Back to: Jonah: A Deep Dive
Every truly Christian message focuses on Jesus, Redeemer and Lord. Conversely, no matter how true, moral, informative, stirring, or practical a sermon may be, it is sub-Christian if it fails to present Jesus.
– Dr. Dan Doriani
The final point of consideration in the exegetical analysis of Jonah, is reflection. Reflect on what?
Getting the Message
Reflection is the art of finding and applying the unique point of a biblical text and relating that point to the redemptive message of Scripture.
Building on knowledge of context, analysis, problems, themes, and obligations, good teachers bring everything together, joining the main teaching and main application in one statement. This kind of reflection prevents common mistakes: presenting too much data, reducing the Christian life to a series of beliefs and commands, and failing to establish a goal for a lesson.
Once we find the point of a text, we must present it to our hearers, yet teachers may dwell on a secondary idea if it meets a clear need. While we always strive to preserve the diversity of Scripture throughout this process, we must also protect its unity.
That unity, …is the Bible’s testimony to the Redeemer.
Two Approaches to Presenting Christ
Dr. Doriani suggests two different ways from which the redemptive work of Christ is often presented in any thematic passage of scripture. He calls them the Fallen Condition Focus vs the Redemptive Historical Focus.
Fallen Condition Focus
The fallen-condition focus (FCF) takes a more experiential path. The FCF wants teachers to ask:
- “What aspect of mankind’s fallen condition does this passage address?
- How does the passage show that Jesus remedies human sin and sorrow?”
The FCF has an experiential core, since it asks teachers to link the Bible to human needs.
Redemptive Historical Focus.
The redemptive-historical focus (RHF) is more overtly theological.
- It first asserts that God has a gracious plan to redeem his people.
- It asks, “What aspect of the divine plan does this passage reveal?”
- Then it shows how the passage presents Jesus.
Comparison Table
| Characteristic | Fallen Condition Focus (FCF) | Redemptive Historical Focus (RHF) |
|---|---|---|
| Source of authority | Scripture | Scripture |
| Theological Emphasis | Sin and the fall | God’s grace and sovereignty |
| Initial appeal | Human need | The divine plan |
| Special insight | Every text shows how Christ meets human needs. | Every passage points to the work of the Redeemer. |
| Final goal | To present Christ | To present Christ |
Jesus: The Sign of Jonah
Matthew 12:37-42 ESV
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
For just 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. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
Luke 11:28-32 ESV
When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.
For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
From Cornerstone Commentary
There are some details in Matthew’s record about the sign of Jonah that supplement Luke’s account (Matt 12:38-42). He notes that:
- the sign was called for by the Jewish religious leaders (Matt 12:38; cf. Paul’s comment on Jews requiring “signs from heaven” in 1 Cor 1:22);
- the generation is literally described as “adulterous,” that is, “faithless” or “unfaithful” to God, its covenant partner; and
- Jonah’s three days in the belly of the great fish are presented as analogous to the three-day sojourn of the Son of Man in the heart of the earth (Matt 12:40).
Thus, in Matthew’s Gospel, the sign of Jonah serves not only to address the vital issue of repentance (as it does in Luke), but also to symbolize the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. For a full treatment of this passage, see Edwards 1971 and DJG 754-757.
Having dealt with the accusation that he was the agent of Beelzebul, Jesus then turned to consider the issue of a sign (Cf. 11:16). He offered the sign of Jonah as the only one that would be given:
“What happened to him was a sign to the people of Nineveh that God had sent him. What happens to the Son of Man will be a sign to these people that he was sent by God” (11:30).
“These people” is, more literally, “this generation,” a generation that Jesus had just characterized as an “evil” or wicked one, standing under the judgment of God and in desperate need of repentance (11:29). That was why the sign of Jonah was such an eminently suitable sign. The people of Nineveh were called to repent at the preaching of Jonah, and the contemporaries of Jesus were being similarly called to repent at the preaching of Jesus, the Son of Man. If repentance was called for in the former case, how much more now, for “someone greater than Jonah is here” (11:32)!
The tragedy confronting Jesus was their stubborn impenitence: “You refuse to repent” (11:32). Again, the argument runs from the lesser to the greater: both Solomon (1 Kgs 10:1) and Jonah (Jonah 3:5-6) had received positive responses from the people they ministered to; therefore Jesus, who was greater than either of these, should receive an immeasurably greater positive response—but the people were recalcitrant.
In a similar fashion, John’s Gospel carefully describes the disappointing reception accorded to Jesus: “He came to his own people, and even they rejected him” (John 1:11). In the book of Acts, Stephen similarly criticizes his hearers with bold words: “You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit?” (Acts 7:51).
Rhetorical Ending
So many themes and obligations can be mined out of chapter 4 alone. So many reflections of our fallen condition. So many allusions to the redemptive love of YHWH.
We will close out this session and semester in the same (odd) manner that the story ends: With a question.
What does all of this mean for me?
One of the purposes of the story is to make us pause to reflect on what we just read, and how it applies to the reader. That is clear by how the story ends.
It doesn’t provide a clean, moral-to-the-story summary or statement. But rather, an uncomfortable and unfinished dialogue. We never get to hear Jonah’s response.
And YHWH gets the last word.
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