works alone never being a thing that can merit the pleasure of our King, but Paul again brings it home in Ephesians 2:8-9 saying this:

Ephesians 2:8-9 - 8) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: 9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.

This further drives home the understanding that the grace of God allows for the gift of faith, a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) that can produce righteous fruit - even works. So, God, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), gives us a faith made perfect in Him (James 2:22), of His Spirit, that our works are in His image…

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If you're looking for a simple way to reflect on this in your daily walk, we created a few journals and devotionals that may help. Here's an example of one of them: Planted in Grace: A Scripture Reflection Journal to Grow in Faith, Truth, and Prayer