All of Scripture points to Jesus. Whether a passage predicts Christ, prepares God’s people for Christ, reflects Christ, or shows the results of Christ’s work, we can find him on every page. It’s easy to see Jesus in the Gospel accounts or the New Testament epistles, but what about the books of the law or Old Testament historical narratives? Understanding or teaching passages from these books in a Christ-centered way isn’t always straightforward.

Let’s examine the book of Jonah—a minor prophet written as historical narrative—to see how this familiar story points us to Jesus.

Obedience to the Call

The book opens with God’s call to Jonah to go and warn the people of Nineveh of God’s judgment because it was a wicked city known for its violence and idolatry. Instead of obeying, Jonah fled in the opposite direction, boarding a ship to Tarshish to escape God’s presence—and his will. It’s here we see the first way that Jesus is the better Jonah.

Like Jonah, Jesus received a mission from God to leave his home and deliver God’s Word to sinful people. Unlike Jonah, whose heart was bent on disobeying God’s command, Jesus willingly obeyed God’s call to leave his heavenly home to come to us. Even though his mission would cost him his life, he “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed through tears and bloody sweat, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42), submitting to the Father even in the face of unimaginable suffering. Jonah disobeyed; Jesus obeyed.

Cast Down to Death

But God pursued Jonah. The Lord hurled on the sea a storm so intense that the boat was on the brink of breaking into pieces. While the terrified sailors cried out to their gods, Jonah slept inside the ship. The captain woke him, saying, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god!” (Jonah 1:6). Jonah knew the storm was for him, so he told the sailors the only way they could live was if he died. They reluctantly obeyed, and as Jonah sank beneath the waves, God calmed the storm.

Unlike Jonah, whose heart was bent on disobeying God’s command, Jesus willingly obeyed God’s call to leave his heavenly home to come to us.

Mark 4:35–41 tells a parallel story. Jesus, too, was asleep during a violent storm as his disciples panicked. They woke him, crying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (v. 38). But unlike Jonah, Jesus himself spoke to the storm and stilled it with a word. The sea obeyed him immediately. The disciples marveled at Jesus, understanding that only God can command creation. They wondered aloud, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (v. 41). The answer is clear: Jesus is better than Jonah because he isn’t merely human but also divine.

Jesus wasn’t cast into the sea that day like Jonah, but he cast himself down to death when he went to the cross. Like Jonah’s metaphorical death that saved the sailors from the storm, Jesus’s death was necessary for our salvation. But while Jonah’s journey into the deep was a result of his own disobedience, Jesus’s death was the result of ours. Though sinless, he took on the sin of the world for our sake. As Jesus declared, “Something greater than Jonah is here” (Matt. 12:41).

Three Days in the Deep

Jonah’s plunge into the sea seemed final, but God appointed a great fish to swallow him. Jonah remained inside the belly of the fish for three days and three nights before it vomited him onto dry land.

Jesus later explained that Jonah was a sign pointing to himself: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (v. 40). Jonah was as good as dead, but Jesus truly died and was buried for three days before God raised him from the dead. Jesus fulfilled the sign of Jonah through his death and resurrection, purchasing life for all who believe.

Messengers of Mercy

With the mercy of a second chance, Jonah finally obeyed God’s command and went to Nineveh, calling out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). The Ninevites believed God and repented of their evil ways with mourning and fasting. The God of mercy responded by relenting from the disaster he threatened.

But while Jonah’s journey into the deep was a result of his own disobedience, Jesus’s death was the result of ours.

Jonah had received God’s saving mercy just days before, but rather than rejoice in the Ninevites’ salvation, he was angry. He admitted he fled to Tarshish because he knew God would be merciful: “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (4:2). Jonah delivered a message of judgment that led to repentance and mercy, but what he truly desired was wrath.

Jesus was a messenger of mercy, calling sinners to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:12). Unlike Jonah, Jesus longed to show mercy. He looked on sinners with compassion, seeing them as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36). He was denied, betrayed, mocked, tortured, and murdered by those he came to save, yet even as he hung dying on the cross, he called out “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jonah begrudged God’s mercy; Jesus embodied it.

The story of Jonah is more than a Sunday school tale about a big fish—it’s a shadow of the Savior to come. Jesus is the true and better Jonah. In every act of disobedience and deliverance, resistance and redemption, Jonah points us to Jesus: the obedient Son, the sovereign Lord, the risen Savior, and the merciful Redeemer.