What God Has Joined Together

Explanations

What God Has Joined Together

The title is an obvious reference to the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:9: what God has joined together, let man not separate. Jesus said this in regard to the marriage and divorce of a man and a woman, whereas this poem is about the marriage of abstract concepts that intrinsically belong together according to God’s good design, but are often wrongly isolated from each other in the thoughts of humans.

I long to walk on higher grounds

A secondary topic in the poem is concerned with a problem of implementing ethics: How to know and and then actually accomplish what is good.

and serve the glorious king above

God has told us in His word the basics of how to live (See Micah 6:8, Matthew 22:37-40 for a summary), and further may guide us through His Holy Spirit. However, it is also important how we approach enacting His commands.

in freedom not divorced from bounds

Absolute Freedom in the sense of I can do whatever I want is an illusion, when it comes to humans, simply due to them being creatures. Only God is absolutely free in this sense because He is all- powerful and an uncreated first cause, so His will is not influenced by anything unless He freely chooses to let Himself be affected. Humans, on the other hand, will just end up enslaved to whatever desires they have acquired from the environment of a fallen world when they attempt this kind of freedom. The proper definition of freedom for us creatures is: To live the life we were created to live. A general definition of freedom that applies to both God and humans would then be: To live according to God’s will. Many people do not want to submit to this because they strive for a false freedom and autonomy, and so they never experience proper freedom. Conversely, although less commonly in postmodern western culture, some people have a tendency to submit themselves to lots of rules, or are forcefully subjected to rules by other oppressive people until no freedom remains. This is equally wrong.

and duty not divorced from love.

Duty should never be just grudging fulfillment of obligations. Be it the duty of a husband an father to his wife and children, the duty of a soldier to his country, or the duty of God’s servants to their King: It should be done as a work of love. Conversely, love is to go together with commitment, being not just affectionate feelings. A couple commits to their mutual love by entering the covenant of marriage, just as (and as an illustration of the way) God commits to his love for Abraham and his (physical and spiritual) descendants by making a covenant with them and binding Himself with an oath.

On what I truly think I'll act,

What we do in a given situation is always an expression of what we really believe. In the Bible’s usage and language, the words faith/belief and faithfulness/obedience are strongly linked. We show our disbelief by not acting according to what we profess to believe. The word think in this line could also have been believe, have faith in or trust, but apart from avoiding unwanted repetition or messing up the meter, using think here emphasizes the aspect of cognitive activity leading to deeds and also relates to the usage of the same word in the third stanza.

yet what to think, decide I must:

We should commit to what and who to believe and trust in, and consequently how we will think and act: For how long will you hesitate between two opinions? If Yahweh is god, then follow Him; And if Ba’al is god then follow him! (1 Kings 18:21)

I assume that when the Bible talks about a pure heart, the idea is not so much that the heart is not soiled, but rather not alloyed or mixed: Gold that’s mixed with silver is no longer pure gold. Being pure of heart means being straightforwardly committed to goodness just as God Himself is, and not to pursue many schemes (See Ecclesiastes 7:29). Likewise, doubt is not just about being unsure about what the truth is, but about not relying on and not being committed to acting according to the truth even though it is known (See James 1:6-8).

Not with belief divorced from fact,

Some people, mostly atheists, want to define faith as believing something without or even contrary to evidence. But actually, faith is based on evidence, however mostly it is evidence that the person or source of information you choose to believe is trustworthy, and on that basis you believe what they tell you about things that would otherwise be (partly) hidden from your ability to investigate.

but knowledge not divorced from trust.

Knowing things with absolute certainty is also a thing not available to humans. At some point, we must put our trust in something, even if it’s only our senses, feelings, faculties of reasoning, experience, the consistency and explainability of the universe, or some set of axioms not derivable from anything and assumed non-contradictory. Some amount of trust is necessary for any knowledge, and it is therefore not at all inappropriate to choose to have faith in God and His revelation, in order to know things otherwise unknowable and based on the experienced reality that He is faithful and good, evidence for which should accumulate over a Christian’s life.

I think, to make my thinking whole,

As said initially, the systems of thought used by mankind often separate concepts that belong together. This is one way in which being apart from God has broken our thinking.

how Jesus in His earthly days

In contemplating the life, words and finished work of Christ, we can begin to return to the proper way of thinking about the mentioned concepts.

with suff'ring not divorced from goal

This line expresses the thought that suffering need not be meaningless, and that reaching goals is worth suffering for. This is ultimately expressed in the suffering of Jesus, which had the goal of redeeming out of mankind a people for God. Jesus chose to endure this suffering because he looked forward to the victory he would win through it (Hebrews 12:1-3).

brought justice not divorced from grace.

A central problem of theology is this: How can God be both just and forgiving? We humans are evil and unrighteous and have all sinned, so If He is just, shouldn't He condemn us without exception? How can He remain just if He forgives? This paradox is ultimately resolved in the the person and substitutional life and death of the Christ: Not only did God take our sin and punishment on Himself, He also imputes the Son’s perfect righteousness and obedience on us if we have faith in Him. It is still somewhat mysterious how exactly this transaction works; but even before the means of God’s grace were revealed, His people could have reason to believe that God would somehow solve this problem. The proper understanding of justice sees it not just as a matter of retribution, balance of claims, and fairness; God’s justice is inextricably linked to His righteousness, the same righteousness that He expects from His people and that cares also about what is life-giving to others: A righteous one cares for the life of his beast, but the compassion of the wicked ones is cruelty. (Proverbs 12:10). To those who knew their God, it has always been reasonable to expect that God will have mercy seeing us in the misery of our sin and find a way to redeem us for Himself. Hence justice and grace are also married concepts. Both are facets of righteousness, and the seeming contradiction between them is dispelled at the Cross.

This line is also the last of the poem, and in this context and especially in conjunction with the first line of the stanza, it expresses the idea that in meditating on and looking up to what Jesus did for us on Golgotha we become whole and our thinking is reformed and renewed towards God’s ways.