Thread: The Jonah sign

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

That wasn't a random event, the Lord made the fish swallow Jonah after the men had thrown him overboard into the sea. Jonah was travelling on the Mediterranean sea and the only creature in the area capable of swallowing him would be a sperm whale which is a toothed whale. It can be up to 65 feet long and weigh over 50 tonnes. God must have kept him alive in the belly of the whale too, before directing the whale to vomit him onto dry land somewhere. It's all a miracle and it kept Jonah from death by drowning.

Mat 12:38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”

The Pharisees had seen him perform many miracles of healing but what they apparently wanted was some sort of sign that would speak to them in a certain way, possibly according to certain rules.

39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

They didn't accept miracles based on compassion as a sign and wanted something else. The only sign he would give them was the sign of the prophet Jonah.

40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

What we should remember is that Jonah wasn't dead for three days and wasn't resurrected from the dead again. He was conscious throughout and his being vomited onto dry land didn't revive him rather it released him from his experience inside the whale's belly. "The heart of the earth" is a picture of Sheol, the Jews thought of Sheol as being somewhere underground. Korah and the other rebels fell into rifts in the ground created by an earthquake and were thought to fall alive down into Sheol.

The way Jonah describes his three days in the belly of the whale sounds like a mix between being trapped inside a whale's belly while miraculously being kept from suffocating - and being trapped in hell.

Jonah 2:1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly.
2 And he said:
“I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction,
And He answered me.
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
And You heard my voice.
3 For You cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the floods surrounded me;
All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight;
Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul;
The deep closed around me;
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains;
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever;
Yet You have brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord, my God.

There is little about the above that sounds like being swallowed by a whale. The whale is bound to swallow water along with its prey and maybe occasionally some seaweed but not that much. It sounds more like he descended through the sea down to the deep then through seaweed at the bottom then through the bottom all the way down to the moorings of the mountains. Modern geology tells us that the mountains do indeed have roots and they are found many miles below the surface. Now being in "the heart of the Earth", the bars of the Earth closed behind him (with miles of mountain and more miles of ocean on top of him) and they closed forever. There was no way out, in other words. Yet God brought his life up from the pit after three days.

How close is that to Jesus' experience ? According to Jesus it was "just as" or "exactly like" his experience, because that is what the Greek word used in Mat 12:40, hosper, means.

I’ve always used that as proof Jesus spent time in hell in torment (especially since Jesus revealed it as a prophecy about himself). That certainly wasn’t paradise. It doesn’t get any plainer than that.

Originally Posted by fuego

I’ve always used that as proof Jesus spent time in hell in torment (especially since Jesus revealed it as a prophecy about himself). That certainly wasn’t paradise. It doesn’t get any plainer than that.

I agree with you in principle but I find it highly debatable what this torment is supposed to amount to. I think many of the renditions are very "human" in nature, as if one can simply transfer everything that one could possibly experience in a physical body onto an existence where one doesn't possess a human body at all. It is quite clear that there was nothing that suggested that he would ever get out of there again - and that may be the worst part when it comes down to it. The rest is faith and obedience.

Also, Jesus experienced God's wrath over sin already before he died physically and that has to be worse than anything else that anyone could experience in hell. Except for the finality of being trapped in hell and death. Maybe God could be reasoned with even though he is wrathful but death and hell cannot be reasoned with. So he was left with believing God for his resurrection, in spite of everything. He had faith that God would move the mountain whose moorings he was trapped beneath.

I didn't say "before the cross". He died physically at the following moment :

John 19:30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

Anything that happened before that moment was "before he died physically".

Some things did happen before he was crucified and before he arrived at Calvary though.

Isa 53:5 (and 1 Peter 2:24) But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

That was fulfilled when they whipped him and he received many stripes on his body :

John 19:1 So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.
2 And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe.
3 Then they said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck Him with their hands.
4 Pilate then went out again, and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him.”
5 Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, “Behold the Man!”
6 Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

But it was still part of his ordeal which started with his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane.

Luke 22:53 When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not try to seize Me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
54 Having arrested Him, they led Him and brought Him into the high priest’s house.

When was God's wrath over sin laid on him ? On the cross.

I have always been fascinated with 2 Cor 5:21,
21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.“

Originally Posted by FireBrand

I have always been fascinated with 2 Cor 5:21,
21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.“

I think it means that God treated him as if he had been sin. Inventing a new doctrine of "Jesus literally became sin" based on an ultra-literal interpretation of one single verse is extremely thin. In return, God treats us as if we had been his own righteousness and eventually we are transformed into something that literally qualifies as that. So far it only applies literally to our born again spirits.