Because of Christ, that old covenant religion was cast into the deepest seas and replaced by something so much better: the fount of Living Water! Jesus’ faith unleashed His Kingdom of salvation upon the world by putting away the types and shadows that came before. That is what this verse is trying to get at and that is why its true interpretation cannot be attacked by the moths and rust of materialism.

INTRODUCTION
If you have been a Christian for any length of time you have probably heard someone say: “if you have enough faith, then you can move mountains.” This, of course, sounds pretty epic until you nearly burst a blood vessel in your forehead trying to move a small ant hill in your back yard. It is then that you realize something. Either, you don’t have enough faith to move anything or you come to see that you have misunderstood this passage and need to relearn what it means. Today, I want to help you with the latter.
Here is the text in its immediate context.
18 Now in the morning, when He was returning to the city, He became hungry. 19 Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He said to it, “No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.” And at once the fig tree withered. 20 Seeing this, the disciples were amazed and asked, “How did the fig tree wither all at once?” 21 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. 22 And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” – Matthew 21:18-22
As you can see, Jesus’ point is couched in a pretty specific context. He is teaching His disciples why and how He cursed a specific tree and rendered it barren forever. He was not vying for a regular spot on the TBN miracle hour where He teaches carnal Christians to actualize their materialistic fantasies. He was not saying: “Hey Christian, if you just believe super hard on this you can move whatever metaphorical mountain is standing in your way.”
If that were the case, we could join in with the prophets of Baal, trying to figure out which spiritual convulsion, faith cut, or liver-shiver of sincerity will get the fire to drop from heaven. If we say this prayer, sow this seed, or really really really believe, then that mountain of sickness will run away, that apex promotion will fall in my lap, and that zenith sports car I have always wanted will show up in my driveway.
Even though our flesh would certainly crave such a sensate and self-centered interpretation, this could not be further from what Jesus is actually saying. This passage, at least not directly, is not about you and the things you want! This passage is about Jesus and what He wants!
To understand all of this, let us discuss the two main ideas in the passage. What does it mean that He cursed the fig tree? And what does it mean to speak to a mountain and throw it into the sea?
CURSING FRUITLESSNESS
In Matthew 21, Jesus comes to Jerusalem, a fruitless mountain city that offered Him only leaves (Mt. 21:8). After that, He goes to the high point of the city, the temple mount, where fruit for God should have been present but all He found was rot and decay (Mt. 21:12-17). So, on the next morning, when Jesus curses a rotten tree, at the base of a mountain, because it would not bear any fruit, we should begin to pick up what Jesus is laying down.
Jerusalem is not only a city that is compared to a garden vineyard in Isaiah (Isaiah 5), but its residents are compared to various kinds of figs in Jeremiah (24). More than that, it’s temple was intentionally decorated to look like the garden of Eden (See for example 1 Kings 6:18, 29, 32, 35; 7:18-20). By these facts alone, we can see Jerusalem’s purpose was to be fruitful and to multiply good fruit for God, not the poison berries of Sodom. But, by the time Christ visits the city in Matthew 21, something had gone terribly wrong!
In Matthew 21, Jesus came to a city that no longer looked like a garden but a wilderness. He came to a temple that was no longer producing fruit for God, giving life to its people, but was withered in total corruption (Mt. 21:12-13). He came to a people that looked just like that barren fig tree rotting along the road, and by cursing that tree, He was showcasing what He was about to do to them.
Just like the withering tree, Jerusalem was about to be chopped down and thrown into the fire of God’s wrath. That is not a matter of opinion or poetic interpretation, that actually occurred 40 years later when Rome burned the city to the ground. They sieged it, they invaded it, and they turned the withered city into a pile of hot ash without a single stone left upon another (Matthew 24:1-2).
CASTING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
It is clear from the passage that the disciples were amazed at Jesus’ behavior and likely did not see the connection He was making with Jerusalem. This is not an uncommon occurrence, since the disciples misunderstand the significance and meaning of so much of what Jesus is talking about and doing in the Gospels. There are countless times His disciples are left scratching their heads in total confusion and this time is no different. So, in order to help them understand, Jesus does what He often does elsewhere; He illustrates His main point with a secondary example so that the disciples will finally get it.
Notice the example Jesus provides.
