Christ in the Prophets

We may read in the Old Testament through the words of the Lord's prophets the promise of salvation in Jesus Christ. Words were not the Lord's only means of revealing His Son; He also used the lives of his prophets to also reveal His will. I will show clearly here how the Lord used the lives of two men as symbols and examples of the life of the Christ who was yet to come. These men were the prophets Jonah and Hosea.

This is about where any of their similarities end. Different men, sent to speak to different nations, both driven by different influences, and used in contrasting examples as different as light and dark. Jonah, the unfaithful and angry traveler who showed how short from Christ man would measure, and Hosea the humble symbol of Christ's love who stayed faithful to his adulterous wife.

By looking at the living symbols of Jonah and Hosea, and comparing their contrasting themes, we can learn more about the nature of God's revealed plan, and His Son who was the fulfillment of it.

First we will look at Jonah, who shows how much we are unable to fill the shoes of Christ. Later on we will tie in Hosea, and look at how Christ is revealed more plainly through both messages than through one or the other.

Jonah: "The Little Prophet Who Wouldn't"

1:1-3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Ninevah and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.

The book of Jonah starts with the word of the Lord being revealed to Jonah, and a call to do His work. Jonah's well-known response leads him in the opposite direction from the Lord's intended goal, as he hopes perhaps he can escape His control. King David offers us a few words of wisdom on the subject, which we shall see Jonah soon discovers for himself:

Ps. 139:7,8 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

1:4-6 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish."

Jonah awakens from his deep sleep to a ship nearly torn apart by the sea, but even more intimidating must have been the accusing stares of the sailors as they asked him to appeal to his god for any form of rescue from the storm. Jonah admits his guilt, and asks to be thrown overboard, finally showing some sort of resignation to his inability to outrun God, and somehow save the sailors from his own perceived fate.

This story of Jonah is the beginning of a beautiful parallel to the life of Christ, who was faced with a similar situation, giving new meaning and purpose to our prophet's watery adventure.

Luke 8:22-25 One day Jesus said to his disciples, "Lets go over to the other side of the lake." So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Master, Master, we're going to drown!" He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."

Here, Christ is without fault, and the desperate gaze of fear he receives from the disciples is met with a stern message of rebuke for their lack of fear. This story is a masterful example of Christ's deity, to control the winds and the waves. We also gain emphasis of Christ's personality by contrasting him with Jonah.

Jonah, asleep on the boat while his guilt brings on the storm, helps us notice in Christ a similar peace asleep on the boat, Christ's peace found in his strength of faith. When Jonah admits his guilt, and permits the sailors to throw him overboard, he shows his helplessness in the situation, while Christ's power commands the storm.

The result of Jonah's dive into the sea begins one of the greatest parallels of any prophet with Christ. Jonah is swallowed by a 'large fish', and survives in his belly for 3 days (1:17). Later, Christ points to Jonah's days in the fish as a prophecy of himself, and the three days and three nights he would lay dead before he would rise again.

Matt 12:39-41 [Christ] answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here."

Jonah reveals throughout the book an internal struggle between two conflicting influences. We can identify with his human fear, anger and bitterness when the Lord's will differs from his own. Yet with all of his weaknesses, God uses him to preach a message to a growing people, and through him turns their hearts back to the Lord, and away from danger. Through all of Jonah's weakness, we see a discerning and tender heart for the Lord, and a foretaste of the message of grace in Christ Jesus:

2:8-9 Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.

This model of exhortation and the Man of God is even more evident through our second prophet, Hosea.

Hosea: "God's Mini-Me"

In no other prophet can you find a better example of his life used as symbolic prophecy than in Hosea. To his readers in Old Testament times, Hosea was a humble reminder of the grief that the Lord felt over the unfaithfulness of the Israelites.

1:2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord."

While Hosea fashioned his prophecies with poetic mastery, the Lord directed the focus of his message through a more direct means. The Lord's order to Hosea to name his children carried a message that they would be reminded of every day of their lives.

1:3-4 Then the Lord said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.

1:6-7 Then the Lord said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them."

1:9-11 "Then the Lord said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.' The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel."

Hosea spells out yet again the Lords declaration of judgment and eminent punishment for Israel, but also begins to spell out the future hope for their salvation. Its interesting to see how Hosea is torn as a faithful servant who is led through so much sorrow in his own life, and in a way gains a small understanding of the Lord's own sadness for His children, the nation of Israel.

The Lord points to His son through Hosea's words, also:

6:6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.

Here we see a bit of the Gospel in the 'Spirit of the Law' that Christ speaks of in the New Testament. The Lord despised the meaningless rituals and motions that the Israelites were using to cover over their sins; instead he desired their hearts to be faithful, return to him from their idol worship and live with repentant hearts.

Earlier in chapter 3 we see the ever-faithful Hosea finally instructed to the Lord to go and get his adulterous wife, and redeem her to him. This is an awesome parallel of Christ's redemption of His bride, the people, from their sins.

3:1,4-5 The Lord said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods… For the Israelites will live many days without kind or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

In this verse you may interpret 'David their king' as Christ the King of Kings, and direct descendent of King David. Hosea prophesies again of Christ, and is quoted and interpreted by Matthew who also spoke of Christ as the fulfillment of the prophecy.

11:1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

Matt 2:15(b) And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

Hosea in his faithfulness and sorrow both witnessed of the Lord's faithfulness to a faithless nation, and prophesied to a coming Savior who would redeem the fallen people, and remake them as a strong nation in the Lord once again.

Conclusion

Through Jonah we may see that while man is sinful, unfaithful to the Lord, and at his very worst moment, the Lord can work in our hearts and bring repentance, salvation, and then do amazing things through us. We also see that through our impatient, angry eyes the world around us can seem unfair; yet the Lord in his perfect way can benefit the most confusing events into a great and masterful good.

Through Hosea we catch a glimpse of the type of love that God the Father feels for His people, a glimpse that we can relate to and take to heart. We also see that through Christ we have the hope of salvation, and unity with God as a lost bride found again.

In both of the prophets we can see the work of God in their lives, through weaknesses and strengths, to do God's will, and speak truth given to them by His Spirit. As Christians, we all have the Lord's Holy Spirit in us, and while the time of prophesying the future may be past, all of our lives become symbols of the life of Christ, and witnesses of the same truths.