Center for Biblical Theology and Eschatology
The Mystery of the Gospel Revealed in Jonah
by Nollie Malabuyo
Scripture Readings: Jonah 3; Matthew 12:38-42
Text: Jonah 3
Introduction
Congregation of Christ:
In an ancient city, a well-respected, well-known, bespectacled asparagus mailman hops around delivering "messages from the Lord" to the people of Israel. He cautions everyone in a song,
Don't eat pigs, don't eat bats....
do not fight, do not cheat,
wash your hands before you eat.
Don't do drugs, stay in school,
follow them and you're no fool.
Then God tells him to deliver a message to the people of Nineveh, a terrible place where people lie, cheat, and slap others with fish. Mr. Asparagus doesn't want to go anywhere near that place, so God commands a big fish to swallow him, and he was in the belly of a big fish for three days.
But inside the belly of the fish, he repents of his disobedience, and so God gives him a second chance. The fish spits him out to dry land. He then obeys God's commands and delivers God's message to the Ninevites. "Stop cheating, stop lying, and stop slapping people with fish," he warns the Ninevites. The Ninevites repent, and God spares them from sure destruction. The big lesson at the end was "stop being mean to each other and give everyone a second chance." God is "a God of second chances" because God loves everyone.
It's interesting to see a typical Veggie Tales movie like this: assorted vegetables such as broccoli, celery, tomatoes, and asparagus hopping around to portray Biblical characters and to teach nice little moral lessons. And this is what we hear today in sermons, Bible studies, and Sunday schools. Disconnected little Bible stories and moral lessons: in Abraham, how to be a good father; in Joseph and in David, how to avoid sexual temptation; in Daniel, how to keep pure and avoid worldliness; in the Good Samaritan, how to love your enemies.
Of course, these Bible stories do teach us moral lessons. But there's a lot more to them than just moral lessons.
From Genesis to Revelation, all of Scriptures have one message: to reveal to us how God is fulfilling in human history his salvation plan for his elect people. From Adam to Abraham to Moses and to David, all Biblical stories are meant to point forward to fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what many storytellers – pastors, Bible study leaders, Sunday school teachers – miss: the story of Christ in all of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The
story of Jonah is probably the most common example of Bible storytellers missing
the point: the mystery of the gospel of Christ. In Jonah's story, we will consider
three things that most storytellers fail to tell us:
First of all, some historical background to the story of Jonah. Who was Jonah? We don't have much information about Jonah except from the opening verse of the book: "The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai." His name is also mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25 as the "servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher."
Apparently, Jonah was already established as a prophet during the reign of Jeroboam II in the 8th century B.C. Jeroboam was a king who "did evil in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Kgs 14:24). But although he was evil, Jeroboam recovered the northern lands of the kingdom of Israel from the Arameans in Damascus. So the Israelites enjoyed military and economic prosperity during this time, and took pride in their success, even as they continued in their idolatry. God was patient with the Israelites in prophesying through Jonah that he "would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven" (2 Kgs. 14:27) even in their idolatry.
Nineveh's Wickedness
What kind of a place was Nineveh? Nineveh was a great city of 120,000 people, and was one of the capitals of the Assyrian Empire. At that time, Assyria was one of the great powers of the ancient Near East, but was also weakened by internal quarrels.
The Ninevites are described as a people whose "wickedness has come up before God" (1:2). This is similar language used when Sodom and Gomorrah's evil ways came up to God: Gen. 18:20 "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me." Gen. 6:5 also describes man in Noah's days similarly: "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time."
It's ironic that God would send a prophet to warn Assyrians that their wickedness would lead to their destruction. Because the same Assyrians whom God spared through Jonah's preaching would destroy the northern kingdom of Israel in about 50 years after Jonah warned them.
What was Nineveh's "wickedness"? We get a glimpse of the Ninevites' oppression, cruelty, wickedness, and idolatry from the book of Nahum, which is essentially a prophecy against Nineveh. In 3:1-4, it is described as a "city of blood, full of plunder, never without victims! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses." After it destroys a city, they would massacre its people, and carry them off to faraway lands as slaves. This was what they did to the Israelites after they conquered Samaria in 722 B.C. But a century later, God would also judge the Assyrian Empire by sending the Babylonians to destroy them, as prophesied by Nahum.
Its total idolatry is described by Nahum as the "wanton lust of a harlot, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft." In 2 Kings 17 we find a very sad commentary not only on the idolatry of the Assyrians, but also of the northern kingdom of Israel. Verses 6-8 says:
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes. All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.
Israel even copied the abominable practice of their neighbors in sacrificing their children to the pagan gods.
After the Assyrians carried many Israelites out of the land, they brought people from Babylon and other nations to settle there. So the land of Samaria became a melting pot of different cultures and languages. And these nations brought with them their own pagan religions. Verses 29-32 describes the religious syncretism that resulted:
Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. The men from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men from Cuthah made Nergal, and the men from Hamath made Ashima; the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. They worshiped the LORD , but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places.
