380. Bring Life from Corruption
Jonah 2:6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
The “sign of Jonah” that Jesus spoke of is likely the resurrection of Jonah from the dead, which points to Jesus’ resurrection on the third day. Both were dead over a part or all of three days. It is most likely that Jonah died in the sea, was kept in the “tomb” of the great fish, and then resurrected. Jesus uses this miraculous event to predict His own resurrection.
Jonah prays while drowning in the sea. God sent the fish. Jonah praises God for bringing his life from corruption. All human bodies will see corruption since all bodies will die because of sin. We shall certainly return to dust, which means the atoms that make up a live human body will disintegrate and the molecules and cells will have no relationship with one another. We are a jumbled mass of matter without life. Corruption is not pretty. It is ugly and stinky and disgusting. The corruption of physical human flesh is a concrete picture of the stinking corruption of the human soul. We need to see what our soul looks like to God: stinking, corrupt and putrefying. We get the picture when we see A dead and corrupted body. This vision aids repentance.
Jonah’s foreshadowing of Christ’s resurrection is also a foreshadowing of our resurrection: the Lord will bring up my life from corruption. When we believe in Jesus we are a part of His resurrection, and our resurrection will change our vile bodies to be like His glorious body. In that new spiritual body we live forever without sin, death and corruption. Although this verse is not a promise for us directly, it is a sign that points to our resurrection promise. Peter preaches that Jesus’ flesh did not see corruption. [Acts 2:31: Psalm 16:10]. I will see corruption, but the Lord God will “bring up our life from corruption.”
Within the believer’s body reside life and death, flesh and spirit, God and self, old man and new man, sin and holiness, corruption and purity. Who will deliver me from the body of this death? We know the answer; and we live in the promise.