Running Rebel (Part Five): The Reference

Transcript

JROT 22
11/05/2023
Running Rebel (Part Five): The Reference
Jonah 1:17; Matthew 12:38-41
Jesse Randolph

Last week, in our most recent Sunday evening study through Jonah we ended with Jonah 1:17, In that verse, Jonah 1:17, we encountered these well-known words, it says, “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.”
And as I mentioned at the end of our time together last week, I’d actually like to use that verse this week as a launching pad into sort of parallel study of a New Testament text, where our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, draws from Jonah 1:17 to make a point about Himself, to provide a sign about Himself, to the hostile and unbelieving scribes and Pharisees of His day.

So, tonight’s message technically goes along with our sermon series through Jonah, the “Running Rebel” series. But tonight’s message will also serve as sort of an addendum to our study. Because where we’re really going to be spending our time tonight is in the gospel of Matthew. In this sermon that’s titled “The Reference,” as in the Lord’s reference to Jonah and specifically to Jonah 1:17 and what God’s word records there about that disobedient prophet’s three-day stay in the stomach of a great fish and how that Old Testament account fits with what Jesus was proclaiming to His detractors in His day. We’re not actually going to be in one verse tonight or one verse of Jonah even. We’re actually going to be in the gospel of Matthew. So, turn with me, if you would, in your bibles to Matthew 12, Matthew 12, the first gospel. We’re going to pick it up in verse 38 tonight. I’ll give you time to get there. That wasn’t fair, you thought we’d be in Jonah.

Matthew 12:38, God’s word reads, “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here’.” And you can see after the verses I’ve just read for you, there’s more to say from Christ here, about Solomon and the Queen of the South, that’s the Queen of Sheba. But since tonight’s message is an outgrowth of our sermon series in Jonah, we’re going to stop right there in verse 41.

Alright, big picture time. So, we have the words of the book of Jonah themselves, words which were written, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, somewhere around 760 B.C. (that’s our best estimate). Words which record a command that God gave to Jonah to go to Nineveh. And then we see Jonah’s rebellious decision to flee to Tarshish. And then his decision to board a ship that took off from Joppa. And then we see God’s hurling of a storm on the sea. And then we see the sailors on the ship panicking, as the ship starts to break apart. Then we’ve seen Jonah sleeping. And then the casting of lots, and the lot eventually falling on Jonah. Then we see the rapid-fire of questions that the sailors start asking Jonah, about where he’s from and what his occupation is. And then we see Jonah identifying himself, back in Jonah 1:9, as a “Hebrew” who “fear[s] the Lord.” And then we see the sailors becoming terrified. And then we see Jonah asking them to throw him into the sea. Then we see the sailors initially refusing, instead digging their paddles into the waves to get to dry land. And then we see the sailors finally resolving, after praying, that they had to comply with Jonah’s wishes. We see them hurling him into the sea. Then we see the sea ceasing from its raging. And then we see the sailors repenting. And then back to Jonah 1:17, we see the Lord appointing a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah being in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. So, that’s the Jonah side of the equation.

And now we have Jesus some 800 years later quoting and referencing the book of Jonah now in Matthew 12. And what’s the context for Jesus’ words here? I’ll do my very best to give a high-level survey of material which takes most preachers many months if not years to get through. But I’m going to give you a real quick high-level overview of all that’s happened up to Matthew 12. Matthew has recorded the genealogy and the birth of Jesus in Matthew 1. He’s recorded the earliest years of Jesus including His family’s flight to Egypt in Matthew 2. He’s recorded the forerunning ministry of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3. He’s recorded the temptation of Jesus and the initial calling of the disciples in Matthew 4. We have the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5–7. And then in Matthew 8, and 9 especially, he’s recorded a variety of signs and miracles and wonders performed by Jesus. In fact, if you look back at Matthew 4:23, we’ll see a summary statement of what Jesus’ purpose was in performing these various signs and miracles and wonders. Look at Matthew 4:23, it says, “Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom,” there’s the purpose statement, “and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.”

So, then in chapters 8 and 9, we see specific accounts, various accounts of many different miracles and signs and wonders that were being performed. In Matthew 8 we see accounts of the cleansing of a leper, the healing of a centurion, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, the stilling of the storm, the casting out of demons. In Matthew 9 we see the healing of a paralytic, the healing of the synagogue official’s daughter, the restoring of sight to two blind men, and the casting out of demons from a demon-possessed man. In Matthew 10 we see Jesus summoning His disciples and laying out the costs and the rewards for following Him faithfully. In Matthew 11 Jesus has more to say to His disciples about His identity, His authority, and His plans and His purposes. And then getting up to Matthew 12, now we’re back into more signs, and more wonders, and more miracles as Jesus casts out demons of yet another demon-possessed man only to be accused by the Pharisees of acting under Satan’s power himself. Matthew 12:24, they say, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”

