Truth Magazine

By Larry Ray Hafley

The gruesome, grisly events in Guyana need a bead drawn on them. It is still impossible to conceive and believe the magnitude of the murder and suicide of 900 people. Why? What? How? These are the beginnings to questions we cannot verbalize, let alone find complete answers to. Apart from the human horror, there are other thoughts to ponder.

First, skeptics and unbelievers are saying: “The Rev. Jim Jones, Jonestown, mass suicide; well, what can you expect? That’s religion for you!” In other words, Christians are lumped together with the “People’s Temple” cult of Jim Jones. We are all just a bunch of cranks and nuts. “Faith” and “religion” are the cause of the madness of Jonestown. Saints must be aware of this attitude on the part of the world. They must not be embittered by it, but they must recognize that it exists and prepare to live it down (1 Pet. 2:12).

The Scriptures say this disposition will result when disciples are led into “damnable heresies.” “And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (2 Pet. 2:2). and so it has happened, and so it is that the way of truth is evil spoken of.

Second, there are some horrible things mentioned in the Bible. The practices of the heathen religions are unreal. They are as unbelievable as Jonestown. And people do not believe them. Some of the things in the Bible are just too “far out” to believe, say the unbelievers. Well, suppose the Bible mentioned a false teacher, a deluder and deceiver named Jim Jones. Suppose it described the slaughter in Jonestown. No one would believe that such a thing could be done, but it was! Nothing about the Ammonite god, Molech, is as remarkable as the Jonestown deaths. The Bible is not as unbelievable as real life.

“But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: To whom they ail gave heed from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the great power of God. And to him that had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries” (Acts 8:9-11). You could put the name of Jim Jones in a paraphrase of that text. You might even be able to come up with something using the name of Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White, or Mary Baker Eddy, not to mention, Herbert W. Armstrong. No, the Bible is mild compared to current events. If anything is not to be believed, it is Jonestown, not the Bible.

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, p. 106
February 8, 1979

By George T. Eldridge

Featured on our front cover is a picture of the remains of the temple, the Asklepion, of the god Asklepios. Different pictures of the Asklepeion will be seen in the next two issues.

An understanding of this Greek god requires some knowledge of the city that makes him important to Bible students. The name of that Greek city is Pergamos. Its Latinized form is Pergum. The city of Pergamos was not as prominent in Apostolic times as was the city of Ephesus. The city of Pergamos has significance to pupils of the New Testament. It was the third church addressed by John in his message to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2:12-17).

The religion of Jesus Christ, in all probability, came to Pergamos due to the labors of Paul when he worked in Ephesus and was “disputing daily in the school of Tyrannus” (Acts 19:9). “And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10).

Based on modern geography, Pergamos would be located in Turkey. The modern town of Bergama is built among the ruins of this ancient metropolis, but it is far smaller in extent.

Religious Mecca

As a religious Mecca, Pergamos was styled “Thrice Neokoros.” This signified the city had three temples in which the Roman emperors were worshiped as gods. One of the oddest titles to which any city in ancient days could lay claim was the title “Neokoros.” “Neokoros” means temple sweeper. When a city erected a temple to a god, its greatest claim to honor was that it was that it became officially the “Neokoros,” the temple sweeper of that god. The sweeper of the temple, of course, was the most menial and humble of religious duties. Behind the title “Neokoros,” there lies an idea which in itself is a lovely idea. The idea was that a city’s greatest privilege was to render even the humblest service to the god who had taken up his residence within it. Since the city of Pergamos called itself “Thrice Neokoros,” here was a city where Caesar was worshiped in three temples. This city, therefore, was dedicated to glorying in the worship of the Roman emperor. Her worship stood out! Three temples in which to worship a man as a god! John, the writer of The Revelation, says Pergamos is the place “where Satan’s seat is” and “where Satan dwelleth” (Rev. 2:13). That may have specific reference to the temples dedicated to the Empirical Cult, the worship of Roman emperors as gods. Other gods, however, were worshiped in the city of Pergamos. They were notably Zeus, Dionysus, Athena and Asklepios.

