(remember, these are unedited/draft show notes, not a transcript — listening is always better…and if you listen AND follow along below, you’ll see why)
Focus Question:
What’s the Bible’s “tale of two cities?”
Intro:
A couple days ago as we wrapped up Jeremiah I used a line in passing that I saw in a source I wish I could remember — that God sometimes switches sides politically. The end of Jeremiah included prophecies against Babylon — consequences she deserved for all her own junk. But at the same time God used Babylon as an instrument for delivering consequences to the southern kingdom of Judah (and the capital Jerusalem) for their covenantal failure, their unfaithfulness. (And you’ll remember that the same happened using the Assyrians against the northern kingdom of Israel).
So when I pose today’s focus question — What’s the Bible’s “tale of two cities?” — you might guess that I’m talking about Jerusalem and Babylon. But the tale, the story, metaphorically permeates the whole of the Bible and therefore the Christian worldview. And we’ll do a quickie summary of that in our closing Bottom Line segment.
New Testament segment:
Passage: John 12
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 50
Words: ~1074
For they loved human praise more than praise from God. Jn 12:43, CSB. Remember that.
Old Testament segment:
So yesterday we started into the book of Lamentations — a set of poems lamenting the downfall of Jerusalem. The theme of the opening poem was lamenting Jerusalem’s affliction, while today laments God’ judgment.
Passage: Lamentations 2
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 22
Words: ~464
I want you to notice something here. Remember the little aphorism I shared the last couple days — that we're saved from God (not ourselves), by God (not ourselves), and for God (not ourselves). This’ll touch down in our Bottom Line segment about the tale of two cities.
Wisdom segment:
Passage: Proverbs 18:18-
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 7
Words: ~111
The bottom line:
When you think about Jerusalem and Babylon in the story of the Bible, I hope you’d quickly land on the idea of good and evil, heaven and hell, or even “the Kingdom of God” vs. the Kingdom of evil. But let us wrap today by looking broadly at the two cities – and mostly Babylon, and wrap up with how this touches down at the most foundational level – our worldviews.
There are 287 references to Babylon in the Old Testament and 82 references to its Chaldean inhabitants. The first biblical references to Babylon (and the only ones in the Pentateuch) occur in Gen 10:10 and 11:9. The Tower of Babel narrative in Gen 11:1–9, often associated with ancient Mesopotamian ziggurats, demonstrates humanity’s increasing sin and Yahweh’s supremacy over all human nations. … the author of Genesis highlights the Hebrew wordplay between babel (“the city”) and balal (“to mix or confuse”). Therefore, instead of understanding Babylon to be a divine city like those in Mesopotamia, the Israelites likely viewed it as the epitome of human pride and confusion in the relationship between God and humans (Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, 486).
The New Testament refers to Babylon 12 times. …(one author comments) “Matthew and Acts refer to Babylonian exile as a way of understanding Jesus in relation to Israel’s history, while 1 Peter and Revelation use Babylon as a symbol for Rome” (Friesen, “Babylon, NT,” 379). Matthew 1:17 highlights the importance of Israel’s time in Babylon by noting the generational symmetry between Abraham, David, Babylon, and Jesus; in this interpretation, Israel’s time in Babylon—cut off from the promised land—serves as a turning point in biblical salvation-history.[1]
So there’s Babylon throughout the whole Bible. I’ll be briefer about Jerusalem.
New Testament Christians held the view that there was a city with foundations whose architect and builder was God (Heb. 11:10). Further, this was a heavenly Jerusalem “Mount Zion, … the city of the living God” (12:22). The population would consist of those whose names are written in heaven. The eschatological view of Jerusalem that developed among Christians, aside from that of Judaism (cf. Isa. 60:14), looked forward to the fulfillment of the promise of the kingdom in the establishment of a New Jerusalem that would come “down out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:2)….[2]
So think about the big picture. Every worldview – theistic, atheistic, agnostic – tries to answer four big questions – origin, meaning, morality, destiny. Where’d all this come from, why am I here, what’s right and wrong and often why is there evil and suffering in the world, and where’s it go.
The Bible begins with a bucolic setting in the Garden of Eden; it closes on an urban scene, and that city is the New Jerusalem. For Christians, the identification of earthly Jerusalem as the dwelling place of God, which figures so frequently in the Old Testament, has been transformed into a heavenly Jerusalem, the true sanctuary of the Lord (cf. Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22–29).[3]
And what does this all boil down to? IF there is a God who exists and He has created everything and He has spoken, then who gets to say how the whole thing works (or should work)? But here comes Satan whispering in your ear like in the Garden of Eden – What? God said what? He’s holding out on you, because if you eat of that tree, if you follow that leader, if you live in that city you’ll be like gods yourselves, getting to decide what’s right and wrong. Don’t listen to him.
So we build our own Towers…towers of Babel-on. We try to build a ladder to God, we try to reach heaven on our own so we can create heaven on earth. And at times we experience God’s blessing…a temporary peace, a beautiful temple to worship in, but sooner or later we cheat on our husband. And it all comes crashing down. And we need a Savior to do what we cannot do.
What did we just hear in Lamentations? The need to be saved from God. God would not be a God of perfect justice if he let sin slip or just gave it a wink and a nod. His perfect love wouldn’t be perfect love if he wasn’t perfectly trustworthy and perfectly fair. So we’re also saved by Him for Him because He reeeeeeally loves you and wants to be with you. So much so that He launched a rescue mission to come after you.
Babylon was at one time the greatest kingdom and city on earth. If we lived there, it’d have been hard to imagine there was no problem you couldn’t solve with all the engineers and money and power in the world. You’d be tempted to have some utopian vision for a broken world. Just like we do now. And you’d be tempted to love the praise of men more than the love of God.
But it all pales in comparison to a God that says, “I’m not done with you yet, and are you going to trust me that there’s more to life than this world. I’m going to prepare a mansion for you, a new heaven and earth and Jerusalem, and I want you, my bride, to be there. So much so that I’ll look past all your junk if you’ll just trust me.
Love you!
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
[1] William R. Osborne, “Babylon,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
[2] Keith N. Schoville, “Jerusalem,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, electronic ed., Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 395.
[3] Keith N. Schoville, “Jerusalem,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, electronic ed., Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 395.