Most of us know Jonah as the reluctant prophet who was swallowed by a great fish. But when Jesus brings up Jonah’s story, he doesn’t focus on the prophet’s disobedience—he points to himself. “Just 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” (Matthew 12:40).
Why does Jesus use the story this way? In Luke 24:44, Jesus establishes a foundational hermeneutic for reading the Old Testament. He says, “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” And as followers of Jesus we need to read and preach the Old Testament the way Jesus intends us to.
We need to read and preach the Old Testament the way Jesus intends us to.
When it comes to Jonah, Jesus presents the story as typology. Jonah’s descent into the fish and his eventual rescue point to Jesus’s death and resurrection. But that’s not the only parallel Jesus draws out. He also compares the response to Jonah’s preaching with the response to his own. “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41).
“Something greater than Jonah.” That phrase matters. If you preach Jonah’s story without arriving at the something greater, you’ve missed how Jesus himself reads it. So let’s look at this approach, starting with Jesus’s famous sign.
The Sign of Jonah
“An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Matthew 12:39).
Sin, Death and Resurrection
Opposed to God’s commission, Jonah fled as far as he could in the opposite direction. When God hurled a violent storm his way, Jonah recognised this as divine wrath and instructed the pagan sailors to throw him into the sea. Jonah figuratively describes his descent into the depths as a descent into Sheol, the place of the dead (Jonah 2:2). While Jonah’s self-sacrifice stilled the storm for the sailors, his preservation in the fish became a miraculous rescue from death. “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2:9).
Preaching this passage requires explaining the sign.
Preaching this passage requires explaining the sign: that Jonah’s experience in the fish prefigures Jesus’ death and resurrection. In other words, Jesus voluntarily submitted himself to the storm of God’s righteous judgment for the sake of those far from God.
But while Jonah was cast into the depths because of his own rebellion, Jesus was cast into the depths because of ours. And while Jonah is thrown into the storm to quell his own sin, Jesus walked into the storm to quell our sin. While Jonah’s sacrifice is born of disobedience, Jesus’ self-offering is born of love. And while Jonah only experiences a close call with death, Jesus actually dies.
Then Jonah’s miraculous rescue after three days prefigures Jesus’s own miraculous resurrection from death. After this ordeal, Jonah preaches to the people of Nineveh. The Ninevites’ response creates the contrast we referenced earlier: they repented, but Jesus’s audience didn’t.
The Respective Responses to Jonah and Jesus
Compared to Jesus’s extensive ministry, the brevity of Jonah’s preaching only amplifies Jesus’s point. In the Hebrew text, Jonah’s sermon is a mere five words, which is translated “forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). This message contains no call to repentance; no mention of God’s name; and no offer of grace. Jonah preached briefly and reluctantly yet saw an entire pagan city respond in sackcloth and ashes (Jonah 3:6-9).
When we preach Jonah, we must echo Jesus’s call.
In contrast, Jesus preached extensively, performed undeniable miracles, and offered grace to the guilty, yet the religious leaders and others hardened their hearts. Jesus’ challenge is clear: if pagan Nineveh repented at a hostile preacher’s brief threat, how much more guilty are those who reject the gracious, miraculous ministry of the Son of God?
When we preach Jonah, we must echo Jesus’s call: to respond to the one greater than Jonah with soft, repentant hearts.
The Problem of the Human Heart
Jonah’s story exposes a profound problem. The pagan sailors show moral sensitivity and reverence for Yahweh. And the brutal, idolatrous Ninevites respond to judgment with national repentance. Yet Jonah—God’s ordained prophet—remains rebellious, self-justifying, and angry at God’s mercy.
In teasing out the issues, we need to understand that Jonah had legitimate concerns about Nineveh.
It was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, a nation infamous for its horrific atrocities against conquered peoples. Assyrian royal inscriptions boast of skinning captives alive, impaling citizens, and burning children. Jonah’s people had already experienced Assyrian brutality, and while Assyria hadn’t yet decimated Israel, the empire’s growing power cast a concerning shadow. While Jonah might have been afraid for his own life, he certainly feared for the future of Israel.
Jonah’s story exposes a profound problem.
