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Sermon preached on Genesis 11:1-26 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 06/25/2023 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
The church father saint Augustine published his classic book titled the City of God in 426 AD. In it, he described human history as a contrast between two cities, the city of man, and the city of God. For Augustine, the city of man is earthly and carnal, leading away from God, fully of worldly desires, and its ultimate end is destruction. In contrast, he saw the city of God as heavenly and spiritual, redemptively leading people to God, for God’s glory, and is ultimately the eternal kingdom of God. Both cities are operative in human history and are in conflict. Such conceptual imagery, which touches on competing peoples and places, spans the Bible. While today’s passage is not the first time this contrast comes to us in Genesis, this city and tower building here at Babel certainly brings a very literal expression of the city of man versus the city of God before our eyes. And so, this account of the historical Tower of Babel is much more than an interesting backstory of the origin of human languages. More so, it expresses the developing conflict between the church of God’s people and the godless, wicked world.
Let us begin considering this passage by observing the setting in verses 1-2. We are told of the general unity of all humanity at that time. It is connected with the fact that everyone spoke the same language. In one language, they were spreading out and the came to settle in the land of Shinar. We have some hint of this from last chapter’s table of nations when on the one hand we read of the powerful Nimrod from Ham’s line who made a kingdom in Babel in the land of Shinar and on the other hand we have in Shem’s line people like Asshur and Arpachshad who would go on to the be major people groups in that land in and around Babylon. On a side note, let me clarify that there isn’t a separate word for Babel and Babylon in the Bible. It’s one and the same word and city. So then, the table of nations in last chapter hints at the setting here. Presumably last chapter was a broader summary of the nations and now chapter 11 slows down and backs up to a point before the full spread of the nations happened that was chronicled in chapter 10. Now we see how the peoples were still largely united with one language as they came to settle in the area now known as Babylon.
So then, we see next in verses 3-4 their work to build a city and a tower there at Babylon. On the one hand, we can’t help but recognize their ingenuity, as they make bricks and mortar for their construction work. These bricks are described as burned thoroughly referring to the use of kilns to dry them. Kiln-dried bricks were superior than sun-dried ones and would have been needed for such a large tower. And we can certainly think of the value of a city for providing protection. Remember back to Genesis 4 where Cain was concerned that he’d roam the earth and end up being murdered, and ultimately Cain would form a city as surely his attempt to mitigate such. We’ve talked in the past about the utility of a city especially in relationship to a civil government and its benefits.
But then you also have this tower. Now the word for tower here is the normal Hebrew word for tower which often described a tower that served a defensive purpose, as a watchtower and military fortification. But here, scholars tend to think this was something more along the lines of a ziggurat, which were terraced pyramid-like structures. Ziggurats generally were religious in nature and might even have a temple at the top. The idea was that you were getting closer to heaven in such a tower. So, the word for tower might have either military or religious functions in view, or maybe even something that served both.
Yet, if there was religious function intended for this tower, it would seem it was the religion of man. There is no reference here to the worship of any god, not even a false one. Rather, we find in verse 4 that while the desire is for this tower to reach all the way up to heaven, it wasn’t to glorify of God, but for their own glory. They say in verse 4 that they would build it by their own strength, with no recognition to the God who gives them the ability or to God who provide what they would need to make bricks and mortar. Likewise, they say that it would be so that they could make a name for themselves. They want to be famous, recognized for their greatness in this accomplishment. And so, what we see here is that they are building this city and tower in their haughtiness and pride. It comes to represent man’s religion, which is what that Augustinian idea of the city of man is all about. There was nothing wrong with building cities and towers in themselves. But they should have done it in in service to God in an outworking of the image of God on earth.
We might also note that their stated emphasis here also stands in contrasts to that mandate God gave humanity when they exited the Ark. God had told them to fill the earth, in other words to spread out over all of it. But their settling together in one voice and as one people in one city with this one tower represented a perverse form of unity at the expense of obedience to God’s mandate to fill the earth.
So then, let us turn to verses 5-6 to see God’s assessment of this. Verse 5 is actually the central verse in this chiasticly structured passage. Notice how it says that the LORD comes down to see the city and the tower that they built. This suggests that the initial work was complete. But notice how it says that God came down. We might wonder if this is anthropomorphic, that is attributing human attributes to God, for literary emphasis. But it might actually have not been anthropomorphic but theophanic as we see in Genesis 18 where the LORD manifests himself on earth to meet with Abraham and to inspect the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. It uses the same language there of the LORD coming down to see. But apart from that, note the irony. They were trying to build a tower to heaven, but God still had to come down to them on earth.
