1:12 “And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.”
Sometimes we need to be thrown out of the ship in order to get us to do what we were meant to do! Jonah knew the truth, and admitted it, and he well knew the answer also. But we see this picture is all wrong; it is the wrong way round. It is Jonah who should be crying unto men, not men crying unto Jonah. It should be Jonah who should be going into death voluntarily, not others putting him to death. It is not up to the world to draw away from us, but we should voluntarily separate ourselves from the world. This picture is put in reverse order to show us the beauty of our Lord’s own obedience and His voluntary giving up of Himself. Jonah is how not to do it, Christ is how it should be done. We should not shirk our responsibilities, we should not flee, we should not sleep, we should not be dumb, and we should not expect the world to do to us what scripture teaches we are to do ourselves. “Reckon yourselves dead,” says Paul. We should not have to wait till the world finds out we are Christians and throws us overboard. The result may be the same but it is not following Christ. Our Lord went into death voluntarily for us, and we should not have to be tossed out of the ship before we follow Him there. Jonah is the sign given to Israel of the Lord’s death and burial and resurrection, but Jonah is manipulated into doing God’s will whereas God is looking for volunteers who will cheerfully give themselves to Him.
1:13 “Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.”
Here the reverseness of the picture becomes more obvious still. These men, who are heathen worshippers of other gods, are trying to save Jonah’s life. How far different is the picture of the Lord at Calvary! Just the opposite, we are forced to say. There God’s own nation, in conjunction with the heathen idolaters, opposed His life bitterly. There Christ had to say, No man cared for My soul. In the picture of Jonah the rebellious prophet is helped and aided by those upon whom he brought calamity. By contrast, the meek and lowly Man of Sorrows who went about doing good is forsaken in His hour of need by His very disciples. So we see the picture is a picture of contrasts. Jonah is the exact opposite of Christ though Jonah is given this role to show us the perfection of our Lord. Nineveh is the exact opposite of Israel, for Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah and a greater than Jonah came to His own. Jonah is the exact opposite of Christianity for Jonah mourned over Nineveh’s repenting. It is a great collection of opposites, yet it makes the beauty of our Lord’s work that much clearer to us if we see the contrast, and it shows us clearly what we are not to do. If we are to follow Jesus we must first see what Jesus did, and then if possible what He did not do. This helps us to fix in our minds a clear conception of our own calling and election, so that we tend to be less confused and less easily led into error. It is God’s great fixative, indeed.
