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The Unique Historical Value of 
 the Book of Jonah 
 

 
The Unique Historical 
 Value of the Book 
 of Jonah 
 
 ‘By 
 
 W. C. STEVENS 
 Author of ‘“The Book of Daniel,’’ etc. 
 Principal, The Midland Bible School, Shenandoah, Ia. 
 For Training a Bible-teaching and Missionary Ministry. 
 
 
 
 Nsw Yorx CHICAGO 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH 
 
Copyright, 1924, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The title of this volume excites curi- 
 osity. That the Book of Jonah contains 
 lessons of exceptional smritual value is 
 recognized by all the great household of 
 faith. But that it has historical value, not 
 to speak of ‘‘ unique historical value,’’ is 
 not likely to suggest itself even to the 
 spiritually minded. Wherein does that 
 quality lie? Not in the number or magni- 
 tude of the events narrated, nor in the 
 influence exerted thereby upon the des- 
 tinies of mankind. Those events were hap- 
 penings in but a brief part of the life of a 
 single obscure individual, all of which may 
 easily have taken place within the period 
 of a few months. Nor does it lie in the 
 character of those happenings, according 
 to the standards whereby the value of his- 
 torical events is ordinarily estimated. 
 In any such view of Jonah its historical 
 value would be almost mil. In what then 
 does it lie? Let the reading of this little 
 volume supply the answer, which to one 
 reader at least has been found both satis- 
 fying to the heart and illuminating to the 
 mind. 
 
 The author poneR tS view the true cri- 
 
2 FOREWORD 
 
 terion of historical values, and sets forth 
 the sound principles which should govern 
 the pursuit of knowledge in all its many 
 departments. Tested by that criterion, 
 and examined according to those princi- 
 ples, the incidents recorded in the Book of 
 Jonah are found to be related not only to 
 the entire scheme of creation, old and new, 
 but also to the totality of historical de- 
 velopments on earth. 
 
 The Bible itself is four-fifths history. 
 And Bible history is the touchstone, as 
 well as the interpreter, of all history. In 
 the little Book of Jonah are to be found 
 the principles which control in all history. 
 These include: God’s Presence in history; 
 His government in all human affairs, and 
 how it is exercised; His purposes in His 
 dealings with nations, as well as with in- 
 dividuals; Israel’s relation to the nations 
 as the servant of Jehovah; and God’s pro- 
 bationary dealings with the nations. 
 
 The development of the theme leads on 
 to a worthy climax; and those who rejoice 
 when Christ is exalted will find special 
 satisfaction in the closing pages of the 
 book. Calvary was effective from the be- 
 ginning of time. God’s purposes center in 
 the Cross. The events of history, from 
 the greatest to the most trivial, are intel- 
 ligible only when viewed in its serene and 
 
FOREWORD 3 
 
 golden light. The Cross was ‘‘ the end ’”’ 
 for which all ‘‘ the ages’’ were created. 
 Where the Cross stands in relation to the 
 ages, as declared in Hebrews 9: 24 (R. V.), 
 is a matter that lies far beyond the reach 
 of the natural understanding. Time it- 
 self, its laws and sequences, its relation to 
 space, matter, and motion, are an inscru- 
 table mystery. Some in the darkness of 
 nature are stumbling towards the solu- 
 tion, though yet at astronomical distances 
 from it, as in the theory of ‘‘ relativity ’”’ 
 commonly associated with the name of the 
 Jewish philosopher, Einstein. But in the 
 light of the Cross we may draw near to it. 
 It is a satisfaction to find in its proper 
 dispensational position ‘‘ the gospel of 
 the kingdom,’’ which is sadly dislocated 
 in some of the dispensational systems of 
 teaching now current. 
 Puitip Mavro. 
 FRAMINGHAM, Mass. 
 
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Contents 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 JONAH’S CREDENTIALS OF HISTORICITY, ETC. 
 
 HISTORICAL VALUE RELATIVE TO ‘ahi Con- 
 TRASTED POSITIONS ; i 
 
 PART ONE. FUNDAMENTAL 
 
 ScRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES FUNDAMENTAL TO 
 THE ACQUISITION OF ALL TRUE 
 KNOWLEDGE 
 
 NECESSARY STEPS UNDER aptern ee Gone 
 ANCE INTO TRUE KNOWLEDGE A 
 
 PART TWO. EXPOSITORY 
 
 THE Drama, IN Four Acts 
 GOLDEN THREADS oF UNIVERSAL “History: 
 I. The Universal Personal Presence 
 of God in History 
 II. The Universal Personal Gaver 
 ment of God in History . 
 III. The Unfailing Compassion of God 
 Toward all His Creatures 
 IV. The Identification of the Son of 
 God as the Arbiter of all 
 Human History ‘ 
 V. The Relation of Israel eae 
 Christ to Gentile Nations 
 VI. The Probationary Relation of 
 God to Nations and eee 
 through Jesus Christ 
 
 VII. ‘The Sign of the Prophet Jonas” 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
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 68 
 79 
 
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THE UNIQUE HISTORICAL 
 VALUE OF 
 THE BOOK OF JONAH 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 In the discussion of this subject there 
 exists no occasion to make investigation 
 into the original credentials of Jonah him- 
 self or of the book bearing his name. 
 
 The historicity of Jonah and of the facts 
 of the book is sufficiently attested by the 
 few references found in the Old and New 
 Testaments. In II Kings 14:25 certain 
 political achievements distinguishing the 
 reign of Jeroboam II are declared to be 
 ‘¢ according to the word of the Lord God 
 of Israel, which He spake by the hand of 
 His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the 
 prophet, which was of Gath-hepher.”’ The 
 identity of this prophet with that of the 
 book of Jonah is unmistakable, and to chal- 
 lenge the historicity of the latter would 
 imply a questioning of the authenticity of 
 
 5 
 
6 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 the Scripture just cited. To do that would 
 be tantamount to a questioning of the au- 
 thenticity of any and of all the Old Testa- 
 ment history. The New Testament also 
 places beyond question the historicity of 
 Jonah himself and of the main facts re- 
 corded in his book. This guaranty is the 
 stronger because the Lord Jesus Christ 
 quotes those facts in full admission of 
 their historicity, and His quotations are 
 recorded by two of the Gospel writers,— 
 Matthew and Luke,—who wrote entirely 
 independently of each other as to their 
 vouchers. Matthew quotes Jesus as say- 
 ing, ‘‘ Jonas was three days and three 
 nights in the whale’s belly,’’ and also, 
 ‘¢ They—the Ninevites—repented at the 
 preaching of Jonas ’’ (12:40, 41). Luke 
 quotes Jesus as saying, ‘‘ Jonas was a sign 
 unto the Ninevites,’’ and also, ‘‘ They— 
 the Ninevites—repented at the preaching 
 of Jonas?) (11230732); 
 
 To challenge the historicity of Jonah or 
 of his book in its salient facts, would be an 
 act of calling in question at this late date 
 the authenticity, not only of the Old Testa- 
 ment record and so of all Old Testament 
 records, but also of the records of two 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH T 
 
 New Testament narrators and so of all 
 New Testament narrative. 
 
 These New Testament records are war- 
 rants for the authenticity also of the book 
 of Jonah. The affidavit of original au- 
 thorship and of unquestionable reliability 
 is by these New Testament records affixed 
 to the book of Jonah. In like manner and 
 in like degree both the canonicity and the 
 inspiration of the book are attested. 
 
 Investigation, therefore, into the orig- 
 inal credentials of the book of Jonah, as a 
 legitimate member of the inspired canon 
 of the Old Testament Scriptures, is un- 
 called for while the authenticity of the 
 records of our Lord’s words as given by 
 Matthew and Luke is accepted. 
 
 Coming closer to the subject of the his- 
 torical value of the book of Jonah, it is to 
 be admitted that this ancient book—strik- 
 ing as its outstanding facts are—is of com- 
 paratively little value merely as an addi- 
 tion to the fund of historical knowledge. 
 There are even smaller portions of Old 
 Testament literature which serve that pur- 
 pose far beyond the contribution made by 
 this book. As an instance in confirmation 
 of this statement, take Genesis 14 as an 
 
8 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 important historical record. Or, as a pro- 
 phetical record of later history now long 
 ago fulfilled, take Jeremiah 25. Moreover, 
 there have been in modern times archeo- 
 logical ‘‘ finds ’’ which add more material, 
 directly or indirectly, to the sum of essen- 
 tial historical knowledge than does the 
 book of Jonah. From what standpoint, 
 then, is high historical value to be claimed 
 for the book of Jonah? 
 
 The answer to this question springs 
 from an important postulate regarding 
 the value of the Bible in general—of which 
 the book of Jonah is an integral member 
 —in relation to all human knowledge, and 
 especially historical knowledge. It is true 
 of the Bible in general, that it is by no 
 means a systematic and complete com- 
 pendium of universal knowledge. What 
 was true of the Gospel of John, as a his- 
 tory of Jesus of Nazareth (John 21: 25), is 
 equally true of the actual information 
 given by the whole Bible in proportion to 
 the sum of all facts in the different realms 
 of human knowledge. But this is to be postu- 
 lated of the Bible in its relation to universal 
 knowledge: apart from its pages as the 
 key, all true knowledge remains locked to 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 9 
 
 man’s entrance; apart from the Bible as 
 the light, no path of true knowledge is dis- 
 tinguishable to man; apart from the Bible 
 as the guide, the spheres of universal 
 knowledge are undiscoverable to mortal 
 man; apart from the Bible as the inter- 
 preter, the mysteries of true knowledge re- 
 main concealed in insolvable parables. 
 Moreover, there is a law in the realm of 
 learning which gives to knowledge of 
 whatsoever sort its true foundation and 
 its wholesome issues; whereas, knowledge 
 otherwise acquired issues from the false 
 and polluting fountain of that wisdom 
 which Satan offered our first parents in 
 contempt of God’s gift and of His glory. 
 The law of all true knowledge in whatso- 
 ever sphere—physical, mental, moral, or 
 spiritual—is this: That knowledge rightly 
 so called must be obtained according to 
 Seriptural revelation and guidance. The 
 reason for this requirement is that the end 
 of all true knowledge is, not merely the ac- 
 quisition of facts and of the human phi- 
 losophy of the same, but such understand- 
 ing of facts as shall advance the learner 
 in the knowledge of God, strengthen his 
 faith in God, and deepen his reverence and 
 
10 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 love for God. It is in this respect that 
 Jonah as a part of the Bible serves in the 
 way of historical value, and it is from this 
 standpoint that its importance to us his- 
 torically is to be studied. 
 
 So far from being a digression from the 
 subject of this discussion, it will prove to 
 be a further strengthening of the stand- 
 point of discussion already taken, to set 
 forth somewhat at length some principles 
 which the Scriptures reveal as necessary 
 truths fundamental to the acquisition of 
 true knowledge, and some essential steps 
 of a Scriptural guidance into such knowl- 
 edge. Such presentation will now be 
 made. 
 
PART ONE 
 FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 I. Some PrrincIPLES REVEALED BY THE 
 BIBLE AS NECESSARY ''RUTHS FUNDAMENTAL 
 To THE Acquisition oF TRUE KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 1. God created man in His own image 
 and likeness. 
 
 It is here to be noted that the Bible 
 teaches that Christ the Son is the original 
 image and likeness of God. See II Cor. 
 4:4, Col. 1:15 and Heb. 1:3. This shows 
 that the counsel of the triune God, re- 
 corded in Gen. 1:26, 27, was to create man 
 in Christ the Son—who from eternity is 
 the inward correspondence to the Father 
 and the outward manifestation of Him—so 
 that man might participate in these func- 
 tions in relation to God. By creation, 
 then, man was qualified to commune with 
 God spiritually and mentally; to know God 
 and to understand Him; to be taught by 
 Him and to trace Him in His works and 
 ways; to bear witness of Him and to repre- 
 sent Him to others. The right use of this 
 endowment was the first condition of ac- 
 quiring true knowledge. While man’s fall 
 meant the loss of membership in Christ 
 
12 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 and the loss of this endowment, yet re- 
 demption provided that, ‘‘If any man be 
 in Christ, he is a new creature ’’ (creation, 
 IT Cor. 5:17), ‘‘ created in Christ Jesus ”’ 
 (Eph. 2:10) and so restored to those lost 
 functions in relation to God. 
 
 2. All the realm of heaven and earth 
 was thrown wide open to man as a sphere 
 of human knowledge and understanding. 
 
 By the powers originally and miracu- 
 lously conferred upon him by the Creator, 
 man could understand the truths of divine 
 thought which are manifested in the phys- 
 ical and creaturely universe. As Mary 
 Somerville said in effect: ‘‘ The formulae, 
 which condense into a few symbols the im- 
 mutable laws of the universe, rest upon a 
 few fundamental axioms which have eter- 
 nally existed in God, and which He im- 
 planted in man’s breast and mind when 
 He created him in His own image and 
 likeness.”’ 
 
 By original miraculous endowment man 
 was able intuitively to discern and ac- 
 curately to denominate the thoughts and 
 designs of the Creator in all kinds of His 
 creatures (Gen. 2:19, 20). Although this 
 wonderful gift also was lost by the fall, 
 yet it will be perfectly restored when 
 ‘‘ that which is perfect is come,’’ when 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 13 
 
 ‘‘we shall know as we are known,’’ 
 namely, by direct discernment. Even now 
 through regeneration and the sanctifica- 
 tion of our natures God’s child is endowed 
 with a supernatural function of under- 
 standing: ‘‘ By faith we understand.’’ 
 It should not, therefore, be surprising that 
 an impassable chasm lies between thor- 
 oughly spiritual believers and unbelievers 
 in point of discernment of the truth in 
 scientific lines, as well as in those lines 
 which are purely spiritual. God’s truth in 
 any sphere will find ready entrance to the 
 heart and mind of His children, while the 
 unregenerate remain blind to the same. 
 He that is spiritual discerns God’s truth 
 where the natural mind discerns it not. 
 
 3. God’s Son is not only Creator but 
 also Upholder of all nature in its laws and 
 processes. 
 
 The Bible richly describes nature’s laws 
 and processes as servants fulfilling God’s 
 commands, as His very thoughts in swift 
 activity and vivid manifestation. Of 
 Christ it is said, ‘‘ By him all things con- 
 sist,’’ that is, are sustained,—by His pres- 
 ence, volition and action. The guidance of 
 Scripture is intended to keep the pursuit 
 
14 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 of natural science in continual recollection 
 of the presence and working of God 
 through Jesus Christ. Otherwise true 
 science is missed and science falsely so 
 called is the result. 
 
 4. The material universe, created and 
 continually upheld by God in Christ, ex- 
 ists alone for His pleasure. 
 
 ‘Thou hast created all things, and for 
 thy pleasure they are (exist) and were 
 ereated.’’ This leaves the door wide open 
 for the miraculous at any time. Nothing 
 in creation is mechanically immutable. 
 The believer will respond intelligently to 
 God in special as well as in ordinary provi- 
 dences. Indeed, to the eye of faith—the 
 eye of true knowledge—life and its sur- 
 roundings become a ceaseless, ever-vary- 
 ing, charming illustration of miracle. 
 ‘¢Your heavenly Father feedeth them,’’ 
 ‘‘the fowls of the air.’? ‘‘If God so 
 clothe the grass of the field.’’ ‘‘ One of 
 them (two sparrows) shall not fall to the 
 ground without your Father. But the 
 very hairs of your head are all numbered.’’ 
 These jewels of light from God’s heart 
 throw a charm over sciences cumbrously 
 and darkly called Anatomy, Physiology, 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 15 
 
 Ornithology, Botany. What loss of truth 
 as well as of charm is entailed through 
 failure to pursue such sciences in continual 
 touch with the Father and His Son under 
 Scriptural revelation and guidance! 
 
 5. The created universe is the first vol- 
 ume of written divine revelation, reveal- 
 ing God in His attributes and operations. 
 
 ‘<The invisible things of him from the 
 creation of the world are clearly seen, 
 being understood by the things that are 
 made, even his eternal power and God- 
 head ’”? (Rom. 1:20). From the beginning 
 the things visible have been parables of 
 the divine being and nature, the original 
 outward vehicle of revelation designed 
 thoroughly to furnish the man of God unto 
 rich understanding of and co-working with 
 his God. This was God’s autographic 
 Bible. ‘‘ Nature Study ’’ at the first meant 
 face to face communion with God, and 
 even now nature study under Scriptural 
 guidance will constantly lead the student 
 through nature to nature’s God and to his 
 own God. 
 
 6. Over the more immediate part of 
 creation God gave man dominion under 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
16 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 Having committed all things to the Son 
 as ‘‘ Lord God,’’ the Father God gave 
 man this high stewardship only in and for 
 the Lord God. The most intimate, loving 
 and intelligent partnership was needed 
 and actually existed between Adam and 
 Christ with respect to the earthly estate, 
 by virtue of which man was able loyally, 
 intelligently and capably to conduct earthly 
 dominion in harmony with universal well- 
 being and to the glory of God. 
 
 7. This dominion is not lost beyond re- 
 covery by the fall. 
 
 By the cross, redemption of man’s soul 
 and of his dominion has been accom- 
 plished. The fact expressed by the words, 
 ‘‘The Lamb slain from the foundation of 
 the world,’’ reveals that ‘‘ Christianity 
 was operative in Heaven before Christ 
 became incarnate on earth,’’ yea, before 
 time began. Universal creation—physical 
 and human—heads up in the incarnation 
 of the Son of God in physical and human 
 nature. The incarnation of the Son of 
 God is the crown of the Creator’s universal 
 miracle; and the mystery of redemption is 
 the secret and the solution of creation. 
 Nothing but the light of the cross discloses 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 17 
 
 to man the truths of all nature, and the 
 universe needs to be explored in the light 
 of redeeming love or a science falsely so 
 called must result. 
 
 8. Man originally required, and he now 
 requires, the Holy Spirit to open his mind 
 to all things of knowledge in their real 
 truth. 
 
 The Saviour’s promise that the Spirit 
 should lead into all truth applies to scien- 
 tific truth as well as to spiritual. Without 
 His revelation knowledge is in form only 
 and is in falsehood really; for nature is an 
 inscrutable parable and creation a hopeless 
 enigma to the spiritually unenlightened. 
 To the inquiring believer only is it given 
 to know the mysteries of this part of the 
 kingdom of God. To ‘‘ them that are 
 without,’’ who hold aloof without care for 
 divine revelation, these things all remain 
 in parables, in impenetrable mystery. 
 
 9. The practical end in God’s mind to 
 the acquisition of knowledge, as well as of 
 baser treasure, is to spread divine light 
 and truth everywhere. 
 
 Science to-day commonly tends to neu- 
 tralize, if not to paralyze, evangelistic ac- 
 tivities; whereas the pursuit of scientific 
 
18 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 knowledge under Scriptural light will 
 kindle missionary fire, impart missionary 
 ability and prompt missionary consecra- 
 tion, with the result that Gospel founda- 
 tions become laid where Christ was not 
 named. 
 
 In obedience of heart and mind to such 
 necessary truths as the foregoing must the 
 pursuit of true knowledge in whatsoever 
 branch be conducted. Thus only will be 
 gained that knowledge which furthers ac- 
 quaintance and fellowship with God, pro- 
 motes spiritual intelligence, intensifies 
 spiritual power, inflames and supports 
 Gospel zeal and activity. The pursuit of 
 knowledge otherwise will. cause one to 
 grow more and more secular in mind, pow- 
 erless and empty religiously, bewildered 
 in faith, indifferent to human salvation. 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 19 
 
 SoME NECESSARY STEPS OF SCRIPTURAL 
 GUIDANCE INTO TRUE KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 1. Craving on man’s part for universal 
 knowledge is by creation innate, impera- 
 tive, God-given; and it should be respected, 
 welcomed, stimulated, satisfied. By regen- 
 eration especially is craving for knowledge 
 awakened, and that, the knowledge which 
 is after a godly sort. But Satan crouches 
 before every such new-born intellect to 
 poison and destroy; and it is impossible to 
 keep the heart healthy while the intellect 
 is being poisoned. The Christian’s mind 
 needs to be guarded against tainted litera- 
 ture, and it really needs more than merely 
 harmless and neutral pabulum. Any sub- 
 ject of knowledge is made life-giving to 
 soul and mind only through God’s relation 
 to that subject and through His thought 
 in it; this the Bible alone reveals. The 
 Bible, therefore, should be made, at the 
 first step and at every step into knowledge, 
 the lamp to the feet and the light to the 
 path. God’s child especially cannot be 
 satisfied and blessed in any subject of 
 knowledge apart from the divine light 
 which the Bible throws upon that subject. 
 
 2. Such is the correlation between God’s 
 
20 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 Word and His works that the explorer of 
 God’s works needs His Word to discern 
 their hidden truths, while, in turn, the true 
 understanding of His works more richly 
 illuminates His Word. There can be no 
 ‘¢ discrepancies ’? between the Word and 
 the works of God apparent to any but to 
 ‘¢men who see worst.’’? In the nature of 
 the case, then, the prosecution of science 
 in correlation with revelation will alone 
 serve to nourish faith, to deepen rever- 
 ence, to enrich communion with God, and 
 to couple humbleness of spirit with lofti- 
 ness of intellect. : 
 
 3. The Spirit of truth being the same in 
 illuminating presence in both hemispheres 
 of truth,—the spiritual and the scientific,— 
 the proper prosecution of scientific knowl- 
 edge in any direction calls for, and for 
 success depends upon, prayer for the Holy 
 Spirit’s illumination and guidance, as 
 much as does the pursuit of spiritual 
 knowledge. The Holy Spirit, being the 
 divine executive in creation and in provi- 
 dence, waits to guide the believing mind in 
 all lines of science, and the Word inspired 
 by Him is the authority on all scientific 
 truths. 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 21 
 
 4. It is necessary to pursue knowledge 
 under Scriptural revelation and guidance 
 in order to understand and to feel our in- 
 timate fellowship with creation in its 
 present suffering state and in its pros- 
 pect of ultimate restoration through Christ 
 in common with the children of God. 
 ‘‘ The earnest expectation of the creature 
 (creation) waiteth for the manifestation of 
 the (glorified) sons of God (at Christ’s 
 return). Because the creature itself shall 
 be delivered from the bondage of corrup- 
 tion into the glorious liberty of the chil- 
 dren of God ’’ (Rom. 8:19, 21). The Bible 
 guides the student in scientific research 
 through the spheres and among the deni- 
 zens of creation in deepest fellow-feeling 
 under the burden of a common mortality 
 and under the inviting prospect of a com- 
 mon ‘‘ glorious liberty.’’ Hence the study 
 of any human science under Bible guid- 
 ance and light will detect ever afresh the 
 need of the Saviour’s return and will 
 prompt the fervent ery, ‘‘ Come, Lord 
 Jesus, come quickly! ’’ 
 
 5. ‘Through faith we understand.’’ 
 Only by taking believing heed to the testi- 
 
 mony of God’s Word relating to any and 
 
22 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 every branch of knowledge can the truths 
 in such paths be perceived and enjoyed. 
 ‘¢ Through faith we understand,’’ that is, 
 have the real science of anything. This is 
 the key to true intelligence and certainty 
 in relation to all truths,—physical, moral, 
 spiritual. Under Bible guidance and light 
 the widest research is invited and becomes 
 most inviting; and such research will ever 
 strengthen faith and deepen piety, while 
 humbling scientific pride and ‘‘ casting 
 down imaginations and every high thing 
 that exalteth itself against the knowledge 
 of God.”? 
 
 The foregoing discussion is especially 
 applicable to the science of history. The 
 Bible in literary respect is mostly histori- 
 cal, being made up, to the extent of four- 
 fifths, of historical material either as rec- 
 ords of history past or as prophecies of 
 history to come. This indicates that God 
 regards history as the noblest realm of 
 human inquiry. But by the Bible the mys- 
 teries of history are unlocked as only 
 Christ, the Architect of all human history, 
 has the wisdom and the prescience to 
 do it. 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 23 
 
 Although Biblical history embraces rec- 
 ords of mankind down only to about four 
 hundred years before Christ, yet the Bible 
 gives the keys of interpretation to all his- 
 tory without which no man can unlock the 
 secrets of one day or of one event. It 
 would seem incredible that any one, with 
 the Bible at hand, should study or write 
 history—least of all in any philosophical 
 or scientific way—without the guidance of 
 the Biblical principles of solution. Yet, 
 where is the history in use to-day which is 
 written as if there were such a book as the 
 Bible or such a person everywhere im- 
 manent and controlling in history as the 
 Son of God to whom the Father has com- 
 mitted all things? ‘‘ The infidelity of some 
 distinguished historians proves the fruit- 
 lessness of bringing the finest powers of 
 mind to such a study, without subjection 
 to God. Humble accordance with the 
 Spirit of truth is incomparably to be pre- 
 ferred to independence of judgment, how- 
 ever elevated by genius above the common 
 level.’’ 
 
 Tn obedience to the foregoing necessary 
 truths and practical steps fundamental to 
 the acquisition of all true knowledge, we 
 
24 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 are now to open the book of Jonah, with 
 the expectation, not so much of acquiring 
 new stores of historical knowledge, as of 
 gaining further light upon the counsels 
 and the workings of the living God in the 
 conditions and course of all earthly his- 
 tory. Our object is not historical erudi- 
 tion but spiritual insight; our end is not 
 knowledge which only puffeth up but fur- 
 ther qualification to enjoy, to serve and to 
 glorify our great God and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
PART TWO 
 HXPOSITORY 
 
 The story of Jonah is unique even among 
 Bible stories, although so simple in narra- 
 tion. It was in the ninth century before 
 Christ that Jonah fulfilled a distinguished 
 career as the voice of God for the times. 
 Son of Amittai—a man otherwise un- 
 known—Jonah was born in Gath-hepher, 
 an ancient town among the hills of Galilee 
 on the border of Zebulon, about two miles 
 from Nazareth, the home town of Jesus. 
 His life fell in times troublous and disas- 
 trous to his beloved country; for the As- 
 syrians in sweeping over western Asia 
 pushed far back the boundaries and pos- 
 sessions of Israel from the east and from 
 the north. But God gave Jonah messages 
 of promise for better days, which came to 
 pass during the reign of the capable but 
 wicked king, Jeroboam II. Assyria was 
 gaining imperial extension through ruth- 
 less conquest, and Nineveh loomed high as 
 the rival mistress of the world. Here the 
 story of Jonah begins. This story is re- 
 corded in picturesque and dramatic form, 
 consisting of four parts. 
 
26 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 THEr Drama 
 Act One. Jonah in Flight 
 
 The Lord God called upon Jonah to 
 ‘¢ v9 to Nineveh, that great city, and cry 
 against it,’? in His own name; ‘‘ for,’’ said 
 He, ‘‘ their wickedness is come up before 
 me’? (1:2). Such a commission was a 
 stern test upon even an _ experienced 
 prophet’s courage. Yet apparently it was 
 not fear to beard the lion in his den that 
 made Jonah turn his back to the Lord and 
 to his commission. It becomes evident in 
 the narrative (4:2) that Jonah detected 
 in the tone of the Lord’s command a mer- 
 ciful concern over Nineveh rather than a 
 vindictive anger; and Jonah had evidently 
 spoken his mind quite frankly to the Lord 
 in interviews between them over this mis- 
 sion. It probably would have been very 
 agreeable to Jonah to denounce the de- 
 spoiler of his native land swiftly to his 
 doom; but to call Nineveh to repentance, 
 implying the possibility of further proba- 
 tion, was a ‘‘ preaching ’’ which Jonah was 
 unwilling to ‘‘ preach ’? (3:2). He there- 
 fore turned his back toward Nineveh as if 
 to the Lord, too, and he went post haste 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 27 
 
 down to the Mediterranean port of Joppa 
 and took ship, ‘‘to flee unto Tarshish 
 from the presence of the Lord.’’ It would 
 have been a sad day for Jonah if the Lord 
 had been as unmerciful to him as he was 
 to Nineveh. 
 
 Suddenly there fell upon the sea a great 
 hurricane, which caught the ship in such a 
 tempest of wind and wave that the helpless 
 boat seemed at first fairly to have broken. 
 Jonah was lying fast asleep as though a 
 traveler of leisure and contentment. A 
 panic, however, had seized the crew of 
 mingled nationalities, who loudly called 
 severally upon their various gods, while 
 frantically casting cargoes into the sea to 
 lighten the ship that much. Almost indig- 
 nantly the captain shook Jonah out of his 
 deep slumber, commanding him to do his 
 part in securing the help of the gods in 
 this extremity. 
 
 From the apparent deafness of the gods 
 to their cries, the ship’s company super- 
 stitiously drew the inference that nemesis 
 was pursuing one of their number to the 
 peril of all, and they resorted to the lot 
 to ascertain who was the cause of this 
 trouble. The lot fell upon Jonah by the 
 
28 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 disposal of Jehovah Himself. In answer 
 to a searching question, this unknown trav- 
 eler confessed that he was a Hebrew and 
 a worshipper of Jehovah, from whose 
 presence he was trying to flee. ‘This 
 struck the greater fear into the hearts of 
 these heathen mariners, who protested 
 against such impiety and rebellion. 
 
 The ship’s crew asked Jonah what they 
 should do with him to propitiate Jehovah 
 and to save their own lives. He plainly 
 told them to east him overboard as the 
 only resort. But they nobly sought by ut- 
 most physical effort to land the boat 
 without this extreme resort. It was, how- 
 ever, all in vain, the tempest abated not, 
 and it was proving to be overpowering. 
 Their prayer was. turned piteously and 
 importunately to Jehovah not to hold them 
 guilty of innocent blood in easting Jonah 
 into the sea. When the sea instantly 
 ceased its agitation, these sailors were 
 overawed by the manifestation of Je- 
 hovah’s very presence in mercy to them, 
 while in supposed judgment to Jonah; and 
 they further expressed their acknowledg- 
 ment of Him with reverence, sacrifice and 
 Vows. 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 29 
 
 Act Two. Jonah in the Belly of Hell 
 
 Instantly upon sinking amidst the churn- 
 ing billows of the sea Jonah was swal- 
 lowed alive by a monster fish expressly 
 prepared and directed by the Lord for this 
 very purpose. For three days and three 
 nights Jonah remained buried yet pre- 
 served alive in the strange grave of this 
 deep-sea creature. Jonah’s physical ex- 
 perience fitly typified that of his soul. 
 The recreant prophet sought the presence 
 which he had endeavoured to escape. 
 That Presence had compassionately at- 
 tended him, and now Jonah no longer 
 lulled his faithless soul to sleep as he had 
 done down there in ‘‘ the sides of the 
 ship.’’? The experiences and the exercises 
 of those long, dark days and nights Jonah 
 graphically embodied in a unique poem 
 which needs no comment: 
 
 Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the 
 fish’s belly, and said, 
 
 I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and 
 he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and 
 thou heardest my voice. 
 
 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of 
 the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all 
 thy billows and thy waves passed over me. 
 
 Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look 
 again toward thy holy temple, 
 
30 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF | 
 
 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the 
 depths closed me round about, the weeds were 
 wrapped about my head. 
 
 I went down to the bottom of the mountains: the earth 
 with her bars was about me for ever: 
 
 Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O 
 Lord my God. 
 
 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the 
 Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into 
 thine holy temple. 
 
 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own 
 mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the 
 voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have 
 vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. 
 
 Jonah’s prayer of confession, supplica- 
 tion, consecration and triumphant faith was 
 answered strikingly, as strikingly as he 
 had been arrested on his fugitive course. 
 ‘‘ And the Lord spake unto the fish, and 
 it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.’’ 
 
 Act Three. Jonah in Nineveh 
 
 Jonah had not dared to take up his for- 
 feited commission without a further call. 
 But the Lord bade him, ‘‘ Arise, go unto 
 Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto 
 it the preaching that I bid thee ’”’ (3:2). 
 Without parley or demurring Jonah took 
 his long journey to Nineveh. 
 
 ‘‘ Now Nineveh was an exceeding great 
 city of three days’ journey.’’ Promptly 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 81 
 
 upon penetrating the metropolis, the very 
 first day, Jonah announced in the hearing 
 of the populace the Lord’s ultimatum: 
 ‘¢ Vet forty days, and Nineveh shall be 
 overthrown.’’ The story of Jonah’s pre- 
 vious call and of its seeming grotesque 
 outcome had preceded him, and the proud 
 city may have made great mirth over it 
 all. But now the appearing of the man in 
 the streets who had passed through the 
 grave alive as it were, and his startling, 
 terrifying message—so positive and au- 
 thoritative—moved the community with 
 compelling foree. The attention of the 
 throne was soon captured, and the mon- 
 arch for himself at once assumed the at- 
 tire and the aspect of utmost humiliation, 
 confession and importunity before God. 
 A. decree was issued by the king and his 
 chiefs calling for universal fasting and 
 prayer before God of the most drastic 
 character, even requiring the animals to 
 be clothed with sackcloth and deprived of 
 food. The decree also called for unexcep- 
 tional cessation from all evil ways and 
 from all actions of violence. While 
 Jonah’s ultimatum promised no amnesty 
 from swift destruction under any circum- 
 
382 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 stances, yet these extreme steps were 
 taken in the hepe and with the importu- 
 nate prayer to a merciful God, that He 
 would turn from His purpose of wrath 
 and not require them to perish. And God 
 accepted their works of repentance, and 
 He turned from the intended judgment 
 and saved them altogether. 
 
 Act Four. Jonah and the Gourd 
 
 Jonah, however, was not pleased with 
 these works of the Ninevites, for they be- 
 trayed already the workings of divine 
 grace in their hearts, and they pointed to 
 the easy possibility that Jonah’s message 
 would fail of fulfillment. Then, Jonah 
 had known this long-suffering, kind, leni- 
 ent and forgiving Saviour too well to feel 
 sure that He would mete out to Nineveh 
 her deserts any more than He had as yet 
 done to backslidden Israel. In his lack of 
 sympathy with Him whose ‘‘ mercies are 
 over all his creatures,’’ and in his chagrin 
 at the probability of proving apparently 
 to be a false prophet, Jonah professed to 
 prefer death to living longer (just like 
 any proud minister of state whose counsel 
 had been disapproved), and Jonah begged 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH Sh) 
 
 the Lord to take away his life. Gently the 
 Lamb of God which taketh away the sin 
 of the world chided Jonah, ‘‘ Doest thou 
 well to be angry? ”’ 
 
 Somewhat uplifted from his depression, 
 Jonah made a booth for himself outside 
 the city on the east, and there he sat from 
 day to day to see what should befall 
 Nineveh. In sweet tenderness and com- 
 passion the Lord caused a gourd quickly 
 to grow up and throw a grateful shade 
 over Jonah’s booth that he might not 
 faint under his intense feelings. Jonah 
 almost forgot his grief through gladness 
 over the gourd. 
 
 But this relief was of short duration, 
 for the Lord had a higher purpose in 
 view. A worm attacked the gourd and 
 made it wither in a day under the scorch- 
 ing sun. Moreover, the Lord added to 
 Jonah’s distressing exposure a hot east 
 wind which extremely intensified the ordi- 
 nary heat that fell upon Jonah’s head, so 
 that from sheer faintness he wished to 
 die, and he again complained, ‘‘ It is bet- 
 ter for me to die than to live.”’ 
 
 Again that gentle chiding came to this 
 true, but thoroughly human _ prophet, 
 
34 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 ‘‘Doest thou well to be angry for the 
 gourd? ’’ Jonah replied, not without a 
 measure of truth, ‘‘ I do well to be angry, 
 even unto death.’? The Lord does not 
 contradict Jonah, but He confronts him 
 with a stunning comparison and contrast. 
 ‘‘Thou hast had pity on the gourd,’’— 
 that is, ‘‘ thou hast spared the gourd ’?’— 
 ‘* for which thou hast not laboured, neither 
 madest it grow; which came up in a night, 
 and perished in a night; and should not I 
 spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein 
 are more than six-score thousand persons 
 that cannot discern between their right 
 hand and their left hand; and also much 
 cattle? ’’ 
 
 The dramatic effect of the story is the 
 more forcible for thus abruptly closing 
 with an unanswered question. Surely 
 ‘‘ wisdom is justified of her children.’’ 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 35 
 
 Tur Goutpen Tureaps or UNIVERSAL 
 History 
 
 This brief, picturesque drama is rich in 
 striking, beautiful and permanent lessons 
 of moral and spiritual character. .But 
 these few inspired pages are also of im- 
 mense historical value. As has been 
 noted, the historical value of Jonah does 
 not consist in any material and important 
 contribution made by it to the sum of his- 
 torical fact. The book is almost negligible 
 in this respect. But the book has a rela- 
 tive value which is distinctive and very 
 great, and this value renders the book vir- 
 tually indispensable even in the canon of 
 Holy Scripture. For the book of Jonah 
 places in our hands many golden threads 
 which enter into the warp and the woof 
 of the history of mankind throughout the 
 ages. Some at least of these threads of 
 which the fabric of universal earthly his- 
 tory is woven will now, by the grace of 
 God, be expounded from this book. 
 
 I. The Universal Personal Presence of 
 God in History. 
 
 The basis of all religion is the fact of 
 the spiritual presence of God. The core 
 of religious experience is the conscious- 
 
36 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 ness of the divine presence. The primary 
 exercise of religious duty consists of filial 
 regard for the very present, though un- ~ 
 seen, merciful Maker. The perfection of 
 religious enjoyment is found in entire ad- 
 justment to the gracious presence of the 
 Most High. 
 
 The book of Jonah pulsates with the 
 truth of the presence of the Lord God,— 
 always, everywhere, with everybody. And 
 this is not pointed to as a new doctrine or 
 as an exceptional demonstration, but it 
 breaks forth as a light already and always 
 shining, whether apparent, recognized and 
 welcomed or not. 
 
 It was by virtue of the signal and per- 
 emptory manifestation of the Lord’s pres- 
 ence that Jonah had his commission to go 
 and cry against Nineveh; and it was by a 
 vain effort to get away ‘‘ from the pres- 
 ence of the Lord’’ (1:38), conscious to 
 him and compulsory upon him, that he 
 went in the opposite direction, ‘‘ down to 
 Joppa,’’ and shipped for ‘‘ Tarshish from 
 the presence of the Lord.’’ 
 
 When Jonah acknowledged to the anx- 
 ious mariners his religious identity he 
 testified, ‘‘ 1 am an Hebrew, and I fear the 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 37 
 
 Lord (Jehovah), the God of Heaven which 
 hath made the sea and the dry land. Then 
 were the men exceedingly afraid, and said 
 unto him, Why hast thou done this? For 
 the men knew that he had fled from the 
 presence of the Lord, because he had told 
 them ’’ (vss. 9, 10). 
 
 Jonah knew that the presence of Je- 
 hovah was following him in his flight and 
 to his sorrow, to the sorrow also of the 
 ship’s crew and passengers. It meant for 
 him to go overboard in his sorrow alone 
 with the Lord or for all on board to perish 
 in the sea. Like a true believer in Je- 
 hovah—Maker and God of land and sea— 
 he yielded himself to their reluctant hands. 
 The immediate calming of the sea over- 
 poweringly revealed to the mariners the 
 actual, the pursuing, the inescapable pres- 
 ence of God Almighty. ‘‘ Then the men 
 feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered 
 a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made 
 vows ”’ (vs. 16). 
 
 In the fish’s belly Jonah found the di- 
 vine presence most real; and there, when 
 his soul fainted within him, he remem- 
 bered the Lord. It was not in point of 
 outward distance that he moaned, ‘‘ I am 
 
88 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 cast out of thy sight,’’ and it was not of 
 the temple at Jerusalem that he spoke, ex- 
 cepting in a figurative way, saying, ‘‘ Yet 
 I will look again toward thy holy temple.’’ 
 It was of most immediate local as well as 
 spiritual access that he testifies, ‘‘ My 
 prayers came in unto thee, into thy holy 
 temple.’’ 
 
 The conscious presence of God which 
 he so deeply realized before was found by 
 him to be as real all the time in far-away 
 Nineveh. The never-suspended presence 
 of the true God, which the idolatrous mari- 
 ners had forgotten—if they had ever be- 
 fore realized it—was recalled to them and 
 impressed upon them by contact with 
 Jonah. So likewise, the Assyrian capital 
 —from the proud monarch himself to even 
 the dumb animals (after their fashion)— 
 was gripped with the consciousness of 
 having to do with the supreme deity in 
 His unavoidable presence. 
 
 This bit of history—out of the life of 
 one believer, out of the experience of a 
 ship’s crew of heathen sailors, and out of 
 a critical stage in the history of a rising 
 world-power—is sufficient of itself to es- 
 tablish the great and fundamental truth of 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 59 
 
 the immanence of the living God,—always, 
 everywhere, with everybody, from mighti- 
 est monarch to humblest ‘‘ maidservant 
 behind the mill,’’ whether separately, or in 
 casual groups, or in the body of a whole 
 kingdom or empire. Jonah proves the 
 universal fact expressed in the language 
 of another, ‘‘ Whither shall I flee from thy 
 presence?—if I make my bed in hell, thou 
 art there’’ (Ps. 139:7, 8). The ship’s 
 crew proved that, however intercepted by 
 false divinities the spiritual recognition 
 and consciousness of God’s presence may 
 be, yet ‘‘ If I take the wings of the morn- 
 ing, and dwell in the uttermost parts of 
 the sea; even there shall thy hand lead 
 me, and thy right hand shall hold me.’’ 
 The proudest monarch can be instantly 
 startled into the confession, ‘‘ O Lord, 
 thou hast searched me, and known me.— 
 Thou hast beset me before and behind, 
 and laid thine hand upon me.”’ 
 
 Thus the book of Jonah, in this promi- 
 nent feature of the immanence of the Lord 
 God, illustrates and attests the primary 
 and impressive fact of that immanence in 
 all human history, whether on a larger or 
 a smaller scale. 
 
 ~e 
 
40 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 II. The Universal Personal Government 
 of God in History. 
 
 Not less impressively than the universal 
 historical fact just dwelt upen does the 
 book of Jonah feature this other fact as 
 of universal historical reality, namely, 
 that ‘‘ The heavens do rule,’’ or that the 
 living God holds perfect personal sway, 
 whether in the simplest and minutest, or 
 in the most complex and extended realm. 
 Yet His rule is shown to be not with the 
 arbitrary compulsion of despotic will or 
 of sheer force, but in full accord with the 
 personal liberties and characteristics with 
 which He endowed all beings. 
 
 Nothing is further from or more con- 
 trary to the truth of revelation and to the 
 evident fact of all history than the propo- 
 sition that the earthly universe is for- 
 tuitously maintained, or that it is making 
 progress by some hypothetical law of the 
 survival of the fittest and of the domi- 
 nance of the strongest. Nothing can more 
 surely shrivel the soul and dwarf the in- 
 tellect than to recognize no supreme, all- 
 prevailing will, purpose and control in 
 earthly affairs, lesser or greater. Yet as 
 damnable as the theory of impersonal 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 41 
 
 chance in everything is the doctrine of 
 fatalistic divine domination. The Moham- 
 medan will cut Armenian throats by the 
 score one after another while chanting the 
 ascription of his acts to the immutable 
 will and the ecstatic pleasure of Allah. 
 In the book of Jonah,—illustrating uni- 
 versal divine sway,—divine government is 
 presented as constrainingly compelling, as 
 winsomely imperative, at least before it 
 ever becomes awfully overpowering. 
 
 Jehovah purposed to use His beloved 
 servant, the prophet Jonah, at a critical 
 turning point in the history of Nineveh. 
 The Lord would never have gone beyond 
 graciously calling a ready and willing 
 friend had Jonah at once acceded as he 
 could and should have done. The Lord, 
 however, took with His disobedient serv- 
 ant means and ways of accomplishing 
 His purpose which should prevail. In so 
 doing He was still exercising only a wholly 
 constraining moral government over Jonah 
 rather than an arbitrary and compulsory 
 one. 
 
 And while gaining His glorious purpose 
 with Jonah, God illustrated a marvellous 
 superintending, providential government 
 
42 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 over other creatures. He appointed the 
 very ship to convey Jonah on his intended 
 cruise; He appointed the port of de- 
 parture and the date of sailing; He or- 
 ganized the crew; at the right hour and 
 spot He commanded the tempest, the tu- 
 multuous waves, the impending wreck. 
 In a governmental sense God put Jonah 
 into a sound sleep; He governed the senti- 
 ments and the conduct of the mariners to 
 His purpose. Whether there ever before 
 was or since has been a fish equal to swal- 
 lowing a man and preserving him alive 
 for three days and three nights, or not, 
 God ‘‘prepared’’ this particular one. 
 Just as truly as an ass and her colt were 
 prepared for Jesus to ride upon into Jeru- 
 salem, were tied at just such a place and 
 commandeered without the objection of 
 the owners by the disciples of Jesus; and 
 just as truly as a fish in Galilee’s lake was 
 particularly led to swallow a particular 
 silver coin, to be at a certain spot under 
 water at a certain moment to be caught by 
 Peter that tribute for him and Jesus might 
 thereby be duly paid,—just so truly this 
 once God had the ‘‘ great fish’’ at His 
 service in swallowing Jonah, in making 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 43 
 
 him a ‘‘ shut-in ’’ for a determined period, 
 and in ejecting him, not into the sea, but 
 upon dry land. 
 
 On the vaster scale God was ruling the 
 mighty rising Assyrian Empire. The king 
 at Nineveh that day illustrated a funda- 
 mental truth of universal history, which 
 had already centuries before been coined 
 into the proverb: ‘‘ The king’s heart is in 
 the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of 
 water: he turneth it whithersoever he 
 will ?? (Proy. 21:1). In the timely decree 
 which the king issued—calling his subjects 
 one and all, even to the dumb beasts, to 
 sackcloth, to fasting and to practical re- 
 pentance—he illustrated again the opera- 
 tion of universal divine government. al- 
 ready for centuries epigrammatically em- 
 bodied in the inspired truism, ‘‘ A divine 
 sentence is in the lips of the king; his 
 mouth transgresseth not in judgment ”’ 
 (Prov. 16:10). 
 
 All the Bible Padan toe the light of this 
 mystery of earthly history, on the minut- 
 est and on the vastest scale, in the low- 
 liest and in the most exalted sphere. And 
 so far from being repellent to rational 
 and moral sense, it is attractive. This 
 
44 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 principle articulates all creaturely events 
 into a symmetrical organism revealing the 
 infinite intelligent design and governing 
 purpose. It invites one to willing service 
 of the Sovereign and to an uncompelled 
 co-operation; it assures one of security 
 and advantage, such as a worthy, upright — 
 citizen likes to feel that he has under 
 human government, municipal or national. 
 
 HI. The Unfailing Compassion of God 
 Toward All His Creatures. 
 
 The book of Jonah vibrates with divine 
 compassion. One could easily take this to 
 be the chief, though unspoken, teaching of 
 the book,—the teaching that God is full of 
 compassion and that His tender mercies 
 are over all His works. 
 
 It was the prompting of compassion for 
 Nineveh that Jonah evidently detected in 
 Jehovah’s first call for him to arise, go 
 and cry against that great and wicked 
 city. Being himself indignant and venge- 
 ful in feeling toward Nineveh for her 
 wickedness and for her cruelty toward his 
 beloved country, Jonah sulked, impudently 
 remonstrated with the Lord God, and 
 finally made the very compassionateness 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 45 
 
 of his God his excuse for turning his back 
 upon his duty and for avoiding the fur- 
 ther presence of a magnanimous, long- 
 suffering and tender-hearted Jehovah. 
 ‘‘O Lord,’’ argues Jonah even over in 
 Nineveh, ‘‘ was not this my saying, when 
 I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled 
 before unto Tarshish: for I knew that 
 thou art a gracious God, and merciful, 
 slow to anger, and of great kindness, and 
 repentest thee of the evil’’ (4:2). 
 
 But God’s compassions are so impar- 
 tial, so universal, so evenly balanced, that 
 the impertinence of Jonah only drew the 
 more upon Jehovah’s compassion for him. 
 He might justly have discharged Jonah 
 from his great and noble commission; but 
 Jehovah patiently pursued His purpose, 
 not only to save Nineveh but also to save 
 Jonah. God’s dealing with Jonah all the 
 way through is a marvel of His exhaust- 
 less compassion for a stubborn, recalci- 
 trant servant. It is because of His re- 
 sources of compassion that God failed not 
 in His confidence concerning His disaf- 
 fected prophet. And while Jonah to the 
 very last is found disagreeing with his 
 God on this very point of compassion for 
 
46 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 undeserving Nineveh, yet the fact of the 
 existence of this book of unvarnished nar- 
 ration from Jonah’s own hand warrants 
 the surmise that, like the Apostle John— 
 one of the ‘‘ Sons of Thunder ’’—Jonah in 
 after days became wonderfully conformed 
 to the nature of his great-hearted Lord. 
 
 It is not difficult to detect the beautiful 
 device of compassion in getting Jonah 
 aboard that same ship to be indirectly 
 used in leaving behind him a powerful re- 
 vival among those seamen. They clearly 
 found, worshipped and plighted vows to 
 the living and true God. ‘What a lesson to 
 the servant of Christ so to let His light 
 shine in the darkest nook as to revive the 
 smoldering embers of spiritual desire for 
 Jesus Christ, ‘‘ the true God and eternal 
 life! ’’? What a lesson for the missionary 
 among idolaters——to attack those  be- 
 nighted souls, not with repelling con- 
 demnation of their idols, but with the 
 magnetic influences of Christly compas- 
 sion and kindness! 
 
 The crowning manifestation of divine 
 compassion reflected from the book of 
 Jonah is that shown toward Nineveh. 
 
 There is no mistaking that it was divine 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 47 
 
 grace, mercy, long-suffering and ‘“‘ great 
 kindness ’’ that moved upon Nineveh 
 through even so poor and inharmonious 
 a messenger as Jonah. The ultimatum is- 
 sued to Nineveh with terrorizing divine 
 authority was nevertheless so sincerely 
 the faithful warning of unfailing love on 
 Jehovah’s part, that the Holy Spirit could 
 accomplish the most remarkable national 
 revival ever perhaps known. At least 
 Jesus holds it up in striking prominence 
 historically and as a sharp contrast to the 
 cities of Galilee, which failed to repent 
 under His own direct ministry of word 
 and wonder. 
 
 And, as if it were not proof enough of 
 Jehovah’s unfathomable love—for even 
 outrageously unmerciful heathen people 
 and powers—to record that ‘‘ God saw 
 their works, that they turned from their 
 evil way; and God repented him of the 
 evil, that he said he would do unto them; 
 and he did it not,’’ the little book closes 
 with the inimitable touch of pitiful love, 
 ‘‘ And should I not spare Nineveh, that 
 great city, wherein are more than six- 
 score thousand persons that cannot dis- 
 cern between their right hand and their 
 
48 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 left hand; and also much cattle? ’? God’s 
 tender consideration for dumb beasts is 
 His last plea for justification in His re- 
 lenting towards ill-deserving Ninevites. 
 Now, let this compassionateness of God 
 be linked up with the two preceding truths, 
 —of His immediate, all-pervading pres- 
 ence and of His complete sovereignty, 
 from utmost heights to lowest depths, in 
 minutest and in most comprehensive pur- 
 pose—and the charm of the existence of a 
 creature of such a God becomes apparent. 
 As has been noted, the book of Jonah—or 
 even the Bible as a whole—does not hold 
 this picture forth as novel or exceptional, 
 it does not go into exposition or exclama- 
 tion over it; but all this revelation of our 
 God meets the thoughtful, open-minded 
 and believing reader just as the light 
 comes streaming through any casual win- 
 dow. The light is there whether there be 
 a window for it to shine through or not. 
 The presence of God, the government of 
 God, the compassion of God, is not the 
 rare thing in the universe and in history ; 
 His presence, His government, His com- 
 passion, each prevails always, everywhere, 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 49 
 
 with everybody, in every event, as the 
 very fundamental of universal history. 
 
 IV. The Identification of the Son of God 
 as the Arbiter of All Human History. 
 
 An attentive, discriminating reader of 
 the book of Jonah must be early struck 
 with the marked contrast in the use of di- 
 vine names running consistently through 
 the entire book. Two divine names are ex- 
 clusively employed, God and Lord. Evi- 
 dently these two names are used in the 
 book of Jonah with exact discrimination. 
 The name Lord is Jehovah in the Hebrew, 
 and it occurs twenty-six times in the book; 
 the name God in Hebrew is Elohim, and it 
 occurs sixteen times in the book. These 
 Hebrew names will now be restored in 
 going again through the book. 
 
 It was ‘‘ the word of Jehovah’’ that 
 came to Jonah about going to Nineveh. It 
 was ‘‘ from the presence of Jehovah ”’ 
 that Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish and 
 ‘‘ from the presence of Jehovah ’’ that he 
 paid the ship’s fare and went down into 
 the ship to take passage unto Tarshish. 
 It was this Jehovah that ‘‘ sent out a 
 great wind.’’ But it was ‘‘ unto his God ”’ 
 
50 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 (Elohim, deity) that the mariners of min- 
 gled heathen religions cried severally in 
 their terror. It was unto his God (Elo- 
 him) that they urged Jonah to call, to the 
 end that God (Hlohim) might think upon 
 them to save them from perishing. 
 
 In answering the questions of the sea- 
 men as to his identity, Jonah explained 
 that he was a Hebrew and that he feared 
 Jehovah, whom he designated as ‘‘ the 
 Hlohim of Heaven, who—made the sea 
 and the dry land.’’ And when Jonah ex- 
 plained further that he was in flight from 
 ‘the presence of Jehovah,’’ the men of 
 the ship became ‘‘ exceedingly afraid.’? 
 And when they found that, in spite of all 
 efforts to row the boat to land without 
 throwing Jonah overboard, there was no 
 other resort, they cried, not now everyone 
 unto his Elohim, but unto Jehovah, say- 
 ing, ‘‘ We beseech thee, O Jehovah, let us 
 not perish for this man’s life, and lay not 
 upon us innocent blood: for thou, Jehovah, 
 hast done as it pleased thee.’?? And when 
 ‘‘ the sea ceased her raging ’’ so miracu- 
 lously, ‘‘ The men feared Jehovah exceed- 
 ingly, and offered a sacrifice unto Jeho- 
 vah, and vowed vows.’’ 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 51 
 
 It was Jehovah that ‘‘ had prepared a 
 great fish to swallow up Jonah.’’ It was 
 unto Jehovah that Jonah cried; ‘‘I re- 
 membered Jehovah,’’ he says in the rec- 
 ord. And he testifies, ‘‘ Salvation is of 
 Jehovah.’’ In his psalm of memorial he 
 also testifies, ‘‘ Yet hast thou brought up 
 my life from corruption, O Jehovah, my 
 God.’’? This expression he uses in con- 
 trasting his Elohim with those of the 
 heathen, of whom he speaks in the words, 
 ‘¢ They that serve lying vanities forsake 
 their own mercy,’’ that is, the mercy which 
 they might have by looking to Jehovah 
 Elohim. 
 
 It was Jehovah that commanded the fish 
 at the appointed time to vomit Jonah upon 
 dry land. It was Jehovah that came to 
 Jonah the second time with the charge to 
 go and give the message to Nineveh; and 
 ‘¢ Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, ac- 
 cording to the word of Jehovah.’’ In con- 
 trast it reads, ‘‘ the people of Nineveh be- 
 lieved Elohim ’’ and ‘‘ proclaimed a fast, 
 and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of 
 them to the least of them,’’ in obedience 
 to the decree of the king who commanded 
 them to ‘‘ery mightily unto Hlohim,’’ 
 
52 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 saying, ‘‘ Who can tell if Elohim will turn 
 and repent, and turn away from his fierce 
 anger, that we perish not.’’ The record 
 now adds, ‘‘ And Elohim saw their works, 
 that they turned from their evil way; and 
 Klohim repented of the evil, that he had 
 said he would do unto them; and he did 
 it not.”” 
 
 Immediately, upon returning to the line 
 of communication between Jonah and God, 
 the record takes up again the Jehovah 
 name. Jonah, being ‘‘ displeased exceed- 
 ingly,’’ ‘* prayed unto Jehovah, and said, 
 I pray. thee, O Jehovah, was not this my 
 saying, when I was yet in my country? 
 Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for 
 I knew that thou art a gracious Elohim, 
 and merciful, slow to anger, and of great 
 kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 
 Therefore now, O Jehovah, take, I beseech 
 thee, my life from me; for it is better for 
 me to die than to live.’? Then said Je- 
 hovah, ‘‘ Doest thou well to be angry? ”’ 
 The propriety of Jonah’s saying, ‘‘ I knew 
 that thou art a gracious Elohim,”’ is ob- 
 vious. He was speaking of ‘the deity in 
 His relations to the Ninevites who did not 
 turn to Him as Jehovah, and that evi- 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH De 
 
 dently just because Jonah had _ not 
 preached to them the name of Jehovah, 
 but that only of God Almighty. 
 
 This distinction between the relation of 
 the deity as God (Elohim) and as Lord 
 (Jehovah) is strikingly indicated by the 
 compound of the two names now intro- 
 duced just once in this book. ‘‘ And Jeho- 
 vah Elohim prepared a gourd, and made 
 it to come up over Jonah, that it might be 
 a shadow over his head, to deliver him 
 from his grief. So Jonah was exceedingly 
 glad of the gourd.’’ This tender and mer- 
 ciful act was performed toward the surly 
 prophet by God as Jehovah, in a relation- 
 ship of active, unhampered grace, mercy, 
 long-suffering and great kindness. 
 
 But at once the deity ceases His Jeho- 
 vah dealing with Jonah, and He deals 
 with him purely as Elohim without mani- 
 festations as Jehovah. ‘‘ But God (Elo- 
 him) prepared a worm when the morning 
 rose the next day, and it smote the gourd 
 that it withered. And it came to pass, 
 when the sun did arise, that Elohim pre- 
 pared a vehement east wind; and the sun 
 beat upon the head of Jonah, that he 
 fainted, and wished in himself to die, and 
 
54 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 said, It is better for me to die than to live. 
 And Elohim said to Jonah, Doest thou 
 well to be angry for the gourd? And he 
 said, I do well to be angry, even ie 
 seein f 
 
 Finally, and just as suddenly—like sun- 
 shine succeeding dark shadows—the rec- 
 ord reverts to the name of Jehovah. 
 *‘ Then said Jehovah, Thou hast had pity 
 on (hadst spared) the gourd, for the which 
 thou hast not laboured, neither madest it 
 to grow; which came up in a night and 
 perished in a night.’? And the wonderful 
 record, so discriminating in the use of the 
 divine names, shows that, while the Nine- 
 vites had not called upon God as Jehovah, 
 as the seamen had done, to whom J shat 
 had confessed that name, yet, as God 
 teaches Jonah, it was as Jehovah that He 
 had dealt with the Ninevites. ‘And 
 should not I spare Nineveh, that great 
 city, wherein are more Han Six-score 
 thousand persons that cannot discern be- 
 tween their right hand and their left hand; 
 and also much cattle??? As if God rea- 
 soned with Jonah on this wise: ‘‘ You 
 say that you knew that I was a gracious 
 God, merciful, slow to anger, and of 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 55 
 
 great kindness. You knew that I was 
 such to you and to your people. And do 
 you expect me to be different to other 
 people? Do you take my name Jehovah 
 to imply partiality and to stamp me merely 
 as a national God, as Jehovah in my senti- 
 ments and my relations to Israel alone? ”’ 
 
 This survey of the -discriminating use 
 of the divine names in the book of Jonah 
 yields most important truth touching the 
 Godhead in relation, not only to this little 
 bit of history, but also in relation to all 
 history. 
 
 The book of Jonah has made it evident 
 that the name Jehovah is attached to God 
 in His exercises of grace, mercy, long- 
 suffering, and great kindness, or in His of- 
 fices of redemption and in His person as 
 Saviour. Therefore, the name Lord, or 
 Jehovah, in the book of Jonah, designates 
 distinctively the Son of God as Mediator 
 between God and man, as God’s Redeemer, 
 Saviour and Judge to sinful man. Not 
 that His sentiments and functions are in 
 any wise diverse from those of the Al- 
 mighty Father; for, in fact, He as Jehovah 
 reveals the Almighty as Father and ful- 
 fills His loving will toward man. In the 
 
56 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 book of Jonah, then, the divine presence, 
 government, and unfailing compassion are 
 manifest in and through Jehovah, the Son 
 of God, Jesus Christ. It is He, therefore, 
 that is found to be arbiter in that bit of 
 history. But this instance does not ap- 
 pear at all as exceptional, but rather as an 
 illustration of what is universal. And, in 
 fact, this revelation of the Son of God in 
 Jonah is directly in line with the revela- 
 tion of His relation to human history run- 
 ning all through the Bible. 
 
 It is most important, then, to notice how 
 the same discrimination in the use of the 
 divine names Elohim and Jehovah con- 
 fronts the reader of the Bible as soon as 
 the history of man is introduced. The ac- 
 count of the creation and of the earth’s 
 preparation for human history, found in 
 Gen. 1: 1-2, 3, is purely Elohistic. But at 
 once thereafter the Jehovistic personality 
 and functions come to the front and con- 
 tinue so throughout the Old Testament. 
 In Genesis 2:4 and following it is made 
 plain that it was in and through the per- 
 son and the functions of ‘‘ the Lord God ”’ 
 that the deity created all things, formed 
 man for his exalted career, and set man in 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 57 
 
 Eden’s garden under His own instruc- 
 tions and in accountability to Himself as 
 the head of his being and the Lord of his 
 career. Now the ‘‘ Lord God,’’—that is, 
 the administering person of the trinity— 
 is always the Son of God, to whom the 
 Father, both in the pre-incarnate exist- 
 ence of the Son and in His incarnate and 
 reglorified existence, committed all things 
 for administration. Jesus was voicing 
 this fact in His words as recorded in 
 Matt. 28:18: ‘* All power (authority) is 
 given unto me in heaven and in earth.’’ 
 The divine name Lord is commonly 
 throughout the Old Testament the word 
 Jehovah in the Hebrew. 
 
 So, when man denied his Jehovah God 
 out of deference to ‘‘ that old serpent, 
 called the devil, and Satan,’’ it was out of 
 living headship in the Son of God that 
 he fell into the nature of his new and false 
 Elohim. (Note the serpent’s promise, 
 ‘Ye shall be[come] as gods,’’ after the 
 nature of the false, the devil gods; ‘‘ ye 
 are of your father the devil.’’) But Je- 
 hovah at once carried His mediatorial 
 personality and functions over into rela- 
 tionship with man in his fallen and lost 
 
58 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 condition as the One ‘‘ sent to seek and to 
 save that which was lost.’? The grace, 
 mercy, long-suffering, and great kindness 
 of Elohim began at once to be revealed 
 and executed through Jehovah Hlohim— 
 Christ, the Son of God—as Redeemer, 
 Saviour and final Judge. As John puts 
 it, ‘‘ The light shineth in the darkness; ”’ 
 He, who by man’s creation was unto him 
 ‘‘ the light of men,’’? remained the same 
 light to man after his fall, only having 
 now to shine in darkness—seeking, as 
 Paul puts it, ‘‘ to shine out of darkness— 
 in our hearts, to give the light of the 
 knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
 of Jesus Christ ’’ (II Cor. 4:6). Satan’s 
 control of fallen man, however, constantly 
 tended to thwart Jehovah God’s saving 
 offices toward lost souls. This Satan did 
 in large and persistent degree by substi- 
 tuting visible idols for the invisible Jeho- 
 vah as the media of approach unto Elo- 
 him, and by substituting himself as the 
 Hlohim, the god and prince of this 
 world. 
 
 At a stage of deepest apostasy of man- 
 kind Abram was called out to be a new 
 father, or progenitor, of humanity, a 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 59 
 
 father of the true original faith in Je- 
 hovah Elohim. Most striking for our pur- 
 pose is the language found in Ex. 6:2, 3, 
 although the passage is strangely per- 
 verted from its meaning by the punctua- 
 tion of the text as given by King James’ 
 translators. ‘‘ And God spake unto Moses, 
 and said unto him, I am the Lord (Jeho- 
 vah); and I appeared unto Abraham, unto 
 Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God 
 Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was 
 I not known to them.’’ This evidently 
 should be punctuated as a question, ‘‘ By 
 my name JeEHovaH was I not known to 
 them? ’’ Certainly He was so known to 
 them, and to all the saints back to peni- 
 tent Adam and Eve. And it was for the 
 purpose of fully reviving the Jehovistic 
 faith of these and of the more distant 
 fathers that Moses was being called back 
 into Egypt to his brethren, preparatory to 
 their being brought out of their bondage 
 into Canaan as Christ’s separate people. 
 The book of Jonah, therefore, is found 
 to be of incalculable value historically in 
 illustrating the immediate presence, per- 
 sonal government and unfailing benefi- 
 
60 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 cence of God through Jesus Christ, His 
 Son, in all earthly history. 
 
 V. The Relation of Israel Under Christ 
 to Gentile Nations. 
 
 God, in His saving purpose in Christ 
 Jesus for mankind, brought Abraham and 
 his seed into partnership and service with 
 Himself. The focus and objective of the 
 Abrahamic covenant was expressed in the 
 climax of the first statement of that cove- 
 nant, in these words: ‘‘ And in thee shall 
 all families of the earth be blessed ’’ (Gen. 
 12:3). God’s supreme purpose with 
 Abraham was expressed in Gen. 18:18 in 
 the words, ‘‘ Seeing that—all the nations 
 of the earth shall be blessed in him.”’ 
 At the time of Abraham’s offering up 
 Isaac, a new statement of this supreme 
 purpose was given by God in the words: 
 ‘* In thy seed shall all the nations of the 
 earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed 
 my voice’’ (Gen. 22:18). But by “ thy 
 seed ’’ was meant Christ Jesus as son of 
 Abraham, as Paul explains in Gal. 3:16: 
 ‘“ Now to Abraham and his seed were the 
 promises made. He saith not, and to thy 
 seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to 
 
o 
 
 THE BOOK OF JONAH 61 
 
 thy seed, which is Christ.’’ Of course 
 Abraham understood this, and this under- 
 standing descended to Isaac, to Jacob, and 
 to all succeeding generations, excepting 
 as it would be lost from view, as other re- 
 vealed truths were so sadly lost sight of. 
 
 / Hence the Abrahamic covenant was a part- 
 
 nership between Christ (Jehovah) and 
 Abraham (embracing the latter’s faith- 
 seed, not only that of Israel but also that 
 of all nations) for the blessing of all 
 families of the earth. 
 
 This was also the basis of the Mosaic, 
 or Sinaitic, covenant. The terms of this 
 covenant are found in Hx. 19:3-6. In 
 this passage Christ directed Moses first 
 to impress upon the children of Israel His 
 fearful judgment upon the Egyptians, 
 while catching up them, the children of 
 Israel, as on eagles’ wings and bringing 
 them so mercifully and marvellously out 
 there unto Himself apart. On the basis 
 and background of such an exhibition of 
 redemptive grace and mercy the Lord 
 then promised that, if they would only re- 
 spond in loving obedience to Him and in 
 fidelity to the inherited Abrahamic cove- 
 nant, they should enjoy being His peculiar 
 
62 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 heart-treasure above all other peoples; 
 they should be unto Him in point of sery- 
 ice a kingdom of priests; and they should 
 be in moral character a holy nation, sepa- 
 rate from the polluted Gentile nations. 
 Israel professedly accepted these terms, 
 and all further Hebrew history proceeded 
 upon this basis. 
 
 The feature of these terms which is 
 pertinent to this discussion is that relat- 
 ing to the service to which the Son of God 
 called the children of Israel as a body. 
 As their King He was to have their serv- 
 ice not merely as a kingdom—serving 
 Him unitedly and obediently—but as “‘ a 
 kingdom of priests.’? Now a priest is one 
 who appears before God in representation 
 of and in intercession for others, and one 
 who then comes forth in representation of 
 and with communication from God _ to 
 those others. He is man’s intercessor 
 unto God and God’s messenger unto man. 
 The priest is a mediator between man and 
 God, and between God and man; he ig al- 
 ternately representative of both man and 
 God. And it is most essential that the 
 priest shall be in perfect sympathy with 
 both man and God, and that he shall serve 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 63 
 
 to effect and preserve happy reciprocal 
 relations between the two. 
 
 This was the office to which Christ 
 called Israel in behalf of all other nations 
 in their relations to God. The expression, 
 ‘‘a kingdom of priests,’’ has nothing to 
 do with the function of priesthood for 
 Israel’s own benefit. It was not that they 
 were to have a priesthood for themselves 
 as a nation, but that as Christ’s kingdom 
 in the whole they were to exercise priest- 
 hood. The question arises, in whose be- 
 half were they as a body to be appearing 
 representatively in intercession before 
 God and returning representatively from 
 God as His messengers? Of course, it 
 means in behalf of the other kingdoms of 
 the earth. Christ wanted them as His 
 peculiar treasure—‘‘ above all people ’’— 
 to be serviceable to Him as a priestly 
 kingdom for the blessing, according to the 
 Abrahamic covenant, of all other nations. 
 They were to be intercessors in their be- 
 half before God and God’s messengers of 
 salvation to the same. And as a priestly 
 nation Israel was to bear all nations sym- 
 pathetically before God in intercession 
 and in full sympathy with God to bring 
 
64 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 His word of life to the Gentiles. This 
 means that Christ Jesus, in choosing Is- 
 rael unto Himself, was not a respecter of 
 nations any more than He is of persons, 
 but that, in choosing Israel to be so near 
 to Himself, He did so in the spiritual 
 interest of all peoples, that He might 
 thereby bring other peoples nigh unto 
 Himself. 
 
 The foregoing discussion points to the 
 great historical value of Jonah in a very 
 important respect. 
 
 ‘“ For all the earth is mine,’’ said Christ 
 to Moses when proposing to make Israel 
 His peculiar treasure, ‘‘ above all peo- 
 ple.’’ All other peoples were His and are 
 His. However unworthy any people may 
 be, yet Christ Jesus as Lord of all the 
 earth holds Himself divinely interested 
 in and redemptively responsible for them. 
 Israel was His accountable partner in this 
 interest and responsibility, as Christian 
 nations of to-day are through the Church 
 in their midst. Nineveh was Christ ’s, As- 
 syria was His own, although sadly alien- 
 ated from Him. Jonah’s ministry was not 
 Christ’s first effort to hold Nineveh back 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 65 
 
 from moral, spiritual and political down- 
 fall. In His concern for Nineveh Israel 
 was Christ’s natural resort when urged to 
 ery, ‘‘ Whom shall I send, and who will go 
 for us?’’? And by Israel is here meant - 
 specifically the northern kingdom, just 
 that part of the Holy Land that had re- 
 cently been brutally assaulted by Assyria 
 and robbed of large and goodly terri- 
 tories. Forgiveness of enemies is the law 
 of Christ: ‘‘ Do good to them which hate 
 you, bless them that curse you, and pray 
 for them which despitefully use you.’’ As 
 a ‘‘ kingdom of priests ’’ Israel was under 
 this law of Christ. Jonah supposedly, as 
 Jehovah’s messenger for the times, was 
 not only a Hebrew patriot but—in full 
 harmony therewith—he was also a priest 
 unto Christ in behalf of Assyria, and one 
 ready to go forth from the mercy-seat of 
 God willingly and faithfully to bear the 
 message of the Redeemer to Nineveh, 
 ‘<that great city.’’ 
 
 Jonah is the earliest of the prophetical 
 books; and this book so early illustrates 
 the truculent spirit of Israel regarding 
 her high calling in Christ toward foreign 
 nations, especially toward enemy nations. 
 
66 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 Forgiveness, love, prayer, long-suffering, 
 overcoming evil with good,—all this was 
 mostly foreign to Israel in international 
 relations; indeed to her mind it was not 
 good ‘‘ politics ’’ or wise ‘‘ diplomacy.”? 
 And even the prophet Jonah had to be 
 dragged to his post and service of duty. 
 He apparently would have bravely con- 
 fronted the haughty capital to consign her 
 to certain destruction; but to call her to 
 repentance with likelihood of her forgive- 
 ness by Jehovah, was to him most unpala- 
 table. How sadly derelict in intercession 
 must he have been, and how ungracious 
 was he consequently as Jehovah’s moni- 
 tory messenger! 
 
 As Jehovah saw Nineveh there was in 
 her situation a piteous appeal, ‘‘ Come 
 over, and help us! ’’ And Jehovah gained 
 the end of His compassion although by so 
 unfit an instrumentality. ‘‘ Some indeed 
 preach Christ even of envy and strife ;— 
 What then? notwithstanding, every way, 
 whether by pretence, or in truth, Christ is 
 preached.’’ ‘* And I therein do rejoice,” 
 said the truly Christly Paul, ‘‘ yea, and 
 will rejoice.’? Christ was preached to 
 Nineveh, and happily Nineveh listened to 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 67 
 
 Him, and through Him as Redeemer 
 Nineveh obtained at least temporary 
 political salvation. 
 
 There is wrapped up in this episode an 
 inspiring prophecy. Although Israel went 
 on and became so recreant to her interna- 
 tional calling as finally to compel her Lord 
 and King to place her under the heel of 
 the very nations whom she failed to serve 
 spiritually, yea, with whom she so often 
 committed adultery toward her true 
 Spouse, and although her King has com- 
 mitted her high office as a kingdom of 
 priests to other hands, yet ‘‘ God is able 
 to graff them in again.’’ ‘‘ Israel shall 
 be saved.’’ ‘‘ His compassions fail not ’”’ 
 toward her. ‘‘ As concerning the Gospel, 
 they are enemies for your sakes: but as 
 touching the election, they are beloved for 
 the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and 
 calling of God are without repentance ’’ 
 (Rom. 11:23, 26, 28, 29). The day is 
 coming when all Israelites will be true 
 priests of Christ in behalf of the nations 
 of the earth. Isaiah most aptly and strik- 
 ingly describes the relationship of millen- 
 nial Israel to Gentile nations. Whereas 
 the Apostle Paul could justly lay the 
 
68 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 charge against Israel of old, ‘‘ For the 
 name of God is blasphemed among the 
 Gentiles through you, as it is written ”’ 
 (Rom. 2:23), yet, when Jesus Christ shall 
 have returned to ‘‘ reign in Mount Zion, 
 and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients 
 (ancient people Israel) gloriously,’’ then, 
 as Isaiah says, ‘‘ Ye (restored Israel) 
 shall be named the Priests of the Lord: 
 men shall call you the Ministers of our 
 God ’’ (Is. 61:6). 
 
 VI. Probationary Relation of God to 
 Nations and Empires Through Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 By way of concrete illustration, the 
 Bible nowhere throws clearer light upon 
 the probationary aspect of the history of 
 all peoples, kingdoms and empires than is 
 done in the book of Jonah. 
 
 In the first place, it is evident that Nine- 
 veh had already been long under national 
 probation. God held her accountable to 
 Himself, and He was shocked in weighing 
 her in His moral balances to find that she 
 was so wanting as to demand His immedi- 
 ate Judgment. In His reluctance to visit 
 just desert upon her He made one more 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 69 
 
 moral effort. It was no ordinary warning 
 that Jehovah gave Nineveh this time. 
 Jonah was not only a preacher on the 
 streets of Nineveh; ‘‘ Jonas was a sign 
 unto the Ninevites.’? The extraordinary 
 diplomacy of God _ sueceeded,—Nineveh 
 capitulated most humbly and _ sincerely. 
 The result was that Nineveh had two and 
 one-half centuries more of probation 
 granted her. Another Jonah, however, 
 was not then sent to her. The message 
 of Nahum, consigning Nineveh peremp- 
 torily to the judgment of oblivion, breathes 
 no tone of possible amnesty, but only the 
 tone of unquenchable vengeance. ‘‘ There 
 is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is 
 grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee 
 shall clap the hands over thee: for upon 
 whom hath not thy wickedness passed con- 
 tinually?’’ (Nahum 3:19). 
 
 The Bible is frank and emphatic in de- 
 claring that the secret of all political his- 
 tory is just this probationary dealing of 
 the Son of God with earthly powers. At 
 His pleasure He allotted a remaining span 
 of one hundred and twenty years to the 
 probation of the antediluvian world. He 
 had long before powerfully preached to 
 
70 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 the antediluvian race through Enoch and 
 had confirmed that preaching by the sign 
 of Hnoch’s translation. Before ‘‘ bring- 
 ing in the flood upon the world of the un- 
 godly,’’ a final epoch of powerful preach- 
 ing of ‘‘ righteousness, temperance and 
 judgment to come’’ was conducted by 
 Christ—in the power of the Spirit that 
 afterwards raised Him from the dead— 
 through Noah. See I Peter 3:18-20 and 
 IT Peter 2:5. 
 
 To Abraham Jehovah revealed that not 
 for four hundred years yet should his seed 
 be permitted to occupy the promised land 
 in possession, explaining why in the words, 
 ‘* For the iniquity of the Amorites is not 
 yet full.’”’ Jehovah would yet wink at 
 their ignorance and sin for four hundred 
 years before dispossessing them. 
 
 By Jeremiah Jehovah explained His 
 purposes concerning Nebuchadnezzar: ‘‘ I 
 have made the earth, the man and the 
 beast that are upon the ground, by my 
 great power and by my outstretched arm, 
 and have given it unto whom it seemed 
 meet unto me. And now have I given all 
 these lands into the hands of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 71 
 
 and the beasts of the field have I given 
 also to serve him. And all nations shall 
 serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, 
 until the very time of his land come: and 
 then many nations and great kings shall 
 serve themselves of him. And it shall 
 come to pass that the nation and kingdom 
 which will not serve the same Nebuchad- 
 nezzar the king of Babylon, and that will 
 not put their neck under the yoke of the 
 king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, 
 saith the Lord, with the sword and with 
 the famine, and with the pestilence, until 
 I have consumed them by his hand ’’ (Jer. 
 27:5-8). To this same Nebuchadnezzar 
 Daniel said of Christ the Lord, ‘‘ He re- 
 moveth kings, and setteth up kings.’’ 
 Again he said, ‘‘ To the intent that the 
 living may know that the Most High rul- 
 eth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it 
 to whomsoever he will, and setteth over it 
 the basest of men.’’ And suiting the ac 
 tion to the word, the Son of God gave 
 Nebuchadnezzar twelve months of further 
 probation, then seven years of mania, 
 after which a ‘‘ man’s heart was given ”’ 
 him with which to glorify the Most High, 
 saying, ‘‘ Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise 
 
72 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 and extol and honour the King of Heaven, 
 all whose works are truth, and his ways 
 Judgment; and those that walk in pride he 
 is able to abase’’ (4:37). 
 
