_"And he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Jonah iii. 4._

_"So the people of Nineveh believed G.o.d." Jonah iii. 5._

_"And G.o.d saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and G.o.d repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them, and he did it not." Jonah iii. 10._

_"The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas."

Matt. xii. 41._

The book of Jonah has been attacked by the destructive critics. Its historicity has been denied. The critics, though certain of almost all of their objections to the Bible, have not all decided whether it is "based on history, or is a nature myth." Keunen has discovered (?) that it is "a product of the opposition to the strict and exclusive policy of Ezra toward heathen nations." Objection is made to the historical statements of the book on various grounds. The objector interposes this difficulty: "Can we conceive of a heathen city being converted by an obscure foreign prophet?"

This objection is of kin to that which can not conceive that by a creative act of G.o.d the universe was brought into being, or the inspired statement that "the worlds were framed by the word of G.o.d." It is the presence of the supernatural everywhere that is beyond the conception of the critics.

Again, they interpose the difficulty: "How could the Ninevites give credence to a man who was not a servant of Ashur?"

Without presenting the multiplied difficulties that rationalism has supposedly discovered, they may be summed up in their statement substantially, that the book of Jonah is not historical. Whatever else it may be, whether legend, myth or allegory, it is not history.

We turn again from the fancies of "Expert Scholarship" to the testimony of the Bible concerning itself. We discover that the prophet Jonah is referred to several hundred years before the critics have permitted him to live. It is written in 2 Kings xiv. 25 that Jeroboam the Second secured the restoration of certain territory, "according to the word of the Lord G.o.d of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher."

The name of Jonah, of his family, and the place of residence of his family, are definitely stated. The work is accomplished "by the hand of his servant Jonah," and the date of its accomplishment, is so precisely recorded that these statements could have been disproved had they been false. Hence, there was a person named Jonah.

Our Lord has settled the questions of the personality and work of Jonah, if anything can be settled for unbelief. He has affirmed the historical certainty of the two important events which critical a.s.sumption declares impossible. The critical Jews were demanding a sign from our Lord. He had wrought many miracles, but they wanted something beyond what he had given, a miracle for their special benefit. He declined to gratify them.

Of that generation he said: "There shall no sign be given it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah 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." (Matt. xii. 39-41.) As Jonah was miraculously preserved for three days and nights and was brought forth, as by a resurrection, so was the Son of man to be brought forth from the tomb. His resurrection was to be the crowning miracle, the sign forever confronting his nation, Jonah's deliverance from apparent death was such a miracle as convinced the Ninevites that he had a message from G.o.d for them, so Christ's resurrection was to become the keystone of the arch on which the whole structure of the redemptive system should rest. "He was raised for our justification." (Rom. iv. 25.)

The reader will mark that our Lord referred to the miraculous preservation of Jonah, and his deliverance, as a historical event, recorded in the first and second chapters of the book of Jonah, not as a myth or allegory, but as a historical fact. "_As_ Jonah 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." _As_ the one, _so_ the other. As certainly and literally the one, so certainly and literally the other. If Jonah's preservation and coming forth from the fish that G.o.d had prepared was only a legend, then was Christ's death, burial, and resurrection a legend. And in consistency with their critical theory some of the rationalists have reduced them both to legend. For _as_ one was, _so_ was the other to be. The statement is plain, definite narrative, from which there is no escape.

Others of the critical school hold to the historical verity of Christ's burial and resurrection, but a.s.sert that he made use of the a.s.sumed legend concerning Jonah, as we might ill.u.s.trate any fact in history by a familiar statement from fiction. To such an a.s.sumption we reply that our Lord was dealing with tremendous realities, such as could not be belittled by turning for support or ill.u.s.tration to a fict.i.tious story.

He quoted from Old Testament history to ill.u.s.trate and enforce New Testament truth. On another occasion he said: "_As_ Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even _so_ must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." Shall we hand over to legendary literature the great historical fact of the twenty-first chapter of Numbers--G.o.d's deliverance of the people from the fiery serpents--by one look at the uplifted brazen serpent by the hand of Moses? We may as well reduce one pa.s.sage to fiction as the other. "_As_ Jonah ... three days and nights, _so_ the Son of man. _As_ the serpent was lifted up, _so_ the Son of man shall be lifted up." This comparison has a definite meaning. The apostle uses it in his Epistle to the Romans, fifth chapter and twelfth verse. "_As_ by one man sin entered into the world, ... _so_ death pa.s.sed upon all men for that all have sinned." As certainly as sin entered into the world by one man, so certainly it resulted that death pa.s.sed upon all men. _As_ Christ's remaining in the grave three days was not a fiction, _so_ Jonah's three days and nights in the great fish that G.o.d had prepared was not a fiction.

Our Lord further certifies to the historicity of the book of Jonah by his reference to the great prophet's preaching. The critic's objection is thus stated: "Can we conceive of a heathen city being converted by an obscure foreign prophet?"

Of course, the objection to the record of that mighty moral movement comes from those who have counted G.o.d out of Jonah's preaching. If they can eliminate the divine power from that event, they can easily hand the whole record over to what they are pleased to call the "folk lore of the Bible." Here, as ever, the critic must rid the Scriptures of the supernatural.

But our Savior knew that "power belongeth unto G.o.d" (Psa. lxii. 11), and he put on record the repentance of the Ninevites, saying, "The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it, _because they repented at the preaching of Jonah_." (Matt. xii. 41.) But if the book is not history, our Lord's statement is false, for he says the Ninevites did repent.