The wickedness of the Ninevites is much more than just cheating, lying, stealing, and slapping other people with fish. It is, as Paul says in Rom. 1:18, "all the godlessness and wickedness of men." But man always reasons, "we don't really know evil from good," as Veggie Tales says of the Ninevites; or "It's not my fault, my parents abused me when I was a child"; or "I was born with this gene." We always find other people guilty of sin, not ourselves.
Or, we're probably thinking right now, "God, I thank you that I'm not as evil as the Assyrians or the Israelites. I'm basically a good person." But the Bible doesn't say so. It says, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good.... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:10, 11, 23).
Beloved in Christ, do you think you're a good person? Think again. God says that our good works are as "filthy rags" in his sight. If God destroys this world today, he would be perfectly justified in doing so, because we all deserve the punishment of death. One of the speakers at President Reagan's memorial service was a Jewish Rabbi named Harold Kushner. Years ago, Rabbi Kushner wrote a book entitle Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, because he couldn't accept the death of his son. He didn't deserve that because he was a good man. Kushner assumes that most people are basically good.
Do you think that you're not as idolatrous as the Israelites and the Assyrians? When you look at the mega-churches around you, and see the big crowds, the excitement, the entertainment, and the various programs, and lust after them, and want to imitate them, that's idolatry. When you miss the Lord's Day worship because you want to play golf, or to see your favorite sports team play, or to have fun in the sun, or just to sleep in on a lazy Sunday morning, that's idolatry. Putting your own interest ahead of God's will.
But back to Jonah's story. God scripted the whole story to accomplish his purpose for the Ninevites. In 1:4, God "hurled a mighty tempest on the sea." In 1:17, he "appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah." And in 2:10, he "spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land." After a death-like nightmare of three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, Jonah was spit out to dry land. God then commanded him a second time to go to Nineveh and preach to them. This time, he obeyed.
Jonah's Effective Message
What did Jonah preached? He proclaimed to the Ninevites, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" (3:4). As a result of this simple message, the reaction of the Ninevites was unexpected: they believed God: "And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them."(3:5)
Why would the Ninevites repent and believe God from hearing such a short, simple warning? Some Bible researchers say that in the years before Jonah went to Nineveh, Assyria was in big trouble. They suffered many defeats in wars against their neighbors. There was a devastating earthquake. There was a solar eclipse, which for them was a omen of an impending disaster. So God prepared them beforehand for Jonah's message.
For sure, the Ninevites accepted Jonah's message as a message of judgment and repentance. They probably heard of this prophet even before he came to the city because he prophesied the military success of King Jeroboam II. They surely must have heard about the miraculous escape of Jonah from three days and three nights in the belly of the big fish! With all these proofs that he is a prophet of Israel's God, they must listen to him!
One more thing that we must not miss: the Ninevites were not ignorant of their wickedness. They knew right from wrong. We must not accept our culture that promotes the idea that people are basically good, and that they don't know that they are doing wrong. The Bible contradicts this idea in Rom. 1:18 when it says that people "suppress the truth" by their unrighteousness. Because God is plainly seen in his creation. Paul continues his condemnation of man in 2:15 when he says that "the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness."
The Ninevites knew they were evil. This is why the Ninevites not only repented of their sins – they also turned away from them. Verse 3:10 says that because God saw "how they turned from their evil way," he "relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it." The repentance of the people of Nineveh turned away God's wrath!
This is real repentance! Being contrite and mournful of our sin. Asking God for mercy, to "wash me thoroughly from my iniquity." Admitting that we are sinners before God, that when we sin, we sin primarily against God. Confessing that we are "brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Acknowledging that only God can "deliver me from bloodguiltiness" and that he alone is the "God of my salvation."
And not only that. True repentance is not just feeling sad about our sins. But it is also turning away from evil ways. Living a life of obedience to God's Word. Walking no longer as the world does, in the futility of our minds. Putting off our old selves, and "putting on the new self which is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Being transformed by the renewing of the mind. Because "by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.... whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which [Christ] walked" (1 John 2:3-6).
Today, just as Jonah preached a message of true repentance and true faith, God calls you to repentance and faith. You might think that you're not as wicked as the Ninevites, but just the same, all of us are guilty of violating God's commands. Just one evil thought, one small act of lying, cheating, and one evil word from our lips condemn us to death. For the penalty of sin is death. That's why both John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus Christ preached the same message, "Repent, and believe in the gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand" (Matt. 4:17).
God's message to you is still the same. Jesus is still calling you to repent and believe in him as Lord and Savior. Just as God's wrath was turned away when the Ninevites repented and turned away from their evil ways, we are to repent to turn away God's judgment.
Because God is not just merciful and patient with us. He is also holy. He cannot just look away from our sins. All the sins of his people must be punished for his holiness to be satisfied. And God himself provided a way of escape for us. And that provision is Jesus, his only begotten Son.
