“I have come to believe the Psalms of Ascents (Psalm 120-134) can be a great source of help for the modern church. We, ever increasingly, live in a time where we must embark on a pilgrim lifestyle.
This different brand of life needs philosophies and anthems to abide by, and I believe these psalms provide the required help. Because of this, I have written a book on these psalms and will release a chapter every few weeks. Each entry will expound on each psalm in order.
Since these posts are rather lengthy, I encourage you to take whatever time you need to set aside to digest them. My prayer is for these studies to enrich you significantly on your sojourn with Christ. Thank you for reading, listening, and sharing.”
“A SONG OF ASCENTS. OF DAVID. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the LORD has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.” (Psalm 133).
“The Bible has the answers,” they say. Knowing how messed up life and the world and relationships can be, you decide to read it. Perhaps, you think, you will find out what family and relationships and love are supposed to look like.
The Bible is replete with stories of brotherly love, but also brotherly hate. The book of Genesis, the book of beginnings, bears witness to this disunity. Adam and Eve’s sons, Cain and Abel, are the first brothers mentioned in the Bible and ended with an envy induced fratricide. Abraham had Ishmael and later Isaac, and the former ridiculed the younger. Isaac eventually fathered Jacob and Esau — twin brothers who warred from the womb. Further, into Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, grown men who had grown jealous of the favored position their younger brother had with their father.
One might well expect to find brotherly love and harmony when opening up their Bible, but, left to their own devices, humanity has leaned toward war and disunity rather than love and harmony. The Genesis record is only the start. Moses experienced betrayal by his brother Aaron and sister Mariam. David endured the judgmental looks of Eliab. Even Christ was ridiculed by His younger brothers while they were still unbelievers. Disunity abounds and unity is rare.
Only Christ can provide the radical promise of this psalm — unity. Unity is a hard thing to come by, for disunity is driven by self-focus and desire, something which every human is born with. True unity requires a new birth. Today, unity among God’s people is beautiful and something worth fighting for. It can take years to build and seconds to destroy, so unity must be guarded, preserved, and fought for diligently. And think of where unity could take you.
Among God’s people, unity can build strong churches, develop powerful families, and create effective workplaces. Unity inevitably leads to fruit. Jesus prayed hard for our unity. Not the syrupy, flimsy unity that stands for nothing, but a strong unity around the truth of the apostles. A unity so tied to the great commission of Christ that we would tirelessly work toward His goal and mission. With unity, the mission gets accomplished, but without unity we flail.
Our pilgrims, as they sang this song, had unity. After ascending to Jerusalem and entering the temple for worship, they looked around. The worship of God was in full effect. Unity was theirs and nothing could stop them. On God’s team and with God’s heart, they were a unified force.
Unity — the Good Kind — Comes From God
“There the Lord has commanded the blessing.” (Psalm 133:3)
For all this talk of unity, we must remember there is an ugly brand of it. Adam and Eve were unified for a moment when they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that unity led to sin and death and corruption. The tower of Babel was almost completed because of unity in a godless direction. The same could be said for Israel’s worship of the golden calf and all their subsequent drifts into apostasy — they had a unity in a cancerous direction. Joining together for an ugly cause has been the dream of various nations, people, and groups throughout history. This harmful unity is seen most clearly when the crowds chanted for the death of Jesus.
So, we cannot look to mankind for the type of unity the song sings of; we must instead look to God. Unity is His great plan for the fullness of time, but the unity He is working towards is connected directly to Himself. He has “a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). God, through the gospel, has made a way for humanity to be reconciled and unified to Himself, but that unification goes further. The gospel also makes a way for us to be unified within ourselves, for every man is a civil war.
The gospel settles that war within, and His Spirit strives to make us more singularly like Christ. But for all the unity we are to have with God and with the self, there is a harmony available with other believers that is precious to God. He has killed the hostility between Jew and Gentile and has made a new humanity within the church (Ephesians 2:15-16). It is lovely in His sight when believers live out the unity Christ died to provide, but this unity is rare and precious.
In the millennial reign of Christ, the lion and lamb will lie down together, and the child will play safely by the cobra’s den. But the real magic of the millennium will not be the harmony found in the animal kingdom as they go back to vegetarianism, but the harmony found among human beings. Only Christ can provide it. He is the source of God’s unity. Our song says that it is from Jerusalem “the Lord has commanded the blessing.” Our Jerusalem is mount Calvary, the place of the cross. It is from the cross of Christ all true Christian unity is found.
When did the cross electrify your heart? When did you first believe? At the moment you were baptized by the Spirit, into God’s family, you became part of His household. You lost your old identity and gained millions of brothers and sisters. Whether you ever set foot in a church building or sat with a local congregation, you are part of God’s church (1 Corinthians 12:13). The church is not just a place for the outgoing and extroverted, but every blood-bought believer in Jesus Christ. You are His, and you are in His church.
The way we became united to Christ’s church is the way we will experience unity in Christ’s church. The more politics-centric or nation-centric we become, the more disunited we become. But the more cross and gospel-centric we become, the more united we become. When the cross is held high, we are better at discerning secondary and tertiary issues, refusing to be divided by them for we are united around His glorious gospel. It is God who gives the truest and most beautiful unity.
