THE MINOR PROPHETS
JONAH
OUR moral corruption is very deep. It is complete. But at
times it will betray itself in very repulsive shapes, from which, with all the
knowledge of it which we have, we instinctively shrink, confounded at the
thought that they belong to us. Privileges under God's own hand may only serve
to, develop instead of curing this corruption.
The love of distinction
was inlaid in us at the very outset of our apostacy. "Ye shall be as God," was
listened to; to this lust, this love of distinction, we will, in cold blood,
sacrifice all that may stand in our way, without respect, as it were, to sex or
age, as at the beginning we sacrificed the Lord Himself to it. (Gen. 3)
We take God's gifts, and deck ourselves with them. The Church at
Corinth was such an one as that. Instead of using God's gifts for others, the
brethren there were displaying them. But the man who had the mind of Christ, in
the midst of them, would say, "I would rather speak five words with my
understanding, that others might be edified, than ten thousand words in an
unknown tongue."
The Jew - the favoured privileged Jew - grievously
sinned in this way. Rom. 2 convicted him on this ground. His separation from
the nations was of God; but instead of using this as witness to the holiness of
God in the midst of a revolted world's pollutions, he took occasion to exalt
himself by it. He boasted in God and in the law; but he dishonoured God by
breaking the law.
Now, Jonah was of the nation of Israel, and among
the prophets of God. He was thus doubly privileged. But the nature is quick in
him to take advantage of this, and to serve her own fond ends by this. Yea, and
Jonah was a saint of God also; but this alone, under pressure and temptation of
the flesh does not secure victory over nature.
As a prophet, the Lord
sends him with a word against Nineveh, a word of judgment. But he knew, when he
received it, that in the bosom of Him who was sending him,* mercy was
rejoicing; and he reckoned, therefore, that His word, which was to speak of
judgment, would be set aside by the grace that abounded in Him. (See Jonah 4:
2)
*2 Kings 14 had given Jonah proof of this.
Was he prepared for
this? Could he, a Jew, suffer it, that a Gentile city should be favoured, and
share the mercy and salvation of God? Could be, a prophet, suffer it, that his
word would fall to the ground, and that too, in the presence of the
uncircumcised? This was too much. He goes on board a ship bound for Tarsus,
instead of crossing the country to Nineveh. But surely, When we look at him
under such conditions, we may say, it is a proud apostate, another Adam, that
is now in the merchant-ship on the waters at the Mediterranean. He was a
transgressor like Adam, a transgressor through pride, like Adam; and, like
Adam, he must take the sentence of death into himself.
Simple, sure,
and yet solemn, all this!
To accept the punishment of our sin is the first
duty of an erring soul. We are not to seek to right ourselves by an effort of
our, own, when we have gone wrong, lest Hormah (Num. 14) be our portion. Our
first duty is to accept, in the spirit of confession, the punishment of our
sin, to be humbled under the mighty or chastening hand of God. (Lev. 26: 41)
David did this, and the kingdom was his again. Jonah now does the same. "Take
me up and cast me into the sea," said he to the mariners, in the midst of the
tempest, "so shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this
great tempest is upon you." And they did so, but with a grace that might well
shame their betters, which bespeaks the hand of God with them, as it was
against Jonah. And Jonah is soon wrapped among the weeds of the sea, down in
the bottoms of the mountains there.
Could Gentile Nineveh be in a
worse plight? Was not Jonah's circumcision as uncircumcision? A Jew and a
prophet in the depths of the sea, with the weeds wrapped about his head,
because of displeasure of Jehovah! Surely, such an one in such a state may well
cease his boastings, and no longer despise others. Could any one be well lower?
Proud Adam was behind the trees of the garden; proud Jonah is in the bottom of
the sea.
The Lord by no means clears the guilty. The Judge of the
earth does right. But grace brings salvation. And thus very soon, and it will
be only Jonah's sin that shall be in the bottom of the sea, Jonah himself being
delivered, as his first father, Adam, left his guilt and his covert behind him
and returned to the presence of God.
But Jonah was taught as well as
delivered. In the belly of the fish he finds out that, Jew as he was, he stood
in need of the salvation of God, just as much as any Gentile could need it.