And that sets the stage for our passage for this evening. Where Jesus, having performed all these signs and all these miracles and all these wonders. And with the purpose of His certifying His claim to be the Messiah and King. Having just been accused of working under the power of Satan, Beelzebul they call him. He fields this question, in Matthew 12:38, from the scribes and the Pharisees. Look what’s recorded there again, in Matthew 12:38, it says, “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ ”

Now, with the background that I’ve just laid out for you, isn’t that a little odd? Doesn’t that question seem a little out of place? If not just outright irreverent? What else has Jesus been doing this entire time, but providing signs? And it wasn’t just the signs I’ve rattled off for you, from Matthew 8 and 9, for instance. There were various signs associated with His birth, His arrival here on earth. He was conceived in the virgin womb of His mother, Mary, in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. He was born in Bethlehem, a small and obscure and forgotten little town, in fulfillment of Micah 5:2. And following His birth we know that shepherds came from the east. And how did they find Him? Well, Luke 2:12 speaks of an angel of the Lord, saying to them: “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
And then, as His public ministry took off, there were various signs connected with Jesus’ life which testify to the fact that He truly had been sent of God and sent by God.

Well, we know from the gospel of John that there was at least one Pharisee who ‘got this.’ His name was Nicodemus. And in that infamous encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 we see it recorded this way, John 3:1-2 says, “Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with Him.’ ”

More signs -- indeed, the signs performed by Jesus are mentioned by John the Apostle, as the very purpose for the gospel account that bears his name, the Gospel of John. John 20:30-31 it says, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

All of this to say up to this point Jesus’ ministry had been all about signs. He had given sign after sign. And not sign after sign merely to be reckoned as some sort of magician or sign-worker or street performer. But instead, to demonstrate who He was and is, the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world. These signs were like runway lights, available for all to see, pointing the people of Israel in particular to the fact that God had provided their Messiah.

Now, in our text for this evening with signs long ago having been provided in connection with
His birth and various other signs having been provided in connection with His life and His public ministry, we’re going to see Jesus was going to provide these unbelieving Pharisees, these unbelieving Jewish rulers, with one more sign. A sign connected with His death and His resurrection. More on that later.

Back to Matthew 12:38. Again we have this question. It says, “some of the scribes and the Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ ” And again, what a statement, what boldness, what hubris. They had seen healing. They had seen casting out of demons. They had seen transformation of lives. They had seen salvation. They had seen forgiveness granted. What more could they have possibly wanted to see? What else could they have asked for? Why were they asking this question? The answer, I think, is found, just a few pages over in Matthew 16. Turn with me over to Matthew 16 please, just the first few verses here. Picking it up in verse 1 it says, “The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, ‘When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.” And in the morning, “There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.” Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.’ And He left them and went away.”

What I’d like us to zero in on is the very end of verse 1 there where it says, “they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven.” In other words, they had seen all the terrestrial wonders Jesus had performed. In other words, they had seen all of the miracles Jesus had performed on earth. Now they wanted to see something really spectacular. Now they wanted to see something celestial, heavenly, other worldly. They wanted to see if Jesus could do something with the planets or the stars or the comets or the clouds. The earth-bound miracles they had seen with their own two eyeballs weren’t enough. They wanted to see something truly extraordinary. They wanted to see something out-of-this-world. Which reminds us of the reading of Scripture this evening out of 1 Corinthians 1:22-23 where it says, “For indeed Jews ask for,” what? “signs.” “And Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” You heard it there at the beginning of verse 22, “Jews ask for signs.” They seek for signs. This was true of Jesus’ day, as it was for Paul.

Now as we get back into our context here in Matthew, why did the Pharisees want to see these sorts of signs? Well, the answer is that they really didn’t think Jesus could pull it off. They really didn’t think He could do what they were asking Him to do. They thought they had cornered Him. They thought they had trapped Him. They thought they had stumped Him. And they wanted to demean Him and discredit Him and humiliate Him and embarrass Him so that no one would believe Him. That was their intent. They asked for the moon, literally, the sun and the stars. They wanted to see some sort of miracle involving the heavenlies so that Jesus would fail. All of that is wrapped here into Matthew 12:38 where it says, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” Teacher, give us a good one, is the sense here. And the Lord’s reply is recorded here in verse 39. Look at what it says back in Matthew 12:39. He says, I forgave sins, I calmed the storm, I healed the sick, I raised the dead, I made the blind see, I made the lame walk. What else do you want from Me? That’s what it says, right, in your Bibles? No. Mine either. No, it says this, in verse 39, it says, “But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign.” In other words, Jesus doesn’t match their words tit-for-tat. Instead, He simply slams the door shut on their request for a sign by calling them out for who they are. This is the verbal equivalent of a ‘stiff arm’. The Lord is putting the attention where it ought to be. Not on His refusal to comply with their silly demands for an out-of-this-world sign but instead, on their foolish and wicked and impenitent hearts. “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign,” He says.

