The Tower of Babel - Part I

Well, we begin to look at this episode in Genesis 11 of the Tower of Babel, and this is such a significant part in the narrative that there's just no way I could do justice to it all this morning. And so I'm hoping to hit several points of application as we work through the details of the text and consider that in light of some of the larger progression that we've seen so far in Genesis, but there'll be a lot more practical application next week.

And so there's sort of going to be a part two to this Babel story that's more focused on application for us today. How do we live life in the shadow of Babel? I think that's what we're going to explore in more detail next week, but you'll get some pretty big hints about some of that material this morning.

This will give us some place for application. We want to keep in mind when we begin the first nine verses of Genesis 11 that Genesis chapter one all the way through Genesis chapter 11 is still in fact introductory material.

We often don't think of Genesis in that way, but there's a lot of time that is condensed in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. And then from that, we sort of zoom into the narrative beginning in chapter 12 and we start getting into a lot more detail and time begins to slow down, which means the narrative now lengthens and that's a big hint that as far as Moses is concerned, the emphasis is on the patriarchal narratives.

That's the whole point of Genesis. He zooms in, takes time, builds a lot more detail at a slower pace. And so we're looking at the preface, the context, the introduction to Genesis 12 and following. And we're coming to the close of this prehistory.

And Moses, before we launch into the genealogy and then the narrative of Abraham, he gives us this glimpse of Babel. That means it's very important. He doesn't just give us the table of nations and then introduce us to Abraham and take.

Off.

He takes time to develop this story, this history of Babel. And what we'll see again is this emphasis. We've seen it again and again up to this point in Genesis of God intervening with the sinfulness of man, the rebellion of man in his fallen condition.

Counter-Creation and the City of Man

So this morning we're going to look at these first nine verses in three parts and you'll be familiar with these concepts we've made reference to them. First, counter creation. Remember this paradigm we've been considering scholars all over the spectrum.

Pick these things up. I think that the most condensed treatment is Professor Sean McDonough. He has some work that's coming out on this. It's going to be published next year, but he's very good about this fourfold scheme of understanding the meta themes of Genesis.

In other words, not just a theme unique to the book, but a meta theme, not just Genesis, but all of scripture. And so we begin with creation. And then as a result of the fall, there is counter creation, man rebelling against God's order, God's design for creation because of man's counter creation.

He brings decreation. God judges, and often that judgment language is the reversal or the undoing of order. It's, it's collapsing things into chaos or into disorder. But then out of that judgment, out of that decreation, God brings forth recreation or new creation, which is another way of talking about salvation.

So that's our fourfold scheme. And we're going to apply that here to the Babel episode. So the three parts are counter creation and the city of man. And then secondly, decreation and the city of man.

All right.

So rebellion, then judgment, and then salvation, new creation and the city of God. Okay. That's what we'll do in our time this morning. So first counter creation and the city of man, the whole earth had one language in one speech and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, they found a plane in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there.

Then they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city in a tower whose top is in the heavens.

Let us make a name for ourselves. Lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. So we've moved from the table of nations into all of the people after the flood beginning to multiply and spread out and they've moved eastward and around the time in the table of nations that we get to Peleg in Nimrod.

This is where we are in Genesis 11. The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel, Eric, Akkad, Kalma and the land of Shinar. Well, here we are in the land of Shinar in the plane and Nimrod is about to begin his empire, his kingdom.

Now that's the region of Mesopotamia in the ancient world today. That would be the region of Iraq. I don't see Nimrod's kingdom doing very well in that region today. Mankind after the flood had been given this creation mandate.

Be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the earth. Another way of understanding that. Spread over the earth. Fill the earth. Scatter across the face of the earth. They've been given this covenant through Noah. God's grace has sustained their lives, promised that the world will not be destroyed again by a flood and rainstorm after rainstorm down through these years.

They see rainbows in the clouds that are a sign of that covenant. And they have one language, one speech as they as they continue forth from the flood. But notice they begin to cut short this commission to fill the earth, to spread over the earth.

They find a plane in the land of Shinar and they settle there.

They dwell there.

That's not spreading. That's not filling. That's concentrating. That's hunkering down. They do not settle because of external circumstances. But rather, as we read, they settle for this reason. Come, let us build ourselves a city, a tower whose top is in the heavens.

Let us make a name for ourselves. Lest we be scattered over the face of the earth. See, we don't like that commission. We don't want to obey that command. Lest we actually have to fulfill it. Let us stay here and build a city, make our own reputation.

Do things our own way. So there's an abject refusal to spreading over the face of the earth. We see in that this fallen pride, this boastful desire to forge a city-state, an empire, an exercise dominion over the face of the earth in their image.

