READ: Matt. 12:38–42: ‘… For 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 in the judgment … indeed, a greater than Jonah is here.’
In Christ we are privileged to know the sign of Jonah even more fully than it was revealed to the Jews to whom the Lord Jesus spoke (Matt. 12:39; 16:4). For that sign has now been confirmed and fulfilled by Him who is greater than Jonah.
In the crucifixion of our Saviour, God displayed not only His divine righteousness concerning our guilt, for which Christ was buried during three days and three nights, but also His almighty power and incomprehensible mercy by raising Christ from the grave in order to grant us everlasting life. This is the glorious reality of Easter, in which the sign of Jonah found its fulfilment.
God’s unexpected grace and His mighty deliverance of Jonah and Nineveh were shadows of that far greater salvation from eternal death unto eternal life, bestowed upon all to whom God grants His sovereign grace in His Son.
At the same time, the Word of God remains the power of God unto salvation. We should never underestimate it. Through that Word, just as in the days of Jonah, God works both His grace and His judgment according to His sovereign will.
This is of great importance for our witness to the world. Unbelievers must be shown from what they may be delivered and by whom that deliverance is accomplished.
Therefore we must proclaim the crucified and risen Christ as the Son of Man, who is both the Saviour and the Judge of the world.
The Lord Jesus Himself employed the remarkable repentance of Nineveh in addressing His own people. He confronted the hardening Jews with the humility and repentance that Nineveh had displayed (Luke 11:29–32).
The Jews demanded a sign from Jesus, and He gave them the sign of Jonah. That sign ought to have been sufficient to bring them to repentance, just as it had done for the Ninevites. Those heathen people acknowledged God’s righteousness,grace, and power, and willingly submitted themselves to Him. In this they are an example to others.
Do we recognize our own unworthiness in the salvation that has been granted to us?
Sing: Ps. 111:2.