This story causes a certain amount of consternation for believers, and is a favorite of Bible critics. Why would Jesus, in all His perfection, curse a poor defenseless tree for the small crime of having no fruit – especially when, as the version of the story in Mark says, it is not even the season for figs? It seems downright mean-spirited.

The answer, of course, is that Jesus was offering a spiritual lesson through the internal meanings of the things He did: a lesson about the nature of the Jewish church at the time, the nature of the church He was creating, and the nature of the “churches” we should all be building inside ourselves.

This story occurs the morning after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and a day spent chasing the money-lenders from the Temple (according to Matthew and Luke, anyway), healing, preaching, and confronting the church elders. The Writings say that in general, cities in the Bible represent doctrinal systems, the ideas and principles that give a church form. In this case, being Jerusalem, the city represents the doctrine of the Jewish church of the day. So Jesus had been assessing the church’s doctrine, and had found it wanting.

After a night in Bethany – a higher, more spiritual state of preparation and rejuvenation – Jesus was again looking to the external state of the church: heading back to Jerusalem. The fact that He was hungry represents his desire to find some true goodness in the Jewish church, an element of love and caring.

But it was not to be, a fact He illustrated through the fig tree.

A fig tree, according to the Writings, represents a state of natural goodness, a desire to be good in external, day-to-day things. Leaves represents facts, thoughts, ideas, intellectual things attached to that desire for good. Fruit represents the actual good deeds, good things performed from that desire, fed through the leaves. The fig tree, then, represents the state of the Jewish church of the time. It was intended to help people be good in their actions, in their external lives. It still had the knowledge – the leaves – that connected to that intended state. But it had no fruit – there was no actual good coming from it.

By causing the tree to wither, Jesus was showing the state of ideas – even valid ones – that are not used for good purposes: They are rendered false and lifeless. What He did to the tree showed what He was doing to the Jewish church: exposing the hollowness of its external ideas to make way for the new church He was launching.

And what would the nature of the new church be? Casting a mountain into the sea represents uprooting our deepest evil – the love of ourselves – and casting it into hell. Receiving “all things” means letting the Lord into our deepest recesses to bring His order and peace. That’s what the new church would offer, and what the Lord still offers: If we will believe – if we will acknowledge the Lord as God and follow His teachings – we can shed not only our external evils (the fig tree) but also our internal ones (the mountain) and reach a state of true blessedness.

(Referencias: Apocalypse Explained 386 [29]; Arcana Coelestia 885 [2], 4314 [4]; The Apocalypse Explained 109 [6], 403 [21])

4316. In the internal historical sense 'even to this day' means that their nature was perpetually so. This is clear from the meaning of 'even to this day', when used in the Word, as that which is perpetual, dealt with in 2838. The fact that the nature of those descendants was such from earliest times becomes clear from Jacob's sons themselves - from Reuben, in that he lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, Genesis 35:22; from Simeon and Levi, in that they killed Hamor and Shechem and all the men of their city [Genesis 34:25-26]; and from the remaining sons, in that these came on the slain and destroyed the city, Genesis 34:27-29. Because of all this Jacob, who by then was Israel, spoke of them in the following manner before he died: Of Reuben he said,

You shall not be a superior one, for you went up to your father's bed; then you made yourself unworthy. He went up to my couch. Genesis 49:3-4.

And of Simeon and Levi he said,

Into their secret place let my soul not come; with their congregation let not my glory be united; for in their anger they killed a man, and deliberately hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is severe. I will divide them within Jacob, and will scatter them within Israel. Genesis 49:5-7.

[2] What Judah was like becomes additionally clear from his marriage to a Canaanite, Genesis 38:1-2, which was nevertheless contrary to what had been commanded, as may be seen from Abraham's words addressed to the servant who was sent to betroth Rebekah to Isaac his son, Genesis 24:3, 6, and from many places in the Word. A third of that nation belonged to this lineage, that is to say, a third descended from his son Shelah who was born from a Canaanite mother, Genesis 38:11; 46:12. See Numbers 26:20; and 1 Chronicles 4:21-22. Further evidence of what these and the rest of Jacob's sons were like lies in the unspeakable crime which they committed against Joseph, Genesis 37:18-end. What their descendants in Egypt were like is evident from the details which are recorded about them when they were in the desert, where they were rebellious on so many occasions, and after that in the land of Canaan where they became idolaters on so many occasions; and lastly what they were like in the Lord's time is shown just above, in 4314. And what they are like today is well known - they are opposed to the Lord, opposed to the things that constitute the Church, and opposed to charity towards the neighbour, being opposed even to one another. These considerations show that the nature of that nation has been such perpetually. Let no one therefore assume any longer that any Church has existed among them, only that which is a representative of the Church. Still less should anyone assume that they have been chosen in preference to others.