For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation.”
(Luke 11:30, NKJV)
Please read this teaching along with the previous three, that of Day 1133-1135. We are currently discussing John 6, specifically the mystery surrounding the explosive statements Jesus made about us drinking his blood and eating his flesh. We know that Part IV of John 6 is concerned with Jesus speaking to his followers about the bread that came down from heaven, and their inability to believe this. Many of his followers left when they heard these harsh words (John 6:60). The result of this conversation, which then also indicates the end of the conversation frame, is Jesus’ direct question to his disciples after various of his followers no longer wanted to follow Him: “Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?’” (John 6:67).
Take note – many people are and want to be followers of Jesus, but they only follow Him because of the miracles He can bring about in their lives, and for what they can gain through believing in Him. Jesus’ opinion on this is clear: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign.” (Matt. 12:39a). The only sign, Jesus notes, that will be given to people, is the sign of the prophet Jonah. He then explains it as follows: “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.” (Matt. 12:40). Throughout Jesus works with the principle He makes clear in John 20:29b – “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
It does however remain strange that Jesus presents Jonah as sign, and not His own rise from the dead. He could just as well have said: My death and resurrection will be the only sign. Why use an Old Testament story as typology?
In the Old Testament it was prophesied that the coming Messiah would do signs and wonders (Deut. 18:18; 34:10-11), but that He would become a wondrous sign with the change of covenant and priesthood (Heb. 7:12). The term “wondrous sign” derives from Zech. 3:8 – “Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign; for behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.” The Amplified Bible, in a margin note, refers to the Branch as a “Messianic title” (also refer to Isa. 4:2; Jer. 23:5 and 33:15, and Zech. 6:12), clearly pointing to Jesus, but in His capacity as the Christ! Albert Barnes, in his Notes on the Bible, aptly states: “there was need to fore-announce the mystery of Christ”. The image that Joshua (which in Greek means Jesus) and his friends (John 15:15 – “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”) is a beautiful typology of Jesus and the Christ. As Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible suggests: “They are set for signs, for types and figures of Christ’s priesthood.”
The Bride is called to become wondrous signs through their lives, as was the case with a number of other figures in the Old Testament. David for instance says of himself: “I am as a wonder unto many …” (Ps. 71:7), or Isaiah says of himself and of his children, “Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells in Mount Zion.” (Isa. 8:18). [Note the reference to Zion, the typological home of the Bride. For the sake of the Bride the wondrous sign is established.] The prophet Ezekiel is called “a sign and a proverb” (Ezek. 14:8, KJV); Korah and his band “became a sign” (Num. 26:10) and “Hophni and Phineas shall be a sign to you” (1 Sam. 2:34, CAB). Jesus is also specifically referred to as “a sign” (Luke 2:34) by Simeon.
In three instances in the New Testament (Acts 19:29 & 31; 1 Cor. 4:9) the new covenant believers are referred to with the Greek word theatron, which according to Thayer means: “a man who is exhibited to be gazed at”.
Which again brings us to Jonah, of whom it is said in Luke 11:30: “For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation.” In fact, according to Jesus’ statement in Matt. 12:40, he will be the only prototypical sign given to the world, and then also lead in the dispensation where God does NOT give wonders and signs for those who need it in order to believe, but only establishes believers as signs and wonders in and through whom He demonstrates His glory – “But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’” (1 Cor. 2:9). Isaiah (64:4) prophetically announced it when he noted that “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him.”
It is then of great importance for us to take careful note of why Jonah is specifically chosen as the wondrous sign of all signs and wonders. What is typologically nestled in his life and experience, specifically with regards to what is presented in Jon. 1:17: “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”
[Sceptics of the Bible have, over the course of years, specifically used the “three days and three nights” to discredit the truth of the Bible. This mystery is explained in detail in http://brucedickey.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/the-sign-of-jonah-prophecy-by-jesus-fulfilled/ as well as http://www.pointsoftruth.com/articles/threedays.html.]
Most of us are familiar with the story of Jonah, but just for the sake of coherence I’ll quickly summarise again. The prophet Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh (an Assyrian city which has now been destroyed, close to Mosul in Iraq), to warn the people that their unrighteousness is an affront to God. Jonah did not want to do this, and thus fled, by ship, from Jaffa to Tarshish (a Mediterranean harbour, possibly in Spain). However, the ship sinks whilst Jonah is peacefully sleeping on its lower deck. The people on the ship cast lots to find out if someone on the ship is responsible for the crisis, and it points to Jonah, the people then asking that he be thrown overboard. God sends a fish who swallows him before he can drown, and spews him out on the coast after three days and three nights in his belly. God repeats His request to Jonah, which Jonah then sets out do to. The people repent, against Jonah’s expectations, and God saves the city. Jonah is then upset because God has shown mercy to the people. In the burning afternoon sun God has a plant miraculously sprout from the ground, with large leaves that keep Jonah cool, but then sends a worm to eat the plant and let it die. God also sends a glowing easterly wind that causes Jonah’s irritation to reach boiling point. The book concludes with God reckoning with Jonah about his own self-righteousness.
This story has so often been discredited, simplified in childish ways, and mythologised in secular terms that most people can’t imagine that anything of worth can still be drawn from it.
One very insightful fact concerning the book of Jonah is that this very small, almost unimportant booklet is read in its entirety on the important Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This in itself should already signal to us that this book carries a very important message. In our quest to find out what that is, we need to specifically focus on Jesus’ words that Jonah is the only wondrous sign that will be given to the world.
According to Lev. 16:29-30 the primary goal of the Day of Atonement is the forgiving of sins and the reconciliation between God and man that springs forth from that. For New Testament believers this feast day is the counterpart of the crucifixion. Col. 1:20 makes this fact clear: “and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross”. According to the tabernacle typology this reconciliation takes place in the first dimension, where the bronze altar is, where sacrifices are brought, typological of the cross on which “our Passover Lamb” (1 Cor. 5:7), Jesus, was brought as sacrifice: “By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Heb. 10:10).
But yet it is clear that the Day of Reconciliation can only be fulfilled in the third dimension, there where the high priest enters the Holy of Holies. Heb. 9:24-28 is extensively concerned with this: “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”
This is a very complex section with an immense amount of implications, but only two things will at this stage be highlighted from the pericope:
- There is definitely also atonement in the third dimension, and it is the responsibility of the Christ to reconcile all things with Jesus – “that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Eph. 1:10).
- According to the last part of the quoted section, it is clear that Christ will also appear for the second time without sin, but only to those who expect Him.
The book of Jonah, if it is read in this revelatory perspective on the Day of Atonement, should thus indicate that the only sign that will be offered to humanity is the death and resurrection of Jesus (first atonement), but especially also through the death and resurrection of Christ (second atonement). As the resurrection of Jesus was selective, so the appearance of the Christ will likewise be qualified – only those who expect Christ, and his salvation, will see Him/them. When the saviours come to Mount Zion (Obad. 1:21) in a collective Body of glory, it will be because they are without sin (in other words they are walking in their calling and purpose, “serving the purposes of God for their generation” – Acts 13:36), but also because the world is expecting them as the Christ. Those who cannot do it, carry the spirit of the antichrist, they who have placed something in the position of Christ – “who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” (2 John 1:7).
This is what the book of Jonah is typologically concerned with – and it is the only sign the world can ask, in other words – to see Christ! More on this in the next teaching.
- Selah: Try to find a single sentence in Jonah that summarises this entire teaching.
- Read: 8-16.
- Memorise: 8:22 (very important for this teaching!).