Who Was Asklepios?

Pergamos was the center of the worship of Asklepios, or as the Romans called him, Aesculapius. The Egyptians deified an historical physician, Imhotep, exactly as the Greeks deified the historical Asklepios, i.e., Aesculapius. In 420 B.C., the worship of Asklepios was introduced at Athens coupled with that of Hygieia (in Greek mythology, the goddess of health). Asklepios was the name of the Greek god of medicine, the son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis.

Without going into Greek mythology as to his origin and his acceptance by the Greeks, let us say that temples were erected to Asklepios in many parts of Greece. To the Asklepeion of Asklepios, there came sufferers from all over the ancient world. The temple had its medical wards, its medical schools, its priests, and its votaries. Asklepeions were near healing springs or on high mountains.

The practice of sleeping in these sanctuaries was very common. The emblem of Askleplos is the serpent. The serpent was intimately connected with one of the ways in which cures were effected in the Asklepeion. Sufferers were allowed to spend the night ip.the darkness of the temple. In the temple, there were temple snakes. In the night, the sufferer might be touched by one of these tame and harmless snakes as they glided over the ground on which he lay. The touch of the snake was held to be the touch of the god himself, and the touch was held to bring health and healing. It was supposed that this Greek god Asklepios effected cures or prescribed remedies to the sick in dreams. There was a temple of Asklepios at Athens, as there was at Pergamos.

The Greek god Asklepios was introduced into Rome by order of the Sibylline books (293B.C.) in order to avert a pestilence. The Latin form of the Greek god (Asklepios is Aesculapius. Having been introduced into Rome, Asklepios, the Greek god of medicine, became well known in Pergamos and was sometimes referred to as “the Pergamene god.” Pergamos has been described as the “Lourdes of the ancient world.”

The precincts of Asklepios’ temple in Pergamos were dedicated to the sick and afflicted. People came from all parts of the Graeco-Roman world to get both magical and medical aid from priests as well as the goo Asklepios.

Is there anything in the worship of Asklepios which might account for the fact that John said Pergamos was the place where Satan’s seat was (Rev. 2:13)? There are two possibilities. The characterization of Asklepios was “Asklepios Soter,” “Asklepios the Savior.” “Soter,” “Savior,” is the word which in the belief of any Christian belongs uniquely and exclusively to Jesus Christ. It might well be that the Christians felt that the application of this title to a heathen god was indeed a Satanic perversion of the truth. There was something even more suggestive than that about the worship of Asklepios. Since the emblem of Asklepios was the serpent, many Jews and many Christians with knowledge of the Old Testament believed the serpent was nothing less than the emblem of Satan himself. The serpent was bound to carry the thoughts of these individuals back to the old story of man’s first sin in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3). Therefore, this might well be why John regarded Pergamos as “Satan’s seat.” Pergamos had the temple of a god whose emblem was the serpent, and in that temple, snakes crawled about and were regarded as incarnations of the god himself.

Final Word

Asklepios was in the form of a snake and is commonly represented as standing. He is dressed in a long cloak with bare breasts. His usual attribute is a club-like staff with a serpent coiled around it. Have you ever looked at the symbol of the American Medical Association? Its symbol is called a caduceus. In classical mythology, the caduceus was a staff or wand around which two serpents were entwined in opposite directions with their heads facing each other and surmounted by two wings. The caduceus came to be a symbol for Aesculapieus, the god of medicine and subsequently for the medical profession itself. The United States Army Medical Corps uses a caduceus on its insignia.

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, pp. 104-105
February 8, 1979

By Bill Imrisek

As stated in the previous article, we wish to investigate the claim of the Catholic Church to be the one, apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ. In the course of our investigation we will be quoting from Catholic sources and from a Catholic version of the Scriptures (the confraternity version).

