Under the Old Covenant (Moses), God instituted the “Feast of Weeks” (Ex 34:22; Nu 28:26).² It was one of three times when all Jewish males were to appear in Jerusalem. It is called “Pentecost” (Greek, πεντηκοστή) because it occurs 50 days after Passover. As Israelites gathered in Jerusalem, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Apostles. The Apostle Peter preached one of the inaugural sermons of the New Covenant church, announcing that the very same Jesus, whom the men of Jerusalem had crucified, God had raised (Acts 2:22–25).

It hardly bears saying but the 9 days have been a truly sad, frustrating week for all Americans who hope to see a measure of peace and mutual understanding. A Minneapolis police officer, whose actions have been universally denounced by other police officers across the country, used, for nearly 9 minutes, an aggressive restraint technique on a George Floyd, who was already in handcuffs. Floyd died while in police custody. As I write, both the county coroner and an independent examiner agree that the compression of Floyd’s neck by the officer did contribute to his death. The officer has been arrested and charged with wanton disregard for human life (murder in the 3rd degree) and manslaughter. Other officers, who stood by during the incident, may yet be charged.

Understandably there have been peaceful protests against across the nation. Many of these protests, however, appear to have been hijacked by anarchists and other criminals bent on sowing discord, using violence, and creating chaos. Others have taken advantage of the chaos by smashing and looting businesses in cities all over the USA. Countless buildings and businesses have been looted and burned to the ground. Video from several major cities makes them look like a war zone. More than a few police officers have been shot or otherwise attacked. As I write, a Las Vegas police officer is fighting for his life after a criminal attempted to assassinate him by shooting him point blank, in the back of the head, as the officer was attempting to subdue another subject. A retired St Louis police captain was murdered while defending a pawn shop there. A federal officer has been murdered in Oakland. Other St Louis police officers were shot. Police officers in Buffalo, NY were nearly killed when a car rammed their line. Many American cities were on fire last night and it seems as if it may happen again tonight.

Babel

Meanwhile, in the City of God, on the church calendar, this past Lord’s Day was Pentecost, which we will consider more fully below. In order to understand Pentecost, however, we need to understand it was the answer and counterpoint to an earlier, destructive episode the consequences of which we are seeing played out in the streets. In Genesis 11 God’s Word records one of the effects of the fall: an attempt to build a pagan “temple-tower” to climb up to God. Scripture says:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

According to Marc Z. Brettler, they sought to build a “ziggurat.” This was, as he aptly describes it, a “temple tower” in which there was a holy place at the bottom and a holy place at the top. The pagans thought that a god would appear in the holy place at the top of the tower temple.^l The point of the ziggurat is to enable humans to climb a ladder up to the gods.

The language attributed to humans in in the first few verses of Genesis 11 reflects this background. The clause “let us make a name for ourselves” is cryptic but it is not innocent. In the flow of the narrative, this is the post-flood (post-diluvian) world. The common grace covenant has already been instituted (Gen 9:7–17):

I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth (ESV).

Nevertheless, despite God’s grace in saving that little church in the midst of the flood waters, Genesis 3 is playing itself out all over again. Humans have said to themselves, “you shall be as God” (Gen 3:5) but God has something to say too:

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 (Gen 11:1-9; ESV).

The Lord has issued yet another judgment against our idolatry. If rebellious, idolatrous humans will become as God, the righteous and holy God, the “I AM” (Ex 3:14), who spoke creation into existence, who formed the first humans from the dust of the earth, who gave them life, will thwart their ambition and do just what they feared: scatter and divide them.

Read More