Division & Unity

The meaning of the story of Pentecost can seem obvious. Christ sends the Spirit to the disciples awaiting Him. The Spirit descends in tongues of fire which then enable the disciples to speak the languages of all peoples, telling all the Christ had done. And while this is the story in part, it is only the final act of a story that began many centuries earlier.

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Earlier in the Scriptures, we come upon a time when mankind had only one language. They spoke few words, not because they were incapable, but because they were all like-minded in rebellion to God. They left the East (the place where God dwells) and determined that they would raise a tower up into the heavens to dethrone God and make their own name known. Because of their rebellion, God sends His Spirit to confuse their language- out of the one language came many. He took the one nation, scattered them abroad into many nations and gave them over to their own gods, and thus the tower was named Babel.

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With this context, the story of Pentecost fits into a sweeping biblical theme. Pentecost is a complete reversal of Babel. At Babel, the people gather to rebel against God; at Pentecost, they gather to submit to His will. At Babel, God descends to confuse the one language into many; at Pentecost, God descends to give many languages to speak the one Word of God. At Pentecost it is not the people that are divided, but the tongues of fire which are then used to draw the people together and toward God in their own particular language. Centuries after the world is divided in many words, nation and god, it is once again drawn together in unity by the Divine Word, the heavenly city and the one true God.

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This larger theme becomes the backdrop to the ministry of the Apostle Paul, whose mission was to tell of the good tidings to the nations scattered at Babel (as described in Deuteronomy 32) and reclaim the whole to God, restoring the Edenic vision. In this way, the entire book of Acts is the mirror that re-orders the chaos wrought by Babel, revealing another chiastic form between the two Testaments of the Scriptures to which is given the name "fulfillment."