Jonah 2:9 “Salvation belongs to the LORD!”
God’s dramatic intervention in the life of Jonah is full of hope—not only for those who seek God, but also for those who, like Jonah, have determined to shut him out.
Many people believe God opens the door of salvation and then stands back, leaving it up to us to decide if we want to come in.
But if God made salvation possible and then stepped back, refusing to interfere with our choice, then the entire life of believers would be about us—our believing, our serving, our following, and our choices to live a good life.
In the case of Jonah, imprisoned in the whale’s belly, God was claiming someone who was quite incapable of performing any redeeming work to compensate for his sin. God was not relying on Jonah to save Jonah. The message remains the same for each of us today: if you have trusted God for salvation, he has done more than simply make salvation possible; he has actually saved you.
Colin Smith, “Jonah,” in Gospel Transformation Bible: English Standard Version, ed. Bryan Chapell and Dane Ortlund (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 1197.
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