But he, answering, said to them, A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it save the sign of Jonas the prophet.
The Pharisees come to the Lord asking for a sign to prove Himself. His answer refuses them and passes sentence in the same breath, offering only the sign of Jonah.
This was not a fair question from open minds. It came after a long series of public works that had already answered it.
By their asking, recorded in verse 38, the Pharisees showed that they were morally blind and unfeeling as well as corrupt and evil. They ignored all the signs already given them, whether out of ignorance or on purpose, and asked for a sign. We noticed five signs in chapter 8 and five in chapter 9, besides those recorded in this chapter. Being evil and adulterous, they could not see the plainest sign. So no sign would be given but the greatest of all — His own death and resurrection, pictured long before in the remarkable history of Jonah.
The problem was never a shortage of evidence.
Why was that an "evil generation"? Because they sought a sign. In the presence of the light, they asked for a demonstration of the truth. The only sign given is that of Jonah the prophet — too late for that generation to be spared.
"Evil" and "adulterous" are not vague insults. Commentators read them as two distinct charges.
He answers that an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign. Their evil was that of vicious hatred, as already seen. As adulterous, they were guilty of mixing something corrupt into their claimed service for God.
One writer traces the second word to Israel's idolatry, and reads Jonah's sign as pointing beyond Israel to the Gentiles — the nations outside it.
"An evil and adulterous generation." Idolatry is adultery. The sign of Jonah is death and resurrection and turning to the Gentiles. On His rejection, Christ turns to the Gentiles after His resurrection.
Refusing them was not impatience. When someone has decided not to believe, more proof changes nothing.
The end had come morally. It was useless to give proofs to hearts that had decided not to believe. Perfect patience, love, deep pity, and sorrow over the unbelief of the leaders of the people were all there in Him. They showed themselves all the more clearly as those leaders hardened their hearts. Signs were useless for hearts that would not believe. And it did not suit God's majesty to give any to men who would not receive Him.
Two things about Jonah matter here. He passed through a picture of death and resurrection, and God sent him out of Israel to the Gentiles.
What was special about Jonah as a prophet? To whom did he prophesy? He was sent away from Israel to the Gentiles. More than that, before Jonah could carry out his message rightly, he had to pass through the figure of death and resurrection… This is the sign which the Lord puts before the Pharisees. The Jewish nation was in such a state that He must leave them and go to the Gentiles. And that would come after a real death and resurrection, when Israel's hopes had perished. The Lord has blessing in store for Israel by and by; but for the present all is lost for them.
One writer asks who the sign was aimed at.
He speaks of both Jonah and the Son of man as signs. Jonah was a sign to the people of Nineveh, and both Jonah and the Son of man were signs to that generation of Israel… The death and resurrection of Jonah was a sign to Nineveh of what the Lord required from them, and of how He would deal with them. In the same way the death and resurrection, whether of Jonah or of the Son of man, is a sign to Israel of what the Lord expects from them, and of how He will deal with them.
The sign granted is not a rescue but a witness in court. Nineveh had far less and did far more with it.
The Son of man would really be in the grave three days and nights, rejected and cast out. But when He preached to them by His resurrection, they would not repent. They were more hardened than Nineveh. The Ninevites would rise up in the judgment to condemn them; so much the more as the Son of man was greater than Jonah.
- Evidence. They were not short of signs. Chapters 8 and 9 alone hold ten of them, and they still asked for one.
- Diagnosis. "Evil" names their active hatred. "Adulterous" names the corrupt mixture in their service to God, since idolatry is adultery.
- Refusal. Proof is useless to a will already made up. His refusal held perfect patience, pity and sorrow, not irritation.
- The one sign. Jonah's three days point to a real death and resurrection. After that, blessing goes out to the Gentiles, and Israel's hopes are set aside for a time.
- Verdict. The people of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment and condemn a generation that refused One greater than Jonah.
For even as Jonas was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights, thus shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
The Pharisees had seen miracle after miracle, yet they still asked Jesus for a sign. He pointed them past every healing to one event: His burial and rising again. Jonah in the fish raises three questions. Why this sign and no other? What is "the heart of the earth"? And how do three days and three nights fit a Friday death and a Sunday resurrection?
Their demand was not honest curiosity. They had seen sign after sign, and the question they asked exposed the men who asked it.
By their request in verse 38, the Pharisees showed that they were morally blind and unfeeling, as well as corrupt and evil. They ignored every sign already given them, whether from ignorance or on purpose, and asked for a sign... Being evil and adulterous, they could not see the plainest sign. So they would get no sign but the greatest of all — His own death and resurrection, pictured long before in the remarkable story of Jonah.
The words are more than a prediction. By naming His own death, Jesus accepts what these men had already planned for Him.
He responds that an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign. Their evil was bitter hatred, as we have already seen. They were adulterous in that they mixed corruption into the service they claimed to give God... They had already plotted His death. He would accept their rejection of Himself. He would die and be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth — the grave. Jonah had spent that same time in the belly of the great fish. Jonah came out alive, and that was a great miracle. But it pointed to a greater one: Christ's resurrection from among the dead.
The phrase sounds like a place deep underground. Commentators read it more simply, and warn against pressing the picture too far.
By "the heart," or "lower parts," of the earth, we understand the grave. Our Lord not only died, but was buried and "rose again the third day." Of this Jonah was a sign. Psalm 139:15 can guard us from taking the words too literally. There "the lowest parts of the earth" plainly means what is out of sight — "in secret." They made the tomb secure and sealed the stone (Matthew 27:66). So no human eye should look into that holy place where the body of Jesus lay.
The old objection is arithmetic. Friday afternoon to Sunday morning is not three full days and nights. The answer given is that the Jews counted days another way.
But note that by the Jewish way of counting time there is no error in this statement... Scripture speaks of an evening and a morning making a day. Non-Jews today say instead that a day is made up of a morning and an evening, and they count that way. The Jews counted any part of a day as a whole night and day, since in Genesis 1 the evening and the morning made a day. Count like that, and the supposed error disappears. Friday up to six o'clock would be called one night and day. Friday evening and Saturday morning would be another night and day. So the difficulty is gone.
Jonah and Jesus match in going down and coming up again. They differ in why each went down.
Jonah was thrown into the raging sea because of his own sin, and God kept him alive by a miracle in a fish's belly for three days and nights. In the same way Jesus would enter the full flood of God's judgment on sin — not His own, but the sin of others. Dying, He would lie in the heart of the earth three days and three nights, and God Himself would raise Him, the Saviour of His people. Only faith could read the sign or solve the riddle. To reason it looked like nonsense.
Some commentators see a second meaning in the sign. What happened to Christ is traced again in the story of Israel.
Jonah is, in general, the witness of burial and resurrection... But the sign of Jonah also sets out the history of Israel. That nation is now doomed to the judgment of death and the grave. Yet in the purpose of God's love it is destined to be called out from under the power of death, and to rise again into the life and liberty of God's people (see Ezekiel 37:1-14).
- Demand. They could not read the signs already given, so they asked for one more. The problem was their heart, not the evidence.
- Sign. They got only one, and it was the greatest — His death and resurrection, pictured long before in Jonah.
- Grave. "The heart of the earth" means the grave — the hidden place behind a sealed stone, not a spot underground.
- Reckoning. Three days and three nights fits Jewish counting, where any part of a day counted as a whole day and night.
- Difference. Jonah went down for his own sin; Christ went down under God's judgment for the sin of others — and God raised Him.