There’s no two ways around it. Jesus here is calling out the religious leaders of His day as evil, as adulterous, and as spiritually unfaithful. First, because of their adherence to rigid religious formalities. Remember Matthew 23. He says, “For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness,” that’s Matthew 23:23. The very next verse, Matthew 23:24 He says “you… strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.” And then the very next verse He says “you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.” So, He’s calling them out for their rigid adherence to religious formality. But He’s also calling them out for their ultimate rejection of Him as Messiah. See, the people of Israel, the Jews, the people whom Christ initially came for, those who should have been following Him, proved themselves to be adulterous, evil, and spiritually unfaithful. They were showing themselves to be of the same lineage and pedigree as the various generations of unrepentant Israelites of old. They were just like their stiff-necked ancestors including those ancestors that came out of the ten tribes from the north and the ancestors that came out of the two tribes of the south.

For a cross-reference to the northern tribes we go to Hosea 3:11-13. You can turn there if you’d like, if you can still find it from last year. Hosea 3:11 says, “Harlotry, wine and new wine take away the understanding. My people consult their wooden idol, and their diviner’s wand informs them; for a spirit of harlotry has led them astray, and they have played the harlot, departing from their God. They offer sacrifices on the tops of the mountains and burn incense on the hills, under oak, poplar and terebinth, because their shade is pleasant. Therefore your daughters play the harlot and your brides commit adultery.” So that’s the northern pedigree.

In the south it’s no better. Here’s Jeremiah 3:6, “Then the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king, ‘Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. I thought, “After she has done all these things she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. Because of the lightness of her harlotry, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,’ declares the Lord.”

In other words, just like their ancestors, the Jewish people of Jesus’ day and who He is zeroing in on here are, by the way, the Jewish leaders of His day. They were just like the Israelites of Jeremiah’s day. They were just like the Israelites of Hosea’s day. They were just like the Israelites of Jonah’s day. They were spiritual adulterers. They were the very “adulteresses” that James calls out in James 4:4 when he says that “friendship with the world is,” enmity, “hostility toward God.”

Bringing it back here though to Matthew 12, specifically verse 39, the implication behind Jesus’ words here when He says, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign,” the implication is this: if you really were who you claim to be, Pharisees, if you really did represent God, if you really were of Yahweh, if you really were His faithful follower, you would have no need for a sign. You’d be walking by faith, not by sight. You’d be walking by faith not by signs. You’d be walking by the example of your father, Abraham who in Genesis 15:6 it says, “believed in the Lord” who “reckoned it to him as righteousness.” The Pharisees, in other words, were phonies. Like the adulterous husband who kisses his wife on the cheek on his way out the door to go sleep with another woman, these religious leaders were paying lip service to Yahweh, but their hearts were far from Him. And that was true of the entire Jewish nation of Jesus’ day. These were the original people of God, to be sure, but they were unfaithful to God. And through their legalism and their traditions and their self-righteousness they had proven themselves over and over to be harlots.

And knowing this and knowing their tendencies and knowing their hearts and knowing their cravings for a sign and knowing how that only highlighted how spiritually adulterous and lost they were, the Lord continues on with His reply in verse 39. After saying, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign,” He said “and yet no sign will be given to it,” in other words, a clear ‘no,’ but then He continues, “but the sign of Jonah the prophet.” Now, before we get into what that “sign of Jonah the prophet” is, I want us all to see here that Jesus here was not saying that He couldn’t do more signs for them. This wasn’t a matter of power or ability. He was saying He wouldn’t do more signs for them. This was a matter of priority.

Turn with me over to Luke 11, Luke 11 and I want us to look at verse 29. And by the way this is the third now of the three references in the gospels to Jonah. So we are still kind of doing a Jonah study tonight, indirectly here. But look at Luke 11:29, it says “As the crowds were increasing, He began to say, ‘This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the
Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.’ ” That language is very similar to the language we’re working through in Matthew 12.

But I want you to note real quick what that language we just read is prefaced by. Look up the page just a bit at verse 27 of Luke 11, it says, “While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.’ But He said, ‘On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.’ ” Do you catch those final words there? “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Those are the words that immediately precede what He then says in verses 29-30 about the sign of Jonah. So look at the contrast that’s being set up there already. You have blessedness goes to “those who hear the word of God and observe it,” verse 28. But then you have wickedness being ascribed to those who seek a sign. The Pharisees who were coming after Jesus here were wicked, adulterous, and evil. Their minds weren’t captive to the word of God. Rather, they were stumbling and self-righteous sign-seekers. They were those people described in 1 Corinthians 1:22, the Jews who “ask for signs.”