Not be spread over the face of the earth as God's image. So here we have the reappearance of the Cainite civilization before the flood. Now these aren't Cainites. That line died out in the flood. But these are Cainites, so to speak.

Because Cainites are sinful men. And this is what sinful men do. They seek to build and forge their own empire in their own image.

And this is a common theme.

We see this again and again in scripture. This is what fallen man seeks to accomplish. Even those that don't have the avenues to such power. Maybe not the Nimrods, or the Cains, or the Ozymandias as we saw last week.

But still, fallen humanity seeks to provide for themselves.

By themselves. Defend themselves.

Dominate others for the sake of that so-called defense.

Make a name for themselves.

All of this without reference to God.

All of this against the purposes of God.

I've mentioned before the French theologian Jacques Ellul. A very important thinker, especially when it comes to this theme in Genesis. He wrote a very important book called The Meaning of the City. And he argued that in Genesis, the city emerges as a result of sin.

And that's certainly true, right? The first city we see comes from fallen men doing fallen things. The city is a consequence of sinful humanity. And that's because the city, right? Under Cain, is Cain trying to manage and navigate God's curse.

Actually make that curse into a blessing. He wants to gain security. He wants to regain what was lost in Eden. And all of this without looking to God. Now, the city, as the Bible continues forward, doesn't become negative exclusively.

In fact, the larger picture of the city leads us to the contrast between this city of man that keeps re-emerging and the city of God. So, Jerusalem is the first major step toward the city of God. It becomes symbolic of Zion, which is the city of God that appears at the very end of the Bible in Revelation.

And there we see all of these scattered nations streaming into that holy city. So, the Bible begins with a very negative view of the city of man, of the attempt to build a city. But the Bible ends with God's city to which all of the nations stream and enter into its glory.

The conflict here reaches its apex because the Babel builders want to make a name for themselves. They want to be men of renown, like the giants. So, they refuse to fill the earth through spreading, through being fruitful, through migration.

They fear that. They don't want to be scattered.

They gather in one place. They build their great city. They build a tower as a symbol of their strength and ingenuity. Now, we often approach the narrative as though they're doing this. And God's quite threatened.

They're actually going to do this.

I better come down here and interrupt them and confuse their language. An ancient reader, who's actually built larger buildings than we have, would be laughing at this point in the narrative. Because Moses has already said that they're baking mud bricks in the sun.

They're baking mud bricks. And so, they want to build a tower that's going to reach to the heavens with mud bricks. The Israelites would be laughing, cracking up at this very idea. It's foolish from the start.

We've seen them make this boast in all of their vanity. And here they are in this plain of Shinar. And there's not a lot of stone quarries. But there's certainly a lot of clay. And so, they develop this ability to bake bricks.

And they use this bitumen, this tar. The old King James translates it as slime.

What a lovely picture that is.

This tower of slime and mud. And they want to build this up. Well, Moses and the Israelites knew a little bit about mud bricks, didn't they?

While they were in Egypt.

Their backs being lashed open, bloody. As they mix the mud with the straw and bake them out to dry. But you go to Egypt today and where are all those mud brick towers?

You don't see them.

What are the great pyramids made out of?

Stone.

Can't build very tall unless you're building with stone. The ancients knew that. These Babel builders did not. It was a foolish attempt from the start. This is the way of the boast of men, isn't it?

Full of pride.

An assumption of strength. But in reality, it's always rather pathetic. Isn't it? There's a grandiose claim, but it's reality is hollow. What we have in Babel are the original progressives. And that progressive ideology has seeped down through the ages.

Great is our boast.

Great is what we'll accomplish. If we can reform society in this way. If we can implement these policies and these measures. Then we will build a tower to the heavens. And yet it's just mud and slime.

And it's always half finished. It never amounts to anything.

It's hollow.

What it amounts to is actually human suffering. Human misery.

Injustice. Evil.

Things that are abominable in the sight of the Lord. Derek Kidner writes,. The project of Babel is typically grandiose. Men describe it excitedly to each other as though it were the ultimate achievement.

Very much as modern man glories in his projects. At the same time, in doing so, they betray their own insecurity. As they crown together to try to preserve their identity. And control their own destiny.

Of course, the problem is not the desire of this people to settle and organize. That's not necessarily a negative thing. A city is not necessarily a bad idea. That can be harmonious with the idea of being spread out generationally.

But what's being condemned here is this pride.

This boast. This rebellion.

Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us make our own image on the face of the earth. That's what's being condemned here. It's as though we're not going to be fallen. And we're going to create a world that is not fallen.