Position of Peter Not Similar to Pope

At the very foundation of Roman Catholic doctrine is its belief in the “primacy of Peter.” This is a belief that Jesus conferred on Peter the responsibility of acting as the visible head of the church with powers of jurisdiction. These powers did not cease with Peter but were passed on to successors called Popes. To state this doctrine in the words of John L. McKenzie, Catholic priest and theologian from the University of Notre Dame,

The powers of Pope are defined in canon law in words taken from the First Vatican Council as “the supreme and full power of jurisdiction over the universal church both in matters of faith and morals and in matters of discipline and government” . . . .Jurisdiction means the power to make laws; it is not leadership by merely moral influence or persuasion. It is the power to compel obedience (The Roman Catholic Church, .John I. McKenzic, p. 39).

However, by its own admission, the Roman pope holds a position and power that were never conferred on Peter. Again McKenzie tells us,

One needs little acquaintance with the New Testament and the practice of contemporary Catholicism to recognize that there are notable differences between the position of Peter in the apostolic group and the position of the Roman Pontiff in the Roman Church (McKenzie, p. 26).

That is quite an admission from a Catholic! But McKenzie goes even further and asks,

How does Roman Catholicism bridge the gap between the New Testament and the First Vatican Council? Pontifical authority as defined in 1870 has a precision and an extension which are not found in the New Testament. Basically the Roman claim is that the pontifical office is a legitimate development of the powers granted to Peter. It is not a claim that one can find in the New Testament, a statement of the same powers in other words. It is not a claim that Peter thought of his own office in terms substantially identical with the definitions of 1870 (McKenzie, p. 30).

Thus, by the testimony of a Catholic scholar we see that the Roman Catholic position regarding the Pope is not apostolic.

Indeed, Peter’s position in the New Testament is quite different from that of the pope. As we have already seen, Christ did not build the church upon Peter, but upon Himself. Jesus is the only foundation (1 Cor. 3:11). The powers given to Peter were given to all the apostles alike (Matt. 16:19; 18:18). Not one word is spoken or implied in the New Testament about a “successor of Peter.” Neither did Peter know of it. As he penned his second epistle, he stated that his purpose in writing this letter was to provide a record of the things that he taught so that after his death we could call them to mind (2 Pet. 1:12-15). This would have been unnecessary if he was to have successors who could infallibly present the same truths to every generation.

Peter did not pass any authority on to anyone else. Rather he asked us to “be mindful of what I formerly preached of the words of the holy prophets and apostles, which are the precepts of the Lord and Savior” (2 Pet. 3:2). By the admission of Catholics it is seen that the very bedrock of Roman Catholicism is not an apostolic Roman institution.

The Office of Bishop Did Not Exist. in the Apostolic Age

Next in the ranks of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is the office of bishop. But once again the Roman Catholic Church admits that what it calls a bishop is quite different from what existed in the apostolic age.

Everything indicates that the office of bishop as it appeared later did not exist during the life of Peter (McKenzie, p. 30).

Evidently, that which did not exist during the life of Peter cannot be considered apostolic. It is further admitted,

as we have seen, bishops, as the church has historically known them, do not appear in the New Testament. We find in the New 7estament officers of local churches called episkopoi (Greek Lpiskopos, “overseer,” from which the English word bishop is derived) and presbyterio (Greek presbyteros, “elder,” from which the English word priest is derived). These officers are not mentioned frequently, and everything indicates that they were members of a college or board. The New Testament churches do not appear with the supreme local authority invested in a single person (McKenric, p. 64).

As McKenzie states, the New Testament picture of a bishop is quite different from the current practices of the Catholic church. In the New Testament the terms presbyter (or elder) and bishop (or overseer) refer to the same office (Acts 20:17, 28). No distinction is made. Their qualifications are presented to us in 1 Tim. 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. A plurality of elders or bishops existed in each local church (Acts 14:22-23; 20:17-18; Phil. 1:1). Never do we find a bishop who has pre-eminence over any other bishops. Neither do we find a bishop who has authority over several congregations. Their leadership extended merely over the local church among them (1 Pet. 5:1-3).

