If Your Looking for Me to Come Back Again Your Part of a Wicked and Adulterous Generation

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, "Instructor, we desire to encounter a sign from You lot." But He answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will exist given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For equally Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish 3 days and iii nights, so the Son of Human being volition be in the eye of the earth iii days and 3 nights. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at Jonah'due south proclamation; and await—something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the south will ascent up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the globe to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and look—something greater than Solomon is hither! (Matthew 12:38–42)

The Pharisees' request for a sign from Jesus came after they accused him of being demon-possessed and working for the devil. Before in Matthew 12, we've seen that, equally a group, they were already "plotting to destroy him" (poesy 13). And Jesus had already warned them that they were on the wrong side of judgment.

Earlier we understand Jesus's reply, we need to see all that — it's the context for how he responds.

There'southward more context for this response also: most of the Pharisees' accusations confronting Jesus arose after he did a phenomenon in front end of them, unremarkably a healing.

They had already seen signs, in other words. God had been generously pouring out signs and wonders, and he had been doing it on behalf of ordinary people — the poor, the broken, the disenfranchised.

But the Pharisees, who were the self-appointed guardians of the constabulary and arbiters of what constituted faithfulness, wanted him to do evidence them something bigger and amend. Most of all, they wanted Jesus to leap to delight them.

Rather than recognize his God-given authority in the world, evident in his ability to heal and forgive and deliver people from spiritual oppression, they wanted him to recognize their dominance to judge others by giving them a sign at their request.

When people approached Jesus in genuine need and asked him for things, information technology was rare in the extreme for him to turn them down. But that wasn't at all what this was. This was more insincerity; information technology was some other trap.

Which explains Jesus's strange, harsh, and beautiful answer.

He would not requite them a sign.

Not quite yet.

But he did something else — something he had non ever done before in the entirety of his ministry equally Matthew describes information technology.

He declared his intention to dice.

The Sign of the Prophet Jonah

The Former Testament story of Jonah is one of judgment, rebellion, and sheer hopelessness and grief, catastrophe in death itself. You probably know it, so I won't retell information technology in particular — but recall that Jonah was supposed to preach repentance to his enemies, to requite them a gamble to turn around.

Jonah's death (for that is what it is to be cast overboard in a storm and swallowed by a bang-up fish — it is expiry, if not in concluding fact, then in all its ramifications) ended both his life and the opportunity for Nineveh to be saved.

The prayer of Jonah, a cry of agonizing regret and startling hope, is 1 of my favorite passages in the whole Bible.

Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from inside the fish:

I called to the LORD in my distress,
and He answered me.
I cried out for help in the belly of Sheol;
You heard my voice.

You threw me into the depths,
into the heart of the seas,
and the current overcame me.
All Your breakers and Your billows swept over me.

But I said: I take been banished
from Your sight,
nevertheless I volition look once again
toward Your holy temple.
The waters engulfed me upward to the cervix;
the watery depths overcame me;
seaweed was wrapped effectually my head.
I sank to the foundations of the mountains;
the earth with its prison bars closed behind me forever!

Just Y'all raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!
As my life was fading away,
I remembered Yahweh.
My prayer came to You lot,
to Your holy temple.

Those who cling to worthless idols
abdicate true-blue love,
but as for me, I will sacrifice to You
with a voice of thanksgiving.
I volition fulfill what I have vowed.
Conservancy is from the LORD! (Jonah ii:1-9)

When Jonah substantially came back from the dead later on three days lost in the depths of the sea, his preaching had ability because he himself had go a sign. He was a sign non only of Yahweh's power, merely also of his willingness to forgive and restore. The prophet who ran away and was sent to face divine justice repented and came back.

Jonah didn't work a miracle. He was a miracle.

If such a matter could happen, so Nineveh, too, could apologize and believe that God could have mercy on them.

If i who had been banished from the holy temple of his God could be welcomed home once more like a prodigal son — if 1 who had in fact forsaken faithful love could return to the sacrifices of God with a voice of thanksgiving — so Yahweh's mercies were keen indeed.

Something Greater than Jonah

In this passage, Jesus declared to the Pharisees that he would somewhen give them the sign they asked for: he would give them the sign of the prophet Jonah. But he as well intimated that they would probable refuse to heed it when it came.

Though God's mercy would exist at that place for them, they would not, equally a grouping, apologize and take agree of it like the Ninevites did.

Jesus also spoke boldly of his own function in history. When we read his words now, thousands of years later on, Jesus is notable for the humility, the gentle winsomeness in how he speaks. Yet he didn't shy away from declaring the fact of himself to those who needed and then desperately to know him: he was greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon. Aboriginal Gentile oppressors had repented when Jonah came to them, dripping wet and bleached with tummy acrid; an ancient Gentile queen had traveled the traveled the world just to hear Solomon speak. One 24-hour interval, one solar day presently, the sign of Jonah would cause oppressors and rulers, Gentiles and Jews, peasants and slaves alike to bow the knee.

But this group of religious watchmen, secure in their own cocky-perceived faithfulness to God and superiority over others, refused to do then.

An Evil and Cheating Generation

Jesus chosen the Pharisees and those they represented an "evil and adulterous generation." By now, our ears should be well plenty attuned to hear the Former Attestation echoes.

"Evil" — fruitless, withered and decadent, dead when it should be live, bringing death when information technology should be giving life.

"Adulterous" is the cry of Hosea's God, the God who calls his people a bride and yearns for them to be faithful. Both are deeply rooted Sometime Attestation pictures. Jesus didn't apply these terms to the Pharisees because he liked proper noun-calling. He did it considering he was a prophet: ane who was responsible to telephone call God's people to recognize where they had gone astray and right their ways.

He did it to jar them into seeing the truth.

So they could come home.

The Urgency of Recognizing God

In the particulars of his story, Jonah is an odd blazon of Christ. He didn't actually want to become to Nineveh: he ran abroad specifically considering he did non want them to repent. He wanted them to endure for what they had done, to experience the fires of wrath unleashed against them.

By dissimilarity, for Jesus, the repentance and homecoming of his people was the "joy prepare earlier him" (Hebrews 12:two, NKJV).

Jesus never ran away from his mission to preach repentance and return, deliverance and welcome. He ran toward information technology. His entire ministry on earth was a running toward it.

And similar Jonah, he would soon become a sign — the slap-up sign, the only sign nosotros will ever need.

The sign that God is alive and anointed.

The sign that God is loving and all-merciful.

The sign that the kingdom has come, and we can come habitation.

All we demand to do is recognize him and respond, as the Pharisees did not.

In the NKJV, Jonah 2:8-9 is rendered, "Those who regard worthless idols abdicate their own Mercy. Simply I will sacrifice to Y'all with the vox of thanksgiving; I volition pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD."

Because the sign of Jonah has been given to us, nosotros need not forsake our own Mercy. Nosotros too can recognize, with the ancients, with millions in our own day: salvation is of the Lord.

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This is Part 218 in a series on the Gospel of Matthew, which you tin access here. Unless otherwise marked, quotes are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

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Source: https://rachelstarrthomson.com/2022/03/24/jesus-and-the-sign-of-jonah-the-only-sign-well-ever-need/

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