Jonah Lesson #03

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Jonah

September 21, 2015

Jonah Lesson #01

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Jonah Lesson #02

January 8, 2010

RETURN TO THE LIST OF LESSONS

JONAH 2
Lesson #03
THE PERSPECTIVE OF GLORIOUS PREFIGURES

 

• Memory Verse: Jonah 2:9

 

• Review and General Perspective of Jonah 1
• Now that we have become acquainted with Jonah in chapter 1, and we see the essence of the story, there is a deeper perspective that we can understand from Jonah’s experiences.
  • Read Mat 12:38-41
    • Jesus said that the sign given to the Scribes and Pharisees of Israel was the prophet Jonah.
    • Therefore, we must look more into this story of Jonah in order to see God’s message to the Jews.
  • In reality, the story of Jonah is a multifaceted prefigure of Christ and of Jewish history through all time. A sign or prefigure is like footprints in the sands of time that lead you to a spiritual truth.
• God’s experiential plan for the Jews:
  • We have already discussed how the Jews were supposed to be a light to the Gentiles, and how they failed that responsibility.
    • This is demonstrated in God’s call to Jonah to preach to the Gentiles of Nineveh.
    • Jonah did not obey God’s order but fled from the presence of God by leaving the Promised Land. In leaving the Promised Land he abandoned the protection and blessings of God to become part of the Gentile world.
    • In the same way, the Jews did not fulfill God’s plan to be a light to the Gentiles but desired to be like all other nations, without God.
  • We have discussed how that plan to reach the Gentiles is finally fulfilled through the church of the New Testament and the apostle Paul, the missionary to the Gentiles.
    • Read Rom 9:23-24
    • Read Rom 9:30-33
  • Even though the Jews did not preach salvation to the Gentiles, the New Testament church is primarily Gentile in nature.
    • In the same way, even though Jonah did not initially go to Nineveh in obedience to God, the Gentile mariners on the ship were saved simply by the fact of his Jewish presence on that ship. How?
      • Read Rom 9:4-5
      • The apostle Paul makes is clear in Rom 9 that the Jews were a treasure into which God poured his plan and his power to reach all mankind. All of the world knew the reputation of the Jews.
        • They had the calling from God.
        • They had the covenant relationship with God.
        • They had the Word of God.
        • They had the Law of God that tells us of His Holy character.
        • They had the plan for worshiping God.
        • They had the promises of blessing.
        • They had the Messiah.
      • When Jonah said he was a Hebrew of Jehovah, the God of heaven (Jon 1:10), the Holy Spirit gave power to Jonah’s testimony even though Jonah was not a willing preacher.
        • Notice that the Jews in rebellion against God become a burdensome stone to the Gentiles just as Jonah became a burden to the Gentile mariners who were suffering God’s judgment along with Jonah. (1Pet 2:8)
        • The result is world-wide persecution against the Jews by the Gentiles. The mariners cast him into the sea, just as many nations have cast out the Jews.
    • The story of Jonah is therefore, also an allegory, (a story with a deeper meaning) where the mariners represent the New Testament Church in the book of Acts.
      • Notice that the mariners tried to save themselves by working harder to reach land.
      • Gentiles must come to Jesus Christ, a Jew, to be saved by faith in his sacrifice.
  • The beautiful prefigure of the book of Jonah is that this rebellious prophet becomes a prefigure of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Remember that Jesus said that Jonah is the “sign”.
    • It is not Jonah’s rebellion that is the prefigure, because Jesus Christ was without sin and in perfect obedience and unity with God, the Father.
    • The prefigure or sign is that this prophet became a sacrifice by substitution for the sins of the Gentile mariners in the same way that Jesus Christ is the sacrifice by substitution of all man’s sin.
    • Having been thrown into the sea is a prefigure of Christ’s death on the cross.
      • Jonah was rejected by the mariners even though they accepted Jonah’s God.
      • Christ was rejected by the Jewish and Roman authorities even though many would come to believe in God.
• The allegory:
  • The sea represents or illustrates the world without God.
  • The bottom of the sea represents Hades or Sheol.
  • The ship represents the means of salvation. (the gospel)
  • Nineveh represents or illustrates the Gentile nations that will honor Christ in the Millennial Kingdom.
  • The mariners represent or illustrate the New Testament church, those Gentiles that were first saved and represented in Mar 4:36-39.
  • Jonah represents or illustrates the Jewish people. He also represents Jesus Christ in the crucifixion.

