Our Family Tree

Two weeks ago, we talked about the devastating effect of flooding. If you’ve been watching the news, you saw Ellicott City floods rip through the downtown section of a small Maryland city. Rebuilding after these weather events is a serious undertaking.

It took 2 years to get New Orleans back on her feet, and there are still places that have yet to be rebuilt.

Now, imagine that you get off the boat and there is not another soul alive because God “blotted from the earth” all which had the breath of life. God makes a covenant with Noah to reestablish the earth:

English Standard Version Chapter 9

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

The Noahic Covenant is important for three reasons: 1) It is unconditional. God promised to never wipe away all people from the earth by a flood and 2) that a flood will not destroy the earth. So, the judgement of God will still exist and it will still be large, but not total. 2) It was made with the earth too. You may not realize it, but the earth suffers from our rebellion too. First, because we abuse the earth in our dominion, and, second, it longs for sin to be reversed. 3) The Noahic Covenant was sealed with a sign. God gives a tangible reminder to humanity of his covenant promise: the rainbow. So that, every time it rains, we will remember his covenant.

I’ll say this about rainbows, just because we understand that a rainbow is caused by light passing through a prism (rain, in this case) does not minimize the fact that God created the natural order and decreed that light would pass through rain and form a sign of his covenant.

We have a number of other signs that God has given us which remind us of God’s covenants. Baptism is a sign which points to the internal work of the Spirit in a believers’ life.

God gives signs for his covenants. Noah receives a covenant promise and sign from God.

The Nations of the Earth descend from Noah and his sons.

: The Table of Nations here is important because it gives picture to the diversity of humanity. Each name listed here represents a people group, not an individual.

The picture here is clear: human beings all share a common ancestor: Noah. How this all shakes out, I do not have time to draw out, but I will say three things that modern genetic mapping have shown us, which appears to corroborate Scripture’s claim here: 1) The human genome is young: shared blocks of DNA are large and there has not been enough time to scramble them to randomness. 2) The human population came from a single source: most blocks are shared among all world populations. 3) The human genome is falling apart: deletions tend to NOT be shared among populations, but are unique to subpopulations (this is further evidence for the youth of the genome and that we came from a single source population in the recent past).

More relevant to current discussions, lets talk about what the Bible has to say about race. No where in the Bible would we find any concept similar to what we talk about when we talk about “race”. Today, when we talk about race, we tend to refer to physical characteristics which are used to classify an individual in a larger group. So, we might talk about a “White” race or a “Black” race today, but the Bible doesn’t really think in categories such as this. Frankly, these categories were developed as way of classifying people as a means of organizing society. This is largely a historical problem that I’d need more time to talk about, but I think those of you who are familiar with the subject know what I mean.

The Bible doesn’t talk about race in the same way that we, today, use the word when we mark on our drivers’ license applications that we are “white” or “black”. Because, I’m not actually white, and neither are you. And, so-called “blacks” aren’t actually black. We are all varied shades of earthtones, which is appropriate since our federal head was taken from the ground.

So, its right to say that racism is unbiblical: 1) becuase God commands us to love our neighbor, and classifying them in order that we can sort them according to physical characteristics is unloving and thus sinful. 2) because the word “race” as racists want to use it, for example, white supremacists insisting on a “White Race”, doesn’t appear in the Bible---its purely secular thinking, which incidentally is why the Eastern Orthodox Church and soon after the Roman Church always opposed Protestants’ justification for the slave trade.

Instead, the Bible uses the word “race” similar to how we might talk about very large, extended families. Families share a common language, common belief structure, common land area, but they do not all have identical looks or facial structure or characteristics. Much of my family lives in Utah, and the further you get away from my particular family tree, the less my cousins and second cousins look like me, but we are still a family.

Similarly, the Bible talks about two races: Jew and Gentile. Jews are all of the people who can claim Abraham as their father, or those who “join the family” by taking on the mark to the flesh of Judaism. The other race in the Bible, Gentiles, are all of those people who cannot claim Abraham as their father, so we aren’t a part of Abraham’s family.

God establishes the nations from Noah. There is a nation called Italy, and the people in that nation are called Italians. There is a nation called Uganda, and the people in that nation are called Ugandans. There is a nation called Vietnam, and the people in that nation are called Vietnamese. The word we might use to describe this is ethnicity. This is different than race. Ethnicity refers to shared cultural characteristics, and the variety points to the creativity of God as human beings create cultures in accordance with the creation mandate.

The variety of nations is ruined when we try to categorize people in false criteria based on physical characteristics. (Rwanda illustration)

The Table of Nations show us that we all share a common ancestry despite our apparent diversity in ethnicity, and it explains how we all got to be here.

Our Common Condition

Human beings shared a language until God confused languages.

