Articles
“A Brief History of Language”
“…each one was hearing them speak in his own language…”
Acts 2:6
Shared language unifies. Different languages divide. Paul wrote, “There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning, but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me.” (1 Cor. 14:10-11) People who share a common language tend to stick together. We even use the expression, “You are speaking my language” to show our understanding and agreement with what is said. But when we can’t communicate with one another we find it frustrating and division results.
This all began with the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). Noah and his descendants were told to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 9:1). Genesis 11 begins, “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.” In a conceited effort to make “a name” for themselves, the people disobeyed God’s mandate and settled in the land of Shinar to build a city and “a tower with its top in the heavens.” Of course, any effort undertaken in pride which opposes God’s will is doomed to fail. God saw the potential of this unified city (Gen. 11:6) and interceded by confusing their language, “so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Gen. 11:7). This had the effect of dispersing the population and frustrating their construction project. The place was called “Babel,” which sounds like the Hebrew word for “confusion,” and it still keeps that connotation today in English (cf. Acts 17:18).
In ancient Babylonian texts, the name “bab-ili” meant “the gate of god.” At the top of the Babylonian ziggurat, which was probably the kind of tower the people were building in Genesis 11, was a small temple which was meant to be a kind of “gate” into heaven. The hubris of the tower of Babel was the beginning of a pattern.
Babel eventually became the world power known as “Babylon.” Following the pattern set forth in Genesis 11, the Babylonian empire became drunk on their own power and was ruined (Dan. 4:30-33; Isa. 13:17-22). In the prophets and the book of Revelation, Babylon came to represent all those who exalt themselves and oppose God (Rev. 17:1-6). Just as in Genesis 11, the “Babylons” of the world are doomed to fall (Rev. 17:14; 18:1-3; cf. Isa. 21:9; Jer. 51:8). God’s people are told to “come out” of that symbolic city of wickedness and pride and enter instead into Jerusalem to find peace, mercy and true safety with God (Heb. 12:22-24; Rev. 21:2-4).
What does this have to do with language? God once used language as a tool to divide and scatter people (Gen. 11). But in Acts 2, he used language to unite and gather them! On the day of Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection, the apostles, filled with God’s Spirit and on God’s holy mountain (Isa. 2:2-4), preached the gospel in different languages to gather his scattered people into one nation again (Acts 2:1-11). The gospel is the only message that can unite diverse people and make peace where there was once hostility (Eph. 2:11-22) because it addresses the universal problem of sin (Rom. 3:23).
John was once shown a vision of this diverse, unified body of people all shouting in harmony their gratitude and praise for what God has accomplished through Jesus (Rev. 7:9-10):
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
In Christ, we all “speak the same language,” the language of the gospel. In Christ, there is unity, understanding and peace because we have left “Babylon” and entered the “New Jerusalem.”
