What The Bible Says
Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice
If Jonah is more about Gentiles receiving salvation than is is about Jonah and the whale, as previously alleged, then Jonah's attitude toward Nineveh's salvation is a portrait of the Jews attitude toward Gentile salvation. Look how well it fits. Israel was to be a testimony to the whole world, a testimony of God's goodness. Instead they fled from the presence of God, Even so God used their flight to teach Gentiles about his mercy; quite like the mariners learned that by the sacrifice of one Jew, all could be saved from the wrath of God. Jonah's three days and three nights in the belly of the whale teach about Jesus in the belly of hell, and the repentance of the exceeding great city previews Gentiles coming to salvation.
Chapter four depicts the LORD God's tender care and correction of the distraught prophet, and then the book of Jonah very abruptly ends. When good literature (God's is the best in the world) ends with no conclusion, the story is suspended and not yet complete. That fits Jonah; God was not done with Gentiles or with Israel. Salvation came to the Gentiles, Pharisees and Sadducees were distraught that God would save the heathens, and they did persecute the church. As he did Jonah, God tenderly deals with Israel's error.
Roman Catholics and Protestant catholics swelled with Gentile ego and taught that all God's promises to Israel are forfeited to the Gentile catholic church (Replacement Theology, and Covenant Theology) and that God is all done with Israel. Not so. God will restore Israel and his chosen nation will be with him in the Kingdom age when Christ sits on the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem. Believers need to be on guard against this leaven in Protestant and Reformed theology.
An Essay for week #4 Jan 26, 2020
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