Now, application time. Bringing this over to our modern 2023 context. Is there really that much of a difference between the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day and what masquerades as religion in our day? Which churches tend to have the largest auditoriums and the biggest budgets? Those that trade on signs and wonders or those which make the word of God central? Which churches tend to draw the younger crowds and to become the next thing and the next scene? Those who trade on signs and wonders or those which make the word of God central? Which churches tickle the most ears? Those who trade on signs and wonders or those which make the word of God central? We know the answer, don’t we? We live in a time where, 2 Timothy 4:2, the word of God is “out of season.” We know that we live, Philippians 2:15, “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” So of course, people want signs in the same way that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day wanted signs.

Well, Jesus wasn’t going to give them what they wanted. He wasn’t going to give them the sign they wanted. We see that there in verse 39. He says, “and yet no sign will be given to it,” but then He carves out this lone exception there at the end of the verse where He says, “but the sign of Jonah the prophet.” Putting the whole thing together He’s saying, “no sign will be given to it,” except, “but the sign of Jonah the prophet.” He’s saying no more signs except one. I’ll give you a sign but it’s going to be My sign, the sign I want to give you, “the sign of Jonah the prophet.”

Now, before we get into what that means, “the sign of Jonah the prophet,” this is where I’m going to take all of us… We’re driving along in our minivan as a big family here and we’re going to pull off the side of the road and have a little family powwow about Bible interpretation and hermeneutics and how we read the Bible. Okay? We’re on the road with Matthew 12. Now we’re going to go to the rest stop and just talk a little bit about Bible interpretation and hermeneutics, okay? Because where we are in this section of Matthew 12 is a prime example of where otherwise well-meaning Christians will get their reading of God’s Word wrong.

And, you may be thinking here, especially if you’re new and you haven’t heard me preach before, you might be thinking that guy sounds awfully arrogant. He’s making it sound like there’s only one way to read God’s Word. And that there’s only one interpretation, right interpretation, of God’s Word. That’s actually exactly what I’m saying. But that’s not arrogance, friends, that’s accuracy, that’s precision. Just like it wouldn’t be arrogant to say that a husband’s love note to his wife has one meaning. And just like it wouldn’t be arrogant to say that the wife’s grocery list to her husband has one meaning. The meaning of written words, especially God’s Word, is not found in the eye of the beholder or the response of the reader. Meaning, rather, is rooted in the intention of the author and namely the Divine Author in the case of Scripture whose intention is singular. So is there a right way to interpret God’s Word? Is there a right meaning to be found in God’s Word? Yes and yes. There is only one meaning to any aspect of God’s Word. And there is only one correct interpretation of any aspect of God’s written Word.

And I bring all of this up because the trend in our day in many different pockets of modern evangelicalism is to read the Bible backwards. You’ve heard me say it before. And by that I mean this modern trend is to say that we can only read the Old Testament through the spectacles of the New Testament. The only way that people will say that we can understand the Old Testament books or the Old Testament accounts or the Old Testament figures or the Old Testament records is to read the Bible backwards. Reading the Old through the lens of the New.
Starting not with the first words of Scripture, “In the beginning, God,” Genesis 1:1 but instead starting with the final words of Scripture, Revelation 22:21, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.” So that now, using that methodology Jesus is believed to be everywhere in the Old Testament because you’re reading from forward backward. And now the modern-day church is somehow read back into Old Testament Israel. And now the promises made to one people group are confused with promises made to another. And the requirements God laid on certain people, like the Law on Israel, are now transposed on other people, like the church today.

As it relates specifically to the Book of Jonah, when there’s this commitment in certain circles to reading the Bible backwards, what you’ll find is a litany of commentators. And I’ve got a whole row of them on the shelf in my office, from the early church fathers of the first early centuries of the church up to the present day who take the position, essentially, that because Jesus references Jonah here in Matthew 12, well, then the book of Jonah, the story of Jonah, must be all about Jesus. Friends, that is a vast over-reading of Luke’s words in Luke 24:27 where Jesus following His resurrection on the road to Emmaus, where we are told, “beginning with Moses and with all the prophets… explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” It’s an over-reading because now all of a sudden you’re saying that Jesus is literally on every page of the Old Testament. He’s under every stone, He’s behind every tree, He’s lurking in every cave, and in the case of the book of Jonah, He’s on the ship.

Lest you have any concerns that maybe I’m over-stating my case here, here’s some quotes from various commentators throughout the centuries concerning Jesus’ supposed appearances and Jesus’ supposed centrality in Jonah. Here’s Cyril of Jerusalem, a fourth century theologian, he says, “The one was cast into the whale’s belly;” that’s Jonah, “but the other of his own accord went down, where the invisible whale of death is,” whatever that means. Tertullian of Carthage recalled, he related, the story of Jonah to the context of burial. He called the “great fish… a coffin, or a tomb, or… some quiet and concealed grave.” You can’t help but read it through the lens of Christology there. Then there’s Ambrose of Milan, he says, “Like Jonah when he was in the belly of the fish… similarly Christ was with God from His mother’s womb.” So he links Jonah being in the fish to Jesus being in Mary’s womb.

