What is the sign of Jonah?

After all the many miraculous signs of grace the Lord had shown (various healing on the sabbath days, for instance), the Pharisees ask for a sign from Him, ostensibly as witness to influence them to believe Him; but they have no heart whatever to believe. He responds that an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign. Their evil was that of malignant enmity, as already seen; as adulterous they were guilty of introducing a corrupting mixture into their professed service for God. He would therefore add no sign to that long ago given them in Jonah the prophet, the significance of which had a direct application to Himself. 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), just as Jonah spent such a time in the belly of the great fish. Jonah's release alive was a great miracle, but significant of a greater, that is, Christ's resurrection from among the dead. This surely was a sign of tremendous import, but we know the Pharisees still refused to believe Him.

The men of Nineveh, on the other hand, Gentiles though they were, would be a remarkable witness against Isreal's unbelieving treatment of the Lord Jesus, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; while here among them a far greater than Jonah was preaching as no other man had ever preached, and their hearts remained adamant and cold.

They were "a wicked and adulterous generation;" this solved the whole problem why they could not discern the signs of the times. The sign of the Prophet Jonas was to be the only sign they were to receive and that refers us to the death and resurrection of our Lord.

We have thus all of us our common interest in these Jonah-mercies. Jonah is a sign to us all. But I am, of course, aware that our blessed Lord has claimed His likeness to Jonah also, saying in His doctrine, "for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." He thus found His type in our prophet, as the one who died and was buried, and rose again the third day. But He dwells much more on Jonah being a sign to others, than the type of Himself. He speaks of both Jonah, and the Son of man as signs; Jonah to the Ninevites, and both Jonah and the Son of man to that generation of Israel (Matt. 12:39; Matt. 16:4; Luke 11:29-30). And this is a doctrine of great value. The death and resurrection of Jonah, was a sign to the Ninevites of what the Lord required from them, and of the way in which He would deal with them; and so the death and resurrection, whether of Jonah or the Son of man, is a sign to Israel of what the Lord expects from them, and of the manner in which He will deal with them.

For as one who had died and risen again, Jonah now goes and preaches against Nineveh; and as such a one he was a sign to them of what that preaching should lead them to, and of what it required of them. And we find that the sign was answered in them. On going to them the prophet at once puts them under sentence of death. "Within forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." And at once they hear these words as the sentence of death against themselves, as Jonah had heard it in the roar of the wind before, and they bow their head under it as he did, accepting the punishment of their sins, and then, like Jonah, enter the grave, taking sackcloth on them, from the least to the greatest of them, from man and beast — the king himself rising from his throne, and sitting in ashes, the place of death, and thus were they planted in the likeness of His death. And not only so, but they break off their sins by righteousness, and walk in newness of life, and thus were planted also in the likeness of His resurrection. This was repenting at the preaching of Jonah, or answering the sign of Jonah; then the Lord bids mercy to rejoice against judgment in their behalf, as He had in Jonah's: He repents of the evil which He had said He would do unto them, and He did it not, as He had brought Jonah again on the dry land out of the whale's belly.

After this the Pharisees ask a sign, and the Lord gives them a most significant one: but, before that, He pronounces His moral sentence on the nation: "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas" (ver. 39). What was the special feature of Jonah as a prophet? To whom did he prophesy? He was sent away from Israel to the Gentiles; and, more than that, before Jonah performed his message aright, he must pass through the figure of death and resurrection. So obstinate was he in not going where he was bidden, that the Lord took care Jonah should be pitched out of the ship; and then He dealt with him as a dead man, and wrought a great work in his soul. Jonah having passed through this most remarkable type of death and resurrection was now ready for the message that the Lord gives him. This is the sign which the Lord puts before the Pharisees. Such was the state of the Jewish nation that He must leave them and go to the Gentiles; and that too after death and resurrection in reality, 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. They had rejected their Lord. God was going now to occupy Himself with the Gentiles. Hence it is that the instances used to confirm this are, first, the case of the men of Nineveh, who repented at the preaching of Jonah; "and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." Then the queen of Sheba, also a Gentile, who did not merely repent because of sin, but showed an energy of faith, I may say, worthy of all note, without even a message sent to her. Such was the ardour of her heart, and her desire after wisdom, that, hearing of Solomon, she hastened in order to hear it from his own lips. What a rebuke for Israel! "A greater than Solomon is here"; and wisdom as much beyond Solomon's as the person of Jesus was above that of Solomon. But they were an evil and adulterous generation. They knew not that their Maker was their husband; they despised Him; and, adds our Lord, "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it." But now He proclaims what will be their final condition. The link of Israel to Himself was broken; and for this blasphemous contempt of the Spirit's testimony to Jesus as the Son of Man they should be judged.

