Have you ever doubted the story of Jonah and the great fish? Or rather than doubting, have you treated it like a Sunday school story for little children, never stopping to think about the significance, or whether or not it actually occurred?
It was only a few years ago that I confronted some internal struggles on this. A great fish swallowed a man. The man was in the fish for three days and three nights. The man came out alive. How could this be possible? Was it just a kids story or series of real miracles in human history?
I had accepted the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but questioned whether or not God could orchestrate something like what happened to Jonah, and I know I’m not alone in this.
But God…
After some wrestling with this story I came to accept it as truth based on my belief that God had performed many miracles before and after. I am merely a human with human understanding, but I’ve seen God move mountains in my own life, and no doubt he has done and will do infinitely more miracles more challenging than keeping a man alive inside a giant fish.
Going straight to the beginning of creation in Genesis 1: The same God who created the heavens and the earth, light, sky, oceans, land, plants, the sun, moon and stars, birds, fish, land animals and humans can 100% without a doubt enable a man to live inside of a fish for a few days. We cannot restrict God’s power to our human understanding or human experiences and perspectives.
Our God is a God of miracles and survival in the fish isn’t the only miracle in this book. Creation.com lists the following as miracles in the book of Jonah; not one miracle, but five:
- ‘The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest’ (Jonah 1:4),
- ‘The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah’ (Jonah 1:17),
- ‘The Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land’ (Jonah 2:10),
- ‘The Lord God prepared a gourd [vine, NIV], and made it to come up over Jonah’ (Jonah 4:6),
- ‘God prepared a worm…and it smote the gourd [chewed the vine, NIV] that it withered’ (Jonah 4:7),
- ‘God prepared a vehement east wind…’ (Jonah 4:8).
Further, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ believed what happened to Jonah:
For 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)
So what’s the point?
The point is that God wants our attention and can use any means to reach us. Like Jonah, we often run or try to hide from God, but He seeks us because He loves us. He went through the greatest lengths possible in dying for us. Jesus Christ lived, and knowingly and willfully gave up his body to torture and a grueling death so that we can be saved.
The Bible says it. I believe it. Amen.