Skipping ahead a few centuries, you have Matthew Henry who says, “Jonah was in the belly of the fish, in safe custody, three days and three nights, that he might rightly typify Christ’s burial in the grave.” Arno Gaebelein says, “The… meaning of the story of Jonah is authorized by the words of the Son of God.” I want to zero in on the last two, Henry and Gaebelein. See both commentators are signaling through the language they’ve employed there, the fact that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights as recorded back in Jonah 1:17, it finds its full expression, its full meaning, not in the account given in Jonah itself but rather 800 years later in the days of Jesus. For Matthew Henry, Jonah wasn’t in the belly of the fish in the most ultimate sense because of his disobedience, because of his rebellion, because God had appointed the fish to swallow Jonah whole, because God was using that experience to work Jonah over so he would eventually go preach to the Ninevites. Not even because that’s exactly how God recorded it in Jonah 1:17. No, for Matthew Henry, “Jonah was in the belly of the fish,” these are his words, “in safe custody, three days and three nights, that he might rightly typify Christ’s burial in the grave.” The purpose of Jonah going into the fish was to typify Christ’s burial 800 years later, says Henry. Or Gaebelein says, “The… meaning of the story of Jonah is authorized by the words of the Son of God.” So the meaning isn’t authorized by the original human author of Jonah. It’s not even authorized by the Holy Spirit, who moved Jonah to write what he wrote 800 years before Christ. The story of Jonah then according to Gaebelein must have had some temporary meaning in those 800 intervening years until the meaning became authorized by the Son of God.

I could go on and on. There are many other examples some of which I’ve already alluded to earlier in some of the sermons in this series where those who read the Bible backwards, those who see Christ on every page of the Old Testament, somehow now naturally see Christlikeness in Jonah in the seventeen verses that we’ve worked through in Jonah 1. And they do so though there’s not a semblance of Christlikeness or selflessness or humility or anything like that in that first chapter of Jonah. I hope I’ve made my case on that one. Reading Jonah through these Christo-centric lenses they naturally see Jonah’s willingness to be tossed into the sea as him being some sort of precursor to Christ and a preview of Christ’s willingness to go to the cross. There are even some who take it even further and they’ll say that because the ship that Jonah was in was undoubtedly constructed with wood it prefigures the wooden cross of Christ. In other words, they are moving far from the realm of typology which we’ll get into later, to illegitimate and fanciful allegory.

Now, I know I’m going fast and I know I’m going a bit deep here but you’re the Sunday night crowd. You’re the crowd that puts up with me teaching “Systematic Theology” for ten weeks on warm summer evenings. I know you can handle this. I’m going to go a little bit deeper on this topic of typology and allegory. This is a premeditated rabbit trail, okay? I’ll get us back to Matthew 12 by 7:30, Lord willing.

Let’s start with this topic of allegory. Let’s spend some time looking at allegory or allegorization or the allegorical method. What is allegory? Well, as one work defines it, the allegorical method seeks to find “a symbolic meaning that is parallel to but distinct from, and more important than, the literal meaning.” That’s the allegorical definition, “a symbolic meaning that is parallel to but distinct from, and more important than, the literal meaning.” Allegorical interpretation has its roots in Platonic philosophy. I don’t have time to get into that tonight but when you have some time later this week, go look up Plato’s illustration of caves and shadows. That will give you all that you need to know about Platonic philosophy and how it applies to Bible interpretation. And allegorical interpretation not only has its roots in Platonic philosophy, it has roots in the Alexandrian schools of Bible interpretation. And that school is made famous by men like Origen. He was one of the ascetic types I mentioned in this morning’s sermon. And those who are committed to the allegorical method historically, while they have acknowledged that there is at least a literal meaning of any text of Scripture, what they’ll also say is that lurking behind that literal meaning of Scripture is a fuller meaning, a deeper meaning, the meaning that you really want to get to, to understand what’s happening in any given text.

Now historically, there have been various types of allegorical interpretation. There are some who follow a two-fold method of allegorical interpretation where they are simply looking for the literal meaning and the spiritual meaning. There are some who follow a three-fold method of allegorical interpretation. What they do is they link how we read the Bible with a trichotomist view of the human constitution and they see people like us made up of body, soul, and spirit and so they think, well, the Scriptures must have three meanings as well because humans are made of three parts. And then there’s even those who employ a four-fold method of allegorical interpretation. And they say there’s the literal meaning, that’s the historical events as they are recorded; there’s the typological meaning where they try to bridge Old and New Testament contexts and find allegorical meanings between them; there’s the moral meaning. That’s the third one, how are we to act in light of the actual meaning; and there’s what’s called the anagogical meaning, how these events, recorded wherever they are, point to future realities like where this is all going. I’ll give you an example of how this would work under this four-fold meaning. Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem, we would take that as what? Jerusalem, a city, a place, right? That’s the literal meaning of Jerusalem. But if you’re applying this four-fold method you also say there’s an allegorical meaning of Jerusalem, that would be the Church. And there’s a moral meaning of Jerusalem, which would mean the soul of any human being. And then there would be the anagogical meaning of Jerusalem, which would be the heavenly city of God, the place we’re all going to go one day.

