1:2-3 Jonah flees to Tarshish
1:2
“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
Jonah disobeyed God. We know that Christ came to Israel, preaching repentance, but what Jonah is showing us is that it is possible to disobey God. the obedience and docility of the Son of Man is in marked contrast to the disobedience and impetuousness of the prophet Jonah. Christ did not go to Athens where he might have been held in high regard by the Greeks, nor did He go to Rome which was the centre of the then civilized world, which would have been a more obvious choice, and where He could have commanded respect. Christ went directly to Israel as God had told Him to do. The picture of Jonah shows us by contrast the obedience of Christ in view of the disobedience of Jonah. Our Lord could have chosen to be born anywhere, or could have lived in any city, or could have come to any nation. But the scriptures were specific, that He should be born in Bethlehem of Judea, that He should come unto the nation of Israel, that He should appear in Jerusalem. For all His greatness He never stepped aside from the plan of God. Jonah is showing us that Christ was not a robot, but a Son who delighted in obedience. How many of us actually delight to follow God’s instructions implicitly in our lives? The example our Lord has set us is heightened when we understand that as the Son of the Highest He had free will, freedom of choice, perfect right to choose where and how He would conduct His earthly mission, and He gave up His freedom of choice, His right to choose, His own will, in order to follow implicitly the path outlined for Him by God. The obedience of Jesus is in marked contrast to our own behaviour.
1:2-3
“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
If we ever wonder sometimes why God seems so remote from us, we may well consider that we are not where He would have us, we are paying the fare to have our own way, we are “with them” in a ship that is not of God’s choosing at all. Our instructions are clear. We are to preach repentance in the place God points out to us, but are we doing that? How different was our Lord Jesus Christ! He above all had the right to choose His own way, He above all had the freedom to decide His course of action, and He above all had the right to exercise fee will. He was no sinner, but perfect in holiness and righteousness. He needed no one to instruct Him, for He was wiser than Solomon. He could go anywhere, for He was before Abraham. Yet He came to do God’s will, His actions were directed by God Himself, and the very words He spoke were not His but the Father’s. Can we truly say we are following Christ? Are we at this moment where we willed to be or where God Himself put us? Do we delight in unquestioning obedience? Are we ever led by the Spirit, directed only by God, following only Jesus our Lord, or has self-will caused us to seek out another course open to us that seems to us far more favourable? Are we paying our own fare on some ship to Tarshish to avoid having to preach the message of repentance in a place we dislike? The answer to all such questions is simple. We either stand in God’s presence or we have fled from it. Each must answer for himself.
