"MERCY NOT DESERVED" (An Article by Christian Henry) ~ 7/30/26

“Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:17).

The book of Jonah opens with a call from the Lord to Jonah telling him to go to Nineveh and cry against the wickedness in the city. Jonah was terrified at the prospect of going to Nineveh and did what he could to reject this call. Why was he so hesitant? It would make sense for his hesitancy to be based on fear because we hear that Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, an Empire notorious for its cruelty and idolatry. However, that wasn’t it at all. As Jonah reveals in the final chapter (4:2), he didn’t want to go because he knew God would show them mercy, which he didn’t think they deserved. He had been long aware how terrible this city was and feared they would be shown this unearned favor.

So, what does he do? He flees. He goes down to the docks and finds a boat that’s going to a city that is in the exact opposite direction of where he was told to go: Tarshish. He assumed that the city would be shown goodness if he went, so he attempted to flee from the presence of the Lord; an impossible task. While Jonah was sleeping below deck, God threw a monsoon at the ship, which caused much panic on board. The men then found out about Jonah’s disobedience, and they cast him into the sea, which immediately calmed the storm.

After being thrown overboard, Jonah is swallowed by a big fish, where he stays three days and three nights, as our verse says. So, what is going on here? Jonah rejected the Lord’s call and was punished for it. God’s swift hammer of justice was dropped on the head of Jonah. However, along with God’s justice, this story also shows God’s mercy. He was thrown overboard, but the storm stopped immediately. He was alone in open water, but a fish immediately swallowed him. A fish swallowed him, but it was a special fish, one that he could live in while it traveled to Nineveh. All over this story, we see the just mercy of the Lord.

The ultimate irony was that Jonah’s story was a microscopic version of what would happen in Nineveh. At every turn Jonah rejected the word of the Lord and was shown mercy anyway, whether that be with the storm or with the fish that swallowed him. In the same way, the city of Nineveh, which was notorious for rejecting the word of the Lord at every turn, was shown mercy. Zooming out further, we are shown a similarly unearned mercy in salvation. The thought that we do anything to deserve the salvation of our own accord is a fallacy. “But I read my Bible and pray all the time,” you may say. That’s great. It’s important to talk to and especially listen to God daily. It will not save your soul. It’s only by putting on the clean robes of Christ to appear righteous before God. A true salvation will drive our prayer or scripture-reading life, but no one will get to Heaven based on how devoted they were to Bible reading and prayer. One’s eternal hope is based solely upon faith in Jesus Christ - His blood and righteousness. We earn nothing. It’s all of Grace.