This is the climactic moment of Jesus’ words regarding the coming judgment. The time is now. Either repent or you will die.
Luke mentions two events. The first event involved Galileans. The Jewish historian, Josephus, writes that the Galileans were rather revolutionary. It seems that they had attacked Jews who had come to offer sacrifices. The Galileans were killed in the Temple. Jesus was apparently not around when this happened and the crowd wanted to know what he thought about this horrible affair. The popular view was that they were evil because of their sin. Jesus corrected this thought. They are no more guilty than anyone else when it comes to sin that God sees.
Repent or perish.
The other calamity occurred when a tower fell on eighteen people. Because something awful had happened to them, it was obvious to those who held out judgment on such things that those people were sinners. Jesus corrected this thought. They were no more guilty of sin than anyone else. It was a horrible accident.
Everyone must repent or perish.
Jesus completes this with a parable. A fig tree in a vineyard had not produced fruit for three years. Each year the owner returned, looking for figs, but each time, found nothing. The caretaker begged for one more year. In that year, he would give the tree extra care, if nothing came from it, the tree would come down.
Jesus had been in ministry on earth for three years. For those three years, the Father had been looking for his people to produce the fruit of repentance and they simply refused. The period of time after Jesus’ resurrection would be critical for them.
Repent or perish.
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