40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 16

Episode Date: May 14, 2015

Babel and making a name for yourself.

you are listening to a podcast produced and distributed by christholdfast.com please visit christholdfast.com for additional resources this is 40 minutes in the old testament Welcome back to 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. This is episode 16. We're recording in the morning again. I think that's going to be a given. And so we've had to spend a little while waking up. But I am here waking up with Brandon Hanson and Chad Bird.

How are you guys doing? Hey, we're doing great. we're ready to ready to rock and roll we're getting into a new section today and i got a lot of good stuff to talk about with the tower of babel and pentecost and lots of other lots of other good stuff brandon you're you're doing all right i'm i'm awake i'm awake all right waking up all right well chad why don't you just jump right into it then all right let's do it uh If you're a regular listener, you remember last time we spent most of the 40, 45 minutes talking about what happened after the flood with the episode of Noah getting drunk and naked in his tent and one of his sons finding him there. And so we we wrapped up, wrapped up the story of the flood with that account and talked about slander and gossip and covering the sins of our neighbor with the cloak of love.

And that pretty much wraps up the the story of the flood. So we're going to be transitioning now to the next chapter, literally, as well as as narratively as the story of Genesis unfolds. We're in chapter 10, and we'll spend a little bit of time in chapter 10, which is entirely a genealogy. And then we're going to get into the first half of chapter 11, which is the story of the Tower of Babel. This is the second one of the genealogies that we've taken a look at here in chapter 10. And the first one was a few chapters back, and it recounted the descendants of Adam leading all the way up to Noah. And we spent quite a bit of time talking about genealogies. I'll just recap a couple of things that we've discussed previously about why you have genealogies to begin with

and why they're more than simply filler in the biblical narrative or a great chapter to read if you're having trouble going to sleep at night. Genealogies are one of the ways that the Old Testament preaches the gospel to us, even though that is not the way that most of us view them. And they preach the gospel to us in a way that is foreign to our way of thinking. We think of these just basically as a family tree, but they're much more than that. What the genealogies in the Old Testament do is they trace for us the lineage of the seed that we've been talking about ever since we were in Genesis chapter 3, the seed that God promised to send, who would crush the head of the serpent and whose heel

would be poisoned by the fangs of the serpent. So the seed is the one who will crush death and who will die in the process. The seed is the Messiah. And as you have the story of the Old Testament unfolding, you have the story of the seed, the coming of the seed. And the genealogies play a prominent role in this because what we see happening as father begets son and then that son becomes a father himself to his son and generation after generation proceeds along is that you have this narrowing in of who exactly the seed is going to come from. And over the course of the whole Old Testament, of course, it narrows down to the nation of Israel and then within that nation, the tribe of Judah, and within the tribe of Judah, the family of David. And the New Testament

picks this up because the New Testament begins, Matthew chapter 1, begins with the genealogy that traces the progress of this promise of the seed all the way to the birth of the Christ. So we've got another genealogy here in Genesis chapter 10 that continues this preaching of the gospel, this preaching of the seed. But it's a little bit different kind of genealogy. In fact, it's unique in the whole Old Testament. In fact, it's unique to some extent in all of ancient literature because it's often what's called the table of the nations. Of course, at the end of the flood, you've got Noah and his three sons. So from this core family, this surviving family of the destruction, you have all of humanity proceeding forth from these three sons.

