Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:17
We look so often at Jonah’s failings that we fail to see in this verse a lovely type of our Saviour. Up to this point, we read of his running away; now we read of his being placed in the terrors of a whale’s digestive system.
What marks Jonah’s progress to this point is his descent: down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into the sides of the ship, down into the sea, and now, down into the depths to which the whale would swim. Does this not remind us of the Lord Jesus, who ‘made himself of no reputation” and who was ‘found in fashion as a man’. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. From the heights of Glory, He came down to thee came down to the depths of Gethsemane’s sorrows, the depravity of Gabbatha’s shame, and the darkness of Golgotha’s suffering.
We read that the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. So too did God prepare the circumstances of the crucifixion so that His Son could be swallowed up of divine wrath against our sin. Eternity’s planning went into that preparation, so that the Lamb Who was slain was an acceptable substitute for us. We see in His life the greatness of God’s preparation and provision. We see in His death the greatness of God’s satisfaction with the sacrifice.
Well might the prophet in the whale’s tummy pray! How dark and hopeless must he have felt! Surely, he would realize that God alone could deliver him from such a circumstance. Only the hand of the Almighty could intervene for him. Although three days and nights passed, Jonah did not die. This is the great difference between himself and the Lord Jesus. The Saviour of the world could have delivered Himself, or called myriads of angels to assist Him in doing so. But He did not use this power to preserve His life; He yielded Himself to the unfathomable suffering of body and soul, and then yielded His life that He might give us life eternal.
In Jonah’s account, we grasp the truth of our inability to penetrate Calvary’s suffering. But we do today appreciate that He was swallowed up by our punishments that death might be swallowed up of His victory. -Jim MacIntosh