The Urgency of Repentance

Luke ended that last section with Jesus telling the crowd to respond quickly before it’s too late, to get right with God while there is still time. They should cease their religious hypocrisy and see the obvious signs the Messiah is present in Jesus. In doing so, they would be repenting of their sin and turning to God.

So it seems that, in the next section when Jesus is approached with a story concerning a tragedy, he continues this thread of their need for prompt repentance.

Luke 13:1–9 ESV

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Jesus interprets for his hearers the meaning behind (or at least how they ought to respond to) two real tragedies in recent occurrence, and then he also teaches a parable about fruitlessness. The overall point of both is the urgency to turn to God (repent) while there is still opportunity.

What Tragedy Teaches (vv. 1-5)

How are we to think about tragedy (death)? How are we to think about life’s purpose and meaning when it is unexpectedly cut short?

[***explain] the first incident...

… and the common perspective that there was a connection between calamity and iniquity… which Jesus flatly rejects.

… and the second incident.

Similarities between the two tragedies: resulted in death, quick & unexpected, under circumstances in which they would have considered themselves completely safe. (ie., like we feel about driving to and from work, school, the grocery store)

In calling them to repent, Jesus draws attention to the sinfulness of all his listeners. (Repent = to turn away from sin and toward God—allowing him to rescue and lead you his way on his terms)

Is perishing a reference simply to the fact that they will one day all die, or one day (perhaps even today) might suffer a similar fate? Or is Jesus speaking more specifically about the need to repent of their sin and turn to God in order to not perish eternally (remain forever separated from God because they loved sin and their own supposed righteousness rather than obedience to God).

First, Jesus can’t be saying that they will suffer similar fate to these other tragedies because of their sin since he just said that these things were not caused by their greater sinfulness. But since the tragedies draw attention to the frailty of human life and the possibility of instantaneous death without warning, Jesus warns his listeners that they must repent and be right with God immediately, without delay.

Furthermore, consider the context that has come before this in the discourse Luke has recorded with Jesus’ disciples and the crowds as well: Do not fear what people might do to you, even though they could put you to death. Instead, fear God, who has authority not only over this life but beyond this life to cast into hell. Do not be like the rich fool who focused on amassing stuff in this life, only to find that when his soul was required of him at the end, he had nothing. Instead, be rich toward God. So be ready at all times for the Master’s return. You do not know when it will be, but it could be at any moment. And finally, you must recognize the obvious signs that the Messiah is in fact here, and you should settle accounts with God immediately in order to not face his just judgment against your sin and self-righteousness.

To remain as you are without repentance and faith in Jesus Christ is to ensure God’s just condemnation on both your sin and your refusal to accept his offering of forgiveness through the work of Christ.

In the next section, as we shall see, Jesus particularly emphasizes this generation of Israelites who have witnessed God’s Messiah yet refuse to accept him as their King. But for this brief window of God’s ongoing patience and care, the present is only a delay in the certain danger of being cut down, a clear reference to judgment.

A Fruitless Generation in Israel (vv. 6-9)

(Spiritually unresponsive)

Doubtless, fruitless trees are a fruit farmer’s favorite… or a milk-less dairy cow or eggless laying hen. They quickly go from generating food to becoming food.

If Scott High (High’s Berry Farm) had any strawberry plants that bore no strawberries, he’d pitch them. Actually, if I’m not mistaken, they plant new strawberry plants each year in order to get the best crop.

A fig tree of course, is different in that it produces fruit when it is mature. What we are to picture of this fig tree, planted in among the vineyard (not an uncommon practice in Palestine, at the time & even today), is that it is mature and has had sufficient time to prove fruitful. If it did not bear fruit for a single year, this might be an anomaly. But the owner of the field has sought figs for three years in a row, only to find none. He is right to conclude that this is a fruitless tree. So he tells the vinedresser to cut it down, in order that it might not waste useful garden space and nutrients in the ground. {Again, this is what Scott High would do, as would you if your intent was to grow fruit.]

But the vinedresser asks him to delay one more year, allowing him to loosen the earth around the tree and to add manure as fertilizer. (Apparently fig trees did not normally need manure, so this is indeed an extra effort.) The worker makes every effort to save the tree, even knowing that the conclusion of fruitlessness is likely.