The Sign. — And now, with the multitudes gathered together, the Lord dealt with the request already made for a sign. It is significant that such a request was made more than once (Matt. 12:38 16:1) by those opposed to Him. Signs in plenty (John 2:23) the Lord had given. His works were well known, and attested that the Father had sent Him (John 5:36). But persistent unbelievers would make God responsible for their sin, professing their inability to believe owing to the insufficiency of the evidence as yet provided. Now the people referred to by Luke, tempting the Lord, as we read, sought of Him a sign from heaven. But they knew not with whom they had to do. He whom they approached with their request read their hearts and searched them through and through. So He began to say, "This is an evil generation; they seek a sign, and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas. For as Jonas was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation" (Luke 11:29-30). Jonas was a sign to the Ninevites. His presence among them betokened impending judgment, to be averted only by their repentance. So was it with that generation. The Son of man was to that generation what Jonas had been to the people of Nineveh. Now, the Ninevites had repented. But the people in the Lord's day, as a people, had not. They were neither attracted to the Lord, the King of Israel, as the Queen of Sheba had been to Solomon; nor did they listen to the prophet of Deut. 18:15, as the Ninevites had hearkened to Jonas. So their case was a sad one. For "a queen of the south," the Lord declared, "shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here." "The men of Nineveh," too, He went on to say, "shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold a greater than Jonas is here" (Luke 11:30-32). Gentiles on a coming day will condemn by their conduct in the past that favoured generation, which saw and heard the Lord; but refused to be attracted by Him, or to be obedient to Him. And, solemn as it is, the judgment in that coming day they will find cannot be averted.

It is clear that this by introducing a moral principle (and that in contrast with the natural associations and birth of Messiah) introduced on moral ground the Gentile. The Lord turned to realities with God from a rebellious and proud rejecting form. But He proceeds to pronounce the judgment actually on the generation publicly. He uses no longer any restraints nor precautions with the nation now fully manifested. "This generation is evil; it seeketh a sign." And while the previous word is introduced by the Spirit to show the transfer to moral blessing in the judgment of the old, the Lord returns to the word of temptation presented of general unbelief, as He had replied to the blasphemy of apostate and diabolical rejection; here to unbelief, and this He addresses to the multitude generally as before "to them" (autois) for those who are saved must be separated from the generation. Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, and Messiah the Lord was to be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and thus to the Jews Jonas was a sign. But here the Lord speaks of Jonas as a sign to the Ninevites, a sign of merciful testimony, and so was He to the entire nation - a sign of approaching judgment to that generation, if they did not repent, and thus were the Jews condemned in comparison with them, for they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and a greater than Jonas was there. The presence of Jesus in testimony was the sign given to the Jewish nation, as Jonas to the Ninevites, for this presence was mercy. Thus the Queen of the South would rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it, still contrasting realities with the guilt of formal privileges. She came to hear Solomon and a greater was there. It is evidently the word and its power by His Person is in question, not the miracle of Jonas. The men of Nineveh should do so, they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and a greater was there. It was also a national repentance, though the refusal was positive guilt. In either case the Lord shows a moral effect among Gentiles. The Lord then proceeds to discuss its presentation as light not privilege, the principle of its rejection, and the source and character of its rejection, and the judgment connected with it, and that in bold denunciation of it to the proudest of the self-righteous amongst them. The whole principle of God's dealing as to His mission, for that was now just what was in discussion, viewed in His rejection, but applicable to all their conduct.