Now, thankfully, by the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, guys like Luther and Calvin led the Protestant church away from that wacky four-fold method of interpretation. But unfortunately there were still some remnants of allegory and allegorical interpretation even if it wasn’t a four-fold method. .

I’m going to take a few minutes to highlight a few examples of the ongoing survival, even today, of some allegorical interpretations of Scripture. If you would, turn with me over to Genesis 2. What I’m trying to get at here is allegorical interpretation has been highly confusing -- hopefully a little less confusing now that I’ve explained it, not more confusing -- over the course of history. Thankfully we no longer have the four-fold method really in any circles today. But there’s still is allegorization that happens in many circles today and I’m going to give you an example now in Genesis 2. Look at Genesis 2:18. Genesis 2:18, we looked at 16 and 17 this morning, but here’s 18, it says, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’ Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

A straightforward account given by Moses moved by the Holy Spirit about the creation of the woman from the man’s side or the man’s rib. And what’s being communicated in this text? I bet if I passed the mic around you’d get it right. What’s being communicated is that God here declares that it’s not good for man to be alone so He causes a deep sleep to fall on the man and He creates a woman out of the man’s side or the man’s rib. That’s it.

Well, here’s how M. R. DeHaan, a 20th century Dutch Reformed theologian and Bible teacher takes this very passage. This is allegory. He says, “While Adam slept, God created from His wounded side a wife, who was part of himself, and he paid for her by the shedding of his blood… Now all is clear. Adam is a picture of the Lord Jesus, who left His Father’s house to gain His bride at the price of His own life. Jesus, the last Adam, like the first, must be put to sleep to purchase his bride, the Church, and Jesus died on the cross and slept in the tomb for three days and three nights. His side too was opened after He had fallen asleep, and from that wounded side redemption flowed.” I mean, that is admittedly very rich and poetic and beautiful you could even say. But it’s also very clear evidence that DeHaan here is reading the Bible backwards.

Here’s another one. Turn over with me to Exodus. You’ve already seen an example of this in Genesis, now turn with me to Exodus, Exodus 27. Exodus 27 is right in the middle of this lengthy description of the construction of and the elements in the Tabernacle. Look at Exodus 27:19. I’m sure you did your devotions in this verse this morning. It says, “All the utensils of the tabernacle used in all its service, and all its pegs, and all the pegs of the court, shall be of bronze.” And all God’s people said? Yeah, okay. But this is a really straight-down-the-fairway description, right?, of the construction of the Tabernacle and details in the Tabernacle. And those details in their original context are important. They show us that God is a God of design and order, not a God of disharmony or chaos. They show us that God does prescribe the rules for which we are to approach Him in worship. In other words, reading these words alone, even if they are about tent pegs, bronze tent pegs, they should still cause us to marvel and wonder at the perfection of God and the holiness of God and what it means to worship God rightly.

Well, here’s Louis Talbot, early President of Biola University in LA [Los Angeles] writing on this verse. He says, “The pins, or nails of the Tabernacle were made of brass; therefore, they did not rust. As they withstood every desert storm, even so Christ’s holy life withstood every onslaught of Satan. How minutely the details of the God-given pattern for the tabernacle in the wilderness foreshadow the glories of our crucified and risen Lord!” Or here’s M. R. DeHaan again, on this passage. He says, “We repeat, the pins were buried in the ground, but also emerged from the ground,” the pins are the pegs, “and it speaks of the death and the resurrection, that which is buried, and that which is above the ground. The part of the pins beneath the ground becomes a symbol of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; the part above the ground suggests His resurrection. And this is the Gospel, the ‘good news’ of salvation, the finished work that makes us secure. If the pins were driven all the way into the ground, they would be worthless. Part of them must be above the ground in order that the ropes may be attached to them. So, too, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ by itself could not save a single sinner. The good news of the Gospel is not only the Cross, not only the death of Christ for sinners, but it is the death plus the resurrection of our Savior. The pins are buried, but also rise above the ground in order to make us secure.” Did you realize when you came here tonight how much you’re missing out on? Jesus is not only on every page of the Old Testament, He’s in every peg in the Old Testament.

The point I’m trying to convey here and I’m admittedly being a little tongue in cheek, is that we don’t need to try to read Christ back into every water pitcher or pot or blade of grass or sun ray or tent peg in the Old Testament. When we try to do so, when we try to play “Where’s Waldo” with Jesus in the Old Testament, when we attempt to locate the Lord where He isn’t we run the risk of losing out on and missing out on the actual meaning which God originally designed to convey when He originally conveyed that meaning through His originally chosen author. As Bernard Ramm so helpfully put it, he says, “The curse of the allegorical method is that it obscures the true meaning of the Word of God… The Bible treated allegorically becomes putty in the hand of the exegete.” He’s right.

