Introduction
Every year, the church prayerfully participates in the 10 days following Jesus’ ascension. During that time, the disciples awaited the promised gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now, we learn to wait with them, longing for the Spirit’s renewing work and tracing a pattern in Scripture: God ascends to reign and fills people with the Holy Spirit so they can rule with him.
Last time, we saw this pattern emerge in the first pages of the Bible. God conquered the chaotic waters by speaking, his voice transforming creation into an ordered Kingdom. He appointed rulers of the heavens to govern the days and seasons, and he commissioned Spirit-filled humans to spread his life and Kingdom on earth. Then God ascended to his royal throne, resting as King over all he had made.
Today, the story darkens. The co-rulers of heaven and earth drag the world back into disorder and chaos. Their rebellion establishes a rival kingdom, complete with a rival filling and a rival ascension.
Giants: The Rival Filling
In Genesis 1-2, God’s Spirit makes humans living images of the holy King. But in Genesis 6, a rival influence infiltrates humanity, corrupting that image.
In Genesis 6, rebellious spirits abandon their positions as heavenly rulers to create rival images of themselves. The Bible calls them sons of God, and they descend onto earth to usurp humanity’s divine command to fill the world with God’s image. These spirits fill humans with their own destructive power, fathering violent giants who spread a rival kingdom on the earth, opposed to God’s holy rule (Genesis 6:1-5).
As this anti-kingdom grows, humanity’s entanglement with spiritual rebellion pollutes all of creation. God sees that this rebellion is degenerating humanity and destroying the world, so, in mercy, he unleashes a purifying flood (Genesis 6:11-13). God judges the evil of the fallen rulers, baptizes the world in cleansing water, rescues humanity, and reappoints them to fill the earth with his image (Genesis 7:1-9:1).
But as Noah’s descendants multiply, they participate in demonic evil once again. The spiritual powers entice humans to build cities of violence and civilizations of rebellion, ultimately culminating in a rival ascension to the throne (Genesis 10:8-12).
Babel: The Rival Ascension
Genesis 11 opens with a coalition of peoples who share the same language and the same intention: rebellion (Genesis 11:3-4). Instead of obeying God and spreading his Kingdom, humans unite with rival powers to defy God’s rule. They begin constructing the Tower of Babel in an attempt to ascend to a throne from which they will rule a kingdom opposed to God’s.
The Tower of Babel is designed as a stairway from earth to heaven. As such, Babel rises as the epitome of a counter-kingdom where rival powers attempt their own ascension in a spiritual effort to storm the gates of heaven.
But again, God intervenes. Even though his own power and throne are unthreatened by any created power, human or otherwise, God sees humanity’s rebellious reach for power and stops them from destroying themselves (Genesis 11:5-6). In mercy, he confuses their language and scatters them throughout the earth (Genesis 11:7-9).
The ensuing story of Scripture describes a world of divided nations enslaved by the powers of rival gods. The spirits assume rival thrones to lead the nations away from God rather than back to him (Deuteronomy 32:8). Through many pagan practices, like the ones in Genesis 6, these rival gods fill their human slaves with violence, oppression, and death, preventing humanity from fulfilling its purpose—to rule with God, filled with his Spirit.
Why We Need a New Ascension and a New Filling
The stories of the giants of Genesis 6 and the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 show humanity enslaved to rival powers, unable to image God in the world. We need God to dethrone the rival powers and fill humanity with the Holy Spirit once again so that we can serve as his co-rulers and images.
That is what Jesus, the Holy Son of God, accomplished. He came as God and man and conquered the powers of the rival rulers in his death and resurrection. Jesus is the man who ascended above every power to rule at God’s right hand. As he took his throne in heaven, he told his disciples to wait for the Father to fill them with the Holy Spirit.
That is what the disciples are waiting for in Acts 1. And that is what we are learning to wait for now.
Guided Prayer
We respond in prayer as Jesus, the Holy Son of God and truly ascended man, taught us:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven those indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.