And if we have enough power and enough skill and enough technology. We can control the effects of the fall. And we can dominate any relationships that are problematic to our own security or stability.

To our own dominance. And so they're managing and resisting and rebelling against the fall. As though the fall has no consequence. And this itself is just a repetition of Genesis 3, right? And certainly we see God intervening.

He cuts Adam and Eve off from the tree of life. So they don't bring further folly and further misery to their lives. And so it is here. He cuts off this building project. Before it continues the misery and the folly of man's pride.

They're seeking to find security in this tower. They're seeking to use technology but in a rebellious way. They have this desire to be known.

To be praised.

To have reputation.

And all three of these areas.

Security.

Technology.

To be known. These are all perennial needs in the life of fallen people. These are the forces that drive us still today. As we'll see later this morning and especially next week. All of these things are contained in the words, Let us make a name for ourselves.

Let us define ourselves. Let us establish our own authority. Let us be what we declare ourselves to be. It's going to be our definition, not God's. It's going to be our verdict, not God's. Does that sound familiar?

Does that sound familiar in the year 2021? Instead of being defined as God's image bearers, mankind seeks to make himself, remake himself after his own image. He'll be his own creation to find himself.

This is how creation moves to counter creation.

Do you see?

If man becomes a self-definer, he becomes as it were a God. God has the right to name. God has the authority to define. He is the creator. Man usurps that as though he ever actually could. He attempts to usurp that and redefine himself.

And define his own terms and his own reality. This has always been the way of the serpent. This has always been the way of sin. Man's verdict, the serpent's verdict, not God's. Man's authority, man's definitions, not God's.

What is a man? What is a woman?

What defines male and female? Here we are in 2021 and it's the same design. The same evil design. This is how creation moves to counter creation. Man is inescapably religious. You've never met someone who isn't religious.

You've never met someone who isn't religious. Atheists are often the most religious people. Their rituals and acts are very consistent with their beliefs, with their faith. Man is inescapably religious because man is made in the image of God.

Man is invariably caught up in the drama of the fall, whether he wants to be or not. He cannot control that. He is an inescapably religious being, inescapably caught up in the drama, the cosmic drama of the fall.

When this is denied by man, when it's resisted, rebelled against, when it's trying to be navigated or managed, the result will always be the result. Only when you properly align God and orient all the other spheres of creation in accordance with that.

God orients individual and family and state. When you don't properly align those things toward God, you will always get a transfer to Babel.

Always.

Rush Duney was very, very good on this point. In the Reformed tradition, Van Till, others followed him. This is what he writes. If deity be denied to the God of Scripture, in other words, if God is usurped by fallen man, God is no longer God, but we attempt to be God.

If deity be denied to the God of Scripture, it merely reappears in man or in the state. Babel is the original state. In scare quotes. And if the church ceases proclaiming the gospel, religion doesn't perish, right?

Man is inescapably religious. Religion doesn't perish. Religion isn't repressed. It just reappears as politics or economics. And salvation continues to be offered to the inescapably religious man.

Do we see that today?

People speak of the political system in terms of salvation. And they exercise faith and obedience to the system. That's just religion reemerging, right? When you deny God, Godhood, that Godhood gets transferred to the state, to man.

And when man has it, it becomes Babel.

Do you see? This is the point. We see that today, don't we?

Decreation and the City of Man

How does God respond? Well, we see that secondly in decreation. Decreation, verses 5 -9. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, indeed, the people are one and they all have one language.

And this is what they begin to do.

Now nothing they propose to do will be without help from them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech. And so the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth.

And they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel because there the Lord confused the languages of all the earth. And from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

So this is the answer to counter-creation. Decreation, judgment. God moves in judgment. We see that even though He's given a covenant through Noah, a covenant of common grace to mankind, that does not mean that He will withhold judgment to fallen mankind.

When God inspects the building, I remember someone saying a good sermon title for these verses would be, you know, building inspector. That's really what God's role is here. He's the building inspector.

In that, God coming down to inspect or to see the building, there's this running insult. They wanted to build a tower as high as the heavens. God has to condescend to come down and actually see their little mole hill.

It's so foolish and absurd. Their boast and their vanity. He comes down from the heavens just to get a glimpse of their little matchstick. God's response is, this is what they begin to do. Now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.

We can't read that as though God is saying, oh boy, they're really getting away with this. They're so close. I better stop it. He's not vulnerable. He's not threatened to this. It's actually really a moment of compassion for mankind.

As Kidner says, this is a creator's, a father's concern, not a rival's concern. He sees where this is going to lead and what it's going to require.

