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1. It may be viewed, first of all, as the record simply of a fact in providence; in which respect the most direct lesson it furnishes is one of ample encouragement to the sincere penitent. When God sent his messenger to Nineveh, the people were so ripe for judgment, that a purpose of destruction, to take effect in forty days, was the only word he could publish in their hearing. But no sooner does he see the message laid seriously to heart, and the people with one consent returning from sin to God, than the purpose of destruction is recalled, the threatened doom is suspended, and Nineveh is still spared. Nothing could more strikingly show the unwillingness of God to execute vengeance, and the certainty with which every true penitent may count upon finding an interest in his pardoning mercy. He will rather expose his proceedings to the hazard of being misunderstood by shallow and superficial men, than allow the penalty due to unforgiven sin to fall upon such as have turned in earnest from its ruinous courses. What an assurance did the world then receive that God is rich in mercy and plenteous in redemption! He came down, in a manner, to its most public theatre, and in deeds more expressive than words, proclaimed, “Look unto me, all the ends of the earth, and be ye saved.” “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
At the same time, it is not to be overlooked, that along with this direct lesson, and in close connection with it, there was furnished through the Lord’s dealing with Nineveh an indirect warning and instruction to those who persist in impenitence and sin. Viewed, for example, in relation to Israel, the prophet’s own people, the sparing of Nineveh on account of its repentance was an anticipatory vindication of God in regard to the severe course he was purposing to adopt in respect to those children of the covenant; it was like the laying down of a solemn pledge before the world, that the desolating judgment, when it should alight on them, must be ascribed, not to any harshness in his character, but solely to their own incorrigible and hardened impenitence. They had claims on his compassion which Nineveh had not; and their destruction in spite of these, viewed in connection with the sparing of that heathen city, was an unanswerable proof of their inexcusable folly and perverseness. They were thus seen to be emphatically the authors of their own ruin. And the same end substantially is still served by the preservation of the repenting Ninevites; it stands as a perpetual witness against the lost, throwing the blame of their perdition entirely upon their own heads; so that God shall be justified when he speaks concerning them, and clear when he is judged.
2. But the sparing of Nineveh on its repentance may be viewed, secondly, in connection with the word spoken to it by Jonah in the name of the Lord—the word announcing its coming doom, in which respect it serves to throw light on the threatenings of God generally. The sharp contrast between what God had spoken and what he actually did—his declaring without reserve a purpose of evil, and still abstaining from the execution of the purpose, was wont to be explained by drawing a distinction between God’s secret and his revealed will—between his real intention or decree, which remains, like himself, fixed and immutable, and his declared intention, which may vary with the changeful conditions of those to whom it refers. But such a mode of representation, however it may accord with the essential truth of things, wears an unhappy aspect; and even when most carefully guarded and denned, can scarcely be separated from an appearance of insincerity on the part of God, as if he could speak otherwise than he really thinks in his heart. It is far more conformable to our natural feelings, and consistent with just notions of the divine character and glory, to consider such parts of God’s procedure as belonging to that human mode of representing his mind and will which is adopted throughout Scripture, and adopted from the absolute impossibility of conveying to us otherwise clear and adequate ideas of God. He who is simply spirit, and a spirit in all the essential attributes of being, free from the bounds and limits of a creature—infinite, eternal, unchangeable—can only be made known to us through his image man, and must be represented as thinking and acting in a human manner. In no other way is it possible for us to obtain a realizing sense of his existence, and so to apprehend his manifestations in providence, as to have our affections interested and our wills determined. “Without these anthropomorphisms,” or corporeal and human representations of God, to use the words of Hengstenberg, “we never can speak positively of God. He who would disentangle himself from them, as the Deists attempt to do, entirely loses sight of God; while seeking to purify and sublimate the representation of him in the highest possible degree, he is carried, through the illusion of excessive respect, out of all respect. In his anxiety to get rid of human forms, he sinks into nonentities. His relation to God becomes of all others the most untrue, the most unworthy; the nearest is practically to him the farthest, the absolute and essential Being changes for him into a shadow.” (Authentie, ii. p. 448.) And in regard to the expressions in Gen_6:6, in which God is declared to have repented that he had made man upon the earth—the strongest, perhaps, in all scripture of the class to which, the passage before us belongs—the same author further remarks: “Respect is not had here to the circumstance that God is still glorified upon men, though not in them, but merely to the destination of man to glorify God with a free and willing mind. Were this man’s only, as it certainly is his original destination, God must have repented that he had made the degenerate race of mankind. What God would have done had this one point only come into consideration, he is here represented as having actually done, in order to impress upon the hearts of men how great their corruption was, and how deep was God’s abhorrence of their sin.” (Do., p. 453.)
