World Peace: Why It Would Be Impossible To Achieve

The picture above illustrates a well-known monument showing a towering edifice that aimed to reach the heavens, and probably an epitome of human ingenuity and collaboration. This is the Tower of Babel described in the Bible (Genesis 11) and the story goes that the people of those times were roaming around the earth and were commanded by God to scatter and fill the earth, which was simple enough but instead of doing that, they blatantly disregarded and disobeyed God by settling in one place and building this tower so that they may make a name for themselves.

God seeing the intentions of the people, came down to see the work of their hands and He frustrated their plans by confusing their speech and thus, we now have thousands of languages that identify different people groups and cultures around the world. At first glance, it seems like a simple passage but there are questions that arise from the events that happened such as why did God want the people to scatter and conversely, why did the people want to stick together?

To give just some context, this was after the flood, and the previous chapter gives us the table of nations that were descended from the three sons of Noah. Of course, we know the flood occurred because God was grieved with the wickedness that man proliferated so God decided to destroy what He created but He found favor with Noah so God spared him. After the flood, God instructed the remnants of mankind to go and fill the earth which required them to scatter throughout different lands.

The problem was that they found a plain in Shinar and settled there which was in defiance of God's command but before we delve into that, why did God want the people to scatter? It's a simple question that can easily be overlooked or taken for granted. From the manuscript of Pastor John MacArthur's exposition of this passage, I find the logic behind God's decree reasonable to a certain extent, and beyond that extent, I cannot fathom God's rationale for the plans that He makes.

Since man, from the time of the fall, had become entrenched in sin and had the tendency to sin, given the choice of whether to obey or disobey God, man would rather disobey, the impact of this on the whole of the creative order is destruction and chaos because of the disruption in the harmony within God's creation because man broke the rules - God's law. Man was told to be fruitful and increase in number which they did so they grew in number and presumably filled the earth before the flood came.

After the flood, they started out again, and grew in number based on Genesis 10, which listed the table of nations or the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. At this point, although technically even before this point, God knew what the inclinations of the human heart were and that would be for evil so if every person's heart sought to do evil all the time, and you gather all the people in one place, that creates a mass concentration of productive capacity to do evil that would cause further detriment to the human race and to creation as a whole. So God commanded them to scatter and fill the earth which, spoiler alert, they didn't.

After settling in the plain of Shinar, the people of the earth wanted to build a city, erect a tower that reaches the heavens, and make a name for themselves. These three elements represent society or social organization or government for the city, religion for the tower, and glory for themselves. These three things in themselves are not necessarily sinful but when we start to push God out of the picture, that's when the whole endeavor will crumble and topple on itself as it did for the people at the time.

See, God created all things for His glory. His, not ours. When we try to take the glory away from God, we are committing the biggest blasphemy against the Creator of the universe, the heavens, and the earth, and all that is in them.The pride that swallows us, thinking that we are great in and of ourselves, is foolish thinking because it was God who gave us our being, our intellect, our will; He gave us the freedom to do or not to do, to choose between obedience to Him or defiance. Of course, being omniscient, He knew what our tendencies would be, but still it does not excuse us from the wrong that we do, it does not justify our actions.

God knew the hearts of men and He would not sit idly by as the people blatantly rebel against Him so He came down from heaven to see their work which shows us exactly how small it really was compared to the height of God's glory. In response to what the people were doing, God frustrated their plans by confusing their language so that they could not communicate with one another and work together to accomplish their goals. After that, God scattered them throughout the whole earth and each language brought forth nations.

That was how nations emerged although God had intended it, since they disobeyed, God made other ways to fulfill His will. One important lesson we can take from this is that God's will always prevails. We cannot expect to oppose God and overcome, that would be another foolish thought. Instead, I would contend that obedience is key to living a fruitful and meaningful life, no matter how difficult it would be for us given that it is contradictory to our nature. But it is a small sacrifice, to yield to God's will, compared to the weight of the eternal rewards.

Where does this leave us? To a certain extent, having different nations prevents us from conspiring with one another as the people of Babel did and mounting up resistance against God. It is a way of restraining chaos. In a way, our idea of "world peace" will actually usher in an era of unprecedented destruction because when sinful people conspire to do wicked acts and become united toward the goal of self-glorification and the rejection of God, there is nothing that would hinder them from accomplishing their desires except for God's intervention.

Peace and harmony among all creation can only be established by God and it is through the saving work of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in transforming people's lives. It's not going to happen by a change in leadership or government, it's not through economic or political reform, and it's not through war or diplomacy albeit these acts can contribute to order but only to a certain extent, not with the scope of the whole earth although in the Bible, there will emerge a person who will seemingly unify the world but in resistance to God and that is the anti-Christ with the beast who will perform miraculous feats that would deceive people into thinking that they can solve the problems of the world.

In any case, those are some of the things I learned about a seemingly simple passage of Scripture but with great implications and profound insights about human nature and society.

Here's the sermon by Ptr. John MacArthur that gave really good insights on this passage of Scripture: Grace to You, Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time (source: https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/90-267/Judgment-of-the-Rebellion-at-Babel-Part-1)

Here's another good sermon by Ptr. John Piper:
Desiring God, The Pride of Babel and the Praise of Christ (source: http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-pride-of-babel-and-the-praise-of-christ)