Jonah 4:11
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” The LORD said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?” Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So the LORD God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.” Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.” Then the LORD said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
Calvinist, James White, writes: “No one can possibly argue that God expended the same effort to redeem the Assyrians that He expended to redeem Josiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel.” (Debating Calvinism, p.18, emphasis mine)
How interesting that White chose the “Assyrians” for his example of the alleged indifference of God, whose capital city was Nineveh, to whom God had sent the prophet, Jonah, to preach, and even sent a great fish to ensure that he got there. Therefore, rather than indifference, God had mercy and compassion, and granted them repentance by the preaching of His Word: “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.” (Jonah 3:10)
Although Nineveh was eventually destroyed, as recorded in the Book of Nahum, the Book of Jonah reveals that God mercifully reached out to the Ninevites, which “no one could possibly argue.”
Question: Does God have compassion on Nineveh because
they are Calvinism’s elect or because they are in need of
salvation?
Answer: If God has compassion upon Nineveh because they
are in need of salvation, then how does that reflect upon
everyone else who are in need of salvation? Now if God
pleads with Jonah to have compassion upon Nineveh, then
doesn’t it stand to reason that God pleads with all of us to
have compassion upon everyone? However, the foundation
of Calvinism is the presumption that God only has salvific
compassion upon a select few. Also, besides being a
pro-missions passage, one lesson from Jonah 4:1-11 is that
God does not consider the lost to be Fillers and Extras on
the stage of humanity. Through repentance, God wants
everyone to be saved because He has compassion upon
everyone, especially evident from the fact that wicked
Nineveh was least deserving of compassion. God’s
compassion for the Ninevites reveals God’s compassion
for all. God wants you to be saved, but that desire is
conditioned upon repentance, and He reaches out through
people like Jonah in order to extend His mercy.
I’d like to see how Irresistible Grace works with Jonah. Jonah said, “God, I’m not going.” God says, “Oh, yes you are.” Next think you know, there is this big storm, and then the waves, and then the admission to the crew, and then into the sea he goes, and then this big sea monster of sorts, and then the lights go out. God doesn’t seem to be using a secret draw, but only greater force. God’s hand was bigger than Jonah’s hand. In the end, Jonah had still disagreed with God, and was wrong for it, but nowhere do you see a “secret C programming, changing Jonah’s mind for him.” All I see are two Free Wills interacting with one another.
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “We aren’t denying God’s sovereignty over all things. We’re just denying that God manipulates people’s decisions or choices due to some secret exhaustive deterministic plan or will. Clearly, God wanted and willed for Jonah to go to Nineveh (and for Jeremiah to be a prophet and Paul to be an apostle, etc.). God even unconditionally chose Israel. But all to what end? Unconditional Election unto faith and salvation via Irresistible Grace? No. God’s call to these men (and sometimes women) was a call unto action and office, not unto salvation, per se. Paul still had to trust in Christ for himself, as did all others who were called of the Lord. The call, in and of itself, does not guarantee salvation, nor prove Unconditional Election or Irresistible Grace.”
