Genesis 11:4. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.
We are a tower building species aren’t we? Do more. Make progress. Advance. Look around and you can probably see a few of your own towers looming nearby.
Genesis 11 makes it abundantly clear that the flood did not solve our sin problem. Mankind is “being fruitful and multiplying” again, while growing in power and technology. But also growing in self-righteousness and pride. This is the slow death God warned us about in the garden. The brick by brick building of our towers of terror meant to dethrone God. The slow drip of deadly pride from making a name for ourselves rather than honoring the name of God.
The Tower of Babel is a glaring picture of all such graceless religion. Man desperately moving up, up, up to get to God. Building our stairways to heaven. Forming our identities. Controlling our destinies. Working our way to meaning and immortality. Each effort the antithesis of God’s gracious offer of life. So God will graciously respond. How? By coming down to us.
Genesis 11:5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
Just as when God came down to Adam and Eve in the garden, God comes down from heaven to see what’s going on at Babel. Then, just as he did in the Garden, God acts decisively from out of his amazing grace.
Genesis 11:7-8. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
Wait. Is God anti-unity? Does he hate cooperation? He does if it’s unity for the purpose of rebellion. God, in his kindness, will put an end to our self-salvation projects because he knows they will ultimately kill us. So in his mercy, God forced the people to abandon their city building. He forced them to disperse and fill the earth, his original command to mankind in the garden.
Oh, make no mistake, Babel will become an even bigger Babylon, towers will be built and rebuilt over and over again, and humanity will still need a savior. So God would come down again.
Jesus came down from heaven to show us that we can never stack enough bricks to find our meaning. We can never do enough good deeds, offer enough sacrifices, or participate in enough religious rituals to earn the justification of our existence. We will never be smart enough, advanced enough, savvy enough, or powerful enough as humanity to rescue ourselves from ourselves. We will always need a God who will come down. We will always need Jesus.
When everything inside of us is screaming do more, Jesus is screaming “It is finished.” When your heart is saying, find your way to God, Jesus is saying to your heart, I found my way to you. When your pride is reasoning, make a name for yourself, Jesus is responding, I have given you my name.
To live is Christ has forever freed us from our tower building. Our union with Christ’s life is our tower to the life of God. His is the city we long for. His is the language of love that unites us. Not a self-love that seeks only to make a name for ourselves, but a love that sends us out into the world, to fill the earth with the praises of his great name.
You: What towers are you building today?
You in Christ: How does knowing that in Christ you don’t have to build your own tower of meaning, significance, or achievement actually free you to love others?
Christ in you: How can you fill the earth with Christ’s love and grace today?
To Live is Christ 