And what you have in chapter 10 is a listing of 70 nations. So the table of nations is 70 nations in all that come from these three sons of Noah. So you've got basically all of humanity at that time depicted according to their lineage as they're connected with these three sons of Noah. But there's a theological message that undergirds the genealogy. One of the theological messages is that we all have a common origin, that everything goes back, first of all, to Adam, but then after the flood, it goes back to Noah, who was, as we've talked about several times, kind of a second Adam. So we all have this common father, first in Adam and then second in Noah. but what's also interesting about this genealogy is that it roots the origins of Israel in connection with the origins of all the other the other nations and I think that's a that's an

important point to stress of course as the biblical narrative continues there's a an intense focus upon Israel beginning already with with Abraham but if we if we focus too much on why Israel is unique and set apart, we miss the real purpose for which God chose Israel. God didn't choose Israel to be a nation that was disconnected from all other nations. He chose Israel in order that through Israel, his promises might come to fulfillment, and in coming to fulfillment, spread from Israel to all nations. so Israel was was from the beginning to be the conduit of God's blessings they weren't to be the kind of this island unto themselves and they were the only ones who were to receive the divine

blessings rather from them and through them God was going to send forth his blessings to to all people and it becomes obvious as we as we get to the as we get to the story of of Abraham in in chapter 12, where God says that he's going to make him a great nation, and he's going to bless Abraham, he's going to make his name great, and he shall be a blessing. And he says to Abraham, he and you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So the genealogy in chapter 10, when it talks about Israel, links up Israel with all these other nations, because they're all from the same family. And then one other thing I want to point out here, and that is the 70.

There's 70 nations that are listed in the table of nations in chapter 10. And this number is significant because 70 becomes kind of a, what you might call a typological number, a number that is symbolic of something. here it's symbolic of of all of humanity so the 70 nations are symbolic of of the totality of the human population but you also have 70 occurring later in the Pentateuch because you have when Jacob goes down into into Egypt Joseph has gone ahead of him he's prepared the way and he brings when Jacob comes he brings his whole family with him and it says that there were 70 people in jacob's company so you got this 70 going on you have 70 that represents the entire

human population but then you also have 70 that is representative of the totality of of israel then to jump way ahead of there how many disciples does jesus send out he sends out 70 disciples to take the message of the Messiah to the peoples. So this 70, if you kind of trace it throughout the scriptures already that you see here in the genealogy, becomes the number of, not just the total human population, but the number of the messengers that God sends out to bring the promise of the seed to all peoples. israel as 70 people going down into egypt is like a representative of the world and as god gives his blessings to israel so it will spread out to the entire world and that's what finally

happens in the coming of the coming of the messiah so we'll pick up on some of those same things when we uh when we get into the uh connections between the tower of babel and Pentecost because there's more of the 70 going on there. But anyway, that's a few thoughts about the genealogy in chapter 10. It's a

position where it is in order that it might indicate that the promise that God gave to Noah and to his sons about being fruitful and multiplying is actually fulfilled as they are having sons and

spreading out through the earth enough about chapter 10 unless you guys want to add something about uh about the genealogy i think that i think that you've said everything there is to say about the genealogy in chapter 10 all right good good all right well let's jump into chapter 11 then uh the tower of babel this is uh this is a well-known well-known story but uh perhaps not as well known or at least not as well recognized for the foundation that it lays for our understanding of what happens at Pentecost. Because these two stories have to be seen in common. Because what happens at Pentecost is understandable apart from the Tower of Babel, but it's an incomplete understanding.

I see this happening a lot. You can understand the New Testament. You can know the truth about the New Testament. But if you want to know the whole truth, then you got to know the Old Testament because it's going to provide the background and the foundation for so many of the stories and the fulfillments that we see in the New Testament. Just to give one example, can you understand what baptism is from the New Testament alone? Yeah, sure. Sure you can. But if you want to have a complete understanding what baptism is, you really can't have that unless you understand the centrality of water in creation, and the centrality of water in the flood, and the crossing of the Red Sea, and the crossing of the Jordan, and the cleansing of Naaman of the Jordan. All

of these Old Testament stories provide the background for our understanding of what God does in baptism. And it's like that with a lot of other New Testament stories as well, like Pentecost. Unless we know the Old Testament background of Pentecost, it's difficult to understand the full thrust of what God is accomplishing there. And since Pentecost is coming up here in a couple of weeks, it's going to be celebrated in a lot of churches. It's a good time to delve into that. So, chapter 11, the Tower of Babel. This is an interesting story for a lot of reasons, and we'll get into some of those. There's sort of a subtle irony that goes on several times here in the story.