Unity Is Both Healthy and Enjoyable
“It is like the precious oil on the head.” (Psalm 133:2)
Like precious oil and refreshing moisture, unity is good and pleasant. Not many things in life are both, for much that is good is unpleasant and much that is pleasant is not good. We love our pleasant things, but they often aren’t helpful for us. Broccoli is pleasant and ice cream is good, but rarely is a food both. But unity is both good and pleasant, healthy, and enjoyable.
Some people seem to love a good fight too. Warring is in their nature. But when God’s people can find the good and pleasant joy of unity we can profoundly move. Work gets done. Think of the early church experience. Jesus had told them to go to all the world to make disciples of all nations, but the first few years of the church were exclusively Jewish. Even in the rare forays into the Samaritan territory or the conversion of the Ethiopian, Judaism was the backdrop (Acts 8).
For almost a decade, the gospel remained a Jewish experience. But then God sovereignly worked in Peter’s life. He gave Peter miracle-working power when he raised Tabitha back to life, so everyone knew God’s Spirit was thick on Peter. God then spoke to Peter during a lunch hour vision, telling him to go to Caesarea to speak to the Gentile centurion, Cornelius. Off he went. Peter preached and Cornelius’ Gentile friends and family believed, and the Spirit fell upon them. Fortunately, Peter brought some Jewish friends with him to serve as witnesses. God had done a new thing. Peter determined that God shows no partiality, so he taught a little more and headed back to Jerusalem.
But for the next couple years, a question dogged the church: Do Gentile converts need to embrace Judaism or not? This question divided the church, which slowed the church. Finally, they all came together in Jerusalem to figure out what God was up to. Peter testified, and so did Paul and Barnabas. They had gone into Gentile territory and preached with amazing results. God was at work among the nations, they told the Jerusalem church. James, the brother of Jesus, gave the synopsis, determining that God had not and would not ask Gentiles to convert to Judaism when receiving the gospel. The church said “Yes” and “Amen” and ran with that conclusion; and the gospel launched out to the nations from that moment.
It wasn’t until the church was unified that they began to see multiplicational fruit among the nations. As long as the debate raged on who God was targeting with His gospel — and how — the church could never run. But once clear direction and unity were received, the gospel exploded throughout the world. Unhindered by the unnecessary trappings of Judaism, the church was able to flow with the message of the cross into every part of society.
Take this is an illustration of the primacy of unity among God’s people. With whom would this united vision and understanding be helpful? Much of the disappointments in life flow from expectations unshared by others. Those disappointments flow from a lack of unity. Churches, families, marriages, friendships, and workplaces ought to fight for that unity of vision, a singularity of expectation. It is good and pleasant, healthy, and enjoyable.
As a local church pastor, I have discovered the health and joy that flows from a more unified church. You will never have unity with all people, but when it grows among a group of people there is beauty. Fruit begins to burst forth, grace begins to flow, and joy begins to become predominant.
Unity Enables Us to Dispense With Uniformity
“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)
The tribes ascended to Jerusalem in unity, but not uniformity. It was precisely that they weren’t uniform that made the psalmist notice their unity, for it is not impressive when highly similar people are also unified. But when a varied spectrum of people gathers in harmony it is noteworthy. We forget this of Israel. They were comprised of tribes, clans, families, young, old, male, and female. They united around the altar of God, but they were quite different from one another. As they looked around during worship, they were bound to notice their dissimilarities.
The coastal people of Asher may have watched the mountain folk of Judah with keen interest. The small Benjamite tribe may have been in awe of the massive tribe of Manasseh. The warrior tribes may have wondered at the musical tribes. Differences abounded, but in Jerusalem, they stood before God as one man.
Unity enables us to dispense with a need for uniformity. Uniformity is what the world system craves — submission to a hyper-specific view of the world. But that view perpetually shifts. The Church is called to passionate unity over various cardinal doctrines — our view of God and His gospel — but allows for fellowship when engaged in secondary issues. Additionally, we recognize that only the gospel can unite various cultures and generations. Centered upon Christ, we come with all our oddities and peculiarities, united in Christ. He has made a new humanity in His church and we rejoice.
If this lack of uniformity is forgotten, perhaps it is because we have forgotten Christ’s great commission. He told us to go to all nations (Luke 24:47). And Christ has been preached among the nations and has been believed on in the world (1 Timothy 3:16) but let us continue that great tradition. The nations still must know. People must still believe.
When we embrace this, it seems much easier to embrace a lack of uniformity in the church. My Kenyan brother in Christ is not going to behave exactly as I do. My Hungarian friends will not develop a church looking exactly like the one I serve. We aren’t called to export our culture, but our gospel, so we must work hard to celebrate a lack of uniformity among God’s people. If everyone walks and talks and thinks the same within our gatherings, we might be missing something.
God seems to love certain differences. When the Spirit gifts a group of people, He gives “different gifts” for the “different ministries” which operate within “different activities” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, HCSB). In our first birth, He does not create sameness — neither does He for the new birth. Jesus is into unity, but not uniformity.
