TYPES OF CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2001 James Melough
JONAH
That Jonah is a type of Christ
is declared by the Lord Himself in Mt 12:39-40, where, in response to the
Pharisees’ demand for a sign, He said, “An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of
the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s
belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth.”
Clearly not all that is
recorded of Jonah typifies Christ, for as with many of the types, the Holy
Spirit has been selective in choosing that which does adumbrate some aspect of
the Lord’s life, death, and resurrection, and that typological picture begins
here with Jonah’s words to the sailors, “Take me up, and cast me forth into
the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you,” Jonah 1:12.
That raging sea is a symbolic
picture of the awful storm of Divine wrath that enveloped Christ when He
willingly assumed responsibility for our sins: note the many references to
Christ’s sufferings depicted in the Psalms under the figure of overwhelming
waters, “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves
and thy billows are gone over me,” Ps 42:7; “Save me, O God; for the waters
are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I
am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.... Deliver me out of
the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and
out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the
deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me,” Ps
69:1,14-15; “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves,
Selah.... Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. they
came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together. Lover
and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness,” Ps
88:6-7, 16-18.
Jonah’s willingness to be cast
into the sea depicts Christ’s willingness to endure the storm of God’s wrath
against sin, so that men might be delivered from having to endure that wrath
eternally.
As there was no hope of safety
for the sailors apart from their throwing Jonah into the angry sea, neither is
there any hope of salvation for men apart from Christ’s having borne the storm
of Divine wrath against sin at Calvary.
It is to be noted, however,
that the sailors themselves must cast Jonah into the sea, and the truth being
taught in this is that each man who would be saved from hell and fitted for
heaven must fulfill the type by presenting Christ to God through faith, as his
Savior, the sinless Substitute Who has died in his place for his sins. The
futility of attempting to be saved by doing good works is demonstrated in the
failure of the sailors to bring the ship to land in spite of all their
strenuous efforts, as it is written, “For by grace are ye saved through faith:
and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast,” Eph 2:8-9.
Notice that the words used by
Jonah to describe his agony while in the sea are virtually the same as those
which the Psalmist has applied to Christ relative to His sufferings at
Calvary, “For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and
the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over
me.... the waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me
round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms
of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever,” Jonah 2:2-6.
But the Lord, having endured
all of God’s wrath against sin when He hung on the cross and died as your
Substitute and mine, wasn’t left for ever in death. He was raised again on
the third day, as He had declared He would be when He related the experience
of Jonah to the faithless Jewish leaders, Jonah’s being vomited out on the dry
land, 2:10, after having been in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights, 1:17, being a figure or type of Christ’s own resurrection.
It is to be noted that Jonah
anticipated resurrection out of the fish’s belly, see chapter 2, as did Christ
out of the tomb, the author of Hebrews declaring, “Wherefore seeing we also
are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and
finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the
cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of
God,” Heb 12:1-2.