So he cuts it short.

Lest there be further misery and further judgment. You have to think about it in this sense. What do we know of the great cities of the world, of history? What kind of city could sustain such a project?

What kind of tyranny and brutality would that city require? How domineering would the authority be that would grind men and women into either the role of vicious oppressor or sorely oppressed? And so God cuts this short.

This is the way of cities, isn't it?

God knows the power of the human mind. He knows he's made man in his image and he knows what that imageness can harness in terms of evil. And so he limits. He cuts it short. He confuses the language. And so knowledge, technology, organization continues to move forward.

But because of this act in Genesis 11, man's no longer capable of uniting in their counter-creative ways. Because God confuses the language, there's been a limitation on this gradual movement toward one world rebellion, toward a global rebellion against God the Creator.

And so that is the city. That is the picture of decreation. And remember I said this isn't just something relevant to Genesis 11. And it's not even just a theme for Genesis. Every book could be said to have a theme.

Philippians, maybe the theme is joy. 1 John, maybe the theme is assurance. But we're not just talking about a theme in a book. We're talking about a theme for all of Scripture. A meta-theme. It goes over all.

So the same idea, the same building blocks we find, for instance, in Isaiah 24. Notice this decreation language, and we're going to bring it back to the city. Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty. He makes it a waste.

He distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. This is the creative language. Isaiah 24, verse 3. The land shall be entirely emptied, utterly plundered. The opposite of being fruitful. Now it's being plundered, it's being stripped bare.

For the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The haughty people of the earth, the proud Babylites, they languish. The earth is defiled under its inhabitants.

Because they have transgressed the laws. Changed the ordinance. Broken the everlasting covenant. Please notice that. Very important phrase. Broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, the curse has devoured the earth.

The curse has devoured the earth.

And those who dwell in it are desolate. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned. And few men are left. Now Jeffrey Niehaus, who wrote an important biblical theology, and this is partly coming from his insight.

He points out this phrase, everlasting covenant. Everlasting covenant. Barith Olam in Hebrew. And he says here, it doesn't quite fit with the Israelites under the Mosaic law. This is verse 5. The everlasting covenant has been broken.

The earth lies broken. Other covenants in scripture are everlasting.

Okay, Olam.

But only the covenant God makes with Noah is in reference to the whole earth.

Right?

That's the significant thing here. There's other everlasting covenants God makes, but he makes them with specific individuals or a nation. There's only one covenant in scripture that God makes with respect to the whole earth.

And that's Noah's covenant. He makes a covenant with the earth. We saw that, didn't we? But here the whole earth has broken the everlasting covenant. What covenant has the whole earth broken? It would have to be Noah's covenant.

They have transgressed the laws, have violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. And so in the context of Isaiah 24, this is why judgment is coming. And now notice how this is being connected to the city.

The city.

And we don't even have a name for the city. It's just the city. And it's called the city of chaos.

Or in our own translation, the city of confusion. 24 beginning in verse 10. The city of chaos, the city of confusion is broken down. It's interesting that the verb for scatter can also be translated to break.

And we have this idea of confusion here. That's not the best translation.

It's chaos. It's tohu.

Which we saw in Genesis 1. In the beginning, the world was void.

The earth was void. Tohu. Chaos.

So this is all decreation.

Every house is shut up. Here's the city.

None may go in. There's a cry for wine in the streets. All joy is darkened. The mirth of the land is gone. In the city, desolation is left. And the gate is stricken with destruction.

Do you see?

The earth has broken this covenant. The city is broken down. Babel is broken down.

Babel is scattered.

Creation, in other words, can be pictured as a building. As a series of building. And then the judgment, the decreation, breaks down what is built. It tears down what man has built. And so the city of man is the city of chaos.

It's Babel. And it's interesting how God confirms this. They want to build a city so that they won't be broken. So that they won't be scattered over the face of the earth. And what does God do? He breaks them.

He scatters them over the whole face of the earth. And He brings chaos to them. There's this beautiful art to the way that this account is being written. And this is really throughout Genesis. You have what are called parallelisms.

There's different ways they can form in Hebrew.

And there's this art to it.

The people want to make a name for themselves.

A shem. A name.

A reputation.

A shem.

And so they gather in one shem. They gather in one place. And they want to build a tower to the shemayim. The heavens. And so they say, let us make bricks.

Laban.

So notice shem, shem, shemayim. This is all the same. We want to make a name. Let's gather in a place. Let's build to the heavens. And how are they going to do that?

Laban.

They make bricks.

And what does God do when He comes? He confuses.

He nabal.

