By Dr. HUGH MARTIN.
WE now pass to the discourse in Matt. xii. 38-40 where Jesus completes the theme of “the sign of the prophet Jonah” by introducing the crowning idea of the death and resurrection. “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” And therein shall he be a sign to this generation; therein shall they receive, in its completeness, the full sign of the prophet Jonah.
We may remark, in passing, that this is identically the sign which Jesus gave from the beginning; identically the same which He gave in answer to the very first of this long series of tempting, dishonest demands—a reference of His questioners for satisfaction to His own death and resurrection—“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
The question, then, is: How was Jonah a sign unto the Ninevites in respect of his having been three days and three nights in the whale’s belly? How did that render him a sign? And correspondingly, How is the Son of Man a sign in respect of His death and resurrection?
Evidently, as we have already seen, Jonah’s terrible experience was a sign, a testimony, a confirmation of His message in that it witnessed by a fact in his own history—his own immediate history as the commissioned messenger from God—both to the certainty of God’s wrath and the riches of His grace. Jonah could point to his own experience in connection with his very mission to Nineveh, and tell that God is not slack concerning judgment, as some men count slackness; not prone merely to lift His hand in threatening, and too facile and tender ever to bring it down in vengeance. His very messenger of wrath had himself been in “the belly of hell.” And yet even from thence there was salvation. Who, then, can tell but God may turn and repent even concerning Nineveh?
Similarly, Christ’s death and resurrection are a conjoint sign and seal of His mission from the Father. It is, indeed, in this respect that the Son of Man becomes truly that overpowering sign which either blinds and dooms the unbelieving, or finally convinces and illuminates the humble in heart. His person, even after all, would not, without His work—His work of atoning death and justifying resurrection—be such a sign as we have affirmed. His person truly is the sign; but it is so, and that conclusively, because the Son of Man was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. It was, even from the first, in the view of His sufferings and victory, that any light shone in the promised Deliverer. Save for this, save for the light thrown forward from His coming Cross and resurrection-Sabbath—even the divineness of His person and the stainlessness of His character would have been no real light in a world covered with gross darkness; no light into God’s purpose of mercy towards it, God’s special moral administration in it. It is in the Cross and empty grave that we truly, and for the first time, see light. It is there we see light into our state and case as the simple subjects of a holy God, the guilty criminals before a righteous Judge, the trembling anticipants of death and eternity. It is there we see light into the malignity and odiousness of sin; into what it deserves at God’s hand, and what He is resolved to inflict. It is there we see light into the infinite saving love of God, and into the greatest, deepest problem of eternal ages—how He can really and righteously forgive the guilty, and reclaim and renew His enemies. It is there we see heaven opened and a fathomless eternity waiting for us, bright with a loving welcome, and lighted up with a joy that is full of glory. Yes; it is in this respect—in that He was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth; it is in this respect that the Son of Man was dead, and is alive again; that He had become the clearest of all signs, the sweetest and brightest of lights.
No miracle so great as this; no sign so convincing; no evidence so conclusive; no light in earth or heaven so clear.
When the man of science desires to entrance his audience, he takes a portion of the humblest of circumstances, the base and blackened charcoal, a splinter of a brand from the burning; and manipulating with his tiny wires the force which roars in the thunder and flashes in the lightning, he makes to play on that valueless, unsightly substance two streams of influence from opposing poles of the hidden power; till soon a silvery gleam gathers on its humble surface, and gradually the brightest light that philosophy and art can generate shines out with dazzling splendour, paling the ineffectual fires of the lamps that until now had irradiated the assembly. You would not ask the aid of one of those depreciated and paler lamps to show you that the more brilliant light was there.
When the living God, in a dark world rushing on to outer darkness, resolved to give “a bright and morning star”—a “Sun of Righteousness”—the strongest and the sweetest light that men or angels could see, He took the base, dishonourable tree of Calvary; and on the humble person of His Beloved, there made sin for us, He caused to meet two mighty streams of influence unseen—two streams of influence wide as the poles asunder—the one, of avenging justice as it slew the sacrifice; the other, of redeeming love providing it. And as they met and blended into one, there blazed forth on that dishonourable wood “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,” while the sun in the heavens grew pale, and the angels veiled their faces with their wings. For three days and three nights the eyes of men were holden that they could not see it. But the resurrection morn tore away all veils for ever, and the dis-eclipsed sign of the prophet Jonah shone out resistless—outshining all other signs and lights; the very presence-chamber of the King Eternal affording now no glory more brilliant; “for the Lamb is the light thereof.”
Therefore, while the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, we preach—Christ crucified and risen, the power of God and the wisdom of God.