Word of Salvation – August 2024

 

Sinful Unity, Gracious Division

 

Sermon by Harry Burggraaf B.D. on Genesis 11:1-9

Scripture Reading: Acts 2:1-21; 42-47; Genesis 11:1-9

Singing:        Through all the changing scenes of life (BoW.34a)
                        Exalt the Lord His praise proclaim (BoW.135b)

 

THEME: God destroys sinful, external unity and false security in order to replace it with his own true unity and security in Christ.

 

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Have you ever really considered what happened at Shinar?

In one way or another we have all experienced the results of that event in man's history.

In a very obvious and concrete way of course we may be familiar with language difficulties,
 - perhaps (for some) that initial struggle to learn English as a foreign language

 - perhaps the frustration of not really understanding the children as they begin to use the latest teenage slang,

 - or the difficulty if holidaying overseas and feeling lost because you can't make yourself understood,

 - or in the consideration of the immense effort that goes into bringing the Bible to people of all languages.

But the results of Babel go deeper, far deeper.

 - the marriage which breaks up because there is never a meeting of meanings in the conversation between husband and wife,

 - the failure of detente between nations because they refuse to understand each other,

 - the frustrated teenager who runs out of the room with the words, "You don't understand what I mean in any case."

 - the trouble which a misunderstanding of your own words and meaning may have caused.

In their popular song Simon and Garfunkel capture this meaning of Babel all too clearly,
            and in the naked light I saw,
            ten thousand people, may be more,
            people talking without speaking,
            people hearing without listening,
            people writing songs that voices never share,
            no one dare, disturb the sounds of silence.

The results of Babel are deep and painful and persistent.

a)  Historical Reality.

"Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words."  We see immediately that this is a statement of fact.

A hundred or so years after the flood, perhaps more, but in any case in the time of Peleg, who belonged to the lineage of Shem, the situation was such that all of mankind articulated sounds in the same way so as to give a uniform system of communication – the Hebrew says that people were of one lip.  This is an historical record.  There is nothing mythical or symbolical about it as some people would want us to believe.  And this stamp of genuine history is seen throughout the narrative - for the text goes on:

"For it came about as they journeyed east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.  And they said to one another, 'Come let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ and they used brick for stone and tar for mortar."

People migrated eastwards and when they found a fertile region of land, in that area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers later known as Babylonia, they decided to set up home and started to develop and use technology.  So this is a record of things which happened in space and time.  The historian even interprets a custom which would have been strange to the inhabitants of Palestine reading this record – the use of adobe or baked clay instead of stones for building material.

And as a result of developing technology the people said,

"Come let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

Now what is wrong with all that?  Surely it was all right to settle down and form a large community – there’s safety in numbers and the city can be a place of tremendous variety and scope and mutual benefit?  And surely technology is to be used in the service of mankind?

b)  A sinful unity and false Security.

What was wrong, congregation, was that this settling in Shinar, this city building was firstly a wilful act of disobedience – also a sinful declaration of self-sufficiency and independence from God and finally it was a questioning of God's power to keep and to bless his people.  The community at Shinar was built on a sinful, shallow, external unity and a wrong sense of security.

            Wilful Disobedience

God had a purpose for his creation, he had a purpose for man; we read of it in Gen.1:28 "...and God blessed them; and God said to them 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’"

And this promise and command was renewed after the flood – when Noah and his sons were to make a new beginning Gen.9:1

"And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."

The earth is yours to use, fill it, develop it, enjoy it, explore it (notice: not misuse it) it is my gift to you as a creature responsible to his Creator.  And what is man's response?  We'll settle at Shinar, we'll build ourselves a secure city, that'll keep us together.

God says: spread, man says: no we'll stay.

God says: fill and develop, man says: no we'll build.

God says: don't eat, man says: but it looks rather good to eat.

God says: go to Nineveh, man says: its Tarshish I'll go to.

The old principle of rebellious disobedience is repeating itself.  And aren't we conscious of it ourselves, congregation.  Shinar is not really so far removed from 1976.

