Jonah 2:1- Sin, Chastisement and Repentance

1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish…


Jonah had rebelled and refused to do God’s clear bidding, though he knew better. This is what all sin is like. It is rank disobedience to the clear wishes of God. It is defiance in the face of Omnipotence. It is preferring evil over the goodness and purity of God. It is forsaking the fountain of living waters and hewing out broken cisterns. It is preferring the darkness to the light.

But we make excuses – we like to take the edge off our sin by couching it in soft terms, but using alternate words that make it seem "not so bad." We have "gotten off track;" we have "made a mistake;" we have "been bad".... No we haven’t! We have sinned against the God of Heaven, and we have done this sin in the light because we know Who it is that we have offended.

But see – Jonah prayed to HIS God from the belly of the fish. Jonah is a believer – one of God’s own – a prophet of the Lord. So we see that saints sin. It is very important to acknowledge this in more than just a cursory way. Saints sin in the light. The best of them. And the reason for it is that we are sinners saved by grace and being sanctified by Almighty God through the obedience of faith, which He works in every one who truly belongs to Him.

He paid the price for all the sins we committed and all the sins we will commit until we come to glory. There is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Jonah is in Christ Jesus. We are in Christ Jesus, if we truly believe. But if we are not in Christ Jesus we will take this wonderful truth and twist it in order to justify our continuation in sin – which nobody who truly knows Him would ever do. No Christian would ever say. “Let us sin the more that grace may abound,” but is, rather, mortified – even horrified – that he has gone against his Lord.

True Christians are deeply grieved by their sins. They are at war with the flesh, putting it to death daily – taking up the whole armour of God against the evil one. Every child of God will struggle against sin and will sometimes fall, yet every true child of God will always get back up when he falls. It may take time – but it will always happen. Why? Because God is at work in him to bring this about, as He has been in Jonah. Jonah sinned by running – God brought the storm that chastised and prevented him. Jonah commanded his own death in the sea – God prepared a great fish to keep him for three days and nights. As we shall see, there were also other problems with Jonah – but God was working in those, too, in order to sanctify him in the truth.

Meanwhile, in the following verses does Jonah repent because he is good/smart/righteous of himself? Or does he repent because God is at work in all things for His good, and so moves nature, events and people in his life that he comes to the place of repentance? And has not God undertaken to complete in every one of His saints that good work that He started unto the Day of Jesus Christ?

The key word in this verse, then, is that it is HIS God that he prays to. Jonah’s sin has not removed him from God’s love. It is not a sin unto death. Christians are often warned about such things, but the warning itself is the very means by which all of God’s children are steered into the right way. His sheep hear His voice.

The very first thing we feel when we sin is that we cannot go to God because He will hate us for what we have done. But that is the flesh and the devil, speaking the age-old lie about God. There is but one sin that cannot be brought to God for forgiveness and only one, namely blasphemy against the Holy Spirit – and if you had committed it you wouldn’t be coming to God at all. All others sins are forgivable, without exception. For the professing Christian to think his sin is unforgivable is to make God a liar. If Christ bought us out of perdition when we were His enemies, and we have now believed on Him, then how can we think He will not forgive us our transgressions now that He has redeemed us?

Jonah committed a great sin of disobedience – but by the grace of God he was brought to the place where he repented and, though he fell, he never lost the faith in God by which his God had justified him. It was HIS God that he prayed to out of the depths of a watery hell. A hell of his own making, but a hell that the grace of God had turned to Jonah’s benefit. When we repent as believers, then God resumes our intimate walk with Him from that place where he found us humbled by our own repentance. There is no more any obstacle – no divine grudge – no price to pay for the restoration of fellowship. There may, however, be consequences to our sin that we must endure for our good and for God's glory.