Uncircumcised Nineveh had been unclean and despised in his eyes, and he grudged
her God's mercy. What would become of himself now but for that mercy? He was in
prison, and he deserved to be there. What could do for him, what reach his
condition, but mercy - free, full, and sovereign? "Salvation is of the Lord,"
he has to say. It is not in himself as a privileged Jew, or a gifted prophet,
that he will now rejoice, but only in Him to whom it belongs to bring
salvation.
And then the exulting question arises, "Is He the God of
the Jew only? nay, but of the Gentile also." Our need of salvation, our
dependence on the sovereignty and, grace of God, equalizes us all. "It is one
God that shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision
through faith." The Jew must come in on the very same mercy that saves the
Gentile. (Rom. 11: 30, 31) Jonah must be as Nineveh.
This is the
lesson the whale's belly taught Jonah, the Jew. Let Nineveh be what it may,
Gentile and uncircumcised, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, or
anything else, it could not stand more in need of the salvation of God than the
favoured Jew and the privileged, gifted prophet at that moment did, being as in
hell for his transgression. It was all over with him, but for that. But that he
gets, and the fish casts him up on the dry land, when he had learnt, and
confessed, and declared, "Salvation is of the Lord."
He was a sign to
the Ninevites.
His nation, by and by, will have the like lesson. No sign
is now left with them, but that of this prophet: and they will have to find
out, as from the belly of hell, or as from under the judgment of God, (where
now as a nation they are lying,) that grace and the redemption it works is
their only place and their only refuge.
But this salvation of God, in
which Jonah is called to rejoice, we know gets all its authority from the
mystery of the cross; because One who could do so, for us sinners, went down
under the dominion of death, under the judgment of sin, and of whom in that
condition, as in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, Jonah
himself in the belly of the fish for the like time, is made the type.
And when we think of this, we may say, Scripture may magnify its office, as the
apostle of the Gentiles does his. It has to reveal God and His counsels; and
surely it does this in marvellous and fruitful wisdom, delivering forth, as
here, pieces of history for our instruction, but at the same time making that
history deliver forth samples, and pledges, and foreshadowings; of further and
richer secrets for our more abundant instruction.
Jonah, as a sign,
suits both the Lord Himself, and Israel as a nation, as the Gospels let us
know. Israel must go through death and resurrection. Their iniquity is not to
be purged till they die. (Isaiah 22) All scripture affirms this - the valley of
dry bones illustrates it. But they will be as a risen people in the day of the
kingdom - all thanks and praise to the death and resurrection of the Son of God
for this and every blessing! And Jonah's death and resurrection, as I may
again. say, applies significantly or typically to the history of his nation,
and to the history of his Saviour. (See Matt. 12: 40; Luke 11: 29, 30.)*
*Jonah's sin, too, was the expression of the nations. He and they have alike
refused the thought of mercy to the Gentiles. (1 Thess. 2: 16) When Paul began
to speak of God's mercy to the Gentiles, the Jews would listen to him no
longer. (Acts 22: 21, 22)
The story of our prophet is, thus, a
fruitful one. True as a narrative, it is significant as a parable; and all of
us, the elect of God as well as Israel, may, in our way, take our place with
him, as dead and risen, the only character that can be ours as saved sinners.
Returning, however, to the history itself, we may now observe that as
one that had been thus taught, taught his need of God's grace, Jonah is sent on
a second message to Nineveh. He goes, and with words of judgment on his lips,
he enters that great city, that Nimrod-city, the representation, in that day,
of the pride and daring of a revolted world. "Within forty days," he proclaims
as a herald, "and Nineveh shall be destroyed."
Thus he "mourned." It
was his commission. Responsively, Nineveh "lamented." The king rose from his
throne, and all the nation put themselves in sackcloth; and in such condition,
as humbled under the hand of God, a king of Nineveh shall find the Lord as a
king of Israel had before found Him. "I said," says David, "I will confess my
transgression unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." "Who
can tell," says this royal Gentile, "if God will turn, and repent, and turn
away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?" And so it was. "God repented
of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not."
