We must not exclude this psalm from our selection, for the lesson it brings has affinity with the challenge of yesterday’s psalm. When the Lord promises blessing to any chosen place, it behoves us to give attendance there; verse 3 is therefore significant. Yesterday we saw a King associated with the house of God, but today it is the High Priest, and immediately our minds turn to Hebrews 10. 21. With our loyalties fixed upon the present habitation of God, the psalm presents three truths:
- The Condition for Blessing, v. 1.
- The Consecration for Blessing, vv. 2, 3.
- The Command for Blessing, v. 3b.
- The Condition. Unity of spirit: the psalm states that such a condition is potently good and pleasantly lovely. This dwelling in unity expresses the oneness of the God in our midst. We are expected to behave in unity for we are a unity, not created by man but by the Spirit, Eph. 4. 3-6. We are exhorted to keep, to maintain it. Disunity mars the house, but unity opens the door to blessing. This should be the constant aim of the assembly of God.
- The Consecration. This condition is likened to the occasion of the consecration of the high priest of Israel; see Lev. 8. 12. This unity is therefore linked with the holy anointing oil (emblem of the Holy Spirit). Just as the oil flowed down over the whole man, so the Spirit controlling the members of the house will produce consecration leading to unity of mind and action. Another symbol of the Holy Spirit is used here, that of the dew of Hermon descending on all the mountains of Zion, and so refreshing the whole.
- The Command. Blessing is not humanly produced, rather it is God-given. If we fulfil our responsibility to maintain the necessary conditions, the Lord will fulfil His promise. Note again verse 3b: the promise of the Lord is emphatic, “for there”-, and also positive, “commanded the blessing”; further it is guaranteed, “even life for evermore”.
Does the company of saints to which we belong aspire to such a condition, and do they have such expectancy of blessing? If we have to grieve over no blessing—why?
