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

by Timothy J. Keller

Jonah wants a God of his own making, a God who simply smites the bad people, for instance, the wicked Ninevites and blesses the good people, for instance, Jonah and his countrymen. When the real God—not Jonah’s counterfeit—keeps showing up, Jonah is thrown into fury or despair. Jonah finds the real God to be an enigma because he cannot reconcile the mercy of God with his justice. How, Jonah asks, can God be merciful and forgiving to people who have done such violence and evil? How can God be both merciful and just?

This is one of the main messages of the book, namely, that God cares how we believers relate to and treat people who are deeply different from us.

God wants us to treat people of different races and faiths in a way that is respectful, loving, generous, and just.

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.

Common grace means that nonbelievers often act more righteously than believers despite their lack of faith; whereas believers, filled with remaining sin, often act far worse than their right belief in God would lead us to expect. All this means Christians should be humble and respectful toward those who do not share their faith. They should be appreciative of the work of all people, knowing that nonbelievers have many things to teach them.

Often the first step in coming to one’s senses spiritually is when we finally start thinking of somebody—anybody—other than ourselves. So he is saying something like this: “You are dying for me, but I should be dying for you. I’m the one with whom God is angry. Throw me in.”

It is when a person comes to acknowledge his or her sin and confesses it before God and when, as a consequence, God restores the broken Creator-creature relationship.”10 That’s the real deliverance—not the release from the fish.

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.

If they value the economic and military flourishing of their country over the good of the human race and the furtherance of God’s work in the world, they are sinning like Jonah. Their identity is more rooted in their race and nationality than in being saved sinners and children of God.

Jesus is the prophet Jonah should have been. Yet, of course, he is infinitely more than that. Jesus did not merely weep for us; he died for us. Jonah went outside the city, hoping to witness its condemnation, but Jesus Christ went outside the city to die on a cross to accomplish its salvation.

“Each [Christian] will so consider with himself . . . a debtor to his neighbors, and that he ought in exercising kindness 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 What is that? In the most basic sense, it refers to things that benefit the entire human community, rather than only the selfish interests of some individuals, groups, or classes.

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.8 There are a number of reasons why. One reason it is harmful is that it gives listeners to the gospel the strong impression that, to be converted, they not only have to believe in Jesus but also need to become members of the [fill in the blank] party.9 It confirms what many skeptics want to believe about religion, that it is not a genuine spiritual truth and encounter but only one more political constituency and voting bloc, one more way to get power over others. Another reason not to align the Christian faith with one party is that most political positions are matters not of biblical prescription but practical wisdom.

He realized that thoughtful Christians, all trying to obey God’s call, can reasonably appear at a number of different places on the political spectrum, with loyalties to different political parties.

For all our talk of tolerance, we demand that others adopt our characteristics and beliefs. They must express no difference from us, or we will name them as beyond the pale of engagement. It is common for us to insist that everyone “respect difference”—allow people to be themselves—but in the very next moment we show complete disrespect for anyone who diverges from our cherished beliefs.

What does the Bible mean when it calls people to “seek justice” and “defend the oppressed” (Isaiah 1:17)? It means seeking equal treatment for all. Leviticus 24:22 tells believers that they must have “the same law for the foreigner and the native-born.” You are promoting injustice if you privilege one race or nationality over another, or citizens over immigrants. A host of other biblical texts denounce any judicial system weighted in favor of the wealthy while disenfranchising the poor (cf. Isaiah 1:23–24).