Alright, that’s a bit about allegory and allegorical methods of interpretation. And there have, as I’ve mentioned earlier, been commentators and been theologians who have allegorized Jonah. I just mentioned a few minutes ago, you know, the ship is made of wood so it must be a picture of the cross which was made of wood. Or if you implied the four-fold method of allegorical interpretation you’d have those who would say the literal meaning is it’s a vessel, the ship is a vessel floating on the Mediterranean Sea and of it literally breaking up. Allegorically, it represents the cross of Christ, made of wood like the cross of Christ was. Morally, it represents the soul of man being vexed and troubled, the way a ship breaks apart physically. And then anagogically, it represents the voyage we’re all on from this life to the next. Whereas, we would say, it’s just a ship. It’s just a ship with real wood slats and real nails and real pitch and real whatever else they used to build ships in those days.

Alright, we’ve covered allegory. We need to cover typology. Is there ever a place in Scripture where we see real events or people, specifically, Old Testament events or people, pointing to or foreshadowing things to come? Yes, we do, as those who are committed to reading our Bibles not backwards, but forwards. And the term there, the big theological word is “diachronically,”
dia, “through,” chronos “time,” diachronically. We do recognize as we must that the Old Testament does flow in to the New Testament. We don’t work backwards and allegorize by jamming Christ into parts of the Old Testament where He isn’t there. Tent pegs -- think tent pegs on that one. But as we work our way from the Old and to the New we do recognize that there is such a thing as a type and there are such things as shadows and there is such a thing as prophecy and there is such a thing as fulfillment of prophecy. And we do recognize that there are instances where real historical events and people in the Old Testament do serve as patterns and types for events and people we later find in the New Testament.

For instance, in the record of Scripture itself Adam is described as both a type of man and of Christ. Romans 5:12-14 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.” The word is right there, type, image, copy. The book of Hebrews is full of types and different types. Hebrews 3:5, “Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.” Or in Hebrews 9 [verse 2] it says, that “there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one,” this is going back to the Old Testament, “in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread; this is called the holy place.” But then later in Hebrews 9 [verse 11] it says, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;” and it keeps on going. And there are various individuals in the Old Testament who were historical figures in their own right in the Old Testament times who are later identified in the New Testament as types -- Abel, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David. Who these men were and what they did and what they accomplished, the Old Testament record speaks for itself. But according to the New Testament authors they also served as types of truths and realities that would only later be revealed. And that is not backwards-looking allegorization, that is forward-looking fulfillment.

We see a real clear example of this in Psalm 22. Turn over with me to Psalm 22, please, Psalm 22, a Psalm of David. It says, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; and by night, but I have no rest. Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered; in You they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, “Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.” Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts. Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb. Be not far from me, for trouble is near;
for there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

Now we read Psalm 22 and we are tempted to think right away, immediately, wow, those are powerful words about Jesus. Okay, but what about David? What about the original context here? David is the one who originally authored this Psalm long before the arrival of the Messiah who would actually come out of His line. And David wrote this Psalm during a time of his own intense suffering in his life. And the Spirit led David to write these words when he did as he penned this psalm of lament. And the Spirit led David to use the figures of speech he does in the piece of Hebrew poetry to describe his own physical suffering. So what we have in Psalm 22 is this poetic description given in real time of the suffering David was experiencing in his life, a thousand years before the birth of Christ.

But we know we have 66 books in our Bibles, not 39. We have not only the Old Testament, we also have the New. And we also know from Scripture itself that all Scripture, 2 Timothy 3:16, is breathed out by God, both the Old and the New Testaments. And we know as we read forward, committed to that diachronic through-time reading of Scripture, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, that the real suffering that David was undergoing when we wrote Psalm 22 was a type of the suffering that Christ would eventually suffer on the cross. Now hear me, David’s suffering here, David’s description of his suffering doesn’t find ultimate meaning because of the cross. David’s suffering was David’s suffering, it was real in and of itself.

But we do see this typological connection here where we can say with confidence, what the New Testament says about this text. John 19, in fact, is one place where this is affirmed as being typological. John 19:23-24, it says “The soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be’; this was to fulfill the Scripture: They divided My outer garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.” So the New Testament itself says this is typological. And of course, we think of Jesus’ words Himself on the cross, Matthew 27:46, “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ and then He’s quoting Psalm 22 there, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”

So that’s a bit about allegory and typology. Allegory, again, stems from reading the Bible backwards where mystical meanings borrowed from New Testament realities are transported back into the Old Testament, (tent pegs). Typology or typology [different pronunciation] stems from a forward-looking approach to Bible interpretation. It sees Old Testament truths as what they are. Things that were already true in the Old Testament finding fulfillment in various places in the New Testament, especially when the New Testament says it’s typology (think Psalm 22).