Just to throw out one example. Of course, they build this tower whose top is going to reach into the heavens, and yet God has to come down to the city to see what's going on. It's like they said to themselves, we're going to make this tower so high, it's going to reach into the heavens themselves. And God says, I guess I'll go down and see what the sons of men are doing there. And just to throw in a little bit of a Hebrew tidbit here, the uh the hebrew word for bricks they're making bricks they're firing these bricks to to build

this tower well the hebrew word for bricks the three letters that make up that noun are the same three letters that make up the verb for god confusing the languages but he just reverses the order of the letters so there's almost a word play going on here you have the bricks and then you have god confusing it's the same letters and yet they're all switched around which is exactly what god does he confuses everything he switches things around so that these bricks that they're making are useless they're unable to finish the task because god unbricks if it were he he unbuilds the unity unity of their language everybody everybody should learn hebrew that way that way you can you can delve into the intricacies of these stories and and

appreciate uh appreciate more what's going on here well once once we once we finish the old testament video which will be soon uh we'll we'll we'll have uh 40 minutes learning hebrew there you go you can teach you can teach all the listeners how to how to how to speak and read hebrew hey we could we could do that we could do that and our our level of sanctification would just skyrocket that's the if you know if you know biblical languages that automatically makes you holier and oh yeah definitely sets you sets you even more apart and well people should take comfort in this you know what if you if you don't know hebrew and if you never have a chance to learn hebrew don't don't worry about it because when you get to heaven you will know it automatically

because that's the language of course that will be spoken there it is the uh it is the heavenly language that we will all just automatically know once we get to heaven it's weird like in all those in all those books where people go to heaven i think that sounds like they're speaking english oddly enough yeah which uh which which ought to tell you a lot about uh the uh the truth behind those accounts right i think so i think so you know i i learned hebrew uh years ago in in college and and quite honestly when i first learned it i didn't i didn't care much for hebrew uh my love for hebrew increased precipitously when i learned about the christ-centered nature of the old testament that's that's what happened with with me

personally i uh the more that i fell in love with the old testament the more i fell in love with with hebrew because it had this you know this very interesting uh depth to it as well as simplicity that is it's really a really astounding so anyway as much as i can i'll try and bring in uh bring in the hebrew for those of you who uh who haven't had a chance to increase your level of sanctification by learning it back to the tower of babel um this is if you if you look at the the placement of this story it's almost like sort of a another pre-flood story that's the way i like to think of it you've got you've got humanity uh going to pot after after the fall of the sun every intent of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually and so god responded to that by

the flood and yet out of this flood you have this one family that is preserved noah and his and his family and it's kind of like that here you've got you've got after after the flood you have this this witness of the tower of babel that that nothing has changed nothing has changed you know people people always say that those who don't know history are are you know are destined to to repeat the mistakes. And for me, that's never made any sense, because that's exactly the way humanity is. We all know the mistakes that people have made, and yet we continue to repeat them. And that's what you have here in these early chapters in Genesis. You have people repeating the same mistakes, making the same rebellion against God with the resulting

punishment that follows it. And yet out of this, out of this, you have the call once more of an individual. First it was Noah, and now it's Abraham who's going to bear the promise and carry that forward to the generations to come. So this is sort of like another pre-flood account of humanity's rebellion against God, and then God's gracious response to that. So what's the sin here? that's a good question to ask was the sin that they built a tower was the sin something else

what exactly is going on here there's a pretty clear indication in the story itself as to what what's happening with the people first of all God told Noah