            Fearful Mistrust.

Secondly we see that this sinful unity and seeking for security was motivated by fear, a fear which betrayed a mistrust and rejection of the promises of God.  "Come let us build... lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the earth."  We must have a rallying point around which to unite, a city, a tower, we need security in unity, shallow and external and empty as that might be.  If we don't build we shall be scattered - and that means the possibility of being overcome by natural disaster, that means exposure to the ravages of the elements and wild beasts, it could even lead to war between us because scattered we will be disunited.

Gone was all confidence and trust in an almighty God, gone the faith which allows dispersion, gone the remembrance of God's promise to Noah – Gen.9:2,9 "and the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.... I myself do establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you... and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood."

The community at Shinar had lost faith and an empty, outward unity had to be forged to replace the faith which finds its security in God.  And how often does this principle too show itself in our lives in the lives of even God's greatest saints; Abraham, who lies to protect his skin while God's constant promise had been: "do not fear Abraham I am a shield to you"; Jacob and Rebecca plotting and manoeuvring to get that blessing, which in fact God had already promised; and we ourselves sometimes working, and planning and worrying in a faithlessness which would make it seem as if God had not given us any promises at all.

            A Name for Ourselves.

But worst of all – the sinfulness of Shinar expresses itself in a declaration of arrogant independence from God.

"Come let us build and make a name for ourselves."  "Let us make a monument to our achievements that our reputation will be secure forever."  Here, as it were, is man's first and defiant public declaration of humanism.  We can maintain our own human unity and identity, we don't need God.  We can achieve our own social stability, we'll work out our own morality.

No longer will we be named by God and so acknowledge to being his subjects, we will make a name for ourselves and be independent.

The city and the tower of Babel was not built to escape another flood (for God had specifically said there would be no other flood) as some people would like to believe.  Nor was it built as an attempt to reach heaven and get closer to God as some children's Bibles would make out.  Or like the Greek myth about the Titans who stacked mountains on top of each other in order to storm the gods.

Rather Babel was an enterprise of independence from the Creator; a desire to exclude God from his creation, man's triumphant march without God.

And it is interesting that the symbol, the expression of this arrogant defiance, of this godless pretention was the city, the tower – if you like, science and technology.

And again Shinar is not just ancient history long since dead and gone.  The spirit and the pattern of Babel repeats itself throughout the ages - wherever man's grandiose schemes, wherever his pretentious achievements seek to displace the Creator.  In this regard there is a most interesting book by Jacques Ellul, a Christian sociologist and law theorist, "The Meaning of the City" – in which he argues that the city has always been the symbol of man's rebellion, the place where sin is most intense and God most easily excluded, the place where man declares himself master over nature, the place of godless society, persecution, inequality.  That is also the Bible's picture of Babylon, the harlot in the book of Revelation.

That is the great danger of science and technology today – it is used in defiance against God.  Man's knowhow, his abilities, his achievements are good and proper in themselves when they are used as a creature in the service of the Creator.  The tragedy is that they are constantly used to assert man's independence from God.

"Let us build a tower reaching to the heavens," say the people of Shinar in all arrogance.

"Is this not Babylon which I have built?" exclaims Nebuchadnezzar.

"I didn't happen to see God," proclaims the Russian cosmonaut as he puts all his faith and trust in the science that hurls him round the world at an incredible speed.

"Look what we can do," says modern man – men on the moon, heart transplants to prolong life, test tube babies, complex computer technology which boggles the mind, huge metropoli for endless variety and diversion, an incredible explosion of knowledge" – and we have done it all says modern man as he seeks to displace the Creator.

What we need more than ever today are Christian men and women of knowledge, scientists and technologists, and engineers and urban planners and social engineers
– who place their knowledge and their work under the rule of God,
– who see their achievements as a source of service to him, and not a source of autonomy,
 – who shun the sinfulness of Shinar.

