The Sign Of Jonah (Matthew 12:38-42)

Beginning in Matthew 12:38-42, we read that the Pharisees won’t leave Jesus alone. Now they wanted to see a “sign from heaven” that would provide visual evidence of His Divinity. Consider what has happened so far in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. These same religious leaders had seen the healing of a man whose hand had been withered and another man who had been delivered from demonic control and had been mute and blind as well. Instead of giving glory to God for what they had just seen, they instead attributed the work of Jesus to demons. This is both sad and unbelievable.

Jesus’ righteous anger arose by declaring that only an evil and adulterous generation seeks signs. He was not going to put on a show with the created telling the Creator what to do. He told them that the only sign they would get was the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah had run away from God’s command to preach a message of repentance to the wicked city of Nineveh, capital of the brutal Assyrian empire and a deadly enemy of Israel. Jonah had fled westward and boarded a ship heading for the city of Tarshish. During the voyage, a fierce storm arose. He saw this as a sign from God and confessed his sin to the ship’s captain. Jonah told the captain and crew to throw him overboard and then the storm would cease. A huge fish then came and swallowed the prophet whole. For three days and nights Jonah stayed in the belly of the great fish, which was a symbol of the darkness of a grave. After this period of time, the fish spewed Jonah on the coast where he then traveled to Nineveh and preached the message that God had given him earlier. Warning the people of Nineveh of impending doom, they responded by expressing deep sorrow for their sins and genuinely repented of their past evil deeds.

Jesus was pointing to His impending death on the cross and the period of time that He would be in the grave. Three days would pass before He would rise from the dead and fulfill His preordained mission of providing redemption for all people from the bondage of sin and death (Ephesians 1:4). Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were the three days. The Jews counted part of a day as an entire day, so the prophecy was literally fulfilled according to Scripture. In his commentary on the gospel of Matthew, Dr. John Walvoord wrote that Jesus used another illustration that referred to the Queen of Sheba who had heard and believed in the wisdom of Solomon (1 Kings 10:1-13; 2 Chronicles 9:1-28). Now, a greater than Solomon was in their presence, and yet the people of Israel refused to believe. The Queen of Sheba and the people of Nineveh would rise up on the Day of Judgment to condemn the Pharisees for their unbelief and hostility towards Jesus and the work He had done on behalf of God the Father and the Holy Spirit to offer undeserved mercy and grace to a world whose evil had turned them into enemies of God (Matthew 11:28-30: John 10:28-30, 14:6: Romans 5:6-11).

All of this serves as a warning and rebuke of anyone who declares that they would “ believe in God” if He showed a “ sign” for His existence. This is unmitigated nonsense as God has already revealed Himself with the evidence of creation, order, logic, rationality, purpose, and care (Genesis 1; John 1:1-4; Romans 1:18-22; Colossians 1: 16-17) and the testimony of the Scriptures (John 17:17; Acts 17:11; 2 Timothy 3;16-17; 2 Peter 1: 19-21). The crowing of the skeptical pinheads who spew out their winds of unbelief and mockery of the obvious is aptly described in the Scriptures( Psalm 2:1-12, 14:1-3, 51:1-3; 74:18: Proverbs 15:5; Luke 12:20; Romans 1:22). The world is full of fools and wicked thinkers who are all too content to swim in a cesspool of misery, ignorance, rebellion, and hatred for God while those few believers who genuinely care for the welfare of their eternal souls call for them to repent and turn to Jesus Christ for salvation before it is too late ( 2 Corinthians 6:2). Eternity is too long a time to regret the foolishness of rejecting the free offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. Turn to Him today. If not now, friend, then when?

donaldwhitchard@outlook.com

https://ocosbe.org/donald-whitchard/