Genesis 11--Fusion vs. Confusion (by KF Hill 6/2/2007)

After the Flood, people began to congregate together.  They had a single language; everyone used the same words.  This situation would be ideal to foster human cooperation and achievement.  They congregated in a plain in Shinar -- southern Babylonia or the plain of southern Mesopotamia -- celebrated in the ancient world as a region of prodigious fertility.

Their first goal as a community seems to have been self-exaltation. They planned to build a tower that reached into the heavens.  It may have been to perform astronomical and astrological observations.  It could have served a function in pagan worship.  They wanted to make a name for themselves -- which can be construed as a "reputation" or "memorial".

The Flood may have eliminated a generation of self-centered and evil people but those who began populating the earth after the Flood were from the same mold.  The people in Shinar were plotting to exalt themselves to new heights of arrogance.  And, carrying some of Noah's DNA that enabled him to skillfully build the ark, along with a unified language, they felt capable of great heights of endeavor.  God knew humans are capable of great self-delusion, to the point of self-deification.  Building a tower to the heavens would be justification for thinking they were beyond God's power and control. Compared to the Flood, a tower (however magnificent) would be a puny creation.  But humans are more than capable of ignoring the cosmic in favor of their own creations.

God confused their language, making it impossible to communicate their wicked plans to each other.  He prevented them from undertaking their tower, which would have been the first in a series of achievements taking them further away from God.

Today humans have built machines to reach beyond the heavens, into space.  Humans also can study minute matter many times smaller than the eye can see.  The spirit of Babel is alive and well -- humans feel competent to tackle any problem or goal.  But, as God knew, such accomplishments have not brought us to faith in God.  Humanism, the exaltation of human reasoning and sovereignty, resists God and His wisdom.  It rejects the need for a Savior because sin becomes meaningless.  Humanism has wrestled sovereignty from God.

But Yeshua took human form as an act of supreme humiliation in order to accomplish God's purpose of forgiveness and reconciliation.  What self-important humans see as the ultimate, Yeshua accepted as an act of extreme humiliation.  Human achievement is not necessarily antithetical to God.  But everything must be brought into subjection and subordination to God.  Yeshua bridges that gap through His sacrifice.