According to what we see in Psa. 133-134, Jehovah’s commanded blessing of life is on the saints who dwell together in oneness, and the overcomers in the churches bless everyone from Zion and are a blessing from Zion.
Hallelujah, what a high peak! Psalm 132 is the base, Psalm 133 builds upon it, and Psalm 134 is a glorious conclusion; together, these are songs of ascent, songs being sung by the people of Israel as they ascended to the house of God three times a year.
In Psa. 132 we see David who has a heart to build God a house, and God chose Zion to put His name and dwell with man; this house of God today is the church life in the mingled spirit, and whenever we live in spirit and are one with the saints, we are in a very happy place – the dwelling place of God and man.
This is where God rests, and this is where we sing, are happy, and give a ringing shout, for God has found a home with man, and we dwell with God. It is here, on the genuine ground of oneness in spirit, that we practice the church life, and we live as brothers and sisters in oneness; when we are one and live in spirit, the Lord pours out His blessing.
In Psalm 133 we see the praise of a saint, in his going up to Zion, concerning Jehovah’s commanded blessing of life on the saints dwelling together in oneness; whenever the brothers are united under the anointing and the dew, there’s life forever – an unceasing, free, full stream of life.
When we dwell together in oneness, this is like the inestimable goodness of the precious ointment on the head of Aaron (Christ is the Head, we are the Body, and we enjoy the anointing), and like the incalculable pleasantness of the dew of Hermon on the mountains of Zion (the many local churches are the many mountains of Zion, and we are being produced as the overcomers, those who dwell in Zion).
Hallelujah, whenever we dwell in oneness under the divine anointing and enjoying the grace of life, we enjoy God’s blessing!
And the highest peak of this is that we are produced as overcomers, those who dwell in Zion, and we bless everyone from Zion, and even are a blessing from Zion.
This is where the Lord wants to take us: He wants to gain His overcomers who, because they live in Zion in God’s habitation, they bless everyone in the churches, and all the saints are blessed from Zion because of them. Hallelujah!
Experiencing Christ as the Life-giving Spirit to be Reduced in our Natural Constitution and be made One, even made Overcomers!
When we believed into Christ, we entered into the divine oneness, which was enlarged in Christ’s resurrection to include us also.
Now we are being perfected to be one, even as the Lord prayed in John 17:23, “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.”
In this verse “I” refers to Christ, “them” refers to the believers, and “You” refers to the Father. The Son is in us, the believers, and the Father is in the Son. The kind of oneness that God wants His people to have is the mingling of the processed Triune God with the believers in Christ; the result of such a mingling is that we are perfected into one.
How can we be one? It is by being in the mingling of God and man. What about our natural man, our natural constitution, and our natural disposition? We may have Christ in our spirit, and whenever we exercise our spirit, we are one with Him and with all the saints; however, our natural being is still present with us.
The more we experience Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the more we enjoy God in Christ as the Spirit – that is, the more we enjoy grace – the more all these natural elements are reduced.
We are reduced in our natural disposition, constitution, and being by enjoying and experiencing Christ as the life-giving Spirit; this mingles us more with God, and we are being perfected into one. Wow, what a oneness!
The oneness revealed in the Bible, especially in John 17, is not a matter of all believers being added together to form a harmonious unit; such a concept is natural and superficial.
The oneness the Lord wants to bring His believers into is the mingling of the processed Triune God with His believers.
The more God mingles Himself with us through our experience of Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the more our natural constitution and disposition is reduced, and the more we are being made one.
Even more, God in Christ as the Spirit are the grace for us to enjoy and partake of to seek an answer to the Lord’s calling to be His overcomers!
Hallelujah! When we enjoy and experience the Triune God as grace, we are both reduced in our natural constitution, and made one, and we are even being produced as the overcomers that He needs today!
We simply need to enjoy God as grace – God in Christ as the Spirit to be our enjoyment for our life supply day by day, and this grace will operate in us, reign in us, saturate us, work in us, cause us to work for God, and produce us as the overcomers the Lord needs today.
Lord Jesus, we want to experience You as the life-giving Spirit to be reduced in our natural constitution and disposition, and to be made one with You and with all the saints. Lord, mingle Yourself more with us today so that we may be made intrinsically and genuinely one, that is, to be perfected into one. Amen! Oh Lord, may our enjoyment and experience of Christ as the life-giving Spirit reduce our natural constitution, perfect us into one, and even produce us as the overcomers that the Lord needs today!
Reaching the Highest Peak to be the Overcomers of Today who Bless Everyone from Zion
As the conclusion to Psalm 133 and as the last of the Songs of Ascent, Psalm 134 is the praise of a saint, in his going up to Zion, concerning the charge and the blessing of the children of Israel to the serving priests in the house of God.
What this psalm indicates is that those who reach Zion, the overcomers of today, can bless everyone and teach everyone to bless others.
