The Tower Of Babel

It’s true to say ’Man proposes but God disposes! Psalm 2 asks ’Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? ... The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them’ (1,3). That’s how He reacted to the Babylonians feeble attempt to dethrone Him. God saw that He was no longer the centre of their lives and in judgement He decreed that, as the apostle Paul would write to the Romans: ’Since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind’ (1:28). Isn’t that just what’s happening in society today? If it lives without God as the centre, there’s no central binding force at all. If it breaks the bounds of God-given order, the results are only disintegration and frustration.

’Come,’ said God, ’let us go down and confuse the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.’ And what was the result? ’They stopped building the city.’ From this point on in the Bible, Babylon represents the anti-God world system which, in its pride and arrogance, leads man to think that he can dethrone God and has no need of His laws and commandments. We see it rearing its ugly head in Daniel where the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is brought crashing down by the rock ’not cut with human hands’ (2:34) symbolising the kingdom of God. He always has the last word.

There’s a further picture in Revelation of God’s final judgement upon Babylon and the anti-God culture she represents: ’Woe! Woe! O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!’ (18:10). What a sad end - and yet it’s not the end because God hadn’t finished with His damaged creation. God’s grace wasn’t exhausted. In His mercy He chose Abraham through whom He would start the process of accomplishing His saving purpose for mankind, ultimately through the Cross of His Son and our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank God we’re still living in the Day of Grace. If our trust is in Jesus we can be confident that the day will dawn when the redeemed, liberated from the language barrier and drawn ’from every nation, tribe, people and language’ will stand before God’s throne in heaven and acknowledge in praise, ’Salvation belongs to our God’ (Rev 7:9,10). But until that great day, let’s not forget the lessons of the Tower of Babel. Our hope and trust must be in God alone.