Unity Comes When I Change My View of You
“It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion!” (Psalm 133:2-3)
But now we come to the heart of the song. I doubt you have ever described unity the way the song does, with oil running down Aaron’s beard and dew from Mount Hermon dropping onto Jerusalem. But the pilgrim’s analogies are beautiful and fitting; they help us value one another appropriately.
The oil on the head and beard and collar of Aaron points to the ordination of new priests. Aaron was the first priest in Israel. His sons were the future priests, and at the beginning of their priestly careers, they went through an elaborate ordination ceremony, part of which included an anointing with a special oil God had designed. A simple reading of Israel’s history shows us that a high demand for priests went hand in hand with revival in Israel. When they loved God, more priests were needed. When they wandered from God, the priesthood was neglected.
The dew from Mount Hermon dropping onto Jerusalem points to new growth in a dry place. Hermon, far to the north, is high in elevation and lush with growth due to the snow and moisture present there. Jerusalem, on the other hand, is dry, especially during two of the three feasts. To find refreshment and growth in a dry place like Jerusalem would be a wonder.
Look around. God has placed priests in your life. Peter tells us the church is a holy and royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:5, 9). All believers have complete access to God, but do any believers have access to you? When they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is He felt compelled to mention two: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” I think Jesus knew how quickly we might run with the upward love of God, thinking it possible without loving others. But this is an impossibility in the mind of Christ. Love of God necessitates the love of people who have been made in the likeness of God.
It seems easy to preach the priesthood of the believers toward God, but can you preach it toward yourself? Can you see how others can show you things about yourself, your world, and your God which you couldn’t have known in isolation? When I receive this priestly work from others I am refreshed. When I look at dry and dusty lives and hope in my heart for growth and life and refreshment to come there, I am blessed. I must see the possibility in you. If I can, our unity will grow.
So how do you view the people God has placed in your life? David saw even Saul as “God’s anointed” in his life; a wicked man whom God wielded to shape and mold David’s life and heart. God has placed more than the wicked, but believers, into your life. He has given us people to serve and to receive service from.
Unity Leads to Life
”…Life forevermore… " (Psalm 133:3)
The song ends with a cry regarding Israel’s health. The priesthood is in full swing. The mountains of Zion are covered with dew. As the tribes gather to worship, the psalmist celebrates all that flows from that unified worship — “life forevermore.” These thrice annual feasts were a little taste of eternity.
In God’s eternal throne room, we will gather as various tribes and nations and tongues, singing a unified song with unified devotion to our unified God. The community there will be infinitely greater than any community we’ve known during this time. Still, when unity around Jesus Christ operates today it provides us a little foretaste of that glorious forever life.
Therefore, unity leads to life and discord leads to death. But enemies to unity abound, for it is a great weapon. With it, we can preach the gospel, make disciples, and run in obedience to the living God. With it, we can glorify our God and creator. With it, we can love actively. Without it we stall. Without it we fall out of the starting blocks, unable to run our race.
Man-made Unity - An Enemy of Godward Unity
First, man-made unity is an enemy of Godward unity. God makes unity at the cross, but man makes unity around ugly causes. We must reject unity for unity’s sake, for that is a sure road to doctrinal ambiguity, error, and heresy. When unity becomes more important than truth, we open ourselves up to error. Jesus prayed for our unity, but only after praying, we’d be unified to the apostles, which can only mean being unified to the truth the apostles handed down. When we pursue unity at all costs, even doctrinal ones, we are in danger.
Uniformity - An Enemy of God’s Unity
Second, uniformity is an enemy of God’s unity. He loves variety. He’s created it. Looking at the natural world, we ought to glean this. God’s imagination is wonderful, demonstrated in all He made. When He stopped creating, it wasn’t because He ran out of ideas. His mind and creativity are infinite. Every human is an idea of God. He has not created — or promoted — sameness. Neither should we.
A Low View of Others – An Enemy of Unity
Third, a low view of others is an enemy of unity. If we think of others as lower than ourselves, we will find unity an impossibility. We must not think any man or woman dispensable, for they are not. Value belongs to every person. Paul said it well in Athens: “God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). What made Paul’s statement remarkable was where he said it, at Mars Hill, the Areopagus. And he said it to an Athenian people who thought they alone had originated from Attic soil and were unlike other people groups. To learn they had all come from the same original man would have humbled them. And when people forget this fact, they become susceptible to an ugly pride.
Sin – An Enemy of Unity
Fourth, sin is an enemy of unity. It had come to this in the Corinthian church, so Paul wrote to them. “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11). When disunity comes as a result of sin, all need to remember where it came from. It is the sinning party who is at fault, not the congregation, no matter how much they are made to feel that way.
Close
At creation, God was not done until He’d created the first community. He wanted Adam and Eve to solve the riddle of aloneness, and to form a unified relationship with one another and with Himself. God is into community. In a sense, He has been in one from eternity past. Father, Son, and Spirit are such a unity that they are one. Let us allow a bit of that oneness into our churches, families, friendships, and workplaces. Let us fight for it, for a fight is the only way to get this unity. And when we get it, let us rejoice!