The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God's Mercy

by Timothy J. Keller

So Jonah had a problem with the job he was given. But he had a bigger problem with the One who gave it to him.8 Jonah concluded that because he could not see any good reasons for God’s command, there couldn’t be any. Jonah doubted the goodness, wisdom, and justice of God.

And that is the problem facing Jonah, namely, the mystery of God’s mercy. It is a theological problem, but it is at the same time a heart problem. Unless Jonah can see his own sin, and see himself as living wholly by the mercy of God, he will never understand how God can be merciful to evil people and still be just and faithful.

The Bible does not say that every difficulty is the result of sin—but it does teach that every sin will bring you into difficulty.

First, we learn that people outside the community of faith have a right to evaluate the church on its commitment to the good of all.

We are also shown that the way to “love” neighbors is not merely through sentiment but through costly, sacrificial, practical action to meet material and economic needs.

Often the first step in coming to one’s senses spiritually is when we finally start thinking of somebody—anybody—other than ourselves.

God’s grace becomes wondrous, endlessly consoling, beautiful, and humbling only when we fully believe, grasp, and remind ourselves of all three of these background truths—that we deserve nothing but condemnation, that we are utterly incapable of saving ourselves, and that God has saved us, despite our sin, at infinite cost to himself.

That is, God has created the world so that cruelty, greed, and exploitation have natural, disintegrative consequences that are a manifestation of his anger toward evil.

To work against social injustice and to call people to repentance before God interlock theologically.

If he had to choose between the security of Israel and loyalty to God, well, he was ready to push God away. That is not just concern and love for one’s country; that is a kind of deification of it.

If love for your country’s interests leads you to exploit people or, in this case, to root for an entire class of people to be spiritually lost, then you love your nation more than God. That is idolatry, by any definition.

In other words, if we feel more righteous as we read the Bible, we are misreading it; we are missing its central message. We are reading and using the Bible rightly only when it humbles us, critiques us, and encourages us with God’s love and grace despite our flaws.

If you want to understand your own behavior, you must understand that all sin against God is grounded in a refusal to believe that God is more dedicated to our good, and more aware of what that is, than we are. We distrust God because we assume he is not truly for us, that if we give him complete control, we will be miserable.

The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us. The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.16

toward them to set no other limit than the end of his resources.”5 What does this all mean practically for us? It means that Christians cannot think that their role in life is strictly to build up the church, as crucial as that is. They must also, as neighbors and citizens, work sacrificially for the common life and common good.6

To work for better public schools in a poor neighborhood or to end segregation in a country requires political engagement, and Christians have done so and should continue to do so. Nevertheless, while individual Christians must do this, they should not identify the church itself with one set of public policies or one political party as the Christian one.

However, if you realize that our salvation cost Jesus his glory in heaven and his life on earth, that it entailed unimaginable suffering for him, then you begin to understand that grace is not cheap but costly (Philippians 2:1–11). Unless we see what it cost him to save us, we won’t be glad to obey and serve him, regardless of the cost to us.

Something he loved withered and died. Why did God do it? Because he was being merciful and therefore was doing spiritual surgery on the idols of Jonah’s heart.

The book of Jonah is a shot across the bow. God asks, how can we look at anyone—even those with deeply opposing beliefs and practices—with no compassion?

shoes and into our condition and problems and walked with us. If you have a friend who’s going through a really hard time, don’t be too busy to spend time with them. Walk with them through this suffering. Of course you’re going to weep. It’s going to hurt! That’s what God did for you.