However, this simple New Testament pattern was soon corrupted into the hierarchal form which later became a characteristic of Catholicism. Rather then all the elders (bishops) in a local church sharing equally in their responsibilities, one man was placed over the others and became the chief elder. Soon one chief elder gained the pre-eminence over all the churches in a particular region (later called a diocese). It was not a very big step from this arrangement until one man was designated to be head over all the churches universally, and the office of Pope was created.

This corruption of the New Testament pattern began soon after the death of the last apostle. Ignatius of Antioch, writing shortly after the beginning of the second century, shows how much importance had been placed on the office of bishop even in his own day.

Let me urge on you the need for godly unanimity in everything you do. Let the bishop preside in the place of God, and his clergy in place of the apostolic conclave (from the Epistle to the Magnesians, Early Christian Writings, p. 88).

Equally, it is for the rest of you to hold the deacon in as great respect as Jesus Christ; just as you should also look on the bishop as a type of the Father (from the Epistle to the Trallians, Early Christian Writings, pp. 95-96).

Such comments as these by Ignatius are reminiscent of Paul’s warning in 2 Thess. 2:1-10 of the apostasy that was soon to come, and of the man of sin who was soon to be revealed. He describes this man of sin as one “who opposes and is exalted above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God and gives himself out as if he were God” (v. 4). Paul further said that in his own day “the mystery of iniquity is already at word” (v. 7). The authority and exalted position which Ignatius and others ascribed to the office of bishop soon found its fullest expression in the bishop of Rome who became known as the Pope (from the Latin, papa, meaning “father,” an honor to be given to God – Matt. 23:9).

It is obvious, therefore, from all that has been seen, that the Roman office of bishop is not apostolic.

Priesthood Did Not Exist in Apostolic Times

In the Catholic Church, between the laity and the upper hierarchy, stands the priesthood. In Roman Catholic doctrine the priest is a mediator between God and man.

By his office a priest is only concerned with heavenly things; he stands between God and man; he lays our petition before the Most High and conveys divine graces to us. He is a mediator between God and man, the angel of the Lord of hosts (Mat. ii. 7), the messenger of God to make known his will to man. He is God’s representative, His ambassador, His plenipotentiary; therefore whatsoever honor we show to the priest, we pay to God Himself (The Catechism Explained, Spirago & Clarke, p. 644).

Closely connected with his role as a priest is the responsibility to offer the “sacrifice of the Mass,” in which it is believed that Jesus is repeatedly offered for our sins.

The Mass is consequently no mere image of the sacrifice of the cross; it is not a bare memorial of it, it is the self-same sacrifice which was consummated on Calvary (Council of Trent, 22, 3), and accordingly it is of the self-same value and of the self-same efficacy. In the Mass the Passion and death of the Son of God take place again in a mystic manner, His blood is shed afresh. In it He displays His wounds to His heavenly Father, to save man from perdition; He sets before Him the bitter anguish He endured at His death as vividly as if His Passion were but just ended. To say Mass, therefore, is to immolate the Son of God anew in a mystic manner. The principle ceremonies of the Mass demonstrate, as we have seen, that the oblation once offered upon the cross is renewed upon the altar (Spirago & Clarke, pp. 541-542).

However, once again the Catholic Church admits that its priesthood is a post-apostolic invention. McKenzie says,

Like the episcopacy, the priesthood as we know it does not appear in the New Testament; it is an early but apparently postapostolic development of the ministry (McKenzie p. 96).

Here is a clear admission that the Roman Catholic Church is built upon something other than apostolic foundations! Their priesthood does not appear in the New Testament and did not develop until years after the life time of the apostles. That is quite an admission for a church that claims as its marks of identity that it is “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.”

Their priesthood is not only foreign to the New Testament but it is also a perversion of the truth taught therein. Whereas the Catholic Church teaches that each priest is a mediator between God and man, the Scriptures teach, “There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). The only priesthood known in the New Testament is one in which all Christians share equally (1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rom. 12:1) with Jesus Christ, not the priests of Catholicism, being the one mediator between God and man. And whereas the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus is offered repeatedly as a sacrifice upon their altars, the Scriptures teach that he offered Himself “once for all” (Heb. 9:24-26).