21 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to THIS mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. (emphasis mine)
By sharing this example, Jesus is not taking a break from His main point in order to establish a very disconnected word of faith / prosperity theology. He is not ignoring the disciples question so that He can empower future charlatans with ammunition to abuse God’s people. Instead, it is quite clear from the context that Jesus is making His main point even stronger with a good illustration. He has showcased Jerusalem’s downfall with the image of a fig tree. Now He will talk about it in terms of a mountain.
Why?
FIRST
Because Jerusalem was literally a city on top of a mountain. It was surrounded by valleys on all sides and to get into the city you would need to go up from every direction. Furthermore, the temple was at the highest point and pinnacle of that mountain which meant that you could see it for miles and miles looming over the horizon.
Thus, as Jesus stood speaking to His disciples about the downfall of fruitless Jerusalem, that cursed mountain would have been looming largely over them. It would have been an obvious point that Jesus was making for anyone standing in that valley.  Especially to this group, whose destination was that very mountain city.
SECOND
Jesus does not promise, if you speak to “a mountain” then it will leap off the land and into the water, like Mount Everest canon-calling into the Indian Ocean”. He also does not promise if you say to “any old mountain-like problem” it will fall into a Mariana-trnech-like-hole. No! He stands at the foot of a very specific mountain that all of them were looking at, and traveling towards, and says “Even if you say to THIS mountain”. By using the near demonstrative pronoun, it could not be more clear what Jesus is referring to.
He has a very specific mountain in view that will be destroyed and tossed into the sea. That brings us to our third point.
THIRD
It is a matter of historical record that the Romans surrounded the city of Jerusalem in AD 70 and leveled its top like a blown off volcano. They built ramps up to the city, came in, and tore down every building, especially the Jewish temple and razed the city to the ground. But, not only that, they killed most of the surviving males, and they took nearly 100,000 others into slavery back to Rome. Along with the women, children, and others, they carried every item of value left in the city, placed the spoils on their ships, and cast off back to Rome. The mountain of Jerusalem had very much been cast into the sea, just as Jesus predicted.
CONCLUSION
In Matthew 21, Jesus is not speaking about the kind of name it and claim it faith that charlatans use to justify their extravagant lifestyles. He is not teaching about the kind of faith you need to have the material, emotional, mental, or relational things you want. He is talking about something infinitely better.
Standing between every Christian and their God was the apostate mountain of Jerusalem. That system of temples, priests, feasts, and sacrifices was the temporary placeholder that was meant to prepare the world for the unveiling of Christ. Now that Christ had come, it was time to put away that old mountain that has fallen into disrepair. In Matthew 21, Jesus is talking about the kind of faith that led Him to put away the old covenantal realities so that the new and better covenant would come!
When Jesus was lifted up and nailed to a mountain cross, He signaled a new era in human history. Instead of people going to Jerusalem to meet with God, now they would come to Christ (John 14:6). Instead of traveling to a distant temple, He made us into walking, talking, temples (1 Cor. 3:16). Instead of looking for fruit in the old covenant religion, He makes us bear fruit for His new covenant kingdom (Jn 15; Gal 5:22). Instead of old Jerusalem offering the starving world bitter withered leaves, He makes the New Jerusalem church to offer life-giving leaves and fruit for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2).
Because of Christ, that old covenant religion was cast into the deepest seas and replaced by something so much better: the fount of Living Water! Jesus’ faith unleashed His Kingdom of salvation upon the world by putting away the types and shadows that came before. That is what this verse is trying to get at and that is why its true interpretation cannot be attacked by the moths and rust of materialism.
APPLICATION
When you come to a verse like this, read the context. Do not assume that it automagically applies to you in the basest sense. Do not use a verse like this to muster up big comical faith. Do not believe that God is just waiting on you to reach a certain level of sincerity before He will answer your prayers. Have faith! Pray big prayers! Yes and amen!  But, also realize that Jesus is not giving you an blank check to satisfy your carnal wishlist. He has done something infinitely better. He removed the mountain of dead religion standing between you and God and He made it possible for you to know the LORD through Him.
Enjoy that truth and leave the mountains to Jesus.
Kendall Lankford is the Lead Teaching Pastor at The Shepherd’s Church in Chelmsford, Mass. This article is used with permission.
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God has revealed himself in Jesus, who is the pinnacle of God’s revelation. If the stakes were high back in Moses’ day, they’re even higher now. One day God will shake not only a place in the Egyptian wilderness but all earth and heaven in judgment, so it’s even more important that we pay attention to Jesus. When God shakes heaven and earth, there’s only one place that will not be shaken according to verse 27. That place is Mount Zion.

