Looking For A City

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.   Genesis 12:3

God’s judgment is never his final word. When God cuts sin back, it is always to create room for his grace. Adam and Eve were excluded from the Garden, but there was the promise of a Deliverer. Cain murdered Abel, but when Seth was born, there was a new line of hope. The Flood destroyed all life, but Noah and his family were saved. So when we read about God judging Babel, we wonder what shape grace will take.

God scattered the people at Babel, but then he took the initiative with a man named Abraham, who was worshiping other gods with his family in Ur (see Joshua 24:2). God appeared to him and promised to bless him, pledging that through his line, every nation on earth would be blessed (see Genesis 12:1-3). So Abraham left Ur looking for “a city designed and built by God” (Hebrews 11:10).

The rest of the Old Testament follows Abraham’s family—Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. Then the New Testament begins with the birth of a baby from Abraham’s line named Jesus, who would “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus taught God’s words and did God’s work, and then he was crucified. But on the third day, he rose from the dead, appeared to many, and then ascended back to heaven.

A few days after Jesus’ ascension, God reversed the events that had happened at Babel. Men from every nation were in Jerusalem for Pentecost, and God caused the apostles to speak in different languages, so that each one heard the gospel in his own tongue (see Acts 2:5-6). Do you see the grace of God here?

At Babel, humankind was exalted, and God confused their language—they were divided and scattered. At Pentecost, Christ was exalted, and God spoke to people from every nation in their own languages—they were united and gathered. The book of Acts tells how the good news of God’s promised blessing to all nations—through the line of Abraham—has come to us in Jesus Christ.

For further reading, see Genesis 12