When Jesus speaks of “the sign of Jonah” and calls himself “greater than Jonah” (Matthew 12:41), he means that, as Jonah was sacrificed to save the sailors, so he would die to save us.2 Of course, the differences between Jonah and Jesus are many and profound. Jonah was cast out for his own sins, but that was not true of Jesus (Hebrews 4:15). Jonah only came near to death and went under the water, while Jesus actually died and came under the weight of our sin and punishment. Yet the similarity is there too.