In like manner, that God should have issued a proclamation dooming Nineveh to destruction, and, in consideration of the people’s repentance, should have recalled the sentence, and repented of the evil he had said he would do to it, this was evidently with the design of begetting right impressions concerning God’s views of sin upon the one hand, and of sincere repentance on the other. Such is his holy indignation against sin, that nothing less than overwhelming and immediate destruction is to be regarded as due to transgressors. And yet, severe as this is, such also is his compassion for the perishing, such his yearning desire to save them from destruction, if he only can do it in consistence with his holiness, that whenever he sees them turning in earnest from their sinful ways, and seeking to him for pardon and acceptance, he cancels the doom, and receives them again to blessing. But this, so far from bespeaking God capricious in his ways, and changeable in the principles of his government, rather manifests him to be, in what alone is of essential moment, unalterably the same. Conducting his administration in righteousness, he must change his procedure toward men when their relation toward him becomes changed; as Abraham already perceived when he said, “That be far from thee to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Hence also the word of Ezekiel on this precise point to the captious complainers of his day, who thought that the procedure of God should be the same, whatever might be the conduct of the people: “Hear now, O Israel! Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal? When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquities and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” And so, when Nineveh had passed from being a theatre of wickedness into a place where God’s name was feared and his authority obeyed, the measures of his government fitly partook of a corresponding change; and to have dealt with repenting, as he purposed to have done with corrupt and profligate Nineveh, would have betokened an indifference to the essential distinctions between right and wrong—would have betrayed a disposition to deal with the righteous as with the wicked.
It is simply in regard to these eternal principles of righteousness, that the declarations in scripture are made, which affirm the impossibility of change in God: Such, for example, as the word of Balaam, “God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man, that he should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” Or the corresponding word of Samuel, which, indeed, is but a re-assertion and new application of the same: “The strength of Israel will not repent; for he is not a man that he should repent.” Testimonies of this description have respect to those declarations of God which are so inseparably connected with his inherent and immutable righteousness, as to admit of no room for change in regard even to his external administration. Such was the determination of God to bless Israel in the time of Balaam, and in the manner represented by him; for Israel not only possessed the covenant of God, but stood then within the bonds of the covenant; and the faithfulness of God secured them from harm against the power of any adversary or the enchantment of any diviner—although, when they fell away from the obligations of the covenant, as thousands of them did presently after, and in later times the great mass of the people, the course of the divine procedure was changed—the curse, and not the blessing, became their portion. Such, again, was the purpose of God to rend the kingdom from Saul in the time of Samuel; for that proud monarch had departed from the condition on which alone God could permit a king to reign in his stead over the chosen people; he wanted the heart which God indispensably required, and so the determination to remove him, which was but the expression of God’s righteous will, was irrevocably fixed. But such representations of God’s character argue nothing against the possibility, or even the moral necessity, of a change of administration in a case like that of Nineveh, where, the spiritual relations of the people having become entirely altered, the procedure originally indicated by God of necessity fell to the ground; it could no longer have been enforced in accordance with the essential principles of the government of One who ever delights to manifest himself as at once “a just God and a Saviour.”
But this being the case, why, some may be disposed to ask, should the announcement through Jonah have been made to take so absolute a form? Why declare so expressly, that in forty days Nineveh should be destroyed, and not rather, that if the people repented not, such a calamity would certainly overtake them? But what if God knew, as doubtless he did know, that the shape actually given to the message was the best fitted, perhaps the only one fitted to awaken the feelings suited to the occasion, and effect the desired result? No doubt, if the thing done had involved any breach of righteous principle,—if the throwing of the message into such a form had been a mere stroke of policy, in itself not conformable to the truth of things, then, however adapted to the end in view, it could not have been employed with the approval and sanction of God. But this was by no means the case. As actually delivered, the message was a real utterance of God’s mind and purpose toward Nineveh—considered simply as the place where sin had been rearing its head so offensively against heaven; it was, therefore, in its direct and proper aspect a burden from the Lord on account of sin; and as soon as sin was repented of and abandoned, another state of things, not contemplated in the message, came into being—the cause of the impending evil was gone—and there was room for the word to take effect which says, “the curse causeless shall not come.” In all such cases the principle announced by the prophet Jeremiah, whether expressly mentioned or not, is to be understood as lying at the foundation of the divine procedure and directing it, “At what instant I shall speak concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” (Jer_18:7)