That's the exact reversal. If you just put into English letters LBN. That's the building up of bricks. LBN. And God comes and He NBL. He tears down what they build up. Let us build up. Let me confuse.

Let us confuse. There's this beautiful symmetry here. God is reversing the very thing that man is trying to do. They're being counter-creative. God is countering them. He decreates them. Man builds up.

God pulls down. Babel's trying to frustrate the purposes of God in the world. God frustrates the purposes of Babel. Babylon becomes the ultimate symbol of Babel in Scripture, as we'll see. And so Babel or Babylon represents human culture whenever it's rebellious against God.

Whenever it tries to control things, to forge its own destiny in rebellion or disobedience to God. And yet, moving to our third point, where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.

What have we seen in Genesis?

Whenever God acts in judgment, He does so with respect to salvation. And so even in this judgment, God has His eye, His momentum towards salvation. And that brings us to the third point.

New Creation in the City of God

The reversal of Babel.

The new creation in the city of God. The new creation that emerges from this decreation brings us all the way forward to the book of Acts, chapter 2. We go from Genesis 11 and God breaking down what fallen man has built up, decreating them back into chaos.

And then He brings us all the way forward. Jesus has ascended on high. And as they're all gathered at the temple court, the Spirit descends. And what happens as a result of the Spirit descending at Pentecost?

They speak with tongues of fire.

And all the people that have gathered there for this great festival, the Feast of Weeks, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya, belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.

What do they hear? They hear the message of God's building plan. They hear the message of God's kingdom in their own language.

That's the reversal. That's the new creation.

Acts 2 .11, we hear them telling the mighty work of God in our own languages. Pentecost, in other words, becomes the answer, the new creative event over against Babel. This is where the apostles begin to preach the risen, the crucified and risen Savior, Christ, and the kingdom that is now advancing in their midst.

Zephaniah 3 .9 prophesied this. Yea, at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord in one accord. That's being fulfilled in Acts 2.

God establishes a new kingdom, a new people, who are not making a name for themselves, but rather they come in the name of the Lord. Zephaniah 3. They call on the name of the Lord. For all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

The multiplying of these languages then ends up being this glorious picture of a many-tongued, many-thrived worship of the risen Christ. Revelation 5, beginning in verse 9. They sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You've made them a kingdom, priests to our God. They shall reign on the earth. That's what the Babylites wanted to do. They wanted to do it by their own strength, for their own sinful purposes. And yet here God scatters these nations.

From them He gathers His people out of all of these nations and they come together and He says, No, I make you into a kingdom. You gather in My name by My power and I make you to reign on the face of the earth.

The division of languages here in Genesis 11 proves that God will not share His glory with another. Will not tolerate the rebellion of fallen man. That God is set against those who delude themselves into thinking that they have ultimate control.

It's a message we need to hear today, brothers and sisters. God sets Himself against the proud. God sets Himself against those who are deluded. They think they have control because they're building with mud and slime.

God sets Himself against them. What does He do in the heavens?

Psalm 2.

He laughs.

He holds them in derision. What does the church say to these slime builders?

Kiss the sun, lest ye be angry.

His wrath is kindled in but a moment. All of this moves again, this picture of new creation, new salvation. The story doesn't end at Genesis 11, does it? It brings us forward to Genesis 12. The hope for the human race is not in some collective effort, some globalizing movement.

We can now finally have security. We can make a name for ourselves. We'll go down in history as those who fixed poverty and famine and warfare and disaster. We will bring justice and salvation to the earth.

No, what is God doing in the midst of that great boastful claim? What is God doing? In the shadow of it, He's preparing this little program of grace, this initiative of grace. In the shadow of that land in Ur of the Chaldees, He's unfolding His eternal purposes.

In the shadow of counter-creation, which is so small and minuscule, it would almost be invisible to these power brokers and earth shakers, He's preparing a little family, the family of Terah. And through them, Abram.

He's continuing on this little program of grace. Isn't that just symbolic of what He does when Herod is reigning over his tetrarchy, when Caesar is comfortably on his throne and no one has even heard of Bethlehem, a town of maybe 200 people, and yet God's promised salvation is unfolding in that little corner under the shadow of Babel.

Genesis 11 pictures rebellious humanity scattering over the face of the earth. And then we move forward to Genesis 12 in a few weeks. It all zooms in to one family, to one man, Abraham. Because God has not forgotten His promise to fallen man.

And even though He's broken down man's attempt to rebel against Him, He has not forgotten His promise of salvation to fallen men. He's not closed hope even to these nations that He's now scattered. Languages that are divided, people groups that are isolated.