"Is he the God of the Jews only," again I ask with the Apostle? and
with him again I answer, ""Nay, but of the Gentile also." Grace is divine.
Government may know a people, and order them as such; grace knows sinners just
as they are, whoever, wherever. The earth has its arrangements, heaven holds
its court in sovereignty. Nineveh, like Jerusalem, is spared; the hand of the
destroying angel is stayed over the one city as well as over the other. (1 Chr.
21; Jonah 3)
But "tell it not in Gath." Let not the daughters of the
Philistines hear of Jonah the Jew in the 4th chap.
Did Lot go a second
time to Sodom? Did Hezekiah, after the going back of the shadow upon the
sun-dial, sin through pride, with the ambassadors of Babylon? Did Josiah, after
his humbling and tender-need, go wilfully to the battle against the King of
Egypt? Did Peter, in spite of warnings from his Lord, deny his Lord? Have you
and I, beloved, forgotten lessons learnt, and correctings endured? And is Jonah
now to be unmindful of the whale's belly? It is passing wonder; a lesson so
sealed, so stamped, so engraven, as we would judge, and yet so quickly lost to
the soul!
Jonah is displeased. The mercy shown to Nineveh had made a
gentile important to the God of heaven and earth; and this was too much for the
Jew. The word of a prophet had suffered wrong, as pride suggested, at the hand,
of the God of mercy. Jonah was very angry. He cannot exactly again take ship
and go to Tarsus; but, in the spirit of him who lately did so, he goes outside
the city, and he says, "O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my
country; therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I know that thou art a
gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
thee of the evil: therefore, now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from
me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
What naughtiness of
heart all this was! Was he preparing another whale's belly for himself? He well
deserved it. What troubles we make for ourselves? Why did not Lot remain in the
holy, peaceful tent of Abraham? and why did he prepare for himself a first and
second furnace in Sodom? Why did David bring a sword upon his house, which was
commissioned of the Lord to hang over it unsheathed, to the day of his death?
"If we would judge ourselves we should not be judged; but when we are judged,
we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world."
The Lord's voice crieth to the city, and the man of wisdom shall hear; but
Jonah was deaf. He has forgotten the lesson of the fish's belly, and he must
now be put to learn the lesson of the withered gourd.
Outside the
city, Jonah prepares a booth for himself, that he may sit under it, in his
moody, bad temper, angry as he was with the Lord. The Lord then prepares a
gourd to overshadow Jonah in his booth, and Jonah is very glad because of the
gourd. But, then, the Lord prepares a worm that eats and withers up the gourd;
and, the sun and the east wind beating on the unsheltered head of Jonah, he is
very angry, and wishes in himself to die.
The Lord, then, in
marvellous gentleness, turns all these simple circumstances into a page of the
profoundest and most affecting instruction. "And God said to Jonah, Doest thou
well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do. well to be angry, even unto
death. Then said the Lord, Thou had pity on the gourd, for the which thou but
not laboured, neither madst it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a
night; and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than
sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and
their left hand, and also much cattle."
The prophet's delight in the
gourd is but the faint reflection of the Lord's delight in the mercy that
visits the creatures of His hand - be they where they may, at Nineveh, or
Jerusalem, or elsewhere, it matters not. And if Jonah would fain have the gourd
spared, he must allow repentant Nineveh to be spared. Out of his own mouth he
shall be judged: Jonah shall witness for the Lord against himself.
It
is, indeed, a precious and an excellent word. Jonah had been sent down to learn
the grace of God in one character of it, and now has he been taught it in
another: i.e., his need of it, and God's delight in it. The whale's belly, the
belly of hell, where he once was, had taught him his own need of "salvation,"
in that sovereignty of it, in that magnificent height and depth of it, that
could stretch, as from the throne of power in the highest heavens, down to the
bottom of the seas in the lowest, to deliver a captive there under the
righteous judgment of God. The withered gourd now teaches him (as all the
parables in Luke 15 have also taught us) how the blessed Lord, the Creator of
the ends of the earth, the Lord of the cattle on the thousand hills, whether in
Assyria or Judea, delights in His creatures, the works of his hands, finding
His rest and refreshment in the mercy that spares them, when they repent and
turn to Him.