Lessons Jonah Teaches Us
“For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so must the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
The writer of Hebrews uses godly Isaac as a “figure” of Christ’s death and resurrection, but only once. On the other hand, our Lord chose to use backslidden Jonah as a picture of that great event and did it on more than one occasion in the Gospels.
There are several lessons we can learn from this. I’ll mention just two. First, you cannot take every detail of a story or parable as applicable. Who would compare our sinless Savior in every area of this sinful servant’s life? Many sincere Bible students have gone off the deep end, because they did not follow this simple little rule. This is especially true when it comes to prophecy.
Secondly, we find from this story of backslidden Jonah how God can take the raveled, mess of the threads of our lives, unravel, and knit them into something that will bring glory to Him. If this seems mysterious to us, we all might want to read and ponder Paul’s words about the Elect: “Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?”
Only God can undo what’s been done.
by an Aged Saint