In comparing the priesthood and the sacrifices of the Old Testament with the sacrifice of Jesus, the writer of the book of Hebrews says, “Every priest indeed stands daily ministering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but Jesus, having offered one sacrifice for sins, has taken his seat forever at the right hand of God, waiting thenceforth until his enemies be made the footstool under his feet. For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified . . . Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin” (Heb. 10:11-14, 18). If there is no longer offering for sin, what becomes of the sacrifices of Catholicism in which the blood of Jesus is “shed afresh” and his sacrifice is “renewed”? They are exposed as being false. They are a rejection of the scriptural truth that Jesus offered Himself “once for all” and that “there is no longer an offering for sin.” Thus, the priesthood of Catholicism and it attendant services are seen to be without apostolic precedence, and the development of the priesthood is admitted to be postapostolic.

Clergy-Laity Distinctions Not Found in New Testament Times

Basic to an understanding of the Roman Catholic system is an awareness of the distinction they make between the “clergy” and the “laity.”

To selected members, called the clergy, was given the office of offering public worship, or administering most of the sacraments, and of ruling and instructing the faithful (The Externals of the Catholic Church, John F. Sullivan, p. 4).

The laity are the governed, the recipients of the sacraments, and the listeners (McKenzie, p. 114).

However, McKenzie goes on to show that such distinction is not found in the New Testament.

When one compares the laity in the Roman Catholic Church with the laity in the New Testament church, or even the laity in Protestant churches, especially those churches which are called congregational, some striking differences as apparent. The New Testament. does not exhibit the kind of clergy-laity polarity which is seen in Roman Catholicism. Except for the pastoral epistles (attributed to Paul but really the work of his disciples), the New Testament writings contain little which is addressed to the “clergy”; neither the word nor the idea as it has developed is found in the New Testament. The Christian message and the Christian way of life are presented to all members of the church equally. By contrast, in Roman Catholicism the laity are passive members of the church (McKenzie, p. 114).

These are the declarations of a Roman Catholic priest and theologian whose writings bear the imprimatur of the Catholic Church. And he admits that such a clergy-laity distinction as is exhibited in the Catholic Church is neither Biblical nor apostolic.

We have thus far seen that the papacy, the bishopric, the priesthood, and the clergy-laity distinction of the Roman Catholic Church is unapostolic. If the very heart and soul of their system is without scriptural authority, what about the rest? We shall continue and conclude our investigation in the next article.

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, pp. 102-104
February 8, 1979

By Mike Willis

From a child, I have been told the story of Jonah, the prophet who was swallowed by a whale. I must confess, however, that for years that was about all that I knew about Jonah. Jonah lived sometime prior to the reign of Jeroboam II (780-753 B.C.), king of Israel. Among the things which he did was to prophesy of the prosperity of Israel under Jeroboam (2 Kgs. 14:25). The book of Jonah records another facet of Jonah’s work – his commission to go to Nineveh.

Israel and Judah were able to expand their borders under the reigns of Jeroboam II and Uzziah respectively because of a decline in the power of Assyria. Between 841814 B.C., Jehu, king of Israel, was forced to pay tribute to Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, as the Black Obelisk records (it shows a picture of Jehu bringing tribute to Shalmaneser). After Shalmaneser, Assyria suffered a period of decline. Their loss of power allowed Israel and Judah to expand their borders. It was probably during this period, the period during which Assyria was suffering a decline, that Jonah was commissioned to go to Nineveh.

Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria; Assyria was the major nation opposed to Israel in that day. To be sent to Nineveh to warn her of an impending judgment of God with the hope that Nineveh might repent of her sins and avert the judgment of God was the last thing which an Israelite prophet would want to do. The nationalism of the prophet would cause him to look forward in anticipation to the downfall of her enemy. The sending of Jonah to Nineveh would be comparable to sending a man from the John Birch Society to warn Moscow of impending judgment unless they repented.

