What’s Happening?
In the beginning, God made humanity to rule with him. As image-bearers, they were to spread his reign across the earth, filling the world with his life and presence until all creation flourished under his care. Dominion was the human vocation: to build God’s kingdom as his co-regents. But in Eden humanity handed that vocation to the serpent, and ever since, the power made for building God’s kingdom has been turned to building a rival one—Cain’s city of violence, the corruption of the flood. After the flood, that rival kingdom spreads across the whole earth.
As humanity multiplies, Genesis traces the family lines that become the nations of the world (Genesis 10). From the line of Ham comes Nimrod, the first king in Genesis, who founds Babel and later Nineveh and Assyria—the empires that will one day enslave God’s people (Genesis 10:8–12). The dominion God gave humanity has become empire in Nimrod’s hands, the image of death organized and crowned. Under him, humanity settles in the plain of Shinar to build a city and a tower “with its top in the heavens” (Genesis 11:2–4).
The tower reaches into the heavens to take hold of the powers there. What the Nephilim began—heaven and earth allied against God—humanity now seeks to build into a way of life. The tower is a temple, raised to draw the rival spiritual rulers down and found a civilization on partnership with them. Babel is Eden’s lie made into a kingdom: as the serpent drew Adam and Eve to seek divinity apart from God, humanity here binds itself to God’s spiritual enemies to secure a power that is not his—a path that ends in death (Genesis 11:6).
God comes down—not up their tower, but by his own will—and confuses their language, scattering them across the earth (Genesis 11:9). In the scattering, God hands the divided nations over to the very rival rulers they reached for, the rebel powers that have warred against his image since the days of the Nephilim (Deuteronomy 32:8). Humanity, made to rule the earth under God, now lives under hostile thrones, every nation allied with the serpent and ruled by sin. The vocation of Eden has been wholly inverted: the co-regents of God have become the subjects of his enemies. So God begins again—not with a tower, but with one man from the line of Shem, Abraham, through whom he will raise a single nation to reclaim all the rest (Genesis 11:26).
Where is the Gospel?
Jesus restores the rule humanity lost. After his resurrection, he ascends to the throne above every throne, taking his seat over the rival powers the nations had been handed to (Deuteronomy 32:8). The thrones that divided and enslaved the world are placed under his feet, and he begins to take the nations back.
He reclaims them by restoring humanity’s vocation to rule with him. At Pentecost, the Spirit comes down and fills the disciples, who proclaim the good news in the very languages Babel scattered (Acts 2:6). At Babel, humanity reached up to bind itself to rival powers; at Pentecost, God comes down to bind his people to himself. At Babel, the nations were divided and given to hostile powers; at Pentecost, the King sends his people to rule those same nations under him, gathering the scattered languages into one family. The dominion lost in Eden is handed back to a renewed humanity, now ruling not by their own strength but by the Spirit.
The temple changes with the kingdom. Where Babel raised brick to reach the powers of heaven, the Spirit now makes his dwelling in people, and God builds his temple across the earth through the church (Acts 2:44–47). His co-regents are sent out over the nations once held by rival powers, reclaiming them for the King under whom they were always meant to live.
What was destructively true at Babel—“nothing will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6)—becomes the church’s commission under Christ. His people go out in his authority, and the gates of hell will not prevail against them (Matthew 16:18). Carried by the Spirit into every language, the Gospel reverses Babel’s scattering, deposes the rival rulers, and gathers all nations into one family under one name.
See for Yourself
I pray that the Holy Spirit gives you eyes to see the God who made us to rule with him and refuses to leave the nations under the powers of death. And may you see Jesus as the King enthroned above every rival ruler, who restores our place at his side and gathers the scattered nations into his name.