The Mystery of the Nations: Scene One
Did you ever wonder where the nations began or how they became unique? In order to understand the ‘nations’ or in Hebrew, the goyim, we need to go back to the beginning of man,
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Genesis 1:28
Adam and Eve were given an authorized assignment to reproduce and spread out over the earth, keeping everything under control, while ruling over it. Sounds simple enough.
God wanted His image and likeness bearers to cover the planet, disperse themselves, so His glory would fill the earth as we fellowshipped with Him in the place of delight: Eden. It was a great plan so what went wrong? Sin and rebellion: that’s what went wrong. We veered off the original path of eternity which forced God to drive mankind out of paradise and into the cold, cruel world. For a time. God didn’t scrap Plan A for Plan B, He had already made provision for us to return to Eden and eternity with Him, but with all the sin and violence in the world He chose Noah to begin again. Hence … the flood.
Stay with me as we travel through Genesis concentrating on the nations. When Noah and his family landed back on earth after the flood the nations began again to spread out. It’s what God originally wanted: reproduce and rule.
These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. Genesis 10:32
From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations. Genesis 10:5
And so migration began with people speaking different languages but the variety that God intended, ethnic diversity, disappeared when the leadership in Babel decided on uniformity: one language. However, in His sovereignty, God always triumphs over man’s plans and He, again, dispersed the people with different languages, developing unique cultures, and the first immigration led people all over the globe. That’s where the nations began and it was all God’s doing. Ethnic diversity was His idea because He loves variety, it was His plan from the beginning, and there’s no more value in one than another. I hope you see that His intention was never for superiority based on race or nation, but only on the individual heart.
What He planned in Eden will come back around when Jesus returns and gathers all of us,
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, Revelation 5:9-10
Comments are closed.