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.
Related Posts:

While Noah wasn’t the serpent-crushing and curse-reversing victor, he was a type of the one to come. Jesus, the greater Noah, would bring us relief. He would bring blessing into the world laden with toil and curse.

Genealogies have rhythm. In the genealogy of Genesis 5, the refrain “and he died” is mentioned over and over again. The generations in Genesis 5 are tenfold, extending from Adam to Noah.
Generation 1—AdamGeneration 2—SethGeneration 3—EnoshGeneration 4—KenanGeneration 5—MahalalelGeneration 6—JaredGeneration 7—EnochGeneration 8—MethuselahGeneration 9—LamechGeneration 10—Noah
When studying a genealogy, it’s good to note both rhythms as well as any information that’s added when a particular person or generation is recounted. For example, we notice that Enoch didn’t die an earthly death. Instead, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24).
Another comment in Genesis 5 occurs with Lamech, the ninth name in the list. We’re told that Lamech had a son and named him Noah, saying “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Gen. 5:29).
The name Noah sounds like the Hebrew word for “rest,” so there’s a deliberate echo in Noah’s name with the hope his father had in naming him. Lamech, like the generations before him, dwelled outside Eden and in a world needing rest from the curse and corruption of sin and death.
The words of Lamech in Genesis 5:29 mention “the ground that the LORD has cursed.” This alludes to what happened in Genesis 3:17, when God said to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you.”
Read More
Related Posts:

Though Martyn preferred a quiet life of prayer and study, he demonstrated a commitment to what many today would call being incarnational. As chaplain aboard multiple East India Company vessels, he ministered to the sailors and crew. In India, he opened his home to British soldiers and Indians alike for Bible studies and church services. Martyn also took a relational approach to language learning. Though he enjoyed studying grammars and texts, he made significant progress in various languages by visiting with Indians, Arabs, and Persians.

Though we marvel at the Bible translation output of William Carey (1761–1834) and the Serampore community, Henry Martyn (1781–1812) proved a far more capable Bible translator. Trained in biblical and classical languages and mathematics at Cambridge, Martyn oversaw in his short life the translation of the New Testament into Urdu, Arabic, and Persian in less than six years of missionary service in India and Persia.
In 1923, Constance Padwick (1886–1968), a long-time missionary with the Church Missionary Society in the Arab world, published Henry Martyn: Confessor of the Faith to capture the life and significance of the visionary 19th-century missionary. Although four biographies on Martyn had been published before the turn of the 20th century, those works were appreciative and borderline hagiographic.
Writing a century after Martyn’s death, Padwick narrates his journey more soberly and from the perspective of a veteran missionary in the Muslim world. Having also written a biography on her colleague, William Henry Temple Gairdner, Padwick valued historical reflection to encourage wisdom for ongoing ministry. What lessons about mission can be gleaned from Padwick’s presentation of Martyn?
Tentmaker and Translator
Martyn went to India not as a missionary per se but as a strategically placed religious professional. He initially aimed to join the Church Missionary Society. But since his father’s inheritance was lost and Martyn was responsible for providing for his younger sister, he instead accepted a chaplain position for the British East India Company.
While Martyn primarily served as a pastor to the English-speaking expatriate community, his chaplaincy role allowed him some freedom to minister to Indians. He organized church services for Urdu-speaking women and beggars. He even started a school to teach children how to read. But Martyn’s chaplaincy also afforded him much time for his first love in ministry: Bible translation. Along with another colleague, he caught a vision for a groundbreaking project—translating Scripture into three related languages (Urdu, Persian, and Arabic) at the same time.
Martyn worked directly on the Urdu translation, which was closely aligned with his pastoral ministry in Dinapore and Cawnpore, India. In 1810, he finished the Urdu New Testament, and it was published in 1814.
Meanwhile, he oversaw the Arabic and Persian translations, including managing a team of consultants. Based on initial feedback, Martyn expressed concern about the quality of the Arabic translation and wanted to check it with Arab scholars. On their confirmation, the Scripture was published in 1816. But perhaps the most stunning accomplishment of Martyn’s team was their translation of the Persian New Testament, completed in just 34 months and published in 1815.
Missionary Scholar
Among 19th-century missionaries and translators, Martyn possessed the strongest skills in biblical languages and the greatest aptitude for learning Oriental languages.
Read More
Related Posts: