When Jesus taught in the cities where His disciples came from, the Pharisees and Sadducees tested his authority and credibility by asking Him for a sign. Jesus saw through the pretentiousness of their hearts, and He replied to them that He would not give them any sign besides the "sign of Jonah." "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so [would] the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:39-40, English Standard Version used throughout). When Jesus Christ fulfilled this prophecy by His subsequent death and resurrection, He not only established His divine authority as the Messiah, but He also sent a strong message of repentance to the unbelieving generations.

The gospels' parallel accounts state that Jesus said, "For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this ['evil and adulterous'] generation...The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold something greater than Jonah is here" (Luke 11:30-32, c.f. Matthew 12:39).

God described the city of Nineveh as a place of "violent" people, and He fully expected this gentile (non-Israelite) city to turn from their "evil way" of life (Jonah 3:8). He knew, though, that this city, which had more than 120,000 people did "not know their right hand from their left," and God had "pity" for them (Jonah 4:11). When Jonah prophesied to Nineveh that they would be overtaken unless they repented, they amazingly chose to humble themselves under God's mighty hand and changed their ways. Then God had mercy on them, and He did not overtake Nineveh in that time and generation.

But in context of the sign of Jonah, Jesus said to the Pharisees and Sadducees, "You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times" (Matthew 16:4). In other words, Jesus was saying they knew God's prophecies, warnings of repentance and way of life, yet they were choosing to be ignorant and wise in their own eyes. If they did not heed the sign of Jonah and believe in Jesus as their prophet and Messiah, then they had the same threat of being overcome by their sins that Nineveh did. So Jesus gave them this sign of Jonah because He wanted them to repent and recognize the salvation standing before their eyes.

Matthew records that Jesus likewise "began to denounce the cities where most of His mighty works had been done, because they didn't repent," even though sinful cities of the past such as Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom would have repented if they had seen Jesus' mighty works (Matthew 11:21-24). This disbelief and lack of respect for Jesus echoed the attitude of the individuals from Jesus' hometown where Jesus had also chosen "not to do many works" (Matthew 13:58). However, this may not have been the case if only they had followed Nineveh's example of repentance in response to the sign of Jonah.

At Jesus' birth, a man named Simeon had predicted that this would happen. He told Mary that Jesus was "appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed...so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed" (Luke 2:34-35). But when Simeon picked up Jesus as a child he said, "My eyes have seen [God's] salvation that [He] has prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel" (Luke 2:30-32).

In the time before Jesus' death and resurrection, Jesus focused primarily on preaching to the Jews and Israelites (Matthew 10:5-8). Then after spending three days and three nights in the grave, He revealed to His apostles that eternal salvation would be offered to all people--including the Gentiles, as Simeon had prophesied. Jonah similarly did not preach repentance to the gentiles until after God had put him inside the belly of the giant fish for three days and three nights. God was able to use his lack of obedience to symbolize His even greater plan when Jesus came to the earth to completely fulfill the meaning of the sign of Jonah.

At the end of Jonah's story, the Bible says Jonah was angry that God had shown mercy to this gentile nation that had repented. Jonah "prayed to the Lord and said, '...[I] made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster'" (Jonah 4:2). It appears that Jonah did not want God to show mercy towards them, because he felt that they should have been overtaken. However, the Scriptures teach that "the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise (concerning justice) as some count slowness," such as Jonah had presumed, but God is patient and "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). And that perhaps is the greatest lesson behind the sign of Jonah--that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son [to ultimately fulfill the sign of Jonah], that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

As Christians today, do we see Jesus Christ's death and resurrection as a "glory to Israel" and a "light" to the gentiles? Or do we view Jesus Christ's fulfillment of the sign of Jonah as some of the Pharisees and Sadducees did, with disbelief? The Bible records many Israelites, and even some of the Pharisees, who eventually recognized the sign of Jonah at Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, and they repented from their ways to follow Jesus Christ. We likewise need to be sure that we have recognized Jesus' sign and have become a generation of believers. All the while we also need to make sure that we do not view those who do not know God as Jonah had viewed the people of Nineveh, because this sign of Jonah reveals the hearts of Jesus Christ's followers even to this day. Since Jesus has established His divine authority as a prophet by fulfilling the sign of Jonah, let's take on this sign of hope and share with the world His message of repentance and salvation.