Back from Babel

Have you ever wondered why there is so much bloodshed and war in this world? Have you ever wondered why there is so much misery and anger, pain and sadness? Maybe these questions don't bother you as much as the personal search for a meaningful life. The ancient Biblical story of the Tower of Babel speaks to these problems and through a Christ-centered understanding of it, we can gain a new perspective on our lives and our future.

Cities are amazing places. I spent four years in a BA program studying cities and know that I have not even begun to scratch the surface on the many wonderful things you can say about them. If we have been dazzled at the skyscrapers of New York, tried to contemplate the number of people in Hong Kong, or Mexico City, taken a walk down Fifth Avenue, through Las Ramblas in Barcelona, or over Parc Mount Royal in Montreal we would all agree.

Imagine what it took to build all of the world’s brilliant places. Think about the brick, the steel, the concrete, the glass, the billions of hours of labor and billions of tons of building material. In my opinion, there is no better way to take a look at what man-kind has done on earth than to look at its cities.

There is a city described in the Bible that was built long ago. It was a pinnacle of achievement in construction for mankind, but mysteriously its construction ended and it faded into time.

Genesis 11:1-9
“ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel – because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”

Looking at this story, one wonders why God here scattered the nations. A possible clue is found in verse 4. One of the reasons that the construction of a city is proposed is so that they will not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. For some reason the people were already afraid of being scattered. Had God warned them already of some sin to turn from? They knew they were in trouble from the outset, before they even started building it. When you realize you're not right with God, what do you do? Whatever the cause of their fear, they didn't seek to be right on the inside, but they went ahead with their plans.

So, in our story, the people begin to build Babylon. In effect, God says "no, you will not build a city without me in it. Cities need life. And I am the source of life!" There's an important principal from scripture that we can see here. If humans were together on our own terms, without God, things would not work out. The only marriages that work the way they’re intended to are the ones that have the love of Jesus at the center. The only families that are fruitful are the ones that have Christ at the center. The only management plans that work out are the ones that are ordained and led by God. I don’t intend to ignore the countless successes of people who do not love, respect or even acknowledge God, but in the end, will their successes last? Will they not fade with this world, and when their creations die will the dead carry them on? Aren’t Napolean, Genghis Khan, and Ghandi all in the grave? And beyond the issue of death, what is the point of building anything without Jesus at the center? Anyone who wants to be in heaven knows that it will revolve around Him. So, why build with only “bricks and mortar”?

It’s important that we realize that just as building cities without God will fail, building anything without God will fail.
Psalm 127:1
"Unless the Lord builds the city the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain."

Is God the chief-designer of your city? Is Christ the cornerstone of your building?

In our story, once God confuses the people, they still have the opportunity to continue building together, but they don't. Why not? If they were really committed to the task, they would have merely been setback by the language barrier. After some time, they would have learned to communicate again and gotten back into a routine. In fact, it suggest in Genesis 10:31-32 that there may have already been a differentiation between languages and nations when they began this whole project. In any case the people could have been speaking different languages and working together just fine, but there was a bigger issue. What caused them to be “scattered”?

The problem was not just that the languages were confused, but that the machine of cultural conflict was set in motion to cause division and the dispersal of the nations.

When God intervenes, all of the energy they had been using to build that city was turned into animosity for one another. They spread out not because they speak different languages, but because something happened in the spiritual realm that made them unable to work together. So, the people disperse, Babylon's population drops. Her politicians, construction workers and artists move to the suburbs, exurbs and beyond. Babylon becomes ripe for attack. It is interesting to note, here, that the warrior king, Nimrod is said to have made Babylon one of the first centers of his kingdom (Gen. 10:10), probably with Peleg as his accomplice(1). And in the Gen. 11 account, it is first called Babel in verse 9(2), after the people have dispersed, which leads us to assume that Nimrod the Babylonian may have come to power after the people were scattered. So, it seems that in response to the pride of the peoples, God removed his protection, and the wicked moved in to power. Not only are the languages differentiated here, but in Babylon chaos and war move in on the human scene with new authority. And this is how I see it: the fall for individual relationships happened in Eden, but the fall for the inter-national relationships happened at Babel. This event was huge! The world as they knew it ended, and history’s power vacuum grew to reach international proportions. At Babel, the effects of sin jumped from an interpersonal level to an international level. And we see the effects to this day as wars, racism, and cultural conflict have not ceased into the twenty-first century and will not cease until the coming of Christ.