In this passage the principle is distinctly and formally brought out which was exemplified in the Lord’s dealing with Nineveh; and applied to that portion generally of the prophetic word, which contains denunciations of coming judgment, it plainly instructs us to regard these denunciations as primarily intimations of God’s displeasure on account of sin, and only indirectly and remotely as predictions of events actually to happen in providence. They did not necessarily become events at all; their doing so was a contingency depending on the spiritual condition of the parties respecting whom they were uttered; and to take the burdens of prophecy, as is usually done, in the sense of absolute and determinate judgments that must be executed, may lead us in several instances to miss their proper design, and even to place them in opposition to the facts of history. The tide of evil which they poured forth on guilty persons or communities, may have been again checked by a timely reformation from the evil, and what the messenger of God suspended over them simply as a curse, perhaps in process of time passed into a blessing. (Look, for example, to the words of Jacob on Simeon an Levi, which were the utterance of a comparative curse (only indeed comparative, for as children of the covenant they still had a share in the blessing, and hence are said to have been blessed, as well as the rest, by their father): “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel; I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.” This sentence on the two brethren, dooming them to future separation and dispersion, was evidently pronounced upon them as a judgment for their past misconduct, and was to take effect on the supposition of the spiritual state of the parents continuing, and even perpetuating itself in their descendants. In the case of Simeon, such appears to have been actually the case; of all the tribes, it suffered most from God’s judgments on the way to Canaan, and entered the land in so enfeebled a condition, that certain cities within the inheritance of the tribe of Judah were appointed for its lot (Jos_19:1), whence it appears to have become ultimately merged in Judah, and its people are doubtless “the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah,” referred to in 1Ki_12:17, as adhering to Rehoboam. (The two tribes forming the kingdom of Judah were thus necessarily Simeon and Judah, with a portion, but only apparently a very small portion, those in and around Jerusalem, of the tribe of Benjamin.—See Hengstenberg on Psalms 80 Introd). Levi, however, from some cause, probably from nothing more than a consideration of the solemn words of the dying patriarch, became pre-eminent among the tribes for piety and zeal; and though the dispersion threatened might in one sense be said to be carried into effect, yet not properly as threatened; it changed its character when it became the method appointed by God for enabling them to do more efficiently the work of spiritual judges and teachers to their brethren. So far from being necessarily weakened by such a dispersion, it empowered them, so long as they were faithful to their charge, to hold the highest place of influence; it was only when they proved unfaithful, that their scattering became the source of weakness.)
Or, look again, as another example, to the prophecies of Ezekiel respecting Egypt (Ezekiel 29-30) which declare against it destruction of power, a scattering among the nations, baseness and contempt, and even utter desolation. (compare also Joe_3:19) It is clear, that what the prophet speaks is a denunciation of judgment on account of sin, the sin especially of pride of heart and professing to do for God’s people what God alone could perform—and therefore, though the evils threatened did so far alight upon them, yet we have no reason to think that they would be continued beyond the time that the Egyptians were chargeable with the sins in question. There are other prophecies which speak of Egypt as peculiarly the object of divine mercy, (in particular, Isa_19:18-25) which began to be fulfilled whenever Egypt received the knowledge of God, as it did to a very considerable extent in the first ages of Christianity. And it would be no violation of Ezekiel’s word rightly understood, if Egypt even now were rising to an influential position as a nation.
3. It is clear, however, from the very nature of the principle now under consideration, that it cannot be confined to one side only of the divine administration, but must be equally valid in regard to the other. If a change in man’s spiritual relation to him from bad to good necessitates a corresponding change in the manifestations he gives of himself to them, an alteration in the reverse order, from good to bad, must draw along with it a partial, and, if persevered in, a total suspension of God’s purpose to do them good. And if the threatenings of the prophetic word, then of necessity also its promises, are not to be regarded as primarily and infallibly predictions of coming events, but rather as exhibitions of the Lord’s goodness, free outgoings of his desire, and solemn pledges of his readiness to bless, yet capable of being hindered or restrained by the exercise of a perverse or rebellious spirit on the part of men.
The word of Jeremiah, which most explicitly announces the principle, and applies it particularly to nations, is equally express on this side as on the other: “And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.”— (Jer_18:9-11) Nor is the prophet Ezekiel less express in his announcement of the principle, and its application to individuals: “But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.”— (Eze_18:24) In like manner also the apostle Paul, extending the principle to all the promised manifestations of the Lord’s goodness: “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”— (Rom_11:22) That is, the word of promise which certifies us of God’s goodness is to be understood as valid only so long as the spiritual relation contemplated in it continues; when that ceases, a new and different state of things is introduced, for which the promise was not intended, and to which it cannot justly be applied.
