Passage: Jonah 3:1-10
The Big Idea
In Jonah 3, three characters repent: Jonah, Nineveh and God Himself. To repent simply means to change your mind and plans and agree with someone else. And every repentance in this chapter points us to the cross.
Read: Jonah 3:1-10
The word came a second time
The word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time (Jonah 3:1).
God is still willing to use Jonah. His failure did not disqualify him. The blood of Jesus is good enough to wash away anything, and He is willing to take you back. Our God is a God of second chances.
Jonah has just been through three days in the fish. He has reconnected with God and been spit up on the beach, and God speaks to him right there.
God tells him to get up, go to Nineveh, and preach the message God will give him (Jonah 3:2). Notice God does not give him the whole message yet. He leads Jonah one step at a time. He works with us the same way. We want the full plan so we can edit it. He wants to lead us by His voice, moment by moment.
Repentance #1: Jonah
This time Jonah gets up and goes, just as the Lord said (Jonah 3:3).
Jonah obeys. He has stopped running. But is God looking for people who only do what He says on the outside? That is what chapter 4 is all about. For now, Jonah looks good on the outside.
Nineveh was a “three-day journey,” a Hebrew way of saying a long, committed trip. Jonah walked hundreds of miles. He was probably thinking, “I’m earning some good favor with God now.” That is elder-brother thinking (Luke 15), and God does not work that way.
Jonah’s sermon
The moment he enters the city, Jonah starts preaching. No plan, no settling in. His message is just five words in Hebrew: forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown (Jonah 3:4).
He is probably thrilled with this message. Picture it from Nineveh’s side: you are relaxing on your porch, and here comes a foreigner, skin bleached from the fish, sunburned from the desert, smelling terrible, shouting the same five words over and over in a language you barely understand, and looking pleased about it.
Repentance #2: Nineveh
The people of Nineveh believe God. They call a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least (Jonah 3:5).
This would be the most shocking sentence a Hebrew reader could hear. The bad guys, the terrorists, become the shining example in the story. The problem with nationalism is that you always think you’re the good guys.
How did this happen? God had been preparing their hearts. Assyria had suffered defeats, famines and even an eclipse in the years leading up to this. Their conscience knew their violence was wrong.
The king leaves his throne, sits in ashes and issues a decree: everyone must turn from their evil ways and from the violence in their hands, because who knows whether God might turn and relent (Jonah 3:6-9). A whole culture changes its laws and its ways.
When a nation lives in continual wickedness, it begins to devour itself (Isaiah 9:18-21). Cruelty, greed and exploitation are self-destructive, because God built the world to work His way.
Repentance #3: God
God sees what they do, how they turn from their evil way, and He relents from the disaster He had announced (Jonah 3:10).
Did God change? Was Jonah a false prophet? No. God did exactly what He said He would do in His Word (Jeremiah 18:7-10): when a nation turns from evil, He relents. God gives people space to turn. That is His heart and His plan. (Nineveh later returned to its ways and fell about 150 years later, as Nahum foretold.)
Was Nineveh “Saved”?
Not in the way we usually mean. The city was spared from a coming judgment. There is no sign they entered covenant relationship with God or left their idols. It was rescue from a forty-day disaster, not new life through faith.
That sounds like a letdown, until you see the story it points to.
Jesus, the Greater Preacher
Jesus also preached about the coming judgment. But Jesus did not stand outside the city hoping for fire. He took the judgment Himself. And now everyone who looks to Him in faith is saved completely: sins washed away, righteous in God’s sight.
Jonah rejoiced at the prospect of God judging sin. We get to rejoice that God already judged sin, in Jesus, and now offers forgiveness to everyone, no matter who they are or what they have done.
If God could spare a whole city through a stubborn, half-hearted prophet, imagine what He can do through a child of God who is loved, filled with His Spirit and carrying a message of complete salvation (Matthew 28:18-20).
Grace Takeaway
You are not disqualified. The word of the Lord comes a second time, and a third, and a hundredth. Go with the good news, not because you are earning anything, but because you have been given everything.
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