Running From God

Whenever the message came to Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry against it” (1:2), Jonah ran away from God. He rebelled against God’s commandment and fled toward Tarshish on a boat. Jonah’s sin was no different from that of any other sinner before God; he simply rebelled against one of God’s commandments (1 Jn. 3:4). Though his sin was somewhat more obvious than the rest of ours is, it was no different in nature.

Frequently we today run from our responsibilities in the same way as Jonah did. Whereas Jonah was given a commission to go to preach to Nineveh and refused to go. we have been given the commission to take the Lord’s gospel into all the world. Many of us are refusing to take God’s message to a lost and dying world in the same way that Jonah refused to take the Lord’s message to the lost and dying city of Nineveh. His rebellion before God in many respects resembles our own.

Being displeased with Jonah’s conduct, God sent a great wind which produced a terrific storm. Jonah could not run away from God so easily as he thought that he could. The storm raged so strongly that the sailors had to throw all of their cargo overboard; indeed, Jonah’s sin endangered the lives of many men. Finally, the sailors sought the cause of the storm. By casting lots, they found that Jonah was the one who was causing them this trouble.

Jonah realized another truth at this point; he realized that his sins would find him out (Num. 32:23). Then, he confessed his sin to the sailors. They sought without avail to save the ship and Jonah. Finally, in order to save themselves they were forced to throw Jonah overboard.

Running Toward GodIf the first section of the book of Jonah might be termed “Jonah’s Running From God,” the second section might be termed, “Jonah’s Running Toward God.” Having been cast overboard, Jonah began to sink into the depths of the sea. For him, death seemed certain. He sank to the bottom of the ocean destined to die in his rebellion against God.

But God, in His mercy, prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. In the belly of the large fish, Jonah repented of his sins, confessed them to God, and “ran” toward God. Chapter two records Jonah’s confession of his sin and praises God for the mercy which he showed to his rebellious prophet. God accepted Jonah’s prayer and commanded the large fish to vomit Jonah out on dry land.

Running For God

Again, the commandment of God came to Jonah. “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee (3:2). Because Jonah had rebelled against God on one occasion did not make him forever useless to the Lord. After he repented, he could once more be used in the work of the Lord. Consequently, Jonah went toward that great city and preached the word of the Lord.

He preached, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4). The people in the city hearkened to the prophet’s warning. From the least of them to the greatest, they turned from their sins. Even the king of Nineveh heard the prophet’s message and commanded that all men cease from practicing evil and do what was right. Thousands of wicked people repented at the word of the Lord. Jonah should have been overjoyed at the success which his preaching had. But, he was not.

Jonah’s Sorry Attitude

Jonah was a Jew. He wanted God’s favor to be shown exclusively to the Jews and certainly not to be shown to the Assyrians, the enemies of Israel. Consequently, when God decided not to overthrow the city of Nineveh because they had repented, Jonah was exceedingly displeased and became very angry (4:1). He said, “I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil” (4:2). Jonah expressed his reason for running away from obeying God’s commandment in the first place. He figured that when Nineveh heard the commandment of God that they would repent and the city would not be overthrown. He wanted to see the city overthrown and, consequently, did not want to take the message of the Lord to Nineveh.

God asked Jonah, “Doest thou well to be angry?” (v. 4). If there was anyone who had no reason to be angry with the Lord for extending mercy toward sinners, it was Jonah. Of all people, Jonah should not have resented the grace of God being given to sinners. He himself had so recently been the recipient of it. When Jonah was the one who was destined to doom because of his sin, he wanted God’s grace. When Nineveh was destined to doom because of sin, he wanted God to withhold His grace. Jonah had no reason to be angry with God for extending his grace toward sinners. Yet, his attitude resembles in many ways the attitude of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:28-32) and the attitude of the laborers in the vineyard who bore the heat of the day toward the laborers who were hired in the eleventh hour (Matt. 20:116). Hence, God moved the correct Jonah’s attitude.