Very striking examples of this also have been given in the course of God’s providence, as connected with the history of his ancient people. How express, for instance, was the word brought by Moses to the children of Israel in Egypt, that the Lord had heard their groanings, that he was now come to deliver them, and would bring them into the land promised to their fathers! Yet that word, as we might indeed have inferred from the character of God himself, and as subsequent events showed, went entirely on the supposition that they would hearken and be obedient to the voice of God. This, however, the greater portion of them failed so often and to such an extent to do, that the fulfilment of the word in their experience became morally impossible. The prophecies, in like manner, which were given before respecting their future condition in Canaan, that it would be to them a land flowing with milk and honey, that the people should be there replenished with blessings of the heavens above, and blessings of the earth beneath, that they should dwell alone among the nations, satisfied with the favour of God, and should possess it as an everlasting inheritance—such prophecies as these, which were, in other words, promises of mercy and loving-kindness, could not be more than partially verified, because the people obstinately refused to maintain the relation of filial reverence and love to God, which was pre-supposed as the common ground of all blessing. And of course, as all promises are prospective, and partake to some extent of the character of prophecies, what has been now said of the kind of prophecies referred to, may certainly he extended to the promises of Messing generally scattered throughout Scripture, and addressed to men at large. The good offered and secured in the promise must always he understood in connexion with the principles of holiness; and the grace which reigns in the experience of Christ’s people, as well as in the work of Christ himself, can only reign through righteousness unto eternal life.
But to speak only of what is more strictly understood by the prophetic word, it is clear from what has been advanced, that if we would give a sound and consistent interpretation to its utterances, we must distinguish between one portion and another, and not throw the whole into one mass, as if, from having all proceeded from a prophet’s lips, it were all to be brought under one and the same rule. There are portions of it which may justly be regarded as in the strictest sense absolute, because depending for their fulfilment on nothing but the faithfulness and power of God. Such, for example, are the visions of Daniel respecting the successive monarchies of the world; such also the announcements made respecting the appearance of Christ in the flesh, the line from which he was to spring, the place where he was to be born, the work he was to accomplish, and the nature and progress of his kingdom; such, again, the prediction of an apostasy within the Christian Church, and the purely prophetic delineation of things to come in Daniel’s “scripture of truth,” and the apocalypse of St John. In regard to these predictions and others of a similar description, we have simply to do with the omniscience of God in foreseeing, his veracity in declaring, and his overruling providence in directing what should come to pass. But when, on the other hand, the word of prophecy takes the shape, as it so often does, of threatenings of judgment, or promises of good things to come, the prophetic element is not the first and the determinate thing, which must at all events develop itself, but rather that which is secondary and dependent. It always takes for granted a certain frame of mind and course of behaviour on the part of those interested in its declarations; and before we inquire whether the things occurring in experience precisely correspond with those previously announced in the prophecy, there is a primary question to be settled, How does the spiritual condition of the persons interested agree with what is implied or expressed in the prophetic word?
That this word, in so far as it utters what directly bears on the wellbeing of men, should thus be bound up, for the measure of fulfilment it is to receive, with their spiritual condition, is no expedient devised to meet a difficulty in interpretation. On the contrary, it rests on a principle which is essentially connected with the nature of God, and is inwoven, we may say, as a ground-element in all the manifestations he has given of himself in Scripture. There, from first to last, all is predominantly of a spiritual or moral, not simply of a natural character; and, in nothing more does the religion of the Bible in its entire course differ from the religions of the world, than in the place it assigns to the principles of righteousness, ever putting these first, and subordinating to them all divine arrangements and purposes. The evil and the good here are no mere nature-processes, but results growing out of the eternal distinctions, which are rooted in the character of God, between sin and holiness. It was the grand error of the Jews in ancient times to forget this. Surrounded on every hand by the foul atmosphere of heathenism, which was just the deification of nature, they were too prone to feel as if they held their portion of good on merely natural grounds; they thought their lineal descent from Abraham alone secured them in what was promised, and thus came practically to disregard God’s threatenings on account of sin, and to convert his promises into absolute and unconditional titles to blessing. For them a most pernicious and fatal mistake in experience, as it must also be for us in interpretation, if we should fall in any degree into their error! We want the key to a right interpretation at once of God’s threatenings and of his promises, unless we see them in the mirror of his own pure righteousness; and we shall unquestionably misunderstand both him and them, if we suppose that even when he most severely threatens, he can smite the truly repentant sinner or people, or that he can continue to bless the children of promise when they harden their heart against reproof, however expressly and copiously he may have promised to bless. (See a fuller development of the principle of interpretation brought out in this chapter in the Supplementary Remarks.)