 As a part of Christ’s probationary deal- 
 ings with earthly political bodies, the book 
 of Jonah reveals the place of mighty re- 
 vivals in national history. A genuine and 
 powerful spiritual revival is always 
 marked by pungent conviction of sin and 
 by deep repentance toward God. It is 
 righteousness alone that exalteth a nation 
 truly and permanently. But nations are, 
 as was even Israel, ‘‘ bent to backsliding.’’ 
 Did not God send from time to time pro- 
 found awakenings, nations would hasten 
 to their doom with rapidly accelerating 
 speed, Thus Nineveh was happily arrested 
 and slowed up in her downward plunge. 
 Likewise Babylon was visited, principally 
 through Daniel at the court, by successive 
 waves of revived acknowledgment of Je- 
 hovah. But the ordinary Jewish captives 
 likewise were called to be a continual 
 priestly element in Babylon; for they were 
 charged through Jeremiah to ‘‘ geek the 
 peace of the city whither I have caused 
 you to be carried away captives, and pray 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 73 
 
 unto the Lord for it; for in the peace 
 thereof shall ye have peace ”’ (Jer. 29:7). 
 The Persian Empire experienced a re- 
 markable spiritual awakening during the 
 reign of Artaxerxes by virtue of the mar- 
 vellous dealings of the Lord in behalf of 
 the Jews through Queen Esther (Hsther 
 ethonil ayia WAY 
 
 Sometimes these revivals are brought 
 about through conspicuous persons of 
 political position and influence, like Jo- 
 seph or Daniel; sometimes by less con- 
 spicuous instrumentalities, as in the pres- 
 ent-day revivals in Corea and Russia. 
 But it all testifies that the Most High 
 King of Heaven is a Reviver and Saviour, 
 not only of individuals and of His Church, 
 but also of His earthly nations. With the 
 latter He deals on a broad scale, carrying 
 out His probationary program with na- 
 tions through many generations and even 
 centuries. And, as has already been said, 
 this probationary dealing of Jesus Christ 
 —as King of nations, as well as King of 
 Israel—constitutes the true key to the 
 study of national and international his- 
 tory. But it is not to be forgotten that it 
 is in the capacity of a redemptive King 
 
74 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 that the Son of God thus governs the 
 course of history. The motives and aims 
 of grace, mercy, long-suffering and great 
 kindness govern these dealings, while 
 punitive judgment and vengeance are His 
 ‘‘ strange work,’’ alien to His habit. It is 
 as a notable illustration of this fact that 
 the book of Jonah is of such special his- 
 torical value. 
 
 On the other hand, the book of Jonah, 
 taken in connection with the book of Na- 
 hum, in which the final decree of Nine- 
 veh’s destruction was issued, illustrates 
 that these very interventions of mercy and 
 of further probation are warnings of a 
 sure, irreparable judgment upon nations 
 that prove to be finally incorrigible. The 
 occasional visitations of wrath from the 
 Kking of Heaven upon nations of history 
 point forward as sure finger-boards to 
 ‘* that great day of the Lord.’’? Through- 
 out the Bible a ‘‘ Grand Assize ’’ is stead- 
 ily held in prospect: ‘‘ When the Son of 
 man shall come in his glory, and all the 
 holy angels with him, then shall he sit 
 upon the throne of his glory: and before 
 him shall be gathered all nations: and he 
 shall separate them one from another, as 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 75 
 
 a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 
 goats, and he shall set the sheep on his 
 right hand, and the goats on the left. 
 Then shall the King say unto them on 
 his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
 you from the foundation of the world :— 
 Then shall he say also unto them on his 
 left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
 everlasting fire, prepared for the devil 
 and his angels:—And these shall go 
 away into everlasting punishment: but 
 the righteous into life eternal’’ (Matt. 
 25: 31-34, 41, 46). This is not the judg- 
 ment of individuals, or that of the great 
 white throne after the millennium; but it 
 is the judicial session which the glorified 
 Jesus will hold upon His return to the 
 earth with the assembled nations of the 
 world—possibly including those already 
 governmentally extinct—to determine 
 their destinies during the millennial age. 
 Some will be effaced as governmental 
 bodies; others will be enlarged and ex- 
 alted; all that are spared will be interna- 
 tionally reorganized on the principle on 
 which the Most High first appointed the 
 locations and relations of the nations, as 
 
76 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 is expressed in Deut. 32:8: ‘* When the 
 Most High divided to the nations their in- 
 heritance, when he separated the sons of 
 Adam, he set the bounds of the people ac- 
 cording to the number of the children of 
 Israel.’’ 
 
 Because of this probationary character 
 of Nineveh’s history, her perilous condi- 
 tion constituted a strong appeal, not only 
 to Jehovah, but also to Jonah and to Is- 
 rael. There was a ‘‘S. O. 8.’’ message 
 sounding up to Heaven and over to 
 Heaven’s servant in Israel. ‘‘ Suspend 
 Other Service! ’’ ‘* Come over, and help 
 us!’’ Just when moral conditions are at 
 the point to challenge punitive response 
 from Heaven is the time when the moral 
 need cries the loudest and most urgently 
 for all possible remaining gospel help and 
 revival. Jonah was criminally reluctant 
 to answer this cry,—like a ship at sea 
 proving delinquent in suspending other 
 service to rush to the aid of a sister ship 
 in its extremity. When Nineveh repented 
 so gloriously and escaped, though so nar- 
 rowly, imminent destruction, Jonah had a 
 stirring lesson for his own heart and one 
 to take back to his native land,—the les- 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 17 
 
 son of what would have been but for the 
 needful gospel message. Did Jonah bear 
 Nineveh’s admonition back to bigoted, re- 
 sentful, unmerciful Israel? 
 
 The most important feature of the his- 
 torical value of the book of Jonah yet 
 noticed looms big upon the spiritually- 
 minded reader right here: Nineveh’s ap- 
 peal affords a striking anticipation of the 
 charge of Jesus Christ given His Church 
 for this age in Matt. 24:14: ‘* This gospel 
 of the kingdom shall be preached in all the 
 world for a witness unto all nations.’’? In 
 answer to the inquiries of His disciples, 
 Jesus had in vivid prospectus brought 
 them to the first terminus ad quem, ‘‘ the 
 end’’ to be reached in the utter demoli- 
 tion of the Holy City and of the temple by 
 Roman arms in 70 A. D. Now, sand- 
 wiched between that terminal point and 
 the other terminus ad quem of the dis- 
 ciples’ inquiries,—‘‘ the end of the world 
 (age)’? at His return—Jesus ordained 
 that a world-wide, uninterrupted procla- 
 mation should be maintained by His mes- 
 sengers of ‘‘ this gospel of the kingdom ”’ 
 —that is, of His heavenly kingship and 
 
 kingly return—‘ for a@ witness unto all 
 
78 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 nations.’’ And the book of Jonah teaches 
 us that this truth of the kingdom to be set 
 up in the earth by the glorified Jesus upon 
 returning from Heaven to earth is not just 
 a ‘‘ deeper truth ’’ for ‘‘ advanced believ- 
 ers,’’ but a converting message to be 
 borne to ‘‘ ungodly sinners,’’ as Enoch did 
 in his day (Jude 14, 15), as Paul did at 
 Thessalonica (I Thess. 1:9, 10); and that 
 not to ungodly individuals and classes 
 only, but also to ungodly nations and em- 
 pires, as did the prophets of old and as 
 did the Apostles of Jesus Christ. For in- 
 stance, Paul stayed only over three Sab- 
 bath days preaching at Thessalonica; and 
 yet so promptly and prominently did 
 he preach ‘‘ this gospel of the kingdom,”’ 
 that the accusation was brought before 
 the rulers of the city, ‘‘ These all do con- 
 trary to the decrees of Caesar, saying, 
 that there is another king, one Jesus ’’ 
 (Acts 17:7). Evidently one reason in the 
 Lord’s mind for the early destruction of 
 Jerusalem in this age was that gospel ac- 
 tivity might be soon decentered from the 
 old Mecca of the faith and sent forth to 
 establish centers in the midst of all na- 
 tions of the earth. This is an essential, 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 19 
 
 the most essential, factor in His proba- 
 tionary program for every nation through- 
 out the entire Christian dispensation. 
 
 VII. ‘‘ The Sign of the Prophet Jonas.’’ 
 
 ‘¢Then certain of the scribes and of the 
 Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we 
 would see a sign from thee. But he an- 
 swered and said unto them, An evil and 
 adulterous generation seeketh after a 
 sign; and there shall no sign be given to 
 it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for 
 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’? (Matt. 12:38-40). 
 The deepest historical significance to be 
 drawn from the book of Jonah is evidently 
 intimated by this word of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It were only superficial to say that there 
 is a striking analogy between the entomb- 
 ment of Jonah and that of Jesus Christ. 
 Yet even the mere equivalent of time be- 
 tween the two is of much historical value. 
 The record of Jonah states as explicitly as 
 human language is capable of doing, that 
 the prophet Jonah was entombed three 
 days and three nights—seventy-two hours. 
 
80 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 Jesus stated that His entombment was to 
 be of precisely the same length of time. 
 This establishes the certain basis upon 
 which the day and the hour of Jesus’ en- 
 tombment, and the day and the hour of 
 His being quickened from the dead, can be 
 determined. These are important data 
 constituting evidences that Jesus was the 
 very Christ,—evidences which a keen, sin- 
 cere and competent Jewish investigator 
 would require. From this basis, however, 
 ecclesiastical tradition and _ celebration 
 have long rashly and injuriously departed. 
 Nothing but a strict adherence to this 
 time-basis will satisfy all the demands of 
 Old Testament types and of New Testa- 
 ment records. This fact renders this item 
 contributed by the book of Jonah of great 
 historical value. 
 
 But something of far deeper signifi- 
 cance and higher importance is embraced 
 in Jonah’s being ‘‘ a sign unto the Nine- 
 vites.’? What does this expression mean? 
 It certainly must mean that the power of 
 Jonah’s message was not confined to the 
 message, but that the message derived its 
 effect from the messenger himself. Evi- 
 dently this was due to the fact that Jonah 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 81 
 
 came to Nineveh as one risen from the 
 dead. But even this was not all, for Jesus 
 spoke of some on this wise: ‘‘ Neither will 
 they be persuaded, though one rose from 
 the dead.’’? Jonah came to the Ninevites 
 as one who had died for them and risen 
 again. He was a sign to them of mercy 
 from God through substitutionary death 
 and resurrection. Not to claim that Jonah 
 actually died and rose from death, nor 
 that he actually died a substitutionary 
 death for the Ninevites. But he was the 
 ‘‘sion,’’ the figure, of actual atoning 
 death in their behalf and a ‘“‘ sign”’ of 
 the living, merciful presence of the dying 
 One. That One was Jehovah who sent 
 Jonah, in whose name Jonah appeared 
 among them in semblance as well as in 
 message. 
 
 Thus the book of Jonah in its supreme 
 feature attests that most important se- 
 eret of universal history,—that the world 
 stands and moves on to its final restitu- 
 tion by virtue of ‘‘ the Lamb slain from 
 the foundation of the world.’’? There is 
 no understanding of Nineveh’s repentance 
 and of the remission of her impending 
 judgment, but through the evident fact 
 
82 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 that the power and effect of the atonement 
 of the Lamb of God was being realized 
 then and there. Those words of Jonah 
 recorded in 4:2 have been found to be the 
 pivot of the whole story, namely, Jonah’s 
 testimony to Jehovah as ‘‘ a gracious God, 
 and merciful, slow to anger, and of great 
 kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.’ 
 This means that the power of Calvary was 
 in operation and bringing forth fruit in 
 Nineveh in that day. And this signifies 
 nothing less than that Calvary is in opera- 
 tion in history universally, that God’s 
 dealing with all men, with all nations and 
 with all empires, is always through the re- 
 demption that is in Jesus Christ. 
 
 At the first, however, this involves 
 human reason in an apparently inex- 
 plicable dilemma. How can it be that 
 atonement for sin is confined mediatorially 
 to the actual cross of Calvary, and yet 
 that the power and the effects of the blood 
 of Jesus were in full force all the way 
 back to the fall of man? It is not enough 
 to explain Nineveh’s case, and all others 
 throughout world-history, to say that the 
 sacrifice of Calvary was always ‘‘in the 
 mind of God.’’? The Bible gives no such 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 83 
 
 explanation. Is it valid to say, that Nine- 
 veh was not really forgiven about eight 
 hundred and fifty years before Christ, but 
 was first forgiven after the blood of Jesus 
 had been  shed,—‘‘ retroactively for- 
 given ’’? The Bible does not support 
 the position that forgiveness, real and 
 sweet, was not enjoyed in pre-Christian 
 times. Are we then compelled to conclude 
 that the literal cross was not actually. 
 necessary for atonement, but necessary, 
 forsooth, only as a visible revelation and 
 dramatization of a mystical atonement 
 following man in his history all the way 
 down from the fall? The Bible does not 
 give to Christ’s death on Calvary this 
 merely spectacular place and meaning. 
 Surely, revelation from God—not the 
 mere theory of human reason—is needed; 
 and such revelation we have. 
 
