What words do you associate with the gospel? You probably thought of words like grace, redemption, forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, eternal life. These are not the type of words which appear in the first chapter of Nahum. Instead, we read about destruction. We read that God is jealous, avenging, wrathful, great in power, and unyielding in his refusal to “clear the guilty.”
The book is all about the destruction of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. Yes, that Nineveh. The same one which Jonah had preached against a century prior. The same empire that had repented and turned from wickedness seems to have fallen headlong into evil once again. And God is now responding with wrath.
One has to wonder if this might have been Jonah’s favorite book of the Bible, if he’d lived long enough to hear it. All of the words which Jonah wanted to hear, and all of the action which Jonah wanted God to take, are now to be unleashed upon the Assyrian Empire. Yet, woven through these pages of judgment is a message of grace. Even here, in Nahum, we can see the good news of Christ.
I suppose before understanding how to find the gospel in the OT, it’d be helpful for us to define the gospel. The simplest definition is one given by JI Packer: God saves sinners. If you’d like to put a bit more meat on your gospel presentation, I use two different frameworks with four points each. The first is God—Man—Christ—Response. The second is more of a story: Creation—Fall—Redemption—Glory.
The first presentation centers upon God’s character and how humanity fails to meet God’s holy standard, as such the judgment of God is upon us. But the good news is that Jesus Christ fixes this by fulfilling what is required through his life, death and resurrection. Our only fitting response, then, is to respond to Him in repentance and faith. When this happens, we are united to Christ and his record becomes our record.
The second presentation centers upon the overarching story of the Bible. God lovingly created us to love Him and enjoy Him forever. We were made for rest, rule, and relationship. But we made shipwreck of this, and so rather than having the blessings of obedience we are under the curse of disobedience. Rather than having peace (rest), purpose (ruling), and healthy relationship we often experience the opposite. Ultimately, we are alienated from God. But thankfully God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our curse and to fulfill what God intended for humanity. As such we now experience the blessings of Jesus’ obedience in our place. He restores the rest, rule, and relationship we were created to enjoy. Someday everything will be ultimately restored and we will live in a new heaven and a new earth.
We could write entire books focusing on these various themes of the gospel. But every gospel story follows this basic skeleton. No matter where you find yourself in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) you can find one of these various threads. Every place in Scripture is either telling you something about God, something about our rebellion, something about His rescue, or something about our future restoration. If you can spot this, then you can fill out the rest of the story.
Most of the prophets in the Old Testament are given to warn the Israelites of God’s judgment against them. There are calls to repent, to turn back to the Lord, and to trust in Him instead of the nations. Rarely are the prophets sent to tell the Israelites about what God is doing to other nations. Nahum is one of those exceptions.
There are two reasons why God tells the Israelites what He is doing in Nineveh. First, it is to encourage them that God is good and just and will be their refuge. Scattered throughout that first chapter we also see declarations that God is “slow to anger” and “good” and a “stronghold” and a “refuge.” If the Israelites fall into that category, they can rest assured that they will ultimately be rescued, while the Ninevites will be destroyed.
Secondly, it is a reminder of God’s unchanging character and His lack of favoritism. If the Israelites live and act as the Ninevites, they too will be on the sharp edge of God’s judgment. God does not allow wickedness and violence to endure. His goodness and justice will always lead Him to bring down the mighty who oppress others. That is true if you are Nineveh, and it is true if you are the Israelites.
Your Bible likely has a subheading that says something like “God’s Wrath Against Nineveh” or “Nineveh Destroyed.” What is interesting, though, is that the word Nineveh only appears in verse 1. (Yes, I know in some translations it is there in verse 8, but it only says “her place”). In fact, some of the language here is strikingly similar to Isaiah’s prophecy against Babylon.
If you aren’t up on your Israelite history, this might be a little confusing. Isaiah prophesied for about 50 years, starting in the 760’s BC. In the first part of his book, he spoke about the coming Assyrian invasion against the Israelites. That happened in 721 BC. But in the latter part of his book, he set his sights much further into the future — he saw the Babylonian invasion and spoke to the exilic community. The Babylonian invasion was in 586 BC.
Nahum, prophesying somewhere between 662 and 612 BC, uses Isaiah’s words to the Babylonian exiles to talk about the destruction of the evil Assyrians — who, ironically, would be destroyed by the same Babylonians. To put this simply, we have in this first chapter not only words against the present enemies (Assyrians) but also future enemies (Babylonians). Nahum is telling us about the unchanging character of God. Evil will always be opposed. Every wicked empire — all through the ages — will eventually be brought low before God.
Now, we might hear this, wipe our brow, and thank God that those wicked people out there will eventually be wiped away. But that makes us closer to Jonah than to Christ. A quick perusal of Romans 3 will place all of humanity right alongside the Ninevites. We are, by nature, the oppressors. Our only hope is the same hope that was present in the time of Nahum — to trust in God as our refuge.
When the Ninevites did this (in the time of Jonah) we see that God responded with grace and mercy. When they refused to repent and turn — when they kept themselves on the side of wicked oppression — we see that they experienced the outpouring of God’s wrath. The message for us today is similar: trust in God’s refuge, which is Jesus Christ.
The good news which Nahum forecast (1:15) is only found in Christ. And the destruction of all that is evil is also found in Christ. This is profoundly good news. When we read of the glory of Revelation 21 — a place with no more pain or sorrow or oppression — that means that somehow oppressors (like you and I) must be dealt with. The story of the Bible seems to tell us that this happens either through transformation and inclusion (those who take refuge) or judgment and rejection (those who refuse to take refuge in Christ).
The good news, and we see only a foretaste in Nahum, is that God is making all things right.
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