Next day, the Monday of the week, the master with the twelve, went to Jerusalem. And as they passed along the way they saw a fig tree full of leaves without a sign of fruit. And Jesus spoke unto the tree; he said, You useless cumberer of the ground; you fig tree fair to look upon, but a delusive thing. You take from the earth and air the food that fruitful trees should have. Go back to earth and be yourself the food for other trees to eat. When Jesus had thus spoken to the tree he went his way. (Aquarian Gospel 152:1-6)
Fig trees have a very interesting trait: the fruit appears before the leaves. Therefore when a fig tree has leaves you can assume that it has figs as well. The fig tree in this passage was a literal tree, but it was not manifesting the right order of things and is therefore a symbol of a person who has all the traits and ways of spiritual growth but is really either a hypocrite or an ineffectual aspirant. Barren while exhibiting the signs of fruitfulness, such a person is unworthy.
In the next chapter we shall meet this tree again.
And when he reached the temple, lo, the rooms were filled with petty merchants selling doves and animals, and other things, for sacrifice; the temple was a mart of trade. And Jesus was indignant at the sight, and said, You men of Israel, for shame! This is supposed to be the house of prayer; but it is now a den of thieves. Remove this plunder from this holy place. The merchants only laughed and said, We are protected in our trade by those who bear the rule; we will not go.
Then Jesus made a scourge of cords, as he did once before, and rushed among the merchantmen, threw all their money on the floor; threw wide the cages of the doves, and cut the cords that held the bleating lambs and set them free. And then he drove the merchants from the place, and with a clean, new broom he swept the floors.
Chief priests and scribes were filled with wrath, but feared to touch or even to rebuke the Lord, for all the people stood in his defense.
And Jesus taught the people all day long and healed a multitude of those diseased, and when the evening came he went again to Bethany. (Aquarian Gospel 152:7-15)
Jesus, as Messiah and a son of God had more right than anyone to say how the temple should be administered and he had the divine right to cleanse the temple of merchandising and greed. By this action he also was preventing the further sacrifice of animals which was not a part of Israel’s spiritual heritage but had been borrowed from the ignorant and perverted nations around them, just as they had taken to themselves a king in imitation of the Gentiles rather than continuing with the judge system which God had given them. Of course once Jesus was gone everything in the temple went back to where it had been before, but he had given them a chance to reform and his obligation had been fulfilled, for he was hastening on to his ultimate sacrifice.
Read the next section in the Aquarian Gospel for Yogis