And what of ourselves, congregation?  Are we free from the name making of Shinar?  You see it is so easy, even for regenerate man to fall into that spirit of independency and autonomy.

Do we glory in our achievements, our abilities, our work, our knowledge; do we make a name for ours elves in friendships and relationships – or do we see them as a trust in the service of God.

Anything which places self above the glory, honour and service of God is the pattern and spirit of Babel repeated.  And such a spirit God will not and cannot tolerate for he IS master in this world.

            c)  Divine Intervention.

"Come let us build a city and a tower," says man.
            "Come let us go down," says God,

"Let us make a name for ourselves" says man.
            "I will make that name confusion," is God's reply,

"Let us stay together and engage in grandiose schemes to assert our independence and establish our security" says man.

"Come let us divide," says God, "For such autonomy and sinful unity can only lead to one end – material and spiritual death."

We do not know the mechanics of what God did at Shinar.  The Bible just tells us: that He intervened and confused their language, their lip – he differentiated their mode of speech so that one man's meaning was no longer another's understanding.

Henceforth man could no longer communicate so as to come to perfectly unified understanding.

What God did was radical, effective and lasting.  Through it he accomplished his purpose of scattering man over the face of the earth and so he asserts his absolute sovereignty, majesty and power.

But why not the destruction of Babel, why not a thunderbolt from heaven, why the confusion of language of all things?

Because God sees and deals with the very heart of the problem.  Shinar was not a once for all event, it would be the continuing inclination of man to set himself up in opposition to God, and that had to be dealt with...!

On the one hand there was no real unity at Babel in any case, nor any true security.  It was based on external form and a man-centred basis – and so God gave visible expression to what it in actual fact was.  Away with hypocrisy!

But as well as that what tied these people together was a lie – the lie of man's self-sufficiency and independence – and if that was allowed to continue then there would be no end to the increase of sin (as verse 6 says: "and now nothing they purpose to do will be impossible for them).  In the end it would mean their destruction.

And so by confusion of language, by touching man's ability to think and conceptualise and communicate these thoughts with perfect understanding, God destroys the ability of man to live by a truth of his own, in opposition to God.  Henceforth man's truth will only be partial and contested.  Where there is no communication (the meeting of meaning with meaning) there is no truth, where there is no truth there is no unity.

Henceforth the communication breakdown at all levels of life serve as a constant reminder of the inclination of the human heart to arrogance, to disobedience and self-sufficiency.

On the one hand God's intervention was one of judgement.  It was the end of the Babel experiment.  From now on the city which wanted a name for itself, would be known as Babel because there the Lord made a 'babble' (confusion) of their language (notice the play on words!).

On the other hand God's intervention was one of grace, mercy and love.

God's gracious intervention prevented the increase of sin.

But even more wonderful – God’s intervention at Babel was also to be the beginning of a new unity and a new security, a new relation of God with men through the line of Abraham, Isaac, Israel – ultimately mankind in Christ – as we see in chapter 12.

God destroyed a sinful unity based on man's understanding of the truth, in order to replace it with a unity and fellowship in Christ, through the Holy Spirit; a unity based on the truth of the gospel in which men from every tongue and tribe and nation can and may participate.

God's answer to the kingdom of Babel, is the coming of his kingdom in Christ.  God's answer to Shinar is Pentecost – where through an equally miraculous means as the confusion at Babel, he enabled men to hear the gospel and understand it in their own language.

In the gospel communication barriers are overcome, in Christ division is turned to fellowship – as we see in Acts 2:42.

At Shinar the centre of concern was a tower and a name, at Pentecost it was the praise of God and fellowship in his teaching.

God has substituted his own city for the rebellious city of Babel – the new Jerusalem where he himself is the centre of all attention and adoration and worship.

So as read in Revelation 18:2 -

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit ..... woe Babylon, in one hour your judgement has come... so come out of her my people that you may not participate in her sins.

For there is a new city, a holy city, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven... from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

Do you have your citizenship in that city?

Are you living as a citizen of that city?