THE JONAH PREFIGURE IN CHAPTER 1 (1Cor 10:11)
Jonah and the Jews

Jonah Scriptures	Jonah’s Experiences	The Jewish Experience	Scriptures of Explanation
Jon 1:2	Jonah was called to preach to the Gentiles	The Jews, called to be a light to the Gentiles	Isa 42:6 Isa 49:6 Act 13:47
Jon 1:3	Jonah disobeys and forsakes his responsibility	The Jews rebelled against God and abandoned their responsibility	Psa 78:8
Jon 1:3	Jonah left the Promised Land to live in the Gentile world	The Jews left the Promised land to live dispersed in the Gentile nations of the world.	Est 3:8 Isa 11:12 Eze 36:19
Jon 1:8	Jonah becomes a burden to the Gentile mariners	The Jews continually become a burden to Gentile nations	1Pet 2:8
Jon 1:11	As a result, the mariners are against Jonah’s presence with them	Gentile nations continually persecute and cast out the Jews from them	Psa 3:6
Jon 1:13	The mariners tried to work hard to save themselves	No man can save himself. He must have faith in the sacrifice of substitution by Jesus Christ.	Eph 2:8
Jon 1:14, 16	The Gentile mariners were saved in spite of Jonah’s reluctance to preach to Gentiles	The New Testament church became Gentile in nature even though the Jews, as a nation, failed to bring them to God.	Rom 9:25-26 Rom 11:11
Jon 1:15	Jonah became the sacrifice of substitution thrown into the sea in order to save the mariners	Jesus Christ became the sacrifice of substitution on the cross in order to save all men from their sins.	Col 2:14 Gal 2:20
Jon 1:17	Jonah was three days and three nights inside the big fish	This time period and resurrection was the sign that Jesus gave to the scribes and Pharisees to verify to them that He was the Messiah	Mat 12:40

 

• Read Jon 2:1-10
• Jonah prays from the belly of the fish

 

• “…he heard me; out of the belly of hell…”

 

(2)
• How did Jonah know that God heard his prayer for deliverance?
  • It is by faith that Jonah prayed and by faith he knew God heard him.
  • This kind of faith comes from knowing the character of God.
  • By faith he looked to the Holy temple in Jerusalem where he believed God’s presence dwelt. (4)
• The phrase, “the belly of hell” indicates that Jonah really died inside that fish. (3, 5)
  • He says that the depth of the sea was all around him.
  • He sunk to the bottom where the seaweed wrapped around his body.
  • “Hell” is the Hebrew word Sheol that refers to the place of the dead where both believers and unbelievers went to wait for the final resurrection.

 

• “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.”

 

(6)
• What is the significance of verse 6?
  • The bottom of the mountains is in the center of the earth. This is the place called Hades or Sheol where all the dead during the time of the Old Testament went to wait for the resurrection.
  • The non-believers went to a place in Hades or Sheol called Torment.
  • The believers went to a place in Hades or Sheol called Abraham’s Bosom.
    • Abraham’s bosom is where Jonah went.
    • Notice that he says that he was imprisoned or captive in the earth with bars around him, and that he would be there forever.
    • The word “corruption” refers to the decaying of the body at death.

