Jonah 1:17 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. Strauss said, "He who will rid the world of priests, must first rid religion from miracles." But the Christian religion stands or falls with the supernatural. A man may believe in a living God who works miracles, and yet hesitate and recoil at the extraordinary one which is narrated in the history of Jonah. No one will say that every man who believes that God can work miracles is bound to accept implicitly every miraculous event described in the Bible as having really happened, and as being the work of God. Let no one think that he is not a Christian because he must hesitate about the literal interpretation of this miracle of the "great fish." Instead of adopting any artificial interpretation of this miracle, it would be better to suspend our judgment, and acknowledge that we cannot come to any conclusion about it. At any rate there is only the choice between saying that the whole history of Jonah is a parable, or an allegory, including the preaching in Nineveh, and saying that every event in it is related as an actual occurrence. To suppose that Jonah fell into a "mysterious hiding-place" is only to set aside the biblical miracle, and put another and more wonderful one in its place. We seek an answer to the general question, whether it is so wonderful a thing to believe that God works miracles: or whether, on the contrary, the belief that He must and does do so, is not founded on the very being of God, and on His relations with men. If we arrive at that decision, the question of the miracle by which Jonah was saved will be settled. A God without miracles would be the greatest miracle of all. If we have not a God who works miracles, we have no living God; and if no living God who communicates with men, then no God at all. Whoever knows anything of the living God, cannot possibly think that God has tied His own hands, once for all, with laws of nature. The rank and privilege of man demands Divine miracles. God must work for us in extraordinary and exceptional ways, or we could neither fear nor love Him, and He would soon be indifferent to us. (Otto Funcke.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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