Fourth Quarter 2003 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"Jonah"

Insights to Lesson 7
Salvation Is of the Lord
November 8-14, 2003

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

The experience of Jonah demonstrates in a miraculous manner that the goodness of God leads to repentance. Yes, God’s goodness was chasing after the Ninevites to bring them to repentance, but He went to extreme lengths to draw Jonah to the foot of the cross in the whole process. Jonah was given a second chance. But his second chance was derived from the second chance given to the father of his race. The primordial second chance was conceived from eternity past when the Father and the Son covenanted together to execute a plan, should it become necessary, which would reveal the height and depth and length and width of divine love.

“Before the foundations of the earth were laid, the Father and the Son had united in a covenant to redeem man if he should be overcome by Satan. They had clasped Their hands in a solemn pledge that Christ should become the surety for the human race. This pledge Christ has fulfilled. When upon the cross He cried out, ‘It is finished,’ He addressed the Father. The compact had been fully carried out. Now He declares: Father, it is finished.”¹ The blood of the everlasting covenant ratified this pledge at the cross and by so doing guaranteed a second chance to all mankind. In effect Christ saved the world from the second death and gratuitously granted a probationary life to all.²

As a result of that pledge from eternity not only Jonah but the whole world lives in panoply of grace.³ The goodness of God was teaching Jonah that there was much more power in His amazing grace than in all the power that human effort can muster. God’s amazing grace ordained both the fateful storm at sea and the great fish that swallowed Jonah alive. But it was not until Jonah was deep inside the belly of that fish that Jonah began to realize that where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. And now Jonah began to partake of that grace, something he had uniformly frustrated until this monumental crisis. “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and He answered” and Jonah acknowledged the grace of God, “You brought up my life from the pit. … Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:2, 6-10).

But the moment of truth came after God’s amazing grace caused the fish to vomit Jonah and plant him on dry land. There is only one way to partake of the grace that much more abounds. Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ and Jesus is the Word that was made flesh. It is only through the Word, and the Word alone, that grace becomes all powerful. It is submission to and acting upon the authority of God’s word that conveys power to the life of those who profess faith in the Lord God of heaven and earth. Again God spoke the word to Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you” (Jonah 3:2).

Jonah came face to face with grace of God with that command. The grace of God was in the command to carry out the command. Jonah was not so foolish to frustrate the grace of God on this “second chance.” He acted on the Word and in the Word itself there was power to carry out the command. Through the grace of God that much more abounds, Jonah accomplished what no prophet of God ever accomplished. An entire nation responded to goodness of God which leads to repentance. Jonah still had much more to learn about God’s abounding grace, and we too like Jonah have much to learn when He commands that message be given to the world.

At the time of end recorded in the book of Daniel when hour of God’s judgment on the Day of Atonement arrived, God has commanded a message to be given to the world. Within that command there is power to carry out the command. There is power to deliver a message that has power within itself to lighten the earth with glory of His changeless love and much more abounding grace. May our hearts be stirred as we meditate and act upon the command.

“The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family. All power is given into His hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure.”⁴

Endnotes:

1. The Desire of Ages, p. 834. [Return to Text]

2. Christ was tempted by Satan in a hundredfold severer manner than was Adam, and under circumstances in every way more trying. The deceiver presented himself as an angel of light, but Christ withstood his temptations. He redeemed Adam's disgraceful fall, and saved the world. With his human arm, Christ encircled the race, while with his divine arm, he grasped the throne of the Infinite, uniting finite man with the infinite God. He bridged the gulf that sin had made, and connected earth with heaven. In his human nature he maintained the purity of his divine character. He lived the law of God, and honored it in a world of transgression, revealing to the heavenly universe, to Satan, and to all the fallen sons and daughters of Adam, that through his grace, humanity can keep the law of God. He came to impart his own divine nature, his own image, to the repentant, believing soul (The Youth’s Instructor, June 2, 1898). [Return to Text]

3. “[He] hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:9-10). [Return to Text]

4. Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 91-92. The uplifted Saviour is to appear in His efficacious work as the Lamb slain, sitting upon the throne, to dispense the priceless covenant blessings, the benefits He died to purchase for every soul who should believe on Him. John could not express that love in words; it was too deep, too broad; he calls upon the human family to behold it. Christ is pleading for the church in the heavenly courts above, pleading for those for whom He paid the redemption price of His own lifeblood. Centuries, ages, can never diminish the efficacy of this atoning sacrifice. The message of the gospel of His grace was to be given to the church in clear and distinct lines, that the world should no longer say that Seventh-day Adventists talk the law, the law, but do not teach or believe Christ. The efficacy of the blood of Christ was to be presented to the people with freshness and power, that their faith might lay hold upon its merits. [Return to Text]

Read the study notes for Lesson 8