God’s assessment comes in verse 6 and it is rather interesting. He acknowledges that their unity as one people with one language is what has allowed their progress here. He says it is only the beginning of what they will be able to accomplish. God even goes as far to say that nothing will be impossible for them. Future Scripture assigns that idea to God over man. Luke 1:37 says that nothing will be impossible with God. Luke 18:27 records how though things are impossible with man, nothing is impossible with God. I think we should remember the image of God idea here. Mankind had the potential to image God in this sense, that within man’s finite limitations man would approach a sort of expansive power that would image or reflect God’s infinite omnipotence. I think we can understand God’s point here similar to back in Genesis 3 after Adam and Even fell into sin, and God expelled them from the Garden lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever. This Tower of Babel incident is sort of a second fall of man and so here like there God acknowledges a potential future that he is going to keep them from, at least for the moment. But in both instances, dare I say, it was God’s original plan for them to realize. Had Adam and Eve not fallen into sin, they would have been able to ultimately to eat of the tree of life and live forever. Had fallen man here not in their haughtiness tried to upstage God, they would have been allowed to advance so as nothing would be impossible for them, understood, of course, in a finite sense.
So then, God takes action. As he expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden and prevented their return, so here he confuses their language with the result that the people are dispersed all over the face of the earth, verse 9. God somehow supernaturally strikes the people so that various groups start speaking different languages. It results in confusion, and I would imagine quite a lot of disorder at the initial moment. This ultimately also results in them not continuing to build the city, at least not as one unified people. It also is what results in that Table of Nations from last chapter, where we see so many nations ultimately going out and spreading out all over the earth with all their different languages. Realize then, that all the conflict and war and racism since then between the nations, has also become a sad byproduct of God’s curse here. That is not to say that God is advocating for such hostility and hate. But we should recognize that man has responded to this curse of God too often with various grievous sins that have exasperated things.
Verse 9 records more irony. This action of God results in the name of that place being called Babel which sounds like the Hebrew word for confused. Indeed, how many millennia later and still the word carries on even in English, with the word babble still meaning speaking sounds that are incoherent to the hearer. The people back then wanted to make a name for themselves, and indeed they did. But it was a everlasting name of shame not of glory. This too is a teaching of Scripture, that if we try to exalt ourselves over God that God will humble us.
Let me stop and make an application by way of condemning a great lie that exists today. There is an evil false doctrine known as Kinism., which wrongly teaches that since God confused the languages here that resulted in the separation of peoples into different races and nations, that we should all stay in those divided groups. Kinism thus promotes racial segregation and is against, say, intermarrying outside those racial or national groups, or any effort to unify peoples, nations, and races. Kinism is an example of the folly of a simplistic and facile interpretation of the Bible. A curse of God is not the same as a command of God. God’s curse of man in Genesis 3 doesn’t mean we can’t invent plows to make working the ground easier. God’s curse of woman doesn’t mean it is wrong to use an epidural to help with the pain of childbirth. God’s curse here to introduce a sort of division among man doesn’t mean we can’t try to overcome those divisions. Just like it is not inherently wrong for us today to make cities and skyscrapers. God’s curses on man are never things to just accept but area areas to seeking redemption. We try as we can to mitigate the effect of God’s curses, even as we cry out to him that we’d be fully delivered from them. God’s curses make us look for his redemption. Indeed, we’ll see that Genesis will turn to that exact point in the next chapter, that God will raise up the line of Abraham so that from his offspring there will come one who will bring blessing to all the families on the earth. That offspring is Jesus, and in him there is a hope of reuniting all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations into one united redeemed people of God. Unity and peace are things humanity should strive for, not work against. Indeed, many non-Christians are even striving for such today, albeit ultimately for an anti-Christian agenda, see Psalm 2. But Christians all the more should have such a vision in light of the clear plan of God revealed cover to cover in the Scripture. Kinism is not consistent with God’s plan and the trajectory of redemptive history, let alone with the Great Commission that he has given us.
Indeed this is where Genesis then turns our attention too in verses 10-26. Last chapter gave us the Table of Nations that descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The Tower of Babel is a complementary backstory to that Table of Nations. But then Genesis tells us again of the genealogy of Shem, but with a dramatic turn when it gets to the generation of Eber, where we get the word for the Hebrew people. And remember last chapter we saw that Eber had two sons, Peleg and Joktan, and that the Table of Nations then only gave us Joktan’s lineage. But now this genealogy of Shem only gives us Peleg’s lineage. For it is the lineage that leads to Abram who gets renamed to Abraham. This is the chosen line that will lead to the chosen one. Later in the line we’ll see God make similar distinctions. God will later choose to move his plan of redemption forward through Isaac not Ishmael and through Jacob and not Esau. And here we see he will do it through Peleg not Joktan. And yet while there are these distinction among these patriarchs of various nations, it is so Jesus could one day come and be that Gen 3:15 promised redeemer. The conflict between Satan’s seed and a godly seed will continue to be present among these varying nations. But Jesus would ultimately come from the line of the Hebrews and it would be to bring a way of redemption to all the nations.