After the flood, there were very few people left on the earth and they were all concentrated in one small area. But, at Babel, this began to change. From Babel people moved through the desert and into Africa, over the mountain ranges and into all of Asia and the Americas, and over the hills and rivers and up into Europe. People spread all the way to Papua New Guinea, Aboriginal Australia, the Himalayas, the northern reaches of Siberia, across the Bering Straight all the way into South America, to the east, north, west and south of Africa, north into Scandinavia and west through the Mediterranean world all the way to Greenland! The names we’ve given these places didn’t even exist back then, so it’s unfair to judge the text for lack of depth in explanation based on our modern-day knowledge of its implications. When the story happened, people did not realize its full implications. Throughout human history, peoples have continued to divide, and new languages and cultural differences have emerged as people spread further and further throughout the earth as a result of what God did at the tower of Babel.

Maybe some of you have seen the film Baraka(3).

If you have, or if you’ve done any traveling in real life or through books or television you'd certainly agree that the human race is a beautiful work of art. Think about the diversity of our cultures, the diversity of our ways of life, or the beautiful colors we use in architecture and clothing, the wildly different languages we speak, the variety of fragrances we use and the tastes of foods we eat. All of these peoples and cultures are beautiful, and God made each individually and said His creation was very good(4). But because of sin, because of the pride we displayed at Babel, as beautiful as we are, we are spiritually insignificant until God breathes the Spirit of Jesus into us and makes us new. No matter how lofty our thoughts and how beautiful our buildings, the words in Isaiah stand true for all of creation, where God says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. High has the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and so are my ways higher than your ways” (Isaiah 55:8-9). The millions and millions of galaxies in the universe are each billions of light years away from each other. Nothing we build could ever come close to even traveling at the speed of light, never mind actually accomplishing the task of searching out the depths of the heavens. Do you think that God did this at Babel because the people were actually knocking on heaven’s door? Do you think that God was curling up in a ball in his cloud-built castle, waiting, hoping that the people would not get any closer, and telling himself to think positive thoughts? Could God have actually been afraid of man? No, he did it to stop us from becoming monsters. He did it to stop us from destroying ourselves. The purpose of God’s justice is to bring people to repentance, to save us.

And we see that within His judgment there is so much blessing! Think of all the wonderful things that would not be had God not scattered the nations. There would be no Inuit ingenuity, no Anglo work ethic, no Aboriginal resourcefulness, no Mayan mixture of agriculture and urbanity, no Italian class, no French joie de vivre, no Japanese attention to detail, no Celtic ballads, no ancient heroes and cultural identities, none of the beautiful canvases on which to paint the gospel of Christ. Not only that, but most of scripture was revealed to a people caught in the midst of this cultural dispersion. We would not have any of the Biblical stories past Genesis 11:10 (where the story of Abram begins). Maybe God had something beautiful planned within the whole mess of our pride and sin. Maybe He planned a way to redeem it.

We see throughout the Bible that God loves the nations. He uses Abraham to bless the nations(5). He uses Joseph to save the nations from famine(6). He uses Solomon to be a light to the nations(7). Throughout scripture, God’s plan was to use all that went wrong at Babel for good in the end. Even while Babel was rebelling, the plans were being made for three things:
1. Reconciliation between the nations and the Lord.
2. Reconciliation between the nations – a place of unity.
3. A new earth, restored and beautiful.

In the following Psalm we get a glimpse of God’s heart for the nations.

