I came across this in my Bible reading today:
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 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. 4 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.” 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. – Genesis 11:1-5
There is a great deal of irony in this passage. They try to build for themselves a tower so they can reach the heavens – they are trying to build their way up to God, both physically and metaphorically. And then it says that God came down to see the city and the tower, he just cruised on down there without an issue to see what was going on. This is a representation of all of mankind’s sin and the beauty of God’s condescension down to us. We are trying to be God, to do God-like things (the garden of Eden), and he’s like, but you don’t need to do that, I want to be with you. And he can without any effort to it at all. Our efforts to build something for ourselves will only leave us more confused, more separated, and less God-like. Now mankind is spread out and their language is confused – the source of all the various languages of the world – and there’s a lot!
We see here the gift that language is. Man is made in the image of God and can use language for good – we can communicate in ways that no other part of creation can do. But we can also use that language to promote ourselves and determine that we don’t need God. The creation cuts off the creator – the great sin of man! The more we build upwards for ourselves the further we are from God himself. And the only way we can be exalted is if we humble ourselves (Phil. 2).
Further, there is a thread of Christian nationalist thinking that will argue that mankind was created to be separate in language and culture – and that’s just untrue. Look at this story: man was meant to be united in purpose and praise of the Lord. Culture is a good thing and in our separated state we have created wonderful cultural elements, but there is nothing about separation that is biblical. We are moving back towards this unity – a pushback of Babel, and we see in Revelation 5 people worshiping the Lord united from every tongue, tribe, and nation. In many ways, Pentecost is a reversal of Babel; there you see the Holy Spirit come down and make all those who spoke in various languages understandable – a unified voice coming from many different languages; and there are listed there representatives from some very different places!
Let us all look forward to the reconciliation of all mankind together!