There is no rational possibility of denying our Lord's positive statement without impeaching his veracity.

His words authorize the following conclusions:

I. There was a prophet whose name was Jonah, as is stated in 2 Kings xiv. 25. He was not a myth or figment, but a prophet whose personality is authenticated by Christ himself.

2. There was a city of Nineveh. The skepticism of other days denied the existence of Nineveh. So completely was the prophecy concerning the destruction of Nineveh fulfilled that the enemies of G.o.d's Word refused to believe that the city had ever existed, until the excavations of the last century revealed the hidden ruins. But the word of G.o.d was true, and in G.o.d's time Nineveh was revealed.

3. G.o.d sent this same prophet Jonah to Nineveh to preach. Christ tells us what took place under "the preaching of Jonah." It terminated in a great awakening and reformation for:

4. "The men of Nineveh ... repented at the preaching of Jonah."

Did the Savior know what he was talking about? Did he know the truth of the statement he made? Or, knowing (as is a.s.sumed) that there were no such events, did he resort to _fiction_ in order to a.s.sert the _certainty_ of his own resurrection? If the latter, then we must correct his statement concerning Jonah, and read: "As Jonah has been fict.i.tiously represented to have been three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so, fict.i.tiously, shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Our Sunday-school teachers, with the words of Christ before them, will be able to give the critics important information. They can report the certainty of the historical facts.

IX. RADICAL EXPOSITION.

_"Among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." (R.V.) 2 Peter ii. 1._

_"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith." 1 Tim. vi. 20, 21._

_"Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them." 1 Tim. iv. 16._

_"We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." 2 Peter i. 19._

The destructive critics have pushed their work far into the field of both prophecy and exposition. They have relegated to the domain of mythology the clear and unequivocal historical statements of Scripture.

Where the intrusion of their mythological theory was too large a demand to make on our credulity, they have attempted a radical exegesis in proof of their a.s.sumptions.

They claim to have discovered that the Church in all the past has misconceived the first prophetic promise given to man. That promise was given to our first parents immediately after the fall. G.o.d said to the serpent (Gen. iii. 15): "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel."

Our critics have two objections to the interpretation that has always been given and maintained by Christian scholars and by the Church as a whole. First, that "the seed of the woman" does not refer to the Messiah, but to the human race, which is to bruise the serpent's head.

Second, that the serpent engaged in seducing Eve, and here placed under the curse, does not refer to Satan.

In replying to the objection that the Messiah is not referred to in the pa.s.sage, let it be said that the p.r.o.noun is a p.r.o.noun referring to a person. It is so translated in the Revised Version. "_He_ shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." It is not the human race, but he, an individual person. This person was not to be the seed of the man, but of the woman.

The announcing angel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of G.o.d." (Luke i. 35.) The child to be born was to be literally and truly "_the seed of the woman_," and that was the Messiah, the only person of the entire human race of whom that could be said.

We are not left, however, to an exegetical statement alone, although that is absolutely unequivocal. The promise was repeated to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and to David. The seed of the woman was to be the Messiah, the Christ, triumphing over the power of Satan. The race has not triumphed over Satan, but has been a failure.

The Holy Spirit has settled the question in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, iii. 16: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.

_He saith not, and to seeds, as of many_ (or, the human race), _but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ_." On the human side, our Savior was of the line of Abraham, and David, but was singularly and literally "_the seed of the woman_," being the Son of G.o.d.

He called himself the Son of man only in the sense that he was born of her who was of the race of man. He ever claimed G.o.d as his Father, and in a different sense from that in which men can claim G.o.d as Father. His claim to be the Son of G.o.d was the claim to be equal with G.o.d, which no created being dare make.

The Holy Spirit further declares, in Hebrews ii. 14; "For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death (his death on the cross) he might destroy him (Satan) that had the power of death"--"bruise the serpent's head." It was Satan that inflicted death.

He was the first higher critic who changed and denied the word of G.o.d, saying to the woman, "Ye shall not die." Through his denial of the word of G.o.d, he deceived the woman and brought spiritual death on the race.

This was the work of Satan, according to the New Testament teaching. He is the same that G.o.d calls the serpent in the third chapter of Genesis.

For the Holy Spirit informs us, in 2 Cor. xi. 3, that "the serpent beguiled Eve," and states definitely who the serpent is--"that old serpent called the devil and Satan, who deceiveth the whole world."

(Rev. xii. 9.)

Having G.o.d's testimony that the serpent and the devil are one and the same, we are prepared for the mark which our Lord puts on him, "A murderer from the beginning ... and no truth in him." He had always sought to pervert and discredit the word of G.o.d. He suggested to Eve that she did not understand G.o.d's command; she had taken it too literally, which is a popular form of attacking the Bible today. "Yea, hath G.o.d said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Are you not mistaken? And when he had injected the doubt into the mind of Eve, had gained an advantage, he seized it and boldly denied the word of G.o.d, "Ye shall not die." He is an artful critic and successfully did his deadly work.

Hence, the first great promise which G.o.d gave to the fallen pair, and through them to the race, set the seed of the woman, the Messiah, in conflict with "that old serpent called the devil and Satan." That promise is now in process of fulfillment, and must reach its final consummation when John's apocalyptic vision is fulfilled, "And the devil that deceived them (the nations) shall be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever."

X. G.o.d HIS OWN INTERPRETER.