The Tower, the Table, and the New Jerusalem

Image by Tim Hill

Have you ever heard of the concept of a spite house? These are houses that are built for the purposes of upsetting neighbors or making a point. One such house is in Freeport, New York, built in 1906. The builder was a developer named John Randall who didn’t like the city’s idea to make a grid system for the roads. To stop this, he built a house on a triangular piece of land that ruined the symmetry of the roads, a consequence you can still see today, over one hundred years later. There is another one in Boston called the Skinny House. Two brothers got a piece of land, but one was away on military duty. When he came back, he found his brother built a house taking up more than a fair share of property. In response, he built a house right next to his brother's, constructed in such a way to block light from the house! It is so close there isn’t a front door, meaning you’ve got to shimmy your way around to the side door (Source).

In a time before regulation, it was possible to preserve one’s feelings about something for over a century in this country, but this isn’t a new thing. Building something to commemorate an event or a person wasn’t invented in 20th century America. In fact, this goes back nearly to the beginning, all the way to Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, the original spite house. God’s command was for the people to go out and fill the earth, but they disobeyed this command pretty straightaway with the idea of staying together and building a name for themselves. God is going to intervene with a judgment that is still around even today but will be lifted on that Great Day of the Lord. Today we are going to see God's commandments and judgments produce ultimate good and A broken world is moving towards reunion. 

God’s Commandments and judgments produce ultimate good. 

We begin with the introduction that calls our attention to the point of this story: language. If we all truly came from the same family, why do we have such radically different ways of expressing ourselves in speech, and why is everyone so scattered? Chapter 11 answers all of these questions, and they are answered in God’s actions. This chapter tells us that at one time humanity was radically united. They had the same language and could walk with each other in the cool of the day. They find a flat space and decide to make bricks with the materials around. With those bricks they decide to build a city with a great tower in order to keep them together and build a monument to themselves, to give themselves a name. This is a good strategy for doing that, as we look on the pyramids today with awe over the builders skills these many thousands of years later! 

However, this is also a terrible idea because it requires disobedience to God. God told them to spread out and fill the earth, but they are afraid. Ross points out, "In addition to identifying their proud ambition, the story also reflects their anxieties." (233). They don’t want to obey God’s commands because to leave out in smaller groups in a survival scenario means fewer workers, fewer resources, more trust in God. Humans have always been scared when one is called to go and trust Him. Abraham will be asked to do just this in chapter 12, as we will see in the coming weeks, in contrast to what we see here. They are convinced they can build a tower that would lead them even into heaven, a radical display of pride if there ever was one. 

We tend not to view pride as all that serious of a thing. I mean, whenever people are confessing sins, we all default to pride, don’t we? That’s the safe sin to confess. But it isn’t a safe sin. Pride is self-worship, and no human being, even oneself, cannot hold up the weight of worshipful expectations. But it is so common and at the root of every sin. It makes no sense, as Calvin points out: "Yet even death does not correct our pride, nor constrain us seriously to confess our miserable condition: for often more pride is displayed in funerals than in nuptial pomp" (328). We know that we will die, that something will eventually stop us, but we still take pride in ourselves. We need something better to look to. And God is going to provide it. 

So the Lord is going to intervene here. Now, please come and nerd out with me on the literary features of this passage, as pointed out to me by my old Hebrew instructor, Dr. Ross. I was a literature major in college, so you’ll just have to indulge me a minute here. This passage is about language, and the way that language is used here to tell this story just points to the artistic nature of God, and honestly a sense of humor. 

We know that this is the tower of Babel, close to the Hebrew word for “confuse.” The letters “B,” “L,” and “N” in Hebrew show up throughout this passage, so you are already sounding like you are saying, “Babel, Babel, Babel” if you were to read this in Hebrew. Further, there are a ton of puns, play on words, and artful ways of talking. For example, in verse 4, the people say, “Let us make bricks” and in verse 7 God says, “ Let us go and confuse,” but the letters are in reverse order, like God is going to undo their “let us” with His own “let us,” prompting one commentator to say, “God sings with the people while working against them" (Ross, 236-7). The Master and Maker of Language, the Word Himself, descends. Far from their tower reaching up to heaven, God has to come down to even see it, in a manner of speaking. 

