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Unity and Harmony are major themes in the Bible. The Triune God, existing for all time in perfect unity and harmony creates an orderly, harmonic, universe governed by natural laws. He then creates two humans, united with God and each other in love. After the Fall of Man in Genesis 3 we see that one of the results of sin is the breaking of that unity. God, who cannot be united with sin, who cannot work harmoniously with creatures that are now so badly out of tune, are separated. The unity between the man and the woman is corrupted as they blame each other for what went wrong. Their children go further into disunity as Cain kills Abel because his sacrifice was accepted by God, but Cain’s was not.

All along the way we see God interjecting, graciously holding back the full effects of the sin – warning and protecting Adam and Eve, warning and protecting Cain…. The world, in only a handful of generations, descends into an absolute cacophony of chaos. Genesis 6:5 says that by the time of Noah, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” causing Him great grief, bringing His judgment upon the world. In His grace, He saves one family, delivers them from the judgement, and makes a covenant with all mankind that He will never flood the world again. He gives them a promise, a warning, and protection.

The mud wasn’t hardly even dry yet when in Genesis 9 we see disunity and disharmony creep back into the world as Noah gets drunk, his son disrespects him, and the curse of sin rears its ugly head. We learn here that the problem of sin isn’t just in the world but in the heart. We sometimes think that everyone else on earth is the problem. If they would just disappear, if there was just us, just a few people of our own choosing, then we’d be able to live right. But no, the problem of sin is deeper than that. The solution to our disunity and disharmony with God and each other isn’t merely to change circumstances – the change must come inside us.

The pattern of disunity and disharmony continues throughout the scriptures, with ebbs and flows of times of unity and harmony and division and warfare. Sometimes humanity unites together, but they do it to spite and rage against God. Sometimes a group of people turns their hearts back to God, but they are swiftly attacked or corrupted and fall away.

God knows that the problem of sin is a problem of the heart and shortly after Noah died– perhaps 2 years – He calls a man named Abram out of his messed up, pagan world, to be the father of a chosen nation. This nation would be special to Him. It is not that they were better or worse than any other. God simply decided to give grace to one man and to one particular nation, eventually to be called the people of Israel, the Jews, through whom He would work His full plan of salvation.

He makes a covenant, a promise, with Abram that he will be the father of a great nation and that through his family all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He gives to Abram and his decedents a certain piece of land where they could flourish and prosper. But Abram’s heart is still a mess with sin. He lies, cheats, and disobeys, but God still keeps his promises and the nation of Israel is born.

This nation would be God’s greatest illustration to the rest of the earth for how He would work and bring about His salvation from the problem of sin. He would show Himself to be greater than any other power, any other nation, any other false-god as He works great miracles to deliver His people from their slavery in Egypt, the most powerful, pagan nation in the world.

Today people say, “All our problems would be solved if we could just have a great leader. Just one great person we could all follow.” God proves that wrong as He raises up Moses, one of the greatest leaders of all time, and Israel continuously rebels against him, eventually even missing out on entering their own Promised Land.

People say, “We need more order, more rules, a perfect set of laws to govern people. If we only had a stronger government, harsher penalties. If only it was written in the laws that people had to be generous, kind, obedient to their parents, respectful to each other, then we’d have peace on earth. If God would inflict punishment on all the bad people, force them to do what is right, then we’d have peace on earth.” God proves that wrong as He brings His people to Mount Sinai, gives them His Law, and they spend the next few hundred years discovering new and terrible ways to disobey every single part of it. God curses their disobedience with death, poison, war, famine, sickness, plague, corruption, even being totally removed from their land for an entire generation, and yet they continue to disobey. There is nothing that motivates them to obey for any length of time. Why, because the problem of sin isn’t solved by Law. All law does is show us what we’re doing wrong – it doesn’t motivate us to do right, it doesn’t solve the problem of sin, of disunity, of disharmony with each other and God.

Along with the Law, God institutes the method by which people would be made right with Him. The penalty, the consequence, the payment for sinning against God is death, and therefore every human since Adam has had to die. But, God would make it so that it would be ok, for a short period of time, that another being’s blood could stand in the place of the sinner.

Just as when they were in Egypt a spotless lamb would be killed and the blood smeared on the doorposts so that the angel of death would pass-over, so it would be written into the law of Israel that in order to atone for their sins, in order to gain freedom from the wrath of God for one more year, there would be a time of sacrifice. Each year, on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle (or Temple) and atone for all the sins of Israel. To “atone” means to “cover”. The separation between God and man would be covered over as the High Priest, clothed in white linin, killed a bull calf, who would die in the place and take the punishment of the sin of the other priests and himself. Then, he would enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle some of the blood on the mercy seat, the throne of God, and on the floor before the ark of the covenant, the symbol of God’s promises to His people. He would then cast lots over two live goats. One would be killed as a sin offering for the nation, and the blood would again be taken inside and sprinkled as before. He would then take the live goat, place his hands on its head and confess the sins of the nation. This live goat, called the scapegoat, would be sent into the wilderness, symbolizing that their sin had been not only covered by the blood but carried away.

Consider our own visceral, instinctive reaction to this. We today in North America keep death and blood far from us. We fear both and therefore do everything we can to avoid them. But here it was, right in front of everyone. The bleating of the little calf as it’s led to the altar, the knife in the hands of the priest, the blood spilling on the ground and his white robe, his hands covered in it as he spreads it and sprinkles it, the smell of death.

Our natural reaction is to recoil when we hear about or see something like this, and that’s a good thing. It affects us on a deep level. We cut ourselves, or see someone hurt, and see blood and we know it’s a big deal and need to do something.

