NATIONAL NOT GLOBAL

COMMON WEALTH OF THE WORLD

"These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and of these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood" Gen. 10:32

The reader will observe that in this 10th chapter we have an account of how the nations were “divided in the earth." It precedes the account of the occasion of this division, which is found in the next chapter. It is here that the NATIONAL idea emerges in the Bible account and not the present GLOBAL which this undoes. Up to now there had been one race. There would still be one race, but henceforth in its growth and development, it would consist of different branches, families, nations, each having peculiar characteristics, which in the Divine economy are intended to be held in trust for the COMMON-WEALTH, that so the race, being communal, might be the richer. Babel was an attempt to evade this wider purpose of God. Thus the writer describes the division, which followed Babel first, because it was the first Divine purpose. All this should be very carefully pondered. The national idea is Divine, but its principle is cooperation, and its purpose communion. Man has made its principle competition, and its experience has become conflict. When the nations are last seen in the Biblical Revelation, they are walking in the light of the City of God (Rev. 21:24); and then the COMMON-WEALTH of man will be realized in the Kingdom of God, and all conflict will have ended forever. The last glory of the race will not be monotony, but HARMONY, the cultivation by every nation of its own peculiar powers and resources, in the interest of all the other nations. That is the far-off Divine event, to which the whole creation moves; and that the glory of the vision which inspires to all sacrifice and service till it be realized.