Today, 50 days after Easter, the church receives the Holy Spirit as promised by her Lord on the night before He willingly entered His passion. The spirit of the Lord comes upon the twelve apostles to unite the people of all nations in the confession of God’s Son. Therefore, at Pentecost, the apostles who spoke different languages spoke with one voice the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people. This is the unraveling of the curse of Babel, as their idolatry was turned into confusion. The bestowal of the third person of the Trinity to men unites them to God, the Father, through Christ Jesus. For the Holy Spirit that united the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity is the same Holy Spirit that we possess now in the church.
To evaluate this statement, we must ask three questions. First, where does this uniting spirit come from? Second, why does the Holy Spirit confuse the language of the people at the Tower of Babel? And finally, why did the Holy Spirit bestow the gift of tongues on the apostles?
Let’s begin with where the Holy Spirit comes from. As we confess in Nicen creed, the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. This is a unique characteristic of the third person of the Holy Trinity, as His personhood comes from the other two of the Trinity. In comparison to the Father and to the Son, who are God and Lord with the Holy Spirit. The Father of the Holy Trinity is unbegotten, meaning that he does not come from anyone but himself. He is his own origin while also being the origin of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, the second person of the Trinity exist because He is begotten of the Father alone and is not from the Spirit. And since he is from the Father, they share in the same divine nature. The Son, according to His divine nature, has no inferiority to the Father. They are equal in majesty, glory, and power. The Son is as much God as the Father. In this regard, we can compare them to our understanding of man. A father begets his son, but it doesn’t mean that he is less of a man because he comes from another. And still, unlike humankind, the Father and the Son in the Trinity are one and yet are distinct persons.
And so the Holy Spirit proceeds from the other two persons of the Trinity equally. As they are one God, there is only one Holy Spirit. For the scriptures speak of the Holy Spirit, sometimes as a spirit of the Father, others as the Spirit of God, and others, the Spirit of the Son. These are not different spirits, but are the same. For this, what Christ tells us in our gospel reading from last Sunday, when He says: “when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” It is abundantly clear that the Son sends the Spirit who also proceeds from Him and the Father, and still, He testified of Christ. This means that the spirit is equal to both them, and the Holy Spirit is a person, not some inanimate existence. He is a person, as is the Son and the Father, and we refer to Him as He and Lord.
This relationship of the three persons of the Trinity of begetting and proceeding is not something that happens within the course of time, but happened from all eternity; therefore, God has always been three persons. For they have been united as three persons in one God by the Holy Spirit from all and to all eternity. It is this Holy Spirit bestowed on us to unite us to God.
We must turn to our second question: why at the Tower of Babel does the spirit of God confuse the people? The Spirit is meant to unite, but here we see separation. At that time, all the people of the world spoke one language. And when the descendants of Noah came to a place, they saw it fitting to build a tower and a city. As we see in our text, this was not pleading to the Lord, for they built the tower to challenge God. What made the tower sinful was their belief that they could become their own gods by creating miraculous structures, just as the Lord God Himself made the Earth, the heavens, and all that was in them. So when the Lord, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, visits the people, He confuses their language so that they can no longer communicate, and thus the building must stop. The work of the Holy Spirit was not to separate the people from God, for they already did that of themselves. And the work of the Holy Spirit in their confusion is the confirmation of what they have already done. They have rejected God, and by speaking in different languages, God acknowledges what His people have done as displeasing in His sight. God, the Holy Trinity, never causes sin, but he will harden those hearts that are already hardened by sin. He will take away the Holy Spirit even after He has already been shut out.
Our sinful nature is what turns away the Holy Spirit, so that we are unable to accept the things of God on our own. Sin sees itself as superior to God. And whenever we transgress against God’s law, we make for ourselves a tower instead of a temple of the Holy Spirit. Yet the Holy Spirit is eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. Which means that God always sends His Spirit into the hearts of sinful men to accept the grace of His Son, Jesus Christ. And still by His power, we are made alive in the Holy Spirit, as we are forgiven by the sacrifice of the Son, who reconciles us to God, the Father.
And that is the answer to our third question: why does the Holy Spirit give the gift of tongues to the apostles? In order to reconcile sinful man to God through Christ. The people at the Tower of Babel were separated by their new languages. And now, in the city of Jerusalem, as the Twelve speak new languages, not to confuse the people, but to unite the people to their creator and Lord. For it is the Spirit, He proclaims Jesus Christ, by the power of the gospel, to break down hard hearts of stone to give hearts of flesh. No matter what language each of the apostles was given by the grace of the Holy Spirit. They spoke with one message: they all said that people who are far off are now restored. In the death of Christ is nothing that separates us from God the Holy Trinity. Now the things of Christ achieved and won for us are given by that same Holy Spirit, that proceeds from Him and His Father.
The day of Pentecost is the day the church was born. We are the church of the apostles, with the same word of God and promises, the same forgiveness of sins and eternal life, the same Christ crucified, the same baptism, and the same Lord’s supper that the apostles possessed and preached in Jerusalem, is the same for us. For the church is not the work of man but endures because of the Holy Spirit. God, who converted 3000 men in one day, is the same God who converts you and gives you faith in His only begotten Son. Your faith and salvation are the work of God for you; therefore, continue to receive the things of God, and the Spirit will always remain with you unto eternal life.
St. John's and Grace Evangelical Lutheran Parish 