Our Lord does not hesitate to touch the evil with unsparing hand. He was the perfect manifestation of love: but let men remember He is the one who said, "wicked and adulterous generation," "generation of vipers, etc."! It flows from true love — if men would but bow to the truth that convicts them. To submit to God's word, to the truth now, in this world, is to be saved; to be convicted of the truth only in the next world is to be lost for ever. Christ was the faithful and true Witness; He brought God face to face with man, and caused His perfect light to shine upon them. Jesus can meet a soul in its ruin; He may eat with publicans to show that He is able to receive sinners — yea, came to seek and to save the lost, and to forgive sins to the uttermost; but He will never give any sign to satisfy the unbelief that rejects Him. These Pharisees and Sadducees would not hear His voice of grace, and they had to hear their own sentence from the judge of all the earth: "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas." Had Jesus not been there, to ask for a sign would not have been so wicked; but His presence made it audacious unbelief and frightful hypocrisy. And what was this sign? The sign of one that disappeared from the earth; that, through the figure of death, passed away from the Jewish people, and after a while was given back to them. It was the symbol of death and resurrection, and our Lord immediately acted upon it. He "left them and departed." He would pass under the power of death; He would rise again, and the message which Israel had despised, He would carry to the Gentiles.

When Christ was on earth He wrought miracles, wonders, and signs, but the Pharisees and Sadducees demanded of Him 'a sign from heaven,' Matt. 16:1, and it is added that they did this 'tempting Him.' He was Himself God's sign, according to Isa. 7:14, as the manna was the sign of God to Israel in the wilderness. As they had not eyes to see God's signs, they should have no other sign than that of Jonah (Matt. 12:39-40), that is, of a man who was cast into the overwhelming judgement of God, and found deliverance from Him. Christ's death and resurrection is God's way of deliverance. In Matt. 16:4 the Lord does not mention the type being fulfilled in Himself for them, but we have the dreadful words, "He left them and departed": they were left in the judgement of Jonah. See MIRACLES.

Jonah is, generally, the witness of burial and resurrection. Thus does He set forth the mysterious history of the blessed Son of Man Himself — "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40). But the sign of Jonah equally sets forth the history of Israel; inasmuch as that nation is now doomed to the judgment of death and the grave: but in the purpose of the love of God, it is destined to be called forth from under the power of death, and to rise again into the life and liberty of God's people (see Ezek. 37:1-14). But for the present they are in the grave; that unrepentant generation which was thus challenging the Lord for a sign was laid there; for there the Lord solemnly consigned them when He thus gave them the sign of the prophet Jonah. And when He had thus delivered them over to the judgment of death and the grave, He discloses to them, in the parable of the unclean spirit, that fulness of iniquity which they were to accomplish, and which would mature them for the full judgment of God. "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none, Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation" (Matt. 12:43-45).

It has been said, that because our Lord died on Friday at the ninth hour, was buried that day, and rose again from the dead on Sunday, the first day of the week, that, therefore, it is not true to say He was "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," as our Lord declared that the Son of man would be. (Matt. 12:40.) But let it be observed, that according to the Jewish mode of calculating time, there is no inaccuracy in this statement. In our day man has changed the scriptural order of almost everything possible, and instead of speaking of an evening and morning being a day, modern Gentiles say that a day consists of a morning and evening, and so calculate accordingly. And if the Jews reckoned any part of a day, as part of a night and a day (for the evening and the morning in Genesis 1 made a day), the alleged inaccuracy wholly disappears. For Friday, up to six o'clock, would be spoken of as one night and day, Friday evening and Saturday morning another night and day, and thus the difficulty is removed.