Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:17

But he answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall be no sign given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as long as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the son of man be three nights in the heart of the earth. Mt 12:39-40

 

When queried about a sign to prove his persona, Jesus told the religious leaders of His day that the sign of Jonah was going to be the sign of His death and resurrection which they didn’t understand anyway. Christ compared Jonah’s experience to His own coming death and resurrection, pointing to the miraculous nature of both. Though, many folks argue its truism because of the ‘fish’ swallow’, one cannot deny the factuality of Jonah’s experience.

Symbolic incidents in the book of Jonah are revealed in the New Testament as Jesus explicitly referred to “the sign of Jonah” and then fulfilled its typological allusions. Most prominent is the image of Jonah’s three days and three nights “in the whale’s belly” being a sign of Jesus’s three days and three nights “in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40). There are a few parallel points of connection between these two figures.

It wasn’t Just a miracle, it was much more, a message.

The Belly of the Fish and Hell

Jonah compared the belly of the fish to hell, similarly was Jesus’ case as he testified of His descent to the heart of the earth, obviously a place of discomfort.

Hell was prepared not for man but for errant angels Mt 25:41, however, it will be the abode of errant men, people who disobey the voice and call of the Lord. Just as the fish wasn’t originally intended for man’s conveyance but had to house a disobedient man at the Lord’s call.

The Lord Jesus resurrected and could not be held down by the power of the grave, just as the fish was called to release Jonah after he had been purged from his self-serving pride.

The Darkness

Jonah suffered a Gethsemane-like affliction in unfathomable darkness

Jesus used Jonah’s story as a representation of his own coming three days and three nights in darkness and that he would rise again, just as Jonah had come forth from the darkness of the great fish. He also used the story to tell certain people that their failure to repent placed them in condemnation

It was in Gethsemane that Jesus began his descent into “the heart of the earth,” this was when the sins of humankind were swallowed up. death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Corr 15:55.

Glory to God.

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