This is the feeling we are meant to have when it comes to sin too. It should cause revulsion, disgust, urgency in us. The suffering of the animal shows us how sin brings suffering. Its blood and death show the penalty for our sin, and how seriously God takes it. And it shows how serious the solution to sin must be.

What does it take to reunite God and mankind? What does it take so that we are once again harmonious with Him? What does it take to repair our broken relationships with each other? What does it take to bring unity to a destroyed marriage, the rift between child and parent, broken friendships, enemy nations?

Humanity gives all the same answers… “wipe out the bad people”, “a powerful leader”, “more laws”, “more consequences”, “more education”, “better technology”… but those are topical, external solutions that don’t actually solve the real problem.

The solution is the gospel, the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned”. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Hebrews 9:22 says, “…under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Our sins have not only brought physical death into the world but spiritual death. Division, disunity, the corruption of disharmony everywhere. The just wrath of God, the perfect judge, is upon us, and He demands our sins be paid for. Why? Because He is cruel? No, because He is just. He not only gives us the grace we don’t deserve, but He gives us what we want, justice. All sins must be perfectly paid for, accounted for, atoned for, made right. No one will get away with anything.

A calf’s blood would not suffice for a human sacrifice. The only one who can die for a human must be a human. But everyone has their own sin problem. Their blood can only pay for their own sins. Their punishment can only be for their own sins.

So, what must be done? A human must come who does not have to die for His own sin. Someone must come who has never and will never do anything wrong. He must be tempted in every way, but still, live a perfect life. And this perfect being must willingly offer Himself in place of sinners.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is a being of infinite worth. He has always been in unity and harmony with God. There has never been a moment of disunity, disharmony, or rebellion in Him. And so, for a time, God sent Him, and He chose, to set aside His infinite glory and take on the form of a servant, to tabernacle, to take on the tent of the flesh of humanity, so He could live as One of His creations – and then be willingly sacrificed for them. His blood would be shed just as the Passover lamb’s, just as the bull calf’s was. This was the only way for God’s demand for atonement, to cover all sin, to repair everything that went wrong, to make amends, to be accomplished, the only way that perfect justice could occur.

The only way we could be saved from Hell, a place of punishment and permanent separation, permanent disunity from God – the place where the disharmony of sin would be paid for through suffering – the place where sinners deserve to be, would be for someone else to take that punishment for us. Someone would have to take the wrath of God.

It was not the Romans nor the Jews who put Jesus on the cross, it was God the Father. Jesus, the one who walked on water and calmed storms with a word, had the power to come down from the cross at any time. But His mission, the culmination of His life and Mission was to take the punishment we deserve. So He went through Hell, took the beating, the humiliation, the stripes, the crown of thorns, the nails, and the cross – shedding His own blood.

And then, according to Matthew 27:45-46, from midday to midafternoon, an unusual darkness fell over the land. As the shadow descends over Jerusalem so the shadow of sin fully descends upon Jesus. For the first time ever, the perfect unity, the perfect harmony of the Trinity is broken as God the Father places the weight of the humanity’s wickedness on His perfect Son, and can no longer commune with Him. Jesus cries out with the words of Psalm 22, “’Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

Within a few short hours, Jesus would be dead, sin completely atoned for. Then the earth would quake and the temple curtain would be torn in two from top to bottom showing that the separation between God and man had been repaired. The earthquake also broke open tombs and cemeteries all over the city and some of the dead rose, showing that consequence of sin was changed as well. Three days later, after being crucified and stabbed through the heart, Jesus Himself would rise, proving that He had, in fact, conquered Hell, sin, and death, and had now made a way for anyone who would believe in Him to be once-and-for-all saved.

The unity and harmony of the Trinity were renewed and the invitation was given that anyone could be part of that harmony if they would admit they are sinners and ask forgiveness of God, accepting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on their behalf, believing in Him alone for salvation.

Now, instead of enforcing the law through external punishment, God would change our hearts, our consciences, our motives, to line up with His, so that the motivation for good would internal. Instead of waiting for some human leader to rise and solve our problems, we would look to Jesus as our Lord. Instead of putting our faith in increasing our knowledge, or better medicine, or better technology, we would put our faith in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, who affect a change at the very core of our being.

Conclusion

Now, when we feel far from God, we don’t have to wait for the Day of Atonement or shed blood, we can simply pray, “God, forgive me. Jesus already did everything, so please bring me back to you.” and He does.

Now, when Christians feel like we are out of step with the world, like aliens in a strange culture, confused by our culture, we can understand that it is because we are no longer resonating at the frequency of sin and sinners, but are being tuned to the harmonies of the kingdom of God.

Now, when we want to repair our broken relationships we no longer start with new rules, promises, bribes or threats, but we turn to God, asking Him to do the work on our hearts, realizing that our issue is sin and only He can fix it.

Our unity, with God, as Christian couples, Christian families, with our Christian church both locally and globally, is a miracle given to us by God and represents so much of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Which is why pride, arrogance, argument, division, and disunity brings such dishonour to God and His people. He died so we could be reunited with Him and each other.

My encouragement to you this week is to read the Word in the light of the message of the Gospel of Unity and Harmony. Read 1 Corinthians again and see how their disunity from God and each other brings shame to them and the name of Christ – and then look inward at your own heart to how you are disunited, disharmonious with God and others. Repent of it, ask God’s forgiveness and forgiveness of those you have divided from, and, as an act of worship and thanksgiving to your saviour, do everything you can to restore unity and harmony between you, God and others.