Lessons From Jonah - Not Just A Fish Story

Our Will Vs God's Will

I love the Book of Jonah, for in it are many theological truths upon which the Christian faith rests. But what image pops into our heads, whenever we hear the name Jonah? The answer is obvious; we immediately think of a big fish. Long before I had ever picked up the Bible to study it, I knew the story of Jonah and the Great Whale, though the Bible never tells us it was a whale. Technically speaking a whale isn’t even a fish, but the story just looks good when we see the cartoon depictions of this great book of the Bible as represented by a whale. But if that is all we ever know of this story, then we are missing out in the lessons that are imbedded into the tale.

As a new Christian, the first reference to Jonah I recall as being important, was that Jesus used the story in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to respond to the demand for miraculous signs to be given as to who He really is. While it is important to grasp the significance of the Old Testament types as used in the Bible, there is so much more to be gleaned from the story of Jonah as we read our Bibles today. Don’t stop at the old Sunday School lessons of Jonah you had as a child but dig deep into God’s Word, for in it is the knowledge of who God is and how we must respond to Him.

The first lesson we find in the great story of Jonah speaks about something that many of us debate in the church. The topic of free will vs the sovereignty of God is certainly one many of us simply do not agree on. It’s not considered an essential of the faith meaning that its not a theological point upon which we ought to break fellowship over. While I agree with that statement, I would offer that it dwells on the border of the essentials of salvation and thus we ought to grow in our faith to a point that we can dig deep into God’s Word to know the truth of the scriptures.

That said, let us look at the story and see what the Word of God has to say about Jonah and his exercise of his own will.

Jonah was a prophet of God and despite those who might suggest his story is merely some fairytale, the Bible presents him as a real man as seen in 2 Kings 14:25 and as one called to be a prophet. Jesus spoke of Him as well, lending further truth of his existence. As a prophet of God, Jonah was called by God. Romans 11:29 tells us that Romans 11:29 “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Whatever you believe about your own free will, it is God who calls us and in the story of Jonah, we find out what happens when we choose to follow our will, in rebellion to His. 

The first lesson Jonah’s story teaches us is that, yes, we do have free will. But the second lesson we will soon learn is that our free will, will not win out over the determinative will of God. It is important here to understand something about the will of God. There are two wills that the Bible speaks of when referring to God’s will. Though theologians and commentators may use different terms for them, they agree that there are two types.

The first will of God is often called His decretive will. Some may call it His sovereign will. These are things that God has decreed will happen and the free will of man will not nor cannot, stop them from occurring. The Bible is filled with stories of this truth. The death of Jesus on the cross is the greatest of these stories and as you read the Gospel accounts you see that His death was not only destined to be; it also could only happen in His precise time and place.

The other type of will God possesses is called His Preceptive will, sometimes called His eternal will or His revealed moral will. These are things God says should happen, but in His sovereign nature He has allowed man to exercise free will in. This is a complex theological discussion. It is not easily understood, but Peter gives us a good example in 2 Peter 3:9 where he tells us that “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” It is God’s preceptive will that all men come to repentance, but clearly, we can see that not all do. God has the power to save all men, yet He doesn’t. If we say He cannot do this then He wouldn’t be sovereign, nor would He be omnipotent. Thus, that all men would come to repentance is not God’s decretive will or it would come to pass. Instead, in His sovereignty and His grace, He has chosen some to salvation. This doctrine, which is offensive to a good many people, is reflected in the understanding of the will of God. I won’t go any further here with this because my goal of this writing is not to argue the doctrine of Election, but to shed some light on the topic of free will vs God’s will.  

Now let us take a glance at the story of Jonah.

Jonah 1:1-2
Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,  “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

The calling to Jonah came from the Word of God, it was to go tell the people of Nineveh that they were sinners, sinning against the Holy God. Here we have God’s will for Jonah and notice that it is found in the Word of the Lord. Truthfully this calling of Jonah, is in essence, the same we have been called to in The Great Commission.

Watch the reaction of Jonah to God’s calling.

Jonah 1:3
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So, he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

Jonah decides to exercise his free will and he attempts to flee from the presence of God. “What! Is he crazy”, we cry out. We all know you cannot escape the presence of God for He is God and thus is omnipresent. Yet can each of us honestly say we don’t do the exact same thing. One reason we do not read our Bibles is that we do not want to do God’s will. So, we think that we can simply ignore it as if God won’t notice.

Jonah found out that this idea of us exercising our free will and choosing to run from God is a bad idea. A real bad idea. Watch what happens next.

Jonah 1:4
But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.

Jonah’s response? He thought he’d just sleep through it. He’d just ignore God.

Jonah 1:5
Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.

Read through the first chapter of Jonah. Even the pagans aboard the ship knew who was in control of the storm and feared God. So, they acted to find the problem. Even in the throwing of lots the sovereignty of God is at play. Proverbs 16:33 is clear on this saying “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” Even more amazing is that as the pagan crew witnesses Jonah directly declare his opposition to God’s will, so they seek Him in prayer.

Then is response to Jonah’s confession they throw him into the sea. Then they worshiped God for even they saw the folly of chasing their own free will against the will of God.

Jonah 1:17
And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

There were no accidents or chance events happening here. God appointed Jonah to be swallowed by a fish. By now the lesson is right in front of us. Yes, we have free will, but when the exercise of our will comes up against God’s determined will, His sovereignty wins out.

I will close this discussion with a suggestion that we take a good hard look at our own lives in comparison to Jonah. We need to look inward at our hearts. Are we responding to the call of God for our Christian lives or are we instead determined to put forth our will instead of God’s? Is the storm we are in a storm that we may have brought upon ourselves because we are fleeing from God? We need not fear the answer for there are more lessons to come in the Book of Jonah. If you know the story, then you know God saved him from the belly of the fish. Next time we will continue to see the good news of the story. It is a story of hope. But as we are seeing, that hope is not found in our will, but in God’s.