Why should God accept you? That is a question that should concern all of us.
When you get to the end of your life and stand before God, why should he look at you and say that you are acceptable? How can we pass the ultimate final exam, the only exam that truly matters, as our lives come under the scrutiny of God? How can we face that day with confidence, knowing that he will give us a passing grade?
There are only two possible answers, and they’re really answers represented by two different mountains. We’re all headed to one of these two mountains, but only one will give us what we’re looking for, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
We’re near the end of a series through the book of Hebrews. The writer is encouraging us to keep following Jesus because he is so much better than anyone or anything else. This chapter is meant to change our lives. The writer of Hebrews wants us to run the race with endurance: to strip off everything that hinders us, to avoid losing what matters most for temporary pleasure, and to keep running the race despite suffering and hardship in our lives. His big goal is to help us cling to Christ and to keep following him to the end.
In this section, he gives us two options for how we can get to the end and know that we’re okay with God. He gives us two mountains. We’re either going to one or the other, so choose carefully. Everything is at stake depending on which mountain you choose.
Mountain One: Sinai (12:18-21)
The writer takes us all the way to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to the events that took place in Exodus 19 to 20. Israel stayed at Sinai for a total of 11 months, and one of the most important events in the entire Old Testament took place. Moses went up the mountain to be with God. Sinai was covered with a thick cloud, and God himself came to meet with Moses. Think about it: God had rescued them from Egypt, and now he came to meet with them and make them his people.
But meeting with God is no small thing. Because God is so holy, they had to take precautions. God himself was hidden in clouds because his glory would be too great for them to see with their naked eyes. They had to wash their clothes and consecrate themselves in three days of preparation and examination. And even then, they couldn’t get anywhere near Mount Sinai because God is so holy and glorious. We read in Exodus:
And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ (Exodus 19:12-13)
It was terrifying. We read what happened after the three days of preparation:
On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. (Exodus 19:16-20)
Even then, after Moses went up, God told Moses to go down and warn the people again not to come anywhere near the mountain because it was so dangerous to come close to a holy God.
Friends, this is what it’s like to come into God’s presence. It’s dangerous. Astronomers have discovered a sun that they describe as the brightest star ever found in the universe. Not even a welder’s helmet would help you face the light from this giant. The brightness of this star is some 10 million times greater than the light coming from our sun!
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Both your joy and your endurance are embedded in a life that loudly declares, “I am not God.” And what he desires is for you to be attentive to the life you’ve been given, not the life you think you ought to have been given. To glorify God right where you are, not where you think you ought to be. To trade in the illusion of omnipresence, which belongs to him alone, for faithful presence here, where your own two feet are.

Have you ever considered that the perfect world of Eden was a roadless world? Roads are built to get us somewhere. While there was certainly a sense of expansion in God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28), the perfect life in a perfect world wasn’t found in getting somewhere but in abiding somewhere.
Genesis 1–2 is a story of place. God creates a universe of what we’d call “reality” and fills it with his creative beauty, declaring goodness over every part of it. In Genesis 1, place is universal. The entire created cosmos is in view. In that sense, place is something we can never escape. And whether it’s heaven, earth, or anywhere else, wherever we can point to and say “there,” that “there” is a place our omnipresent God hasn’t only created but inhabits.
But then in Genesis 2, something important happens as humanity comes onto the scene. Place becomes localized. Humanity inhabits a specific place—Eden, within the planet we call earth—and is entrusted with its care.
Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. . . . The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. (Gen. 2:7–8, 15, CSB).
One of God’s attributes that he doesn’t permit us to share in is his omnipresence. We’re unipresent, only able to truly inhabit one place at a time. What if the limitations of your time and place were part of God’s grace to you? What if the ever-changing seasons we experience yet cannot possess and the spaces we inhabit that haunt us with a sense of “locatedness” are part of God’s plan for deepening our trust in him and for fruitfulness in life? 
The world we live in has become increasingly mobile. It’s also increasingly rare for someone to remain in one place for his or her entire life. Take a moment to consider the place you’re presently in. I don’t know how long you’ve been there or how long you intend to stay. But for as long as you dwell there, God desires that your presence would bless that place. That you’d live out your heavenly citizenship, wherever you may be in this world. Your presence—your “whereness”—deeply matters to God.
First Question God Ever Asked
Have you ever thought about the fact that the first question God ever asked in the Bible was a question about location?
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