But let me slow down for a moment and better paint the specific unfolding of this as we think ahead into redemptive history. God would call Abraham out of the land of Chaldeans into the land of Canaan, into the Promised Land. Hebrews 11:10 would explain that he was looking for a city built by God, a city which in this life he did not yet come into. Such a city stands in contrast to this city here of Babylon built by man, and again reminds us of Augustine’s book. While waiting for that city, Abraham’s people became Israel. For a time, then, Israel found themselves sojourning in Egypt and ultimately oppressed by them. So then, finally God delivers Israel through Moses out of Egypt. But when they return to the Promised Land, they find that the Canaanites had a whole land of cities fortified up to the heavens, Deuteronomy 9:1. It’s like it’s a nation full of Towers of Babylon, a nation full of strong cities of man. But God encouraged them and promised success. And then in Deuteronomy 12:5 he even told them that once they came into land, God would choose a city to place his name. Again, see the contrast with the Tower of Babel where man wanted to place their name, but God says he would come down and dwell with them in a city where God’s name would be placed. This would become Jerusalem on Mount Zion and it would be a foretaste of the ultimate city of God to come. King David, by the grace of God would secure that. Interestingly, 2 Samuel 8:13 even says in David’s military might that he made a name for himself. That which the haughtiness of man strived for in their own strength, God enabled humble David to achieve by grace. And David was a type of the Christ to come.
Yet, sadly, Israel, would rebel against God. They would fall in love with the false religions of the nations. And so God would end up raising up Babylon of all cities to come and destroy Jerusalem. Think about that. Babylon, the representative city of man, destroys Jerusalem, the representative city of God. The story would repeat, with God’s people being freed and Jerusalem restored, only for a new Babylon of sorts named Rome to rise up and destroy the rebuilt Jerusalem again.
But God’s plan had not failed. For in all this, God did sent the Christ, Jesus of the line of Eber, Peleg, Abraham, Israel, and David. Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and now calls for all nations to repent and submit to him. The beginning of the reversal of the Tower of Babel curse is announced even at Pentecost in Acts 2 when there Christians began to supernaturally speak in other tongues and people from every nation under heaven begin to receive the good news of Jesus. From there, Jesus then sent his ambassadors out dispersed throughout all the world with his gospel of salvation. That gospel declares that all who will come unto Jesus in faith as their Lord and Savior, that he brings us into his kingdom. Scripture says that even now, if we are a Christian, we have spiritually entered into the heavenly Jerusalem, Hebrews 12:21, and made into a one united holy nation, 1 Peter 2:9. We already become in Christ a part of the city of God.
But until Christ returns, the conflict between the city of God and the city of man yet rages on here on earth. One day, Jesus will return and usher in New Jerusalem where God will dwell forever with his people in that city. That will be a city with God’s name on it, for God’s glory, which will be for our glory too, Revelation 21:23-26. It will be a city where there won’t need to be a tower to heaven because heaven will have come down to us. That city will have no more curse, and only peace, even as people from every tongue, tribe, and nation, will be gathered there as the redeemed of Christ, Revelation 7:9 and chapters 21-22.
But until that glorious day, Jesus has us his church, here on earth. He has us sojourning as exiles among the nations for our real citizenship is yet in heaven. That means, frankly, that we for now live in and among Babylon. I speak figuratively for what Babylon represents, the godless and wicked city of man. On the one hand, the Scripture would counsel us like the prophet Jeremiah did when God’s people found themselves in literal exile in Babylon to seek its good, Jeremiah 29:7, for in its welfare, we find our welfare. Yet, we must not live like Babylon. We must be in but not of it. We must still seek to live holy and righteous lives in a world that will hate us for being a Christian and will encourage us to live in wickedness, 1 Peter 1:6, John 15:18 and 16:33.
Realize what we’re acknowledging today because it is very helpful for applying our passage today to us. The spirit of the godless pride of man that began here with the Tower of Babel yet lives on today. The city of man yet continues. What did God say? That if they can be united together there is the concern that nothing would be impossible for them if left unrestricted. So what has man done since then? They have built countless cities and high towers throughout the earth. And the city of man has done this to make a name for themselves. And it does seem like they are doing the impossible. Taller and taller skyscrapers with building materials more advanced than fired brick. Rocket ships sent to the heavens. We can even translate our babbling languages in real-time wirelessly. I need not even mention artificial intelligence. God introduced here in Genesis a measure of frustration to humanity, but has yet allowed them even amidst their conflicts to also strive to work past their differences. Sadly, too many today yet embrace progress and reunification of humanity as a way to gather together in opposition against God and Christ Jesus. And that means they gather themselves too often against us as Christians. Babylon indeed yet lives on today.
And yet the Scripture has revealed to us what will be the final outcome for Babylon. Revelation 18:2 foretells its final fall, saying “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!” And Revelation 18:21, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more.” But that means until that day, Babylon as the city of man will continue to be in conflict with the city of God which finds its manifestation on earth here in the church.
So then, let us take heart, dear citizen of heaven. That day will come. Let us all be ready for it. And let us take the news of it to the all the world everywhere, to people of every language and nation.
The Tower of Babylon then becomes a rallying cry for both the city of man, in their sin, and the city of God, in the Great Commission. Let us become renewed especially to the call of Foreign Missions today.
Amen.
Copyright © 2022 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