and his family after the flood that he repeats the same thing he said to adam and eve that he wants him to be fruitful and multiply and to and to fill the earth and uh that's exactly what they don't do in genesis chapter 11 they are staying together not filling the earth they're they're remaining united in one place in this plane in the the land of shinar which is which is mesopotamia but i think even more significant is the uh is the fourth verse. So Genesis 11, 4 says, 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, lest we be scattered

abroad over the face of the whole earth. It's like there's several different things going on here with the people. First of all, up to this point, there's been a lot of naming that goes on in the scriptures. And yet each time there's a name, it's a name that's been given. It's a name that's bestowed. This is the first time that you have someone making a name for themselves. So they are usurping this authority, if you will, or really transforming a gift into an accomplishment. they want to make a name for for themselves and they they build this tower that it might reach into reach into the heavens so you got some you get some pride you've got some some some arrogance that are uh that are that are motivating these people it's it's it's as if

they are wanting to usurp what god is graciously willing to give like they want to they want to build something that's going to reach into the heavens instead of accepting the grace of the God who comes down. And in that, you see a real depiction of humanity's ongoing problem. In fact, the Babylonians, who, you know, this is the background of their own city, they talked about Babylon being the the gate of heaven so they're wanting as it were to build up this tower that's going to to reach into the heavens and yet God is the one who's willing to to come down and humanity is always striving to to go up so they want to make a name for themselves they put this tower that's

that's reaching into the heavens and they refuse to do that which God wills them to do to to be fruitful and multiply and spread out through through all the earth yeah i mean this is this is what we uh we haven't stopped doing this building building towers or creating ladders to god i mean this is what this is what we always do we we say i will i will ascend i will ascend to god i will and we do it we don't we might not uh fire up the fire up the bricks and stack them on top of each other we just but we do it in other ways and uh we we try to build uh ladders for us to climb using using our our our good works or our right prayers or you you name it whatever it is and we think that god is a god to be ascended to as opposed to

what always happens in scripture which is god ever descending to us always having to be a condescending god in in the good in the good sense of the word that he's that he's uh it's always a downward motion that god is always coming to us we're never we're never going up to him and we so we still do this and god is every bit as opposed to building towers and ladders to him now as he was then yeah and usually our motivation is the same motivation that they have they want to they want to make a name for themselves that's it it's every we want we want everyone around us to say that's a that is a fine ladder that's a fine tower you're building there i i think i think i'll build my own in fact maybe i'll build a higher tower than you have in fact may i can

i borrow that blueprint this seems yeah we borrow tower building blueprints from one another yeah and uh and maybe that's one of the reasons why this uh this story is is so crucial it's it's at the very foundation of the old testament itself it's because this if you want to know what humanity does you just read he you just read genesis chapter 11 that's what we do we build towers we make a name for ourselves we strive this upward progress toward heaven and uh and all the time that we're doing this it's it's uh we're missing out on what god wants us to do and what god is graciously willing to to do for us you know we're so busy reaching up to heaven building our towers, trying to storm heaven, as it were, by our good works,

that we miss the God who's already come down to us, who is on the earth, who is living his life for us, dying his death for us, and rising again so that we might have the life that we think we're going to attain by building our towers. Building a tower to God does two things. One, when you're standing on that tower, it gives you the illusion that you're closer to God. And it also enables you to look down at the people below you. And so you have two things that are terrible going on simultaneously. You say, I'm up here in this tower, and I'm closer to God than I was when I was down there.

oh where where you are i can see you down there and uh and and i'm up here you're down there and uh i am therefore let me tell you let me tell you what god is saying i can obviously hear him better as i am closer to him lord i i thank you that i'm not like other men who don't have the towers that i have right yes who have not who have not who have not by their own by their own sweat uh built this this tower to you you know if we're going to make a name for ourselves uh let that name be the center because that's the only name that it's going to be that's the name that i made for myself i'm a sinner all of my all of my efforts my exertion has resulted in that that name that's it so that's the name i made for myself it's my own construct it's my own

achievement. It's the only thing that I have to boast of is my rebellion and my sin. But the grace of God comes along and says, I've come down to give you a new name, a name that I bestow. It's not a name that you deserve. It's not a name that you create. It's not a name that is given to you as some sort of award for your tower building. It's a name that is given by love, by grace. I call you my child. I give you my name. I baptize you into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I make you a brother of Christ.

