JONAH
JONAH
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who is the Resurrection and the Life. After this sublime lesson, the physical miracle seems almost an anti-climax, a thing to be half regretted, like the restitution of Job's large fortune and his flourishing family by his second marriage. But not only is the miracle a parallel in act to the verbal revelation which precedes it, but it emphasizes the very deep lesson that tlujugli life in its highest sense is indestructible, we must jiass tlu'ough the gate of death in order to reach it. This is one of the profoundest and most characteristic doctrines of Christianity. Those who have found in the maxim 'Die to live' the kernel of Christ's religion, have penetrated a large part at least of His ' secret.' This, and the lesson that it is the Person of Christ Himself, revealed as the Resurrection and the Life, rather than the hopes of a gift to be one day con- ferred by Him, that should be the truest consolation for mourners, are the two main points in the narra- tive of the raising of Lazarus.
Conchision. — 'The Fourth Gospel gives us an answer to the question, ' What think ye of Christ ? ' Moreover, it maintains that the answer to this question is the dividing-line between light and darkness. To know Christ is to know the Father ; and no man conieth to the Father except by Him. The Christ ' whom to know is to live ' is not, of course, merely the human Jesus, but the eternal Word who tabernacled among us in Imniaii form. The Evangelist would have acceiilcil r.cii;^cr.s dic- tum, that ' conversio Jit ad Dominum at S/nri/ mii.' But he regards the identification of this s|iiritual power with Jesus of Nazareth as essential. The vigorous words of 1 John (P"* 4'"^) unquestionably express the Christological position of the author of the Gospel, even if .some doubts exist as to the common author.ship of the two books. It is the peculiarity of the Johannine theology that \\c pass backwards and forwards between the universal and the particular, between time and eternity, present and future, outward and inward. To the philosopher this oscillation is most perplexing ; but it is the true normal pulsation of the spiritual and moral life, in which we may always trace a double movement of expansion and concentration. On the one hand, we must lose our souls in order to find them, we must die daily in order to live. We must continually pass out of ourselves, forget our- selves, and identify ourselves with interests of which we are not the centre. We must enlarge our life till there is nothing selfish, personal, or limited about it. And, on the other hand, exactly in jjroportion as we succeed in doing this, we shall enrich our lives and become more keenly conscious of the worth and value of our own soiils in God's sight. There will be no blurring of individual dis- tinctions, no Buddhist absorption in the Infinite, but a growing sense that the soul of man is the throne of the Godhead, and his body the temple of the Holy Ghost.
LiTERATDRE.— See at end of preceding article.
W. R. Inge.
JONAH ('luTOs, Heb. niv 'dove,' AV of NT Jonas). — A prophet, the story of whose mission to Nineveh is related in the Book of Jonah, and who is probably to be identified with the Jonah of 2 K 14-5; referred to by our Lord twice at least (see below) in the Gospels (Mt 12»»-« || Lk U-^-^" and Mt 16^).
Certain of tlie scribes and Pharisees, not content with our Lord's many miracles or sims (cf. Jn 12"), some of which were, after all, like those performe<l by their 'sons' (Mt 12=', Lk ll"), demanded of Him a special sign, most probably, as in Mt 16' II Mk 8", from heaven, sinco siidi a sisn would at once attest His Divine nii-inn i,t. .In (V'"-^^). He replied: ' Anevilandadnll.iMW^ j.n. r.ition seeketh after a sign ; and tliere shall i]<i m^'h he given to
it [and we must naturally understand such a sign as they demanded] but the sign of Jonah the prophet : for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it : for they repented at the ]ircaching of Jonah ; and behold, a greater than .lonah is here.' The parallel account in Lk. has the appearance of being a summary report of that in Mt., and there are some notable ditterences. In place of the reference to the three days, Lk. has, ' For even as Jonah became a .sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of Man be to this generation,' — words which many think refer only to Jonah's preaching. Again, the verse concern- ing the rising up of the men of Nineveh in the judgment follows that referring to the queen of the south instead of preceding it as in Mt. The reference to .Jonah in Mt 16* was obviously made on another occasion ; it contains only the words, ' An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign [here jjlainly from heaven, cf. v.'] ; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of Jonah.'