We can actually chart this out on a tree. You may already know that languages like Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and some Eastern European languages like Romanian, et al. are called Romantic languages, not because they are lovely, but because they come from Rome, which was, ironically one of the most powerful vicious (unromantic qualities) empires in global history. Or, that English (Water), German (Wasser), Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic are Germanic languages. We can trace all of these “tribes” (Romantic and Germanic) to the Indo-European branch, and those back. So far, linguists cannot find the “first language”, but I’m not sure they ever will....because it was scrambled! Common languages, however, support the hypothesis that tribes fragmented as they spread across the earth.

So, the Table of Nations is placed before the Tower of Babylon, which might seem inconsistent and contradictory when you read something like 10:5

5 From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), .

But it becomes clear that Moses was an editorial genius when you keep reading and you see the disastrous impact that the Tower had on nations: before their was unity, now there is scrambling.

Preaching the Word: Genesis—Beginning and Blessing Human Arrogance (vv. 1–4)

This communion of language ought to have promoted a godly oneness of faith, but sin was alive and well among Noah’s descendants.

The folly of humanity in their project is highlighted by Moses with two details: 1) they use poor building materials and 2) they are superstitious because they assume that God is localized.

Building materials: 11:3 “And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.” The people here were not building for themselves anything that could stand the test of time. Moses is mocking them in a sense revealing that—int today’s terms—they were exchanging steel and concrete for sticks and glue.

3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

Superstition: 11:4 demonstrates that these people were hoping to build a name for themselves by joining God in the heavens. They hoped to make a name for themselves, but God does not live in the sky, contra these people. God sits above the sky and can’t be reached by going “high” enough.

Preaching the Word: Genesis—Beginning and Blessing Human Arrogance (vv. 1–4)

they were driven by the fear of anonymity. Today this same will to fame is everywhere. It drives politicians and preachers and athletes and actors. If we can make a name for ourselves so people esteem us, we will have succeeded, we think.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), .

Preaching the Word: Genesis—Beginning and Blessing Human Arrogance (vv. 1–4)

Indeed, the tower builders were going to make a name for themselves, but not the one they had hoped for. Their name would become a joke.

Ever met someone who just tries too hard? That’s these people. I know a guy who wants, so badly to be famous, that he writes blogs all the time and direct tweets so-called big players like Al Mohler, Mark Dever, etc. And you know what, no one pays attention to him. And, my friends send me screenshots of his posts. I feel bad for him, he’s not happy, but he won’t find it direct tweeting people, trying to make a name for himself.

Human beings share a common condition with Adam: the desire to be god of their own lives.

Preaching the Word: Genesis—Beginning and Blessing Human Arrogance (vv. 1–4)

Indeed, the tower builders were going to make a name for themselves, but not the one they had hoped for. Their name would become a joke.

Our Uncommon Help

God scrambles language not just as a means of judgement but as a means to preserve their life. Sin begets all sorts of consequences.

God’s action in dispersing human beings is a grace.

Preaching the Word: Genesis—Beginning and Blessing Heaven’s Reversal (vv. 6–8)

Throughout Scripture Babylon became evocative of the human pride and godlessness that attracts the judgment of God (cf. Isaiah 14:3, 4, 13–15). Genesis links the fate of Sodom with that of Babylon (cf. 10:10–19; 11:7; 18:21). Isaiah wrote:

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,

the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans,

will be like Sodom and Gomorrah

when God overthrew them. (13:19)

Isaiah’s prophesies were later taken up and reapplied to the neo-Babylonian empire by Jeremiah (50, 51). The book of Daniel records the glory and demise of the evil Babylonian empire (Daniel 1–5). Likewise, the New Testament describes Babylon as the great harlot, the persecutor of God’s people, and the embodiment of pride and vice (cf. Revelation 18:1–4, 19–24).

Yet the reality of Babel’s long influence in history is also the source of a great hope. A final reversal was promised by the prophet Zephaniah: “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” (3:9). Zephaniah answers the effects of Babel. And then came the Messiah and his death and resurrection and Pentecost, when “each one was hearing them speak in his own language”—a reversal of Babel and a sign of the last days when all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (cf. Acts 2:6–21). The hopelessness of Babel was not God’s last word.

God’s action in giving a new tongue is a grace.

Pastor Mike talked about this last week, but God’s kindness does not stop with dispersion. At Pentecost, God undoes Babel, so to speak, and gives people one language with which that can magnify the name of Christ. No longer will that one language be used to build a kingdom of men, but it will be used instead for Christ’s fame.

God’s action in making a new man is a grace.

Finally, around the throne of God above, people from every tribe, tongue, and nation will be gathered before King Jesus and bend the knee to him in worship. He will receive glory and honor for that.

God’s action in giving a new tongue is a grace.

Paul makes it plain that Christ action unites Jew and Gentile into one new man () reconciling all to God and giving all access to God through Jesus Christ. This action makes believers members of the household of God, whose head is Christ, so that a new chosen race, Christian, is formed. So then there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), .

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