The Spirit Speaks to Gather

Genesis 11:5–9 (ESV) —  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.

Acts 2:4–8 (ESV) —  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.  Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.  And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.  And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?”

In previous articles, we’ve looked at a few of the miracles that the Holy Spirit did on the day of Pentecost to draw the world’s attention to the Temple of His worship. The rushing sound that sounded like a mighty wind (Acts 2:2) was an auditory sign that pointed to the presence of a powerful spirit at work. The fiery tongues that rested on the disciples without engulfing them (Acts 2:3) harkened back to the burning bush that was not consumed (Exodus 3:2) as God spoke out of it. And all this happening within shouting distance of the Temple Mount echoed the previous Temple and Tabernacle consecrations where the Lord had done signs and wonders through fire and smoke. 

Another attention-grabbing sign that happened on the day of Pentecost, which we haven’t dived into deeply yet, is the incredible outpouring of the gift of tongues. On that day, all of the disciples began speaking in foreign languages and preaching about the mighty works of God. 

This was not only a miracle designed to draw attention to the new Temple of God. It was also a miracle that was accomplishing the very work that the Holy Spirit was setting out to do. He was proclaiming the truth and drawing the lost from every nation under heaven back into fellowship with and right worship of our God. 

The Reversal of the Curse

Notice that this work of gathering is actually gathering the nations “back” into God’s presence. While Acts 2 might not describe it as a return, the Pentecost account deliberately mirrors an earlier event in history: the dispersal from the Tower of Babel. Where once God cursed and scattered, now the Holy Spirit was gathering and blessing. 

It’s common for humans to ask, “Why are we all so divided all the time?” When we look at Genesis 11, we find out at least part of the reason why. It turns out that some of our division is due to a curse, and it turns out that in some ways, that division is also a blessing. Genesis 11:6 shows us that if sinful humans were left alone to unite, humanity would march together in lockstep idolatry. We would be unanimous and united in our rebellion against God. With one voice and purpose, we would build a religion that would consign us all to hell. 

That was literally the task and purpose that the whole earth had united together for in Babel. Mercifully, the Lord God interrupted it. This was another example of the protecting effects of God’s Law. That doesn’t change the fact that God’s Law has other negative (as we experience them) effects on those under it. God’s action at Babel simultaneously blessed and cursed us. It cursed us by dividing us, but it blessed us by restraining the idolatrous worship that leads us away from a living relationship with our loving God. 

Among other things, Pentecost was a public declaration by God that His Holy Spirit was doing the work of reversing the curse. 

The Two Sins of Babylon 

If the only part of the Bible you have read was the first 11 chapters of Genesis, that Tower of Babel story would seem odd and hard to mesh with everything else. Some of it makes sense and fits with the content before it, but some of it starts to make more sense as Scripture goes on and we learn more and more about our God and what He’s up to. 

On the face of it, God seems to be the most dismayed about the Babylonians’ arrogant idolatry of self. The phrase “nothing will be impossible for them” is an outright accusation that the people are intending to make themselves like God. The idolatry of this, even if it’s not yet named “idolatry” in Genesis chapter 11, is intuitively felt by us as we read this story. It’s the same sinful inclination that got humanity kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Now (at Babel), that inclination was causing humanity to be cursed anew and thus spread abroad. 

The idolatry of Genesis 11 is pretty obvious to us. Those folks intended to worship the wrong thing. The result was the curse of languages. 

Then came Pentecost, and the curse began to be unwound. Instead of a curse of division along linguistic lines, the Holy Spirit empowered an ingathering of the nations by miraculously overcoming and undoing the curse. Pentecost is a blessing of languages that corresponds to and begins to undo the curse. 

When we understand Pentecost as a blessing that is the mirror image of the curse, we begin to understand Pentecost as God’s answer to the events of Babel. When we understand those relationships, we will notice something else about Babel. 

Why did the Holy Spirit mention the importance of bricks at the start of the Babel story? What’s the big deal with bricks? I know I’ve chuckled to myself a few times because one of the dynamics of this story is that, of all things, the brick was the technological innovation that led the Babylonians to think they were now wise enough to rival God. The brick. We literally now use the term “brick” as a verb to describe when you have completely wrecked and made useless a piece of technology. For them, the brick was “state of the art.” 

“The power of the brick” also represented their ability to free themselves from God through technology. The brick was, for them, the gateway to a type of worship that was new and sinful. So they not only had the wrong object of worship (themselves instead of Yahweh), they were dead set on the wrong method. We’re called to worship in Spirit and in Truth but not necessarily in a specific place (John 4:23-24). They wanted to worship in a place, built by them, according to their own false ideas. 

The brick was the technological innovation that they felt would enable them to build the world’s most powerful temple. If a temple truly has power, it’s because God has blessed it by making His presence known in it. They felt they could build a powerful temple because they had bricks to make it look cool. 

The first sin of Babel was to replace God with the human self as the object of worship. The second sin was to replace worship that is focused on the Word and Spirit with worship that is focused on a geographical place and the accomplishments of humans at that place. Instead of finding their way to heaven through the truth (John 14:6), they set out to build a way to heaven through bricks. 

Christ Himself spoke out against this sin and promised to curse it anew when He saw it rearing its head again. This time it was in Jerusalem.  

Mark 13:1–2 (ESV) —  And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”  And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (See also Matthew 24:2, Luke 19:44, and Luke 21:6). 

The Blessing Opposite of the Curse

On the day of Pentecost, two hugely important things were being proclaimed to the world that stood in opposition to the sins of Babel and the curse they caused. First, the same God that scattered the nations to prevent them from idolatrously worshipping themselves was now gathering the nations back together for the purpose of worshipping Him in Spirit and in Truth. True, the Kingdom of God continues to physically spread over all the earth. Spiritually though, we’re being gathered together into the presence of God. Second, He was showing the world that His temple is not made of bricks, but made of people (Ephesians 2:20-22). 

On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit had some very big news to break to the world. He had to show the world that there’s been another change of Temple. There was no longer any use in acting like the worship of Yahweh was tied to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The veil had been torn. The Holy of Holies had been shown to be empty. The Lord had already promised to tear the temple apart, brick by brick and stone by stone. The physical temple was essentially doomed, but the Temple of Yahweh was not. It is eternal. God is present wherever two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus Christ (Matthew 18:20). 

The true Temple of God is the Christian congregation. If you want to experience the presence of God, that is where you go to do it. And actually, it’s not really a “where” at all. Jesus is present with us through His Word and Spirit, not through bricks. 

That’s why the gift of tongues near the Temple Mount was such an awesome blessing. God calls and gathers through His Word. The Holy Spirit demonstrated that there isn’t a people group on the planet that He can’t reach with the Word. 

The ingathering of the nations began, that day, almost 2000 years ago, and the Holy Spirit’s work continues today. He continues to enable His disciples to speak of the awesome works of God to whoever will listen, uniting Christians together (Ephesians 4:1-6), reversing the curse, and building the true Temple of our God, Jesus Christ.  

Next month we’re going to take a closer look at what the gift of tongues really is, and then after that we’ll look at the Scriptures that call us “the Temple of the Holy Spirit.”