Jonah 1:1–3 ESV Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
Jonah a prophet of God whose name means dove and whose father is the truth because Amittai means truth, that is, Jonah is a dove of the truth, being a dove synonymous with a messenger we see that Jonah was a messenger of truth, for that reason Jehovah comes to Jonah knowing that he begot him, gave him his identity and his function, born of the truth and sent to be a messenger.
A glory of humility and truth, a representative of the Holy Spirit, led to proclaim the gospel to a fearsome city like Nineveh, city that had subdued the people of God.
So when he hears this he refuses to fulfill God’s will even if that leads him to leave the presence of God that in the original Hebrew presence literally means face, the lack of forgiveness he had or take a judge position led him to invalidate an order and deny your truth messenger identity, throwing themselves into pride and abandoning humility, characteristics of their essence.
Because Jonah knew God and knew that by going to Nineveh and preaching the message, God in an act of clemency, piety and mercy, He would retract his anger and would regret if Nineveh heard the message of destruction against them because of his wickedness, Jonah to know this flees because he wants to see his enemies fall and not see a glory on them, a glory called repentance and a goodness on a people totally cruel and indifferent before the glory of a Living God.
What lets us see this is that we can know God and His truth, but the lack of forgiveness will lead us to disobey him because his love is going to be spilled on our enemy, but in us it is to see the ruin of our enemy.
When in the essence of the gospel there is forgiveness towards our enemies what is the ministry of the piety manifested by Jesus Christ by forgiving us a world that does not know how to differentiate between his left and right hand, a cruel and ruthless world, lacking in love, that God in his love, sent a messenger of truth, in its pure essence to Jesus Christ that unlike Jonah, he said:
Psalms 40:7 ESV Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me:”
Jehovah who gave his son Jesus Christ Jesus to forgive all the sins of a cruel world, and not only that but to change the nature of everyone who believes in the message of salvation giving him a nationality, a new life, a fatherhood and tasting the goodness of God’s love and the knowledge of this right hand.
Beloved brothers seek forgiveness towards our enemies so as not to flees from God’s call but to be able to proclaim the gospel as Jesus Christ and thus bring more children to his glory.
John 3:16 ESV “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”