"One Greater than Jonah is Here"
All of Nineveh's repentance, mourning, and fasting because of Jonah's preaching would amount to nothing if the Lord Jesus Christ did not sacrifice himself on the cross. Because in both the Old and New Testaments, there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood (Heb. 9:22). Jesus himself confirmed this in his confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees in Matt. 12:38-41:
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." But he answered them, 'An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here."
Jesus says that only an evil and adulterous people seek for a sign. Didn't he just cast out demons before the Pharisees? Didn't he perform many miracles in their sight? The problem of the Jews is not that they haven't seen a sign. Their problem is unbelief. Whatever signs Jesus did in their sight, the Jews didn't believe that he did it by his own power. They blasphemed God by saying that the power of Jesus came from the devil, and not from the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says that Jonah is a sign to both unbelieving Jews and Gentiles. Why? Because Jonah is a foreshadow of Christ.
First, Jonah was a picture of the death and resurrection of Christ. He was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, just as Jesus was in the belly of the earth three days and three nights. The resurrection of Christ means that he is God himself, because he has power over death. This is the sign that the Jews were looking for, and even then, they did not believe.
Second, because of their unbelief, Jesus rebuked the Jews saying, "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits" - the Gentiles (Matt. 21:43). Just as the Israelites in Jonah's day rebelled against God and were taken out of the Promised Land, so did the Jews in Jesus' day rebel against God and were destroyed by the Romans in A. D. 70. Just as the Gentile Ninevites believed in Jonah's preaching, so did the Gentiles believed in Paul's preaching of the gospel. Even today, Gentiles from all over the earth continue to be added to the kingdom of God.
Why did Jesus condemn the Pharisees so harshly? In verse 41, Jesus told them, "The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, one greater than Jonah is here."
With these words, Jesus uses a comparison of the lesser to the greater, or of the inferior to the superior. Think of the following comparisons:
First, the Ninevites had only the preaching of Jonah, a sinful prophet But the Jews had the preaching of Christ, the Son of God in human flesh.
Second, Jonah was a Jew and a stranger to the Gentiles in Nineveh. But Christ was of the same race and religion as the Jews, and was well known where he preached.
Third, Jonah preached only one very short sermon for a few days, but Christ preached and taught in Israel for more than three years.
Fourth, Jonah preached a message of coming judgment, and didn't even preach repentance and forgiveness. But Christ also preached repentance, forgiveness, and citizenship in God's wonderful kingdom.
And fifth, Jonah didn't perform one miracle to show he was from God, excepting that God rescued him from the fish. But Jesus did countless miracles to show that he was the Christ, the son of the living God.
But what was the result of the preaching of the two men? It was totally the opposite of what we should expect. The Ninevites repented and were saved from destruction. But the Jews hardened their hearts. The preaching of the one greater than Jonah in their midst meant nothing to them. And God destroyed their kingdom and gave it to the Gentiles.
Christ is truly the prophet greater than Jonah, greater than Moses, greater than all of Israel's prophets of old. Because he spoke God's Word not just some of the time, but all throughout his life. Because he is the Word of God himself. Not only that, he obeyed God's Word perfectly all of his life. When he said that he is greater than Jonah, he means greater in holiness, power, and in every way, because he is the Son of God.
Conclusion
People of God, may this be a warning to us: that we should heed the sign which God has given us – the sign of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we can see this sign only through the teaching and preaching of God's Word, and in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Word of God cannot be found in Veggie Tales movies, not even in The Passion of the Christ movie. It cannot be found in drama, liturgical dance, and other forms of entertainment.
And the story of Jonah is also a foreshadow of the Gentiles' inclusion into the kingdom of God. So, what is your response to foreign mission work? We are not to be like Jonah, who ran away from God's call to foreign missions. But we are to be like Paul, a prisoner for Christ for the sake of the Gentiles.
And what is your response to strangers who visit your church? We are challenged to welcome and fellowship with newcomers – both new converts, and those new to the Reformed faith. To help them be involved in the life and fellowship of the congregation. It's very difficult and uncomfortable for those who are visiting, or those who come from a culture, ethnicity, or tradition different from the majority to fit in at first. So, a warm handshake, a smile, and a short conversation can do so much to make them come back to hear the gospel.
Today, we are blessed with the complete Word of God in the Old Testament and New Testament. The Ninevites and the Jews didn't have that privilege. We have a full panoramic view of God's salvation plan from the Garden of Eden in Genesis to the heavenly city in Revelation. So if you believe by hearing the Word of God preached, and study the Word of God, you are the most blessed of all people. Because, as Gentile believers, all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, and all of the unsearchable riches of Christ are yours now and forevermore.
AMEN.
| Rev. Nollie Malabuyo is a missionary serving in the Philippines under Wycliffe Bible Translators, a graduate of the University of the Philippines (B.S. in Mechanical Engineering) and Westminster Seminary in California (M.Div.). In May 2008, Rev. Nollie Malabuyo was called and ordained as an Associate Pastor by Trinity URC in Walnut Creek, California, with an assignment as a missionary to the Philippines. |