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Maybe we're supposed to just accept that Christ saw that account as a messianic type and figure out why for ourselves.

 

It may be that such dual application passages can only be divinely revealed to be such. Maybe we ought not try to transgress contextual meaning, otherwise. After all, if "out of Egypt have I called my son" had no dual prophetic sense, what would be so problematic about that? Same goes with prophecying the number of days/nights in the tomb.

 

E.g., I doubt seriously an apostle would have opted for a dual application of "out of Egypt have I called my son." I suspect, rather, that Christ explained all of that to them. And the spirit brought these things and/or other things to their remembrance ("the Spirit will bring you remembrance of all things" and "the Spirit will give you what to say in that hour"). 

 

If this is a possible interpretation, then Christ probably explained to them the type of Joseph/Moses (of being rejected first and accepted later) that Stephen used in Acts 7, and so forth. In this case, the sign of Jonah is just one such example. Paul saying the Spirit "foresaw that the Gentiles would be justified by faith" is possibly another example. Paul couldn't deduce that the Spirit foresaw Gentile justification if he was an open theist. For scripture could have been fulfilled without that actually being the case (Gentiles can be blessed without being justified by faith). So I just assume that Christ told Paul (when he imparted revelation to Paul) that the Spirit actually DID foresee just such a justification of Gentiles.

 

The thing that is common about all these prophecies is the total unexpectedness of them all. They are all true and possible because of the dual coming of Christ (including the initial suffering followed by subsequent glory). This was what the Israelites could not see. But the Spirit DID foresee. And all the types and dual applications are sensible when this is understood.

 

So my take is this. Who am I to tell the Spirit what he foresaw? If he foresaw Jonah's 3 days/nights typologically like Joseph's rejection, suffering, and later reception, what's the problem? This seems just as plausible, to me, as the idea that both Jesus and Paul seemingly speak of 3 days as being scriptural when in fact that is not the case.

 

There is a degree of implausibility both ways. I just think that Paul repeating that same wording in Corinthians tips the scales in the favor of a prophetically anticipated 3 days/nights (albeit "loosely"--like the dual application of "out of egypt have I called my son"). But who's to say the Spirit can't play this way?

 

Let me add as a poscript that I don't for a minute rule out the possibility that their is some significance of "3" in the first place that grounds the reason for Jonah's 3-day/night stay in the belly of the fish.