That's the name that I am giving to you, not in response to what you've done, but in response to who I am and what I've done in Christ. So you don't need your towers. What you need is a cross. and it's from this cross between heaven and earth that god pours out his blessings upon us and gives us the name that he wants us to have and doesn't disperse us but instead unites us to to himself and even gives us the common language it's the common language of of grace grace and mercy so that we might be united with our brothers and sisters in the Messiah. That's one of the beautiful, beautiful parts of baptism

is God takes someone who's earned a name for themselves. It's nothing but sinner. And he does all of the acting in baptism. He does the washing. He does the forgiving. And he does the renaming. All the person does is receive the gifts that God gives. That's why it's called a new birth.

You know, we were not active in our birth. We received that. It's not like we were, you know, it was some great achievement when we were born. Our mom did all the work. Somebody else did it. And yet, we receive life. We receive a name. And in baptism, this new birth, this washing, we are renamed.

as the the children of god you know we should uh we should talk about uh something else in connection with the entire babble too that i alluded to earlier and that is pentecost um there's a there's a great background of pentecost here with uh the the unity of unity of the languages and as i also alluded to earlier this is a the The whole context here is important because you've got the 70 nations in the genealogy in chapter 10, which then flows into the story of the Tower of Babel. Well, these 70 nations were spread abroad throughout all the earth after the Tower of Babel. There's kind of a reverse of sequence here in the actions. So you have the Tower of Babel, and then you have the spreading out of the nations, even though they're reversed in the biblical order.

Well, put this story in the background of Pentecost and see what you have. So on Pentecost, which, by the way, was a Jewish festival. I think that's important to point out. It's not something that everyone realizes, that the Christian Pentecost that we talk about, that was an Old Testament festival. It was one of the three major festivals of the Israelite calendar. So all of these people from all over the world had come together in Jerusalem, one place, one city, in order that they might celebrate the Israelite festival of Pentecost, or Weeks, as it was called. So they're there in Jerusalem to celebrate this Jewish festival.

And it is when God has pulled together all of these people from all of these surrounding nations in one place that he chooses to pour out his spirit. And in the pouring out of that spirit, of course, you have all of the disciples preaching in languages that the people can understand, with the result being that as they hear the good news, they believe and they're baptized. Now, think about Pentecost with the background of the Tower of Babel story. In the Tower of Babel, you have everybody together for an evil purpose. They're making a name for themselves. They're building this tower to reach into the heavens and the result is that the thing they fear the worst is that which comes upon them there's a proverb one of solomon's proverbs says that it says what

what the wicked dreads will come upon him that's exactly what happens here with with the people at the tower of babel fast forward to pentecost and you had the reversal of the tower of babel You have God bringing together, not dispersing, but bringing together all of these peoples into one place, not to the plain of Shinar, but to Jerusalem, to the holy city. And while he has everyone there, once more, he comes down from heaven, just like he did at the Tower of Babel. He says, come, let us go down and see what they're up to. Well, at Pentecost, God comes down once more in order that he might give the gift of his spirit. And just like you have the division of language is taking place at the Tower of Babel as a punishment, you have a unification taking place where people hear the gospel in a united sort of way happening at Pentecost,

with the result being that instead of being divided and dispersed, they are unified, unified by the gospel message and brought into the unity of the church. So there's a great contrast between these two stories as you see the different ways that the gods at work. In one, it's a punishment. In the other one, it's a blessing. At Pentecost, you have the undoing of the curse that was given at the Tower of Babel, where people tried to make a name for themselves.