Okay, I said I was going to get back to the text. I said after we have this little family powwow off the side of the road I wanted to get back on the road. Now we’re going to get back on the road in Matthew 12. Let’s try to finish this real quick. I’ll go laser fast, for me at least. Look at verse 39, it says, “He answered them and said, ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.’ ”What’s the “sign of Jonah the prophet”? He tells us in verse 40, Matthew 12:40, “for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He’s quoting there directly from the Greek Septuagint version,
the Greek Old Testament version of Jonah. And He says, “the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” So the “sign of Jonah the prophet,” as Jesus is using that term here was this: having given Israel, unbelieving Israel, sign after sign through His birth and through His life Jesus was going to eventually give them one more sign, a final sign through His death, His burial, and ultimately, through His resurrection. Jesus imports Jonah here to make His point about this sign that He was one day going to perform through His death and through His resurrection.

Jonah was a real historical person who lived in a real historical context who wrote real Old Testament Scripture which described that context and his experiences. We accept the record of Jonah as historical fact. We accept the account of the storm and the raging sea and the sailors’ prayers and the casting of lots and the tossing of Jonah overboard. We accept all of it as historical fact.

But Jonah also was, as we see here in Matthew 12, portrayed by Jesus Himself as a type, a type of Christ. Not in everything that Jonah ever did, mind you, I hope again I’ve made that clear here in the last four sermons we’ve gone through. Jesus doesn’t import everything about Jonah’s life here in calling Himself a type. But what Jesus does say, and we do accept this as rock solid truth because these are the words of inspired Scripture, and these are the words of our Lord, is that going in the belly of the fish just as it’s recorded over in Jonah 1:17 Jonah did typify and he did preview and he did foreshadow the death and the burial of Christ. Verse 40 again, “just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

So, to the Pharisees of His day, Jesus here is saying, “You want your sign? You’re soon going to get it. When I die, when I’m buried, when I spend ‘three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’ and we saw last time that doesn’t necessarily mean 72 hours, it means parts of three days in the Hebrew conception of time, “after those three days,” Jesus is saying, “I will rise victorious over Satan and sin and death. How’s that for a sign?” That’s what He’s saying here when He says the “sign of Jonah.”

And then these words in verse 41, “The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” We haven’t gotten there yet, to Jonah 3, but we will see that Jonah did eventually obey God’s command, and he did finally go to Nineveh (spoiler alert), and Nineveh does eventually repent. And we do see in Jonah 3:10 that God ultimately relented from the judgment He was going to bring upon Ninevah.

And that’s the scene Jesus has in view here in verse 41, where He speaks of “The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and” condemning it, condemning this generation “because they repented,” meaning the Ninevites, “at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” He’s saying to the Pharisees, as we close here, “Unlike you Pharisees the Ninevites got it, they heard ‘the preaching of Jonah’ who is lesser than Me,” lesser than Jesus. “ ‘Something greater than Jonah is here.’ And it clicked for them, and they repented and one day those Ninevites are going to stand in judgment upon you Pharisees because you heard from One who is greater than Jonah and yet you failed to repent.” I can’t help but think of the words of Jesus to the Pharisees in other places in the Gospels where He says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.”

Well, we know that the Lord made good on His promise. He actually delivered to the Pharisees the sign He said He would be performing for them or giving to them, the sign of Jonah, through His eventual death, His burial, and His resurrection. And it’s a powerful sign because it proves that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead,” says Paul in Romans 1:4. And if this sign hadn’t been performed, if this resurrection hadn’t occurred, we know from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 [verses 15-19] that we’d still be dead in our sins and we’d be people to be most pitied. But the resurrection has happened, and the sign of Jonah was given. And because of that all of us here tonight who have trusted in Christ, we have hope, we have joy, and we have eternal life. Amen?

Let’s pray. Father, thank You so much for this time in Your word this evening. Thank You for Your holy Scripture, its clarity, its consistency, its power, its application daily to our lives. Thank You for this section in Matthew 12 which shows us how our Lord interacted with the Old Testament prophecy that we’ve been studying, the book of Jonah. Thank You that we can see here that He accepted the account of Jonah as historical fact, Jonah as a historical person. He didn’t allegorize. He took it literally and so ought we. God, I praise You for Your word. I praise You for the power that’s in it. I praise You for the Spirit You’ve given us, we who have trusted in Christ, to understand the Word and seek to do the Word and to apply the Word. Thank You for Your Son Jesus, the One who did ultimately give that sign of Jonah, through His death, His burial, and His resurrection. That is our hope, that is our comfort, that is our joy. I pray that we would go before You this week and to live lives that are honorable and upright in Christ Jesus. It’s in His name we pray, amen.