May 12, 2025 - Jonah 4:1,2 - "The Offense of God's Sovereign Grace in Christ"

Jonah 4:1,2

"But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil."

Jonah’s anger in these verses is shocking. One would think a prophet of God would rejoice at the repentance of a city and the sparing of thousands from destruction. But here he is—sulking, seething, and praying in frustration. Why? Because God was gracious. Because God was merciful. Because God spared a people Jonah thought deserved wrath. And indeed they did deserve it. But what Jonah forgot is that he did too.

This moment exposes more than Jonah’s personal prejudice or national pride. It reveals a deeper human offense: the offence of God’s sovereign grace toward sinners that we may think unworthy of that grace. Such is the depravity of our hearts to acknowledge His right to show mercy to those He wills, and yet to find fault with those to whom He does show mercy. Much like the disciples of Christ when He was showing mercy to the Samaritan woman (John 4:27). Jonah could not reconcile God’s mercy with his sense of justice, especially when that mercy was shown to his enemies. He confesses that this was his reason for fleeing from God’s call in the first place. “I knew that thou art a gracious God…” (v. 2). In other words, “I knew You’d forgive them. And I don't approve." Put that way, the shock should be that he could even think that way, knowing how merciful the LORD had been to him.

What a painful mirror this holds up to our hearts. How often do we, like Jonah, resist the truth of divine grace when it offends our sense of who should receive it? It’s easy to love grace when it reaches us. It’s harder when it reaches them—those we think are too wicked, too foreign, too undeserving. But here is the truth: if grace must be deserved, it is no longer grace.

Jonah knew God’s character. He even quotes from Exodus 34—the Lord’s own Self-revelation to Moses—as the grounds for his protest. God had revealed Himself as “gracious,” “merciful,” “slow to anger,” and “of great kindness.” And Jonah hated it—not because it wasn’t true, but because it was. He couldn’t bear to see grace poured out on those outside his borders, those outside his category of people worthy of mercy. But this is the very Glory of sovereign grace: it flows not where man wills, but where God wills (Rom. 9:15–16).

Only the depravity of the heart would ever consider God’s grace as odious in how, where, and for whom He is pleased to show it. And yet, God is sovereign and will show grace to whom He wills, without ever consulting man. "And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy," Exodus 33:19. Where God purposes to show grace it humbles the proud. It levels all ground beneath the cross of the LORD Jesus Christ, where God purposed to justify every sinner that He chose from eternity, and for whom Christ paid the debt, regardless of their sin, and no matter how undeserving. Nineveh was a cruel city, full of violence and idolatry. But Jonah was just as undeserving as a rebellious prophet who ran from the Lord, and yet God showed him mercy, too. Grace is not withheld because of the depth of sin, nor is it given in exchange for merit. Grace is free. And it is sovereign. God in sovereign grace chooses whom He wills, not based on worthiness, but because of the good pleasure of God alone (Ephesians 1:5,6)

What Jonah could not yet see is what we see clearly in Christ: the ultimate demonstration of God’s sovereign grace toward sinners. The same Savior Who declared judgment on sin also took that judgment upon Himself. He died not for the righteous, but for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). He gave Himself not for the deserving, but for the elect, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world—not for what they were, but despite it. Even as typified in the nation of Israel, the LORD declared: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations"(Deuteronomy 7:7-9).

We must ask ourselves: are we offended by the wideness of God’s mercy? Do we rejoice when grace abounds to the worst of sinners? Or do we secretly harbor Jonah’s resentment, nursing pride in our perceived righteousness, forgetting that we, too, were once alienated and enemies in our minds by wicked works (Colossians 1:21)? Sovereign grace is offensive only to the self-righteous. But to the poor in spirit, to the soul who knows its sin, there is no sweeter truth. If God had not been gracious to Nineveh, Jonah would have rejoiced. But if God were not gracious to us, we would be lost. Praise God that He is Who He is—not only to undeserving wretched Ninevites, but to sinners such as we are, just as wicked and undeserving. Thankfully, He is a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and grace to redeem by the LORD Jesus' shed blood unto death.

Let us bow in humility before the Sovereign Lord Who has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and rejoice that salvation is of the Lord—freely given, and perfectly obtained by Christ's death on the cross, although gloriously undeserved.