Psalm 87
He has set his foundation on the holy mountain; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O city of God: “I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me – Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush – and will say, ‘This one was born in Zion.’”
Indeed, of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High himself will establish her.” The Lord will write in the register of the peoples: “This one was born in Zion.”
As they make music they will sing, “All my fountains are in you.”

This Psalm reveals God’s desire to bring the nations together. In it, God says he will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge Him - and he will say that they were born in Zion. Rahab was the foreigner who was raised in the city of Israel's enemies, and Babylon is known both for the scattering of the nations and as an enemy and oppressor of Israel. These are the people who are experiencing the fullest effects of the Lord’s judgment at Babel, but they are being found in Zion – God’s new city. Something had to have happened to have caused a reconciliation this deep! A soldier in combat cannot just walk into enemy territory in the midst of war, buy a house and call it his home! I want to say something very important here. The story of Babel is only important if seen through the cross of Jesus Christ. If not, it is just an interesting myth. At the cross all of our sins, every single sin was separated from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), and we are seen as born in Zion – God’s new city(8). Maybe you’re in a situation where you’ve been away from God for a long time. Maybe you went off on your own and tried to make a name for yourself. If so, I believe God has a plan for your life. Because of the cross, there is reconciliation with God, no matter how far we’ve wandered. Because of the cross of Christ, we all have a home in heaven. Because of the cross, we have reconciliation with God. And because of the cross, we have reconciliation with enemies from our past, no matter what others have said or done to us. Forgiveness is possible through the cross. Healing is possible through the cross.

Ephesians 2:14-22
“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh (on the cross) the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

If you want to know you have a home with God, pray this or something like it:
God, I admit I am guilty of all kinds of sins. (greed, lust, lying/deception, jealousy, idolatry, adultery, pride, sexual immorality, anger, malice and others are sins. List the ones you are guilty of.) Lord Jesus, I thank you that you came to this world for sinners. I haven't lived for you, Lord, but today, I throw my building materials aside to receive what you have for me. God, I repent of my sins and receive your forgiveness. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for your gift of eternal life (John 3:16). God, I ask you to give me your Holy Spirit as a guide and teacher.


Footnotes:
1. Genesis 10:25 shows that Peleg was alive when the “earth was divided.” He is the same generation as Nimrod, and no others are associated with the division event at Babel.
2. The city is referred to as Babylon in Gen. 10:10, but in the context of the story of Babel, the place where people gathered is first given the name Babel at the end. The name is attributed to the place because of what happened there.
3. Baraka (1992) a film created by Ron Fricke.
4. Genesis 1:31 This is the only place in the creation account where God calls creation “very good.”
5. Genesis 12:3 “…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
6. Genesis 41:57 “And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world.”
7. 1 Kings 4:34 “Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.”
8. The Bible makes it clear from other passages, as well, that God plans to bring us together under one banner in His Holy City. See Ephesians 2:14-22; Hebrews 11:10, 12:22; Revelation 21:2,26.

9. Historical Interpretation of Biblical Events:

If we look at the pattern of history laid out below, we can see God’s redemptive plan in action as we speak. Jews are being saved, brought into the presence of God, nations are calling on the name of the Lord, and we are experiencing the power of God on earth, just as the events occurred in Acts and according to Revelation will happen at the end times. As globalization mixes distant and competing cultures, the world is experiencing racial and ethnic reconciliation in Christ and a return to YHWH on a scale that has never before been seen.

Mankind – Adam from Eden
Nations – scattered at Babel
Israel – exiled to Babylon
Disciples – dispersed at crucifixion
CHRIST ON THE CROSS - RESURRECTION
Disciples restored
Jews experiencing salvation - presence of God to Israel
Nations gather to worship YHWH
God with us - a new creation, a new humankind

Part 1: Chaos increases; separation from people and God (events described throughout Bible).
Part 2: Salvation; reconciliation with people and with God (happened in Acts, and prophesied to fulfillment in Revelation).