On the Gift of Tongues, Pt. 4: A Postscript
"Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth." - Genesis 11:9a
This is a postscript to my 3 part series “On the Gift of Tongues.” If you have not read parts 1-3, please start there for the full context. You can find part 1 here.
There’s already been so much to meditate on when thinking about the connection between the gift of tongues and the gospel; there is yet another parallel we can draw within scripture. Thus, a small addendum to the previous three posts on the subject of speaking in tongues. Maybe not so small.
The Tower of Babel
The juxtaposition of these two seemingly unrelated topics may have you scratching your head, but I think as the beauty of this parallel unfolds, it will take your focus off the controversial debate about the active or inactive status of the “gift of tongues.” Instead, you can appropriately reframe your attention around why such a concept appears in scripture in the first place. What the real point is of all this and what it teaches us about the character of God. I don’t know that I stated clearly at any point in the first three parts of this series that that was my goal, but it is. The why, not as much the what.
As Paul exhorted the Corinthians, so I will exhort myself along with you: let us not be childish in our thinking, looking only at the shiny object of signs and wonders in front of us; but let us be mature in our thinking, looking beyond things that will end and toward those things which are eternal.
The one becomes many
“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 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, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’” - Genesis 11:1-4
In the beginning, when God created man, he gave him the mandate to multiply and fill the earth so that he may bear the image of God in all creation. After the fall, men all spoke a common language. Rather than reflect their creator, making his name great, they gathered together and rebelled, working to make a name for themselves. They built a city and a tower, laying bricks one by one upon the foundation of their own glory.
“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” - Genesis 11:5-9
As retribution for their rebellious gathering, God intervened and the one became many. He confused their language so that they would be forced to scatter, not only to fill the earth, but abide by the divine decree that would prevent all mankind from banding together against his Creator—as if that could thwart God’s purposes.
“Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
‘Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.’
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.”- Psalm 2:1-4
Bound…
This reminds me of another divine decree in which Satan was bound and prevented from gathering all mankind together against God.
“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.” - Revelation 20:1-3
Now, God dispersed the people at the tower of Babel so that they could not band together against God; it’s not that this would have had the least effect on God’s working in the world. It’s that it was not yet time for the collective rebellion to come to fruition. The people were scattered across the earth, kings still taking counsel together where they could, worshipping the creature rather than the Creator, erecting monuments to their own glory. All the while, God laughing at them. And yet, it was a mercy that he dispersed them rather than let them continue together in their wickedness.
Deception in the darkness
Satan worked in the background all through the Old Testament, deceiving the nations outside of Israel, where God did not speak, where God did not dwell, to fall into the same deluded sin that got him cast out of heaven: idolatry. Their minds were darkened to the truth. We rarely see any mention of this deceiver, Satan, until we get to the New Testament, where he and his demons are suddenly popping up everywhere.
What changed?
Satan was bound from deceiving the nations. For long period of time.
When?
Light comes into the world
When Christ came. Christ crushed the head of the Serpent, who slithered quietly on his belly, in the shadows, keeping the whole world in darkness, all the nations who did not hear the voice of God speaking as Israel did.
What else changed at the same time Christ came to accomplish his work?
The reversal of Babel—it began at Pentecost. The church was born and she began speaking in the languages of those far from God—the gentiles. All the nations of the world, living in darkness, saw a Great Light. They began to hear the Word of God spoken in their own language. People from every tribe, tongue, and nation began to gather together into the universal church, but this time it was for a different kind of exaltation. Not to their own glory, but to the glory of God.
God began to take a confused people from different languages and build them together into a new city that reached the heavens. Just as God took the darkness and the chaos as he hovered over the face of the waters in Genesis 1 and formed the creation we see, he took the darkness and the chaos of a confused people and formed a new creation in Christ, a kingdom unseen.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” - Revelation 21:1-2
“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.”-Daniel 7:13-14
In Christ, we are a diverse people coming from all nations, unable to understand one another. Yet we come together as one new man, speaking the common language of the gospel, to the glory of God.
If anyone tries to tell you that the church is against diversity, you can confidently assert that God is not only the inventor of diversity, but the exalter of it. Because our diversity unified in Christ puts his glory on display. Almost like he designed it exactly that way when he, in his providence, allowed Babel to occur just so he could reverse it at the day of Pentecost and we could see it and marvel at what Christ accomplished.
Keep that tower in mind, the confusion, and it’s reversal at Pentecost, and let’s marvel together:
“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
- Ephesians 2:11-22
…And Released
As marvelous as this is, scripture indicates that there will be a time when this will temporarily change again. Let’s go back to the second half of Revelation 20.
“And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.”
- Revelation 20:7-8
There will come a time, at the end of this age of God building his church—his city—when he will release the Serpent again. The gathering of the church will be complete and the kings of the earth will again take counsel, as they did at the tower, and turn their sword against the body of Christ for the sake of their own glory. For she is a torment to them as she bears witness of Christ and proclaims his glory to an unrepentant world. She speaks a foreign tongue to them, a language of salvation that they don’t understand.
The many become one
But she will be raised again to a life incorruptible. She already has! But on that day, what we hope for will be made sight and the many will forever sing together as one to the glory of the triune God, in a common tongue. And his love—displayed perfectly between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is what justifies them, sanctifies them, and glorifies them. Which brings us to the conclusion of this series. And we have come full circle, right back to where we started.
“Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
-1 Corinthians 13:8-13
