<p>11:14 <em>Jesus addressed it: Henceforth, no one will eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it</em>- Mk. 11:14,21,22 imply that Peter was amazed that something the Lord had predicted about the fig tree had actually come true.<br />Sometimes God speaks as if He has rejected Israel, and other times as if they will eternally be His people. Such is the extent of His passionate feelings for them. And the Son of God entered into this- He said that no man would eat fruit of the tree of Israel for ever (Mk. 11:14), when in fact Israel one day will fill the face of the earth with fruit (Is. 27:6). We too, in the spirit of the prophets, are to enter into these feelings of God. God&rsquo;s threats to punish His people and His desire to forgive them don&rsquo;t somehow cancel each other out as in an equation. They exist within the mind of God in a terrible tension. He cries out through Hosea of how His many &lsquo;repentings&rsquo; are &ldquo;kindled together&rdquo; as He struggles within Himself to give up His people as He has threatened (Hos. 11:8). The fig tree would never bear fruit (Mk. 11:14). But Israel will blossom and bud and fill the earth with fruit (Is. 27:6); hence the fig tree bearing fruit when it has been condemned never to bear fruit is such a dramatic sign (Lk. 21:29,30.). The Lord spoke His words about Israel's future budding with full knowledge that He (and several OT passages) had condemned her to eternal barrenness. He knew, however, the paradox of grace.</p><p>If the fruit on the fig tree represents spiritual fruit, does this suggest that now the possibility of repentance was taken away from them? It was as if judgment day had really arrived for them even in this life; for there will be no possibility of repentance then. Or it could be that the Lord was annulling the prophecies about&nbsp;<em>Israel</em>&nbsp;filling the face of the earth with fruit. His emphasis then would have been on &quot;May no fruit grow&nbsp;<em>on you</em>&quot;. The tree of Israel was to be cut down, and the fruit was to come from the fig tree &quot;and all the trees&quot; of the Gentile nations. This is the connection with the Lord's later sign of the fig tree and all the trees (Lk. 21:29); when spiritual fruit is seen on all of them, when the Gospel has gone into all the world, to all the trees / nations, then shall the end come (Mt. 24:14).&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Matthew says there would be no fruit from the fig tree &quot;For ever&quot;, for the&nbsp;<em>aion</em>, the age. He could mean throughout the new age which was to start, for Israel are prophesied as finally blossoming and filling the face of the earth with fruit (Is. 27:6). Or it could be that that prophecy about Israel was conditional, and the Lord is accepting that their rejection of Him meant that it and other such prophecies were now disallowed from fulfilment in themselves by what they were going to do to Him.</p>