QUES. 22.-In reading Genesis recently, and coming to chapter 11:1-9, my mind flew to the second chapter of Acts, and was all aglow at the thought of a connection between them ; yet I could not explain what that connection is. Perhaps you can throw light upon it.
ANS.-Your experience shows that God may impart to the heart something of the truth and its preciousness, while full intelligence as to it comes with fuller knowledge. There is indeed a lovely connection between the two passages :in the first, proud man is being humbled. He is going to build a high tower to get himself a great name, using the natural intelligence which God in creation had imparted to man, to exalt himself, and, as always follows, to forget God and set Him aside. The confusion of tongues is God's effective means to prevent man's proud purpose. He divides them in their confederacy; he weakens them by scattering them.
In Acts 2, it is just the opposite. Jesus, the Son of God, had accomplished His journey through this world in deepest humiliation ; He had been " crucified through weakness '' that He might become our Saviour and lay the foundation for God's glorious purpose to be displayed at the end ; He had been raised out of all that humiliation and exalted at the right hand of God, and the Holy Spirit had come to exalt His name in the same scene where He had humbled Himself. The disciples who had been with Him could bear witness of Him, but God gives that witness divine power and efficacy by sending the Holy^Spirit to dwell in these witnesses, that with love in their hearts and fire in their tongues, they might be able to exalt the name of their Saviour and Master.
The tongues, therefore, which were to scatter self-exalting men at Babel are now given to exalt the name of Jesus, to assemble the people to Him, and to unite them in Him. Such is God's way. The pride of man He puts down by scattering and weakening them; but with humility and love to Christ, God unites them and makes them strong to bear testimony. It is Christ whom God has determined to exalt and for which the Holy Spirit has come.