The children of Israel charge the serving priests, “Bless Jehovah now, all you servants of Jehovah, who stand by night in the house of Jehovah. Lift up your hands to the sanctuary, and bless Jehovah” (Psa. 134:1-2).
The priests are those who serve in the house of God, but they are lower than those who live in Zion; those who are in Zion can charge the priests to bless Jehovah. Then v. 3 says, May Jehovah, who made heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.
The blessing comes from Zion, for it is in Zion that Jehovah dwells, and those who live in Zion, the overcomers of today, are those who can bless everyone from Zion and even teach everyone to bless others.
The highest people, those who are in Zion, can bless everyone and teach everyone (see Psa. 134:1-2; Gen. 47:10; 48:20; 49:29).
When we dwell in oneness in the church life, enjoying the anointing of the Spirit and the grace of life, the Lord’s blessing is on us and among us; we are then produced as the overcomers of today, those who can bless everyone and even teach others to bless people with God as blessing.
These highest people are the people in the church life, the people who are churching, who are practicing the church life. They are the overcomers of the Lord on Mount Zion, and they will bless everyone.
The blessing comes from Zion, from the highest peak, from the ones who have attained to the top, to the position of the overcomers; today we want to be produced as the overcomers who bless everyone and even are a blessing to the entire church (Psa. 134:3; Rev. 2:7).
In the 1700’s the Moravian brothers were on their Mount Zion, and they became a blessing to all of God’s people (unbeknown to them).
In the 1800’s the Brethren in England were on that peak, and through them the blessing came and flowed throughout the world to reach all of God’s people; most of the fundamental teachings we have today are from what the Brethren have uncovered in the Bible.
Today we are not in the 1700’s or 1800’s, but in a new millennium – we are in 2017, and we need to aspire to reach the highest peak to be the overcomers of today who bless everyone from Zion.
We need to be in Zion and bless everyone from Zion, even charging others to bless everyone from Zion.
And when we’re in the meeting with the saints, enjoying the Lord on the ground of oneness, how sweet is to conclude with, Bless the name of the Lord! – to which some others may answer, The Lord bless you from Zion! This is a very good way to have fellowship in the word of God, and a very good conclusion to a meeting of the church.
May we realize what our responsibility in the church life is, and may we humbly by the Lord’s mercy pray,
Lord, for the sake of Your purpose and Your economy, constitute us to be the overcomers of today who live on Mount Zion and bless everyone from Zion! Lord, make us those who attain the position of living in Zion so that, in the age that we live in – in this very last century – Your blessing would come to all of Your children, to the whole church, because of us. Amen, Lord, we bless Your name! May the Lord bless all His saints from Zion! May the Lord gain many overcomers today who bless everyone from Zion, where God dwells!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1969, vol. 3, “Christ and the Church Revealed and Typified in the Psalms,” ch. 21, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Church (2017 fall ITERO), week 6, Jehovah’s Commanded Blessing of Life on Brothers Who Dwell Together in Oneness.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Oneness is not unity, / Outward agreement / But a life within— / God’s very life! / The Triune God—included us / In His divine— / Oneness—Oneness. / That they all may be one; / Even as You Father, are in Me / And I in You— / That they may be— / May be in us. / Oneness—Oneness. (Song on oneness)
# As the dew of Hermon, And as the dew that descended / Upon the mountains of Zion: / For there the Lord commanded the blessing, / Even life forevermore. (Hymns #1339)
# Come bless the Lord, / All ye servants of the Lord, / Who stand by night / In the house of the Lord. / Lift up your hands, / In the Holy Place, / And bless the Lord. / And bless the Lord. (Scripture song)
About aGodMan
[In John 17:23] the words I, them, and You refer respectively to Christ, the believers, and the Father. The Son is in the believers, and the Father is in the Son. This is the mingling of the [processed] Triune God with the believers. As a result of such a mingling, we may be perfected into one.
On the day we believed in Christ, we came into this oneness. However, we still have problems with our natural man, our natural constitution, and our natural disposition. But the more we experience Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the more all these natural elements are reduced. As they are reduced through our experience of the Triune God, we are perfected into one.
The oneness revealed in the Bible is not a matter of adding the believers together to form a harmonious unit. Such a concept of oneness is natural and superficial….Oneness is the mingling of the processed Triune God with the believers. Having seen this oneness as it is unfolded in John 17 and Ephesians 4, let us now consider [Psalm 134 as the conclusion of] Psalm 133. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1979, vol. 2, “The Genuine Ground of Oneness,” p. 295)
Praise the Lord for the oneness! Amen
The highest blessing in the New Testament is 2 Corinthians 13:14. It corresponds to Numbers 6:25 in the Old Covenant writings. Ephesians 1:2 is also a very nourishing blessing. This is not to disparage the value of the blessings mentioned in your post. I would like to know how the citizens of Jerusalem greet each other in Hebrew, the official language of Israel. Our favorite one in Tucson is, “Glorious!”