This is the first in a series of blog posts on the beauty, goodness, and glory of the unity of the church. This comes from our message on Psalm 133, from our series on the Psalms. You can find this on our sermons page.
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.”
Psalm 133 gives us a vision for the good life together. This is the reality that we, as His people, can live in now. There are a few main points this particular psalm brings out.
The first is that this unity is good and pleasant. It is a good thing, a pleasant thing, to be part of a community of people working for others’ good first. The best good we can offer another person is for them to grow more into the shape of Jesus.
The second aspect this psalm brings up is that unity is where God’s people live. It’s not where we pass through, it’s not a holiday, it’s not a retreat, it’s an everyday kind of life. Real unity, in the way the Bible describes it, is an ongoing daily life thing. When we live in this space, it gives us life—and we need that life daily as much as the next person. We receive it and we are given the opportunity to give it to others as well.
This unity requires being together. This might go without saying, but we live in such an individualistic culture, that we can be physically together and not united. We can seek a group out for our own good, and if our own good isn’t satisfied, well, we move on to the next thing. A church family is different. More than being a tribe of individuals, a church family is just that: a family. A family together.
The Bible’s vision for unity is more than sameness. It’s easy to get along on basic levels with people who are like you. If you have kids, you can just talk about kids. If you’re into the same music, you can organise a group around that. If you come from the same class background, same ethnicity, you can organise yourself around that. But that’s not unity. That’s sameness. Unity, in the wonderful way the Bible describes it, requires diversity.
Unity is wholeness. One can’t be whole and not be unified. To not live in the unity of the church is to not experience the wholeness that our beings require. Unity is different parts coming together to make a complex whole. A completeness. Unity is like the different machine parts of an engine, unique in their individual ways, coming together to form one thing. And that thing has a purpose.
Unity is overwhelming goodness. That’s what the oil metaphor is bringing out in this psalm. Strong smelling oil would be poured over the head of the high priest in Israel. This was to use the sense of smell as a metaphor for God’s goodness and His holiness. In a time where not many people took showers, and most work was manual labour, something that actually smells pleasing would be surprising.
This oil smells strong, it’s not subtle, and it would be overwhelming in the best sense of the word. If this oil was poured on you, you’d obviously smell it, but like any aroma, it goes out. It would spread out. That’s why it’s important for the church to smell good. Whatever aroma we have, it will go out. As God’s church, as His representatives on earth, we are called to smell good and be a blessing to all who are near.
Unity is part of the life that never ends. Hermon is far away from Zion, Hermon would be at the ends of Israel’s geography at this time. Hermon was known for having rich soil that could be cultivated easily. Zion doesn’t refer to a geographical or political place, its importance is in the spiritual metaphor: it’s where God dwells with His people. What this psalm is teaching us is that the unity we experience in the church is like hearts that are ready to give life, where God is present, with us. Our lives are full of rich soil, full of potential to live in this kind of unity and harmony. When we rightly cultivate the peace of God in our hearts and others’ hearts, God gives His blessings. More than that, He commands His blessings.: “…even life forevermore”. His blessings include the good life that never ends.
The unity we get to experience is no less than the unity between Father, Son, and Spirit. We are brought into His perfect unity, get to attain and experience this perfect unity, and also get to share in this together with all who are in Christ. We can experience horizontal unity with each other because we have a vertical unity with the Trinity.
Good and pleasant indeed. Over the next few posts we’ll look at more aspects of this unity, how we mess it up, how Jesus has won it for us, and how get to continue in this kind of unity, even when it’s difficult.