Genesis 11.7-The Lord Intervenes at the Tower of Babel
Wednesday October 26, 2005
Genesis: Genesis 11:7-The Lord Intervenes at the Tower of Babel
Lesson # 50
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 11:1.
This evening we will study Genesis 11:7, which records the Lord intervening at the Tower of Babel.
Genesis 11:1, “Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.”
Genesis 11:2, “It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.”
Genesis 11:3, “They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.”
Genesis 11:4, “They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’”
Genesis 11:5, “The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.”
Genesis 11:6, “The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.’”
Genesis 11:7, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.”
“Us” is a reference to the Trinity, which is a technical theological term, which describes God as being one in essence, but three coequal, coinfinite, and coeternal Persons, who are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The statement “Come, let Us” expresses the unity of purpose between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and indicates that They are mocking the councils of Nimrod and the human race and their unified purpose to establish a independent society apart from Them.
Psalm 2:1, “Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?”
Psalm 2:2-3, “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’”
Psalm 2:4, “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.”
Psalm 2:5-6, “Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.’”
The human race was unified in purpose as indicated in Genesis 11:3-4.
Genesis 11:3, “They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.”
Genesis 11:4, “They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’”
Now in Genesis 11:7 in contrast to the unity of purpose of the human race in rebelling against God, we have the unity of purpose among the members of the Trinity in dispersing this rebellion.
Genesis 11:7, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.”
Basic to everything that these rebellious tower builders led by Nimrod were doing was their ability to communicate with one another, therefore, the Lord took away this ability to communicate with one another so that they can not understand one another and devise their wicked plans against Him.
Bruce Waltke, “The absence of a common language leads to the lack of a common understanding, which terminates the project” (Genesis, A Commentary, page 181).
People who cannot understand each other have difficulty trying to work together.
The confounding of the language hindered the proliferation of evil on the earth.
Evil is a system of thinking that originated with Satan and the essence of which is independence from God.
A common language produces a common understanding, couple this with the fact that the entire human race is enslaved to sin and Satan, the proliferation of evil among members of the human race would be rapid and go unhindered, thus preventing a knowledge of God from being disseminated among members of the human race resulting in the certain destruction of the human race.
Unless God intervenes and divides the human race by confounding or confusing their speech, nothing will stop them in their excessive pride and self-confidence and desire of independence from God.
They will cross the boundaries that God has established for them.
We see that the builders of the Tower of Babel led by Nimrod are involved in megalomania, wanting to be like God, thus imitating Satan but we also see that they live in fear of being separated from one another and having to be lonely and vulnerable and having to live without the safety and security of each other.
The megalomania of the human race has produced Hitler and Stalin and two world wars, which killed over fifty million people.
The fear of the human race has produced insecure, selfish and restless people involved in sexual and drug addictions, alcoholism, suicides and general unhappiness.
The United Nations is simply an expression of this megalomania and fear.
Therefore, the confusion of the universal language of the human race at the Tower of Babel was for the good of the human race since a society involved in evil meaning living apart from God is totally unstable and self-destructive.
In fact, for the individual to live independently of God leads to self-centeredness and consuming and coveting what one’s neighbor has resulting in the destruction of society.
The United Nations can never cure the ills of the world nor can it bring in peace and is thus condemned to failure.
Only God can cure the ills of the world, which is sin and this He did by crucifying the sin nature at the Cross.
Romans 6:10, “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”
Romans 8:3, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.”
Only Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace can bring true and lasting peace to this world (Eph. 2:14).
Genesis 11:7, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.”
“Go down” expresses the Trinity’s desire to intervene in the affairs of the human race in order to disrupt the proliferation of evil among them, which would lead to their certain destruction, thus the intervention of God in the Tower of Babel rebellion was an act of mercy on behalf of the human race.
Therefore, we see in Genesis 11:7 that “divine determination counters human resolve” (Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament, page 52).
“Confuse” is the verb balal (ll^B*) (baw-lal), which means, “to confuse” or “confound” in the sense of to mix or mingle and is used of God lampooning or parodying the name Babel, which means, “gate or residence of the gods.”
God is making fun of the efforts of the human race to make a name for themselves by the building of this temple-tower.
Bruce Waltke, “The builders of this temple-tower think it reaches into heaven but it is so low that the Lord has to descend from heaven just to see it” (Genesis, A Commentary, page 178).
By confusing the universal language of the human race so that they don’t understand each other, the Lord is dealing with heart of the problem at the Tower of Babel, which is the “source” of their unity and strength and which unity and strength is symbolized by the Tower of Babel.
Their unity was made possible only by a common language.
In Genesis 11:1-7, we see that the human race has abused the gift of language, which was given to Adam by God in order that he might express his the authority over the earth that God had delegated to him.
By designating names to all the living creatures, Adam would be reflecting the fact that he was made in the image of God.
Language was given to man to reflect the fact that he was created in the image of God and was to express the delegated authority that God had given to him to rule over the works of God’s hands.
But we see in Genesis 11:1-7, the human race does not use the gift of language to fulfill the purpose for which they were created by Him but rather they use it to establish a rival kingdom to God’s.
God judges their rebellion by confusing their universal language into a multiplicity of languages and forcing the human race to separate from each other.
The result of this has been catastrophic destruction and not dominion as nations independent of God have gone to war against one another.
Nations go to war against one another because they first of all, seek to live independently of God and secondly, because they do not understand each other and thirdly, because they are inherently selfish in their pursuit to have dominion over each other.
All of this was reversed on the day of Pentecost in June of 30 A.D.
On the day of Pentecost, the Baptism of the Spirit took place for the first time in history.
The Baptism of the Spirit takes place exclusively during the dispensation of the church age and is accomplished at the moment of salvation when the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit places the believer in an eternal union with Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
The Baptism of the Spirit identifies the believer positionally with Christ in His crucifixion (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6:6), death (Rom. 6:3-5, Col. 2:20; 3:3), burial (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12), resurrection (Rom. 6:4, 9; 7:4; Col. 2:12; 3:1) and session (Eph. 2:6).
Also, on the day of Pentecost, the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit gave the apostles the ability to speak a foreign language that they were not trained in so that they might proclaim the gospel to the Jews who were spoke different languages and were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire (Acts 2).
On that day, the Spirit did not remove the diversity of languages among the people but rather He allowed regenerate people to hear and understand one another.
The Spirit altered the effects of their diversity of language from destroying the community to building a new community, the church.
The Holy Spirit gives us understanding and peace and without Him guiding us the result is fear, distrust of one another and selfish ambition and megalomania.
The Tower of Babel reveals that mankind cannot produce a unity that is beneficial to themselves or can fulfill the purpose for which God has created them.
Where man has failed to achieve unity through his own devices, God has accomplished in the church through the Baptism of the Spirit.
The church experiences unity that the Holy Spirit has accomplished by operating in the love of God.
Colossians 3:14, “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
This means that in order for believers to experience unity with each other they must obey the Lord’s command in John 13:34 to love one another as He has loved the church.
Love for others is motivated by our love for the Lord and our love for the Lord is demonstrated by our obedience to His commands to love one another and our obedience to His commands is the response in our souls to the love, which He demonstrated on behalf of us through the death, resurrection and session of Jesus Christ.
In order for the believer to love his fellow believer as Christ loved the church, the believer must accept by faith the Spirit’s revelation of the Lord’s self-sacrificial love and service for him, and which faith expresses itself in obedience to the Lord’s command to love one another as He has loved him.
Romans 5:5, “and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
1 John 4:16, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”