In fact, the grammatical construction in Greek with the conditional clauses in v. 9 is such that the second condition is much more likely, if not certain. It seems that the vinedresser and owner know this attempt will end in failure, and yet there is patience & effort for just a bit longer.

The fig tree was frequently used as a symbol of Israel, and so the parable “symbolizes Israel’s last opportunity to repent before experiencing God’s judgment.” -ESV Study Bible - The parable of the farmer with the fruitless fig tree pictures the longsuffering patience of God with respect to the ongoing stubborn rebellion and sin of Israel. While God is the just judge who will cut down the spiritually fruitless, opportunity for repentance is indication of God’s patience & mercy.

While the period of grace is extended, and this generation of Israelites in particular (at the time of Jesus) is experiencing the most blatant efforts of God to reveal himself through the Messiah, providing them ample opportunity to repent and believe, yet it appears they will largely refuse.

Jesus leaves this open-ended because the time of extra opportunity is the very moment in which his audience lives, and

What’s more (since we believe Luke’s Gospel aims at an audience that is primarily Greek, or non-Jewish), Luke himself is able to use what Jesus teaches not only as theological evidence on the path to God extending the Gospel offer to the Gentiles, but then also to further compel his own readers to respond with repentance while the offer still stands… before it is too late.

Conclusion: (summary & extending application)

Instead of rousing judgmental suspicions about what sinners those people must have been to meet such a tragic end, what tragedy should teach us is the frailty of human life and our desperate need to be right with God… before it’s too late. There is an urgency in our need for repentance.

Likewise, God’s judgment of Israel for her lack of repentance of religious hypocrisy shouldn’t cause us to shake our heads at their blindness. Instead, we need to realize that we ourselves are facing a deadline. There will come at day, and we do not know when, that the grace extended during this period of God’s patience will come to an end.

If you are putting off getting right with God, Jesus is here teaching the urgency of immediate repentance and faith.

And those of us who have, by God’s grace, found Jesus as our only hope for this life and for the one to come, how might we make application concerning repentance?

“Repentance is both a once-for-all event that shapes the whole subsequent course of the life and a day-by-day affair that keeps putting sin away.” -Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 3, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 239–240.

Turn to God and keep turning to God.

Come to Jesus and keep coming to Jesus. The comfort of Christians is to know that repentance and faith in Jesus does indeed yield righteousness before God—not a righteousness of our own according to the law (not by our own efforts to be right), but a righteousness that comes “through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Php 3:9). Christ’s perfect righteousness on our behalf means that we will not suffer condemnation at the judgment. The further comfort for Christians is that our hope is in Christ for the end result and our hope is in Christ to live for God in the present.

Even as the vinedresser worked to do in cultivating his vineyard, so we too must repent again and again and return again and again to the resources of grace God has given us to cultivate our relationship with him. The health of our spiritual lives is indeed tied to our diligence in staying close to these means of his grace: We read his word to know him and apply his character and will to our lives, we pray to him to pour out our hearts and learn to trust him and let him lead us, we serve the body (the Church) for its maturity and purity, and we spread the news of restoration to God through repentance and faith to Jesus Christ. As we obey him in these ways, he makes us ever more faithful and fruitful until he comes.

Perhaps what many of us need to repent of today is not faithfully obeying to the Vinedresser in this simple means of his grace that he has for blessing our spiritual lives. Do you dig and mine God’s truth in his word for who he is and what he has for you? Are you praying diligently and urgently for your own dependence on God and for the repentance and restoration of others? Are you actively and frequently seeking new ways to serve God’s people with your energy and time and resources? Are you being lazy and selfish with the Good News of God’s grace offered to those who will turn in faith to Jesus? … The effort of these reminders is not to guilt you, but to remind you that repentance means restoration, and returning to obedience means spiritual growth and blessing.

May the Master, the vinedresser, the great shepherd of his sheep, when he comes, find us actively repenting of sin and self and depending wholly on his grace, obediently seeking to know him and make him known.

PRAY

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