 

• “…yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption…”

 

(6)
• God did not leave Jonah in Abraham’s Bosom but raised him from the dead.
• God caused the big fish to vomit Jonah onto the land.
  • The whale shark does not eat large fish or humans because they cannot digest it.
  • The whale shark that has accidentally swallowed some large object or person will vomit it out by causing his stomach to turn inside out.

 

• “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”

 

(8)
• What are lying vanities?
  • This refers to the words of false prophets and teachers that promote the deceptions of idols and false religions.
  • These false words are empty lies that do not produce salvation.
• They forsake their own mercy.
  • God pronounces a strict judgment on false teachers because they lead others astray and prevent them from finding the love and mercy of God. (Mat 23:13)
  • As a result of their deception, they cut themselves off from the grace of God that forgives sin.

JONAH, THE PREFIGURE OF JESUS CHRIST IN JONAH 2 (Luk 11:29-30)

Jonah Scriptures	Jonah’s Experiences	Jesus’ Experiences	Other Scriptures
Jon 1:5	Jonah was in the bottom of the ship hiding	Jesus Christ existed before the foundation of the world but He was not revealed until the perfect timing of God	1Pet 1:20
Jon 1:14	The mariners on Jonah’s ship were crying to God for deliverance	Man is not saved until he cries to God and asks for salvation	Rom 10:13
Jon 1:13, 15	The mariners would have been lost at sea if they had not thrown Jonah into the sea because their own efforts were useless	Mankind would have been lost if Jesus had not been crucified because man’s own efforts are useless in gaining salvation	Gal 2:16
Jon 2:2	Jonah trusted that God heard his prayers and would deliver him from the belly of the fish.	Jesus trusted that God would deliver him from death.	Psa 22:8
Jon 2:4	Jonah felt that God had forsaken him	Jesus knew that when he took man’s sin upon himself, God turned away and had forsaken him	Psa 22:1
Jon 2:6	Jonah died and went to Hades or Sheol in the lower parts of the earth	Jesus Christ died on the cross and went to Hades or Sheol to bring the dead believers to Paradise	Psa 16:9-11Act 2:31 Eph 4:8-10
Jon 2:6,10	Jonah was raised from the dead after three days and three nights and delivered from Hades and the corruption of death	Jesus Christ was raised after three days and three night from the dead and delivered from the corruption of death.	Act 13:34

 

• Read Mar 4:36-41
• The experience of Jesus with his disciples in the boat during a storm reminds us of Jonah’s experience with the mariners.
• However, Jesus Christ is greater than Jonah because Jonah could not sill the storm while Jesus could.
• Summary and Application:

• Salvation is of the Lord (9)

• It is by the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ that we have Salvation and eternal life.
• Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees that Jonah is the sign or prefigure.
• Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees that a greater than Jonah is here. (Mat 12:41)
  • Jonah endured three days and three nights inside the big fish in the same way as Jesus in the tomb.
  • Jonah died and was raised from the dead in the same way as Jesus Christ.
  • However, Jesus Christ is greater than Jonah because Jonah did not bare man’s sins in his body as Jesus did. Jonah was the sign but Jesus is the reality.

• If you have not been trusting in Jesus Christ for your salvation like the mariners did, you need to consider where you want to spend eternity:
  • …with God or without God.
  • ….trusting in your own efforts and good works or trusting in God’s provision of Jesus Christ.
• If you want to be saved to spend eternity with God, you must do what the mariners did when they took hold of Jonah to cast him into the sea. You must take hold of Jesus Christ and put your trust in his death and resurrection for you. (Rom 10:9-10)

HOMEWORK
Jonah 3
This is a self-study. Please do not send homework answers to the teacher forcorrection.

• Application of Jonah 2
  • What new things did you learn about Jonah?

 

• What new things did you learn about Jesus?

 

• Preparation for Jonah 3
• Read Jonah 3:1-10
  • How do you explain the fact that all the people of Nineveh repented and turned to God so quickly?

 

• What did Jesus mean by Mat 12:41?

Memory verse: Jonah 3:10