Fourth Quarter 2003 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"Jonah"

Insights to Lesson 6
Salvation Is of the Lord
November 1-7, 2003

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

As this Quarter began we wondered how Jonah could hold our interest for 13 weeks. But now we can see how its message is present truth. One serious question looms over all that we have studied thus far:

Why was Jonah as an inspired prophet of the Lord so confused in his heart-attitude toward the people of Nineveh? Why was he so reluctant to preach the message to them? Hadn’t Christ given His blood for them? Why did he run away and why was he so unhappy when they finally repented and God forgave them?
Was his heart right with the Lord—he an ordained prophet? Probably our Sabbath School attendees will agree that there was something wrong in Jonah’s thinking about the Gentiles, especially the Assyrians. (And if we really knew what the Assyrians were like—could they be as bad as al-Qaida?—we might find ourselves sympathizing with Jonah in his petulance.)

Jonah was very likely the best man the Lord could choose from all of Israel for this mission. His heart-attitude was not unique to him. It was like Israel’s attitude toward the Gentiles. It was a national mind-set.

But how did it originate? Their “father” Abraham had no such heart-attitude, for the Lord had promised him that his descendants would be a “blessing” to all people, including the Gentiles: “In you [that is, Israel] all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). The promise was at last fulfilled in Christ; but God’s plan was for Israel to “bless” all those “families of the earth,” not just their own selfish selves. The Lord wanted Jonah to be a “blessing” to the greatest city in the world—an evangelistic campaign that would have been the grandest of all history, more so even than ours in London, Moscow, or Los Angeles. The entire city was to be “blessed” with repentance-results that should extend through all the rest of Assyrian history.

These world/blessing promises that the Lord had made to Abraham were the essence of God’s New Covenant. At Mount Sinai, the Lord proposed to renew it to Israel, but they chose as a nation to carry on under the Old Covenant.

Jonah was a creature of his Israelite milieu. He could preach the law, the law, until he was “as dry as the hills of Gilboa,” as Ellen White said “we” were prior to 1888. [1] And the Lord blessed—He has always blessed Old Covenant ministry. The Old Covenant was good; the laws that govern our civilization are good and necessary--based on fear of penalty. But the New Covenant is based on “better promises.” [2] It is yet to be fully realized by God’s people. The wonderful “Loud Cry” message that is yet to “lighten the earth with glory” will be a beautiful New Covenant message of how the grace of Christ is much more abounding than all the sin the devil can invent. The “most precious message” which “the Lord in His great mercy sent to” us in 1888 was pure New Covenant truth—refreshing, heart-moving, motivating. For example, in the initial months when the people gladly received it before opposition confused them, Ellen White says the results were phenomenal. Tithe flowed in, for instance, as never before. [3] The youth were motivated as never since the Midnight Cry of 1844. [4] Ellen White confessed that the “latter rain” had begun—for the first time ever.

What would a New Covenant presentation of the gospel have done for ancient Nineveh? We don’t know of course; but it would have depended on a New Covenant nation of Israel to back it up, else those who “came out of Babylon” could not have known where to go, and would have become confused by Israel’s backslidden condition. (Which may illuminate our evangelism work today. Ellen White says the Lord would bring many more from “Nineveh” into the church today if we would proclaim the New Covenant message and we were ready to receive them.)

Another question that arises in this week’s Sabbath School Lesson: When Jonah prayed in the fish’s “belly” did he taste a tiny bit of what the second death will be like? As our Quarterly emphasizes, he went “down, down, down.” But not just physically, his soul went “down.” He was in “hell” (Sheol; 2:2). The language of his prayer in this chapter suggests that death “encompassed … [his] soul.” He felt “cast out” “forever.” But unlike Christ on His cross who cried, “Why have You forsaken Me?” the Lord responded to Jonah’s cry before he actually could die the second death.

But why did Jonah need to go to “hell” (Sheol) before he could repent and accept his mission?

Thus chastened and enlightened, and with a heart-felt gratitude for being saved from the second death, he chose to consecrate himself to the Lord’s service. When Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ,” he must have had much the same experience. He also did not die the second death (only one Man has ever done so!), but his whole soul appreciated that Christ had died that death for him. That’s how “the love [agape] of Christ constraineth us” to live “henceforth” not for self, but unto Him. [5] Would you like to sense that “constraint” that realizes the “much more abounding grace of Christ” (Romans 5:20), the “power” that is in the gospel (1:16) to set you free from all paralyzing egocentric concern? Join with Christ on His cross as the repentant thief did; understand, appreciate, “comprehend,” [6] how He died your second death. Spend a “thoughtful hour with Him” there. [7] The results of simply “beholding” will be wonderful.

Read the study notes for Lesson 7