From Jonah’s perspective, Nineveh didn’t deserve an invitation to repent; it deserved immediate, divine destruction. Jonah fled because he knew God was “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Jonah 4:2). Jonah feared that if he preached in Nineveh, the Assyrians might repent, and God relent. And, as we know, that’s exactly what happened.
The Contrast of Anger
The final chapter begins with the prophet angrily complaining at Nineveh’s repentance. God asks him if he is right to feel this way (Jonah 4:4). Unwilling to respond, Jonah walks away. God pursues Jonah by providing a plant to give Jonah shade. Jonah is overjoyed. But when God takes away the plant, Jonah reiterates what he said to God earlier; he’s angry enough to want to die. We discover that Jonah is angry at his enemy’s repentance and his loss of personal comfort.
Jesus is angry because his enemies are prevented from coming to God.
In contrast to Jonah’s anger, we see Jesus angered when the nations are excluded from the temple courts, clearing out the money changers with a whip (Matthew 21:12-13). Jonah is angry because God shows mercy to his enemies. Jesus is angry because his enemies are prevented from coming to God (Isaiah 56:7).
Jonah, the only prophet sent to a pagan world power, has to be figuratively dragged, kicking and screaming, to carry out this task. In contrast, Jesus willingly left heaven, embracing his mission even at the cost of his own life. Jonah sulks at Nineveh’s repentance. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem for its failure to repent (Luke 19:41-44).
The Double Standard
But Jonah was inconsistent. While he wanted judgment for Assyria, he wanted mercy for Israel. In 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah prophesied expansion of Israel’s territory. Yet, as Jonah’s contemporaries, Amos and Hosea, had shown, Israel was not doing well; corruption, social oppression, and superficial religion were endemic (Amos 2:6-8; Hosea 4:1-3).
Why does Jonah demand judgment for the Assyrians’ sin but not for the sin of his own people, or even for his own rebellion?
Jonah acts as a foil to the true protagonist of scripture.
In behaving this way, Jonah acts as a foil to the true protagonist of scripture. While Jonah fled across the Mediterranean to avoid extending mercy to Israel’s oppressors, Jesus intentionally crossed social, ethnic, and political boundaries to seek and save those who were lost. Jonah wanted grace to be exclusive to his own tribe; Jesus laid down his life so that grace could reach every nation, tribe, and tongue.
While Jonah allowed his heart to harden towards his enemies, Jesus modelled deep compassion for his enemies—for those who didn’t just threaten violence, but who actually carried it out against him. In the midst of heinous brutality, Jesus cried, “Father forgive, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
Jonah’s relatable human flaws reveal how all of us fall short in comparison with Christ.
Jonah (Shadow):
- Posture: rebellious and reluctant
- Mission: flees from God’s mission
- Sacrifice: sacrificed because of his sin
- Message: cold announcement of judgment
- Heart: angry at the city (Nineveh)
- Response: distraught over repentance
Jesus (Substance):
- Posture: obedient and willing
- Mission: embodies the mission
- Sacrifice: sacrificed for our sin
- Message: announces judgment and mercy
- Heart: weeps over the city (Jerusalem)
- Response: rejoices when the lost repent
In every way, Jesus is the perfect typological fulfilment; he is the substance to Jonah’s shadow.
The Challenge of Jonah
Jesus conveys the same compassion we see from God the Father in the final sentence of the book. “Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120 000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:11). The question is left hanging. It forces every reader to review God’s question to Jonah for themselves. Does my heart mirror the expansive, cross-cultural mercy of God, or the narrow, self-protective ethnocentrism of Jonah?
Does my heart mirror the expansive, cross-cultural mercy of God?
On a continent fractured by ethnic tensions, Jonah’s sin hits close to home. We might catch ourselves being gracious to ‘our people’ and critical of ‘them.’ But that’s not God’s heart. The gospel calls us to more than Jonah could imagine—not merely to tolerate our enemies, but to love them as Christ loved us—even when that love is not reciprocated, even when it costs us dearly.
Jesus sends us, not as reluctant messengers, like Jonah, but as ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:20). This is how we can preach Jesus from Jonah.