And the result was there was disunity and spreading abroad. At Pentecost, all of that's reversed. While I'm talking about Pentecost, while we have a few more minutes here, throw this out there as well. It's been fascinating to me for quite a while, ever since I learned this, that when the Jews came together for the festival of Pentecost, what the primary focus was for them was a commemoration of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. So over time, when they came together to celebrate Pentecost, the focus was on when they came to Sinai and God gave them the Ten Commandments. So every year, they'd get together in Jerusalem and they'd commemorate the giving of the law at Mount Sinai during the festival of Pentecost. Well, here you have them coming together once more to celebrate the giving of the law. And it's on that Pentecost that God pours out his spirit so that he, through the disciples, might proclaim the fulfillment of the law by the giving of the good news of Christ and the salvation that he's accomplished for us.

So you have a complete transformation, a fulfillment and a transformation of the reason for the Old Testament Pentecost. No longer is it a time to get together and commemorate the giving of the law at Sinai. Instead, Pentecost becomes the declaration to all the world that the law has been fulfilled, has been completed in the Christ. And so you have the good news preached, the good news of the law's fulfillment at Pentecost. So there's a beautiful, gracious transformation of Pentecost that takes place in Acts chapter 2. And so for us, the Christian Pentecost couldn't be more different than the Old Testament Pentecost in this respect, that what they proclaimed at their Pentecost, the giving of the law, we proclaim the fulfillment of the law in the coming of the Messiah in our Christian Pentecost. Back to the Tower of Babel. Anything else that you guys want to throw in here about it?

I think it's interesting. You do get a real nice law and gospel distinction between these two stories. Just like basically everything you've been talking about here. You've got people gathered together in self-deception and delusion, right? In the Tower of Babel account and then in the Pentecost account, you've got these same people who got dispersed and thwarted their plans. He's now bringing them together in the sanctification of the spirit of truth. So you've got deception versus truth. You've got the people gathering together to make a name for themselves. And then people being gathered by God to be made a new people in the name of the triune God.

You've got people trying to make a way for them to ascend to heaven. Versus at Pentecost, God descending in the person of the Holy Spirit. to witness to the work of christ uh the finished work of christ so you've got uh the dispersing and the uniting i think it was walther he said that the law basically does to you what um what abraham had to do with ishmael he sends ishmael out into the desert with a loaf of bread and some water and you've got to make it on your own you you get nothing else and uh and so then the angel of god and that account coming and saving ishmael would be the gospel so in this in this account it's very much this overarching kind of two pillars

connecting back. And I think that's a great illustration that ever since the beginning to the fulfillment at Pentecost, this has been God's overarching plan. We don't have two separate plans here. And I think that's, I got to keep bringing that up and stressing that because that's something that at least I grew up in. It was always two plans. You know, God had a plan for Israel that didn't work out God has a plan for us now yeah it's always one plan um I'm glad you glad you mentioned that it's it's always a good thing to to point out because there's so much confusion about the the purpose of Israel and purpose of the Old Testament it was always one one saving plan that God was unfolding throughout the Old Testament that came to

fulfillment in the new it's not as if he had to go to plan b or or plan c rather the promise in Genesis chapter 3 is the same promise that we find woven through all of these stories and narratives and promises that finally comes to fulfillment. And that's the purpose that Israel serves. It bears the promise. It bears the seed. And finally, the Messiah comes from Israel. And God's plan is to save Israel and through Israel to take the gospel to all the nations. I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it's the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes Paul says first for the

Jew and then for the Greek that was God's plan all along it remains his remains his plan I think we're out of time and that is going to have to do it did we get through everything there is to say about the Tower of Babel I'm sure I left out several things but we'll

we'll probably move on next week to Abraham that's the next chapter there's nothing to say about that no all right well uh thank you for joining us for another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament you can go over to the website christillfast.com and catch up on back episodes if you're listening out of order which i know some of you are and uh rate and review on itunes that would be that would be helpful and so uh until next week

God bless.