A Tale of Two Cities

God’s Gift vs Prideful Human Ambition

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. — ‭‭Revelation‬ ‭21‬:‭2‬ ‭‬‬

My wife says that I’m difficult to shop for. I don’t shop often, so when the odd moment arrives when I see something I want, she will make a mental note to buy it for me. When, after a few days she discovers that I’ve bought it for myself, her face is a mixture of joy — that I got what I wanted, and exasperation — that she has to go back to the drawing board.

Human history is like this in a way. Ever since the beginning, God wanted to give humanity a city where he was its chief sustainer, energizer, light-giver, joy-filler, and love-enveloper.

But we couldn’t wait, we had to have it now!

“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” (Genesis‬ ‭11‬:‭4‬).

To make a name for yourself means rejecting the name you have received from God, and all that it entails. It’s like what the prodigal son said to his father, “Give me my inheritance now, I’ll manage life on my own. I no longer need your involvement.”

Thankfully, God was merciful then as he is now. “So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city” (Genesis 11:8).

The main issue wasn’t the city, it was their pride. Had God allowed them to be unified in prideful arrogance, it would’ve led to them being perfected in wickedness. Kind of like when a thief gets away with stealing, they may become arrogant in abilities that need to die, rather than be cultivated. Therefore, God’s disruption was the beginning of their salvation.

After being scattered into distinct people groups, human pride and arrogance revealed themselves in endless attempts to supplant one nation, or individual’s name with another by means of conquests of all kinds.

Thank God he is persistent and unrelenting in his desire to show mercy, and claim his people as his own. In the close of Revelation, we see that God, after utterly destroying all vestiges of Babylon (Babel) from the earth, he gives us the gift he intended all along.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. — Revelation‬ ‭21‬:‭3‬

I’m not a complete idiot; I no longer buy myself anything around my birthday and Christmas. I’d rather receive it as a gift… I don’t know, it just feels better receiving it that way. When it comes to God, it not only seems better, it is better! His gifts cannot be replicated, since the only thing he really has to give is himself.

God wants to give us himself and, in doing so, become the one in whom we joyfully live, move, and have our being. In his commentary on Revelation, N.T. Wright asks, “How might we live in a way that is open to receiving great gifts from God rather than always trying to build everything ourselves?”

It’s a worthy question to consider.