Jonah left the city of Ninevah and went on a nearby hillside to see what God would do with the city. There he sat, awaiting the destruction of the city. He built a booth to protect himself from the weather. God prepared a gourd to come up and grow exceedingly rapidly to provide shade for Jonah. Jonah rejoiced. That night, God prepared a worm to kill the gourd and destroy Jonah’s shade. Then God sent a vehement east wind which was so hot that Jonah fainted and wished himself dead. Then, God spoke to him. “Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand people that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? (4:10-11).

If Jonah could pity a poor plant, surely he should have some pity on the babies in the city of Nineveh (those who could not discern their right from their left hands) who would suffer in the overthrowing of the city. Yet, Jonah’s attitude was rather typical of the Jewish nationalists who wanted God’s grace to be withheld from every nation except Israel. The disposition which Jonah manifested needed to be rebuked.

Lessons To Learn

1. The universality of God’s love. God, even under the Mosaical age, loved men of all nations. His love was not reserved for Israel alone. He has always cared for men of every nation under heaven. His love which was manifested toward Nineveh is testimony of His love toward all sinners. Our great God wishes that all men be saved (2 Pet. 3:9; Ezek. 33:11).

The lesson which Jonah had to learn was the same lesson which the early church had to learn through God’s use of several miracles. The revelation of this message was most explicit at the conversion of Cornelius where Peter stated, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no greater respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10: 34, 35).

The universality of God’s love toward all men has been a lesson hard for men to learn. Just recently, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) inserted in their doctrine the right of black men to equal standing in the kingdom of God. This came nearly three thousand years after God gave His revelation through the prophet Jonah and two thousand years after God sent His message through Peter. Indeed, some men are slow to se the universality of God’s love. Some brethren in the Lord’s church still manifest some of the same attitudes toward their fellow man as did Jonah; frankly, I can see little difference in white (or black) supremacy and Jewish supremacy.

2. The attitude of men toward others. We should not only learn the lesson of the universality of God’s love and grace but also learn a lesson about our attitude toward other recipients of God’s grace. Some of us seem to manifest something akin to a spirit of Jonah. We should not try to get a franchise on grace and monopolize it, dishing it out sparingly to those whom we think are worthy recipients of it. Just because some man does not live on my social level, does not share my values, and otherwise differs from me should not be reason for me to take the gospel of God’s grace to him. He is a person created in the image of God in just as much need of God’s grace as I am. I should rejoice in his opportunity to be saved even as I rejoiced in my opportunity for salvation.

Conclusion

What happened to poor Jonah? We can only conjecture although I do think that we have some rational basis for these conjectures. “The prophet rather abruptly drops the curtain, draws a veil over his further life’s history. Naturally we ask, Did Jonah repent of his stubborn opposition to the universality of God’s grace? Jonah does not answer this question directly. But his silence on this point and the entire tenor of his book speak louder than words. Jonah would not have written so frank and self-humiliating a confession of his sin if he had not been sincerely repentant and had not hoped to preserve and save others from similar bigotry and grumbling. `By the very act of penning it (his confession), Jonah at once merges out of his former character and appears in our view not merely as a prophet, but as a remarkably humble and noble-spirited saint’ (Huxtable in The Bible Commentary, VI, 582). Particularly the conclusion of his book corroborates this view. At last he no longer finds fault with God’s ways. No longer does he voice his anger and displeasures with the universality of God’s grace. God’s revelation of His fathomless pity embracing all His creatures, cattle as well as men, young as well as old, Gentiles as well as Jews, this revelation has melted Jonah’s icy heart” (Theo. Laetsch, The Minor Prophets, p. 243).

Perhaps a more pertinent question for us than “What happened to Jonah?” would be, “What will happen to us as we meditate on this revelation of God’s love for all men?” Will we run for God to take the message of His grace to all sinful men or will we be content to contain God’s grace in our own little group of friends?

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, pp. 99-101
February 8, 1979