 A clear exposition of the mystery is 
 found in Heb. 9: 24-26: ‘‘ Christ is not 
 entered into the holy places made with 
 hands, which are figures of the true; but 
 into Heaven itself, now to appear in the 
 presence of God for us: nor yet that he 
 should offer himself often, as the high 
 priest entereth into the holy place every 
 
84 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 year with blood of others; for then must 
 he often have suffered since the founda- 
 tion of the world; but now once in the end 
 of the world hath he appeared to put away 
 sin by the sacrifice of himself.’’ The last 
 verse especially gives us the needed rev- 
 elation. 
 
 It is admitted in this passage that sacri- 
 fice for sin was needed from the founda- 
 tion of the world. And it is clearly im- 
 plied that from the foundation of the 
 world the sacrifice of Christ was effective. 
 It is virtually declared that, if such were 
 not the case, this sacrifice should have 
 been made actually in advance, or for all 
 men living before Calvary never forgive- 
 ness could be found. There is no hint of 
 a retroactive application of Jesus’ blood, 
 by which prior sins could be forgiven 
 after the event of Christ’s death. Fur- 
 thermore, it is clearly implied that, if 
 Christ’s sacrifice had needed to be made 
 at the beginning to be effective then, it 
 must have needed to be often repeated. 
 This would mean that the sacrifice of 
 Jesus Christ for sin was only temporary 
 and limited in power, like the sacrifices of 
 the Levitical code. The passage clearly 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 85 
 
 implies, on the contrary, that the one 
 sacrifice of Christ on Calvary—far down 
 the stream of history—operated in as full 
 saving power immediately upon man’s fall 
 as if it had been enacted on that fateful 
 evening when the anxious Christ cried 
 after the fugitive pair, ‘‘ Where art 
 thou? ’’? It is, however, natural, even for 
 sanctified reason (and it is perfectly legiti- 
 mate) to inquire, How could this be? 
 
 This inquiry is clearly and beautifully 
 answered in this very verse, although it 
 is somewhat obscured by the translation 
 of the Authorized Version. No doubt 
 many have been puzzled by the expres- 
 sion, ‘‘in the end of the world.’’ One 
 would rightly say that that time has not 
 even yet come. But the Revised Version 
 rightly translates it ‘‘ ages ’’ instead of 
 ‘¢ world,’’—‘‘ once in the end of the ages.”’ 
 One’s mind is, however, still confused; for 
 the ages had not then, and they have not 
 yet, reached their termination. But ter- 
 mination is not at all the intended mean- 
 ing of the word ‘‘end.’? The marginal 
 reading —a perfectly correct one—1is 
 ‘¢ eonsummation,’’—‘‘ once at the con- 
 summation of the ages hath he appeared 
 
86 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 to put away sin by the sacrifice of him- 
 self.?? What a glorious light this passage 
 now throws for us upon the death of 
 Jesus! His cross marks the ‘‘ end ’’ of 
 all ages—past, present, and to come—in 
 the sense of the objective, the goal, the 
 conjunctive, the confluence,—yea, His 
 cross marks the ‘*‘ consummation ’’ of all 
 ages. 
 
 The ages are not mere successive periods 
 of time, or stages of progress: they con- 
 stitute a unity, an organism, a construc- 
 tive whole. The ages are like a living, 
 highly organized body. The dying Lamb 
 is, as it were, the heart in this complex 
 organism, pulsating with equal saving 
 energy throughout the whole body of the 
 ages, whether in the freshly desecrated 
 Garden of Eden, or in the New Jerusalem, 
 of which it is said, ‘‘ The Lord God AI- 
 mighty and the Lamb are the temple 
 Oli? 
 
 Human reason can of itself conceive of 
 efficacy from an act only as ex post facto, 
 subsequent to the event; that is, effect 
 must follow cause in time as well as in 
 power. But it is not so at all with God, 
 and it is not so with enlightened faith. 
 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 87 
 
 ‘¢ By faith we understand.’’ By faith we 
 understand under the light of God’s Word 
 that Jesus is God’s Lamb of all the ages 
 conjointly, and hence equally. The ages 
 are so unified and organized that, had 
 Jesus died at the beginning of the ages as 
 a mere succession of time, His blood 
 would have been of but partial, ex post 
 facto, efficacy; whereas, Jesus’ dying at 
 ‘‘the consummation of the ages’’ as a 
 composite whole gives His blood full and 
 equal efficacy throughout all ages. 
 
 ‘< He made the ages.’’ The ages are a 
 creation, created by Christ Jesus for the 
 Father and after the Father’s sovereign 
 design. They all together form an incom- 
 parable mosaic, of which the Lamb is the 
 centralizing, organizing, harmonizing, 
 commanding objective. Place Him any- 
 where else than at the ‘‘ consummation,”’ 
 the confluence, and the pattern becomes 
 unintelligible and beautiless. ‘‘ The ages 
 were framed by the word (personal Word) 
 of God.’’ The ages constitute an impos- 
 ing piece of divine architecture. The 
 Architect and Builder is God the Son, 
 ‘¢the Word of God,’’ Jesus Christ. Un- 
 believing mortal, however great a self- 
 
88 UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF 
 
 styled philosopher or scientist he be, can 
 see no wondrous temple of the ages, with 
 the Lamb as the chief cornerstone, the 
 Lamb as the capstone, the Lamb as the 
 architectural ‘‘ theme ’’ of this design, 
 the symphony of all the exquisite, intri- 
 cate, delicate expression of this edifice; 
 but ‘‘ by faith we understand ”’ this mag- 
 nificent, boundless revelation. ‘The fur- 
 ther the ages wheel into place historically, 
 the more all realms of beings will be im- 
 pressed with Him—the central personality 
 of all ages—as THE Lamp oF THE AGES. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
DESCRIPTIVE PRICE LIST OF WRITINGS 
 
 By W. C. Stevens 
 Formerly Principal of the Missionary Training Institute, 
 Nyack, N. Y. 
 
 Books 
 
 THE BOOK OF DANIEL, 1915, Second Edition, 1918; Cloth, pp. 224, $1.35; 
 
 postpaid. Dedicated to_the fifteen hundred students who passed under 
 the author’s teaching at Nyack. Introduction by James M. Gray, Dean of 
 Moody Institute. A book especially for this day of world-convulsion 
 and of age-crisis. A judicious critic thus describes the author’s work: ‘‘His 
 unfolding of the book is the book’s unfolding of itself.’’ 
 
 THE UNIQUE HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE BOOK OF JONAH, 1924, 
 
 Cloth, pp. 88, $1; postpaid, $1.10. Original in treatment. ‘‘Both satis- 
 fying to the heart and illuminating to the mind. ... The development of the 
 theme leads on to a worthy climax; and those who rejoice when Christ 1s 
 exalted will find special satisfaction in the closing pages of the book.” (rom 
 Philip Mauro’s ‘‘Foreword.’’) 
 
 MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOM, Revised Edition, 1915, 130 Pages; 
 
 Cloth, 60c; Paper, 35c. Introduction by Lapsley A. McAfee, Pastor of First 
 Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, Cal, Contains twelve chapters on as Many 
 topics vitally related to Christ’s Second Coming, which are treated in what 
 has been declared by many readers to be an unusually clear and happy way. 
 “‘Tust what we need for young people,” writes one standing at the center of 
 young people’s work in California. The first chapters are: I. The Sure Light 
 of Prophecy. II. The Three Threes of Christ’s Coming. III. The Salva- 
 tion Yet to Be Revealed. IV. Occupy Till I Come. V. The Bride of 
 Christ in Parable. VI. Christ’s Conquest of the Sky. 
 
 TRIUMPHS OF THE CROSS, Revised Edition, 1915, 100 Pages; Paper, 25c. 
 Introductory notes by Max Wood Moorhead and by President Blanchard 
 of Wheaton College. Treats of the “deeper lessons of the Cross.’’ It has 
 
 roved to be ‘‘meat in due season’”’ to many. This little book, in terse and 
 ucid manner, presents the triumphs of the Cross in relation successively 
 to The Law, Regeneration, The World, Satan, Sickness, Cleansing, The 
 Old Man, Suffering, The Body of Christ, The Perishing, The Kingdom, and 
 Eternal Ages. 
 
 WHY I REJECT THE “HELPING BAND” OF MILLENNIAL DAWN, Re- 
 vised Edition, 1915, 132 Pages; Paper, 40c. Prefatory Testimonial by R. A. 
 Torrey, Dean of Bible Institute of Los Angeles. This is the only book 
 offered to the public which fully expounds, rather than merely declaring, 
 the fatal errors of Millennial Dawn. Myr. Torrey says: ‘‘I consider it, taking 
 it allin ali, as the most satisfactory reply to Pastor Russell and his vagaries 
 that there is to put into the hand of the every-day Christian who has been 
 at all troubled by the false teaching of Pastor Russell.” 
 
 Add 5c. on the last three books when ordered by mail. 
 
 Forthcoming: REVELATION THE CROWN-JEWEL OF BIBLICAL 
 PROPHECY, In Three Volumes: 1. Old Testament Prophecy. If. New 
 Testament Pre-Revelation Prophecy. III. The Book of Revelation. 
 The object of this work is to unfold all Biblical prophecy as the organizing 
 factor of Scriptural revelation and in sufficient fulness from the beginning 
 through to have its climax in the book of Revelation readily comprehensible. 
 The intensive study of the book of Revelation will be after the manner 
 of the author’s book on Daniel. 
 
Tracts 
 
 ARRAIGNMENT OF MILLENNIAL DAWN, a Booklet, 5c. This is the last 
 chapter of the above book on Millennial Dawn, and it is intended for the 
 widest circulation in disseminating the things proved by the exposition of 
 the preceding chapters. 
 
 PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST, 5c. Most highly commended by one 
 versed in all prayer literature and in the secrets of prayer. 
 
 THE GLORY OF ALL LANDS, 10c. A unique study of the Holy Land from 
 Eden to earth’s final restoration, with a striking map of the tribal partition 
 of the land in the millennium. 
 
 THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE PRE-INCARNATE CHRIST, 10c. Finding 
 in John 1, 1-18 a luminous and profound biography of the Son of God from 
 eternity to incarnation. 
 
 THE LORD’S DAY NOT THE SABBATH, 5c. Called ‘‘the best thing on 
 the subject” by one whose name is well known today. A safeguard against 
 Sabbatarianism. 
 
 SANCTIFICATION, 5c. Entirely independent and distinctive. Embraces 
 and harmonizes the various, often conflicting, phrases and theories on a@ 
 vital subject. 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE, 3c. A clear Scriptural and philosophical 
 exposition which leaves no room for soul-sleeping, annihilation, etc. 
 
 THE FALLACY OF THE 2520 YEARS, 3c. Showing how groundless and 
 harmful is the modern theory that the ‘‘seven times’’ measure 2520 years 
 of the ‘‘Times of the Gentiles,” and that the time measurements of Daniel 
 and Revelation are to be construed on the principle of “‘each day for a 
 year.” Urgently needed today 
 
 THE LATTER RAIN, 3c. Third edition, revised; very popular and widely 
 distributed. Calling to expectation of increasing revival, demonstration 
 of the Spirit and world-wide evangelization till Jesus comes. ’ 
 
 JESUS, OUR HEALER, 3c. Third edition, revised; a clear presentation 
 of the atonement for healing. Widely distributed and greatly used for many. 
 
 THE LORD’S HEALING, 3c. Second edition, revised; clearly discriminat- 
 ing Christ’s healing from all other cures, and very helpful to definite faith. 
 
 HEALING IN THE NAME OF JESUS, 2c. Especially designed to explain 
 the nature of this healing and the plan of its ministry. 
 
 THE SALVATION OF THE BODY, 2c. Brings out in Scriptural importance 
 the reserved salvation, ‘‘the redemption of our body,’’ and shows its relation 
 to present supernatural healing. Much needed by all Christians. 
 
 THE CROSS AND SICKNESS, 2c. Consists mainly of an exposition of Matt. 
 8, 1-17, bringing forth the ground principles from this Magna Charta of 
 divine healing. 
 
 THE CROSS AND CLEANSING, 2c. An important chapter from ‘“Triumphs 
 of the Cross,” of special help for seekers of heart purity. 
 
 THE CROSS AND THE OLD MAN, 2c._ Also from ‘“Triumphs of the Cross,” 
 clearing up perplexities regarding full deliverance through Christ. 
 
 THE THREE THREES OF CHRIST’S SECOND COMING, 3c. Taken from 
 ‘‘Mysteries of the Kingdom.” Most useful for immediate illumination 
 on the subject. 
 
 Prices Per Dozen: 2c. Tracts, 20c.; 3c. Tracts, 30c. 
 Add lc. for Postage on every one to three Tracts. 
 
 Remit with orders to the Author: 
 W. C. STEVENS, Midland Bible School, Shenandoah, Iowa. 
 
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