Question Time – What Is ‘The Sign of the Prophet Jonas’ . . . Matt. 12. 39, 40?

QUESTION

What is ‘the sign of the prophet Jonas’ and was the Lord Jesus ‘three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’, Matt. 12. 39, 40?

ANSWER

In Matthew chapter 12 verse 38, the scribes and Pharisees cynically demanded yet another sign from the Lord Jesus, as if the extraordinary miracles He had already performed were insufficient. In response, Jesus made this remarkable statement, ‘an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas’, v. 39. This one final and ultimate miracle, foreshadowed in the events of the book of Jonah, would surpass them all. By referencing Jonah, the Lord Jesus affirms the historical authenticity of the book, underscoring the fact that these events actually happened!

The sign of the prophet Jonah serves as a powerful picture of five sequential events in the experience of the Lord Jesus:

1. His descent to Calvary: Just as Jonah was cast into the depths of the sea, so too did the Lord Jesus descend in humility to the cross. ‘He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross’, Phil. 2. 8. Unlike Jonah, however, who descended due to his disobedience, the Lord Jesus descended in perfect obedience to the Father’s will. ‘And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him’, John 8. 29.
2. His immersion in sufferings on the cross: Jonah’s near-death experience in the sea symbolizes Christ’s sufferings on the cross, where He was ‘immersed’ in suffering, especially as He suffered the judgement of God for the penalty of sin. As Jonah prophetically stated, ‘all thy billows and thy waves passed over me’, Jonah 2. 3.¹
3. is death and burial: The Lord Jesus explicitly drew a parallel between the three days and three nights Jonah spent in ‘the whale’s belly’ and His own time in the ‘the heart of the earth’, referring to His death and burial. Just as Jonah found himself in an environment that was unnatural to him,² the belly of the great fish, so too did the Lord Jesus, the author of life, enter into the realm of death, an environment to which He did not belong.
4. His resurrection: Jonah’s miraculous deliverance onto dry land after three days foreshadowed the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the greatest demonstration of the power of God in all history, Eph. 1. 19, 20.³
5. His greatness being known beyond the bounds of Israel: In Matthew chapter 12 verses 41 and 42, the Lord Jesus referenced the repentance of the Ninevites, illustrating how the gospel would extend beyond Israel to the Gentile nations. The acceptance of Christ by other nations would highlight the spiritual blindness of Israel in rejecting their Messiah.

Regarding the phrase ‘three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’, Matt. 12. 40, there are three main interpretations.⁴ The view presented here finds its resolution in the phrase ‘the third day’, which is frequently used in the New Testament to describe the timing of Christ’s resurrection.⁵ The Lord Jesus told Herod, ‘Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected’, Luke 13. 32. Here, ‘the third day’ simply means ‘the day after tomorrow’. Consequently, the traditional Christian belief that Jesus died on Good Friday and rose on Easter Sunday aligns with this understanding. Two important facts help to clarify the timeline:

1. The Jewish reckoning of days: In Jewish tradition, the day begins at sundown, which explains the urgency of Joseph of Arimathea to ensure the Lord Jesus was buried before the Sabbath commenced on Friday evening.⁶
2. The Hebrew idiom for ‘day and night’: In Hebrew culture, any part of a 24-hour period was considered a full ‘day and night’.⁷Therefore, even a portion of a day counted as a complete day in this expression.