Now, we get to verse 6, and there are a couple of ways to look at it. One sees God as genuinely concerned like when Adam and Eve disobeyed in the Garden. God kicks them out of the Garden lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever! Perhaps this is what God is saying here. What evil might be possible if these people are allowed to stay in this state? Of course, God isn’t concerned like we are, as He holds the future. I think that is a legitimate way of looking at it, but Calvin has another view. He sees God as pointing out that their only means of being able to do what they do is based on one thing, language. Pull just that one factor out of them, and everything collapses. 

So God confuses their language. One move, and the entire project comes to a halt, mid construction. Calvin comments here, “For he frequently bears with the wicked, to such an extent, that he not only suffers them to contrive many nefarious things, as if he were unconcerned, or were taking repose; but even furthers their impious and perverse designs with animating success, in order that he may at length cast them down to a lower depth" (329). God let them build as far as He let them. Once He purposed for it to stop, He just programmed a new language in there. No flood needed. No powerful display. Just a will. 

But why? Well, verse 9 tells us. God wanted to give the place a name. After all, that’s what they wanted, right? To build a name for themselves? Well, guess what? That name is “Confused” (Calvin, 332). Pretty funny isn’t it? 

But there is a dark side. Ross points out that this judgment doesn’t have any blessing with it: “There is no clothing for the naked sinner, no protective mark for the fugitive, no rainbow in the dark sky. The primeval age ends with judgmental scattering and complete confusion. The blessing is not here; the world must await the new history." (242). It is only when we see this new history do we see that even in this blessing-less judgment, that there is a setup for great blessing in the future.  

A broken world is moving towards reunion. 
That new history will be announced many years later. In Zephaniah 3:9-10 (thanks, Kinder for pointing this out), it says “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples
to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering.” Notice that! Remember who the Cushites were from? Ham! This plan includes them! 

But we don’t see this play out until Acts 2. The Holy Spirit gives the Apostle’s the gift of tongues to preach to the people, not, “disperse!” but “Draw Near!” to all the people in verses 9-11. Do those locations sound familiar to you? They are a sample of where all the sons of Noah went! Further, that gift of tongues will provide the instant proof that God has called the Gentiles into His New Covenant, as we can see in Acts 10:44-48. The symbol of judgment becomes the symbol of justification! Now, with this news announced and proven that the Gentiles are allowed in, the gift of tongues is no longer necessary as a proof of salvation. Now that is better proven with a lifetime of sanctification. 

But God doesn’t stop there. In Revelation, we all will be gathered from every nation, tribe, and tongue, united as one to praise God in heaven before His throne! There will be a new city! Revelation 21:22-26: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Those scattered nations will come back together, holding the uniquely beautiful things their culture created and present it in heaven. 

But what about now? Do we need to wait until heaven to experience that unity? In its fullness, yes, but we have a small taste of that in the Church. Ephesians 2, which we read earlier, vs 21, tells us that we are being built, not as a tower to ourselves, but as a temple to the Lord. We are made into a place where God has promised to dwell, and it is in us. We get to see that unity displayed in the Lord’s Supper, which we are about to receive. Listen to 1 Corinthians 10:17, speaking of the Lord’s Supper, Paul says this, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” 

So where do we go from here? 
1) Practice unity around the truth of God's Word. The Babelites had unity but in the wrong direction. It built a tower of tragedy, but God is building a Temple of unity. It is worth striving for.  
2) Love the Church. This is weekly Heaven practice. If you don't like submitting yourself to the truth in love, you won't enjoy the New Jerusalem. No, the church here isn't perfect. That's why we long for heaven. When the church is the Church, it is a little taste of heaven. 

Finally, let me close with the words from Calvin one last time, and think about these things as we head into our Mission’s Weekend, “...although their language may differ in sound, they all speak the same thing, while they cry, Abba, Father." (332)