The Righteous Shall Live By His Faith
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The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.
“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.
They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?
You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.
He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.
Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?
Today we are going to survey the book of Habakkuk and see why it is such an important book for us as New Testament Christians.
In this part of the Old Testament, Israel has been split into 2 separate kingdoms, the north and the south.
The northern kingdom was taken into captivity by Assyria as punishment by God for their idolatry, and only the southern kingdom, Judah, remains.
But now, Habakkuk faces is the imminent invasion of the southern kingdom of Judah by the Chaldeans (who are the same as the Babylonians).
This invasion eventually happened at the end of the sixth century BC, and Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.
The Lord revealed to Habakkuk beforehand that Judah was going to be punished for her sin by the Chaldeans.
Unlike Joel and Zephaniah and Amos, Habakkuk does not even mention the possibility that destruction could be averted.
He does not call for national repentance. It is too late.
Instead, he predicts the destruction of Judah, and beyond that the doom of the Chaldeans themselves.
And he promises that the only way to preserve your life through the judgment is by faith.
So even though destruction is decreed for the nation, there is hope for individuals who hold fast their confidence in God.
The full-blown doctrine of justification by faith, as Paul taught it in Romans and Galatians, is not yet here.
But the seed is here.
So what I would like to do today is survey the content of this prophetic book, then focus on its main point and how it unfolds in the New Testament as the great gospel truth of justification by faith.
So we’ll begin this survey in chapter 1.
Judah’s Wickedness and Coming Judgment
Judah’s Wickedness and Coming Judgment
Habakkuk cries out in Habakkuk 1:2–4 that Judah is full of violence and perverted justice.
In verse 4:
So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.
Amos had warned the northern kingdom that injustice would bring judgment, and in 722 BC Assyria swept the northern kingdom away.
Now here is the southern kingdom of Judah, 130 years later, guilty of the same offenses. They had not learned anything.
So in Habakkuk 1:5–11 God foretells what he intends to do.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.
God is in control of the nations. He swings them like a sword to chastise his people.
The Chaldeans will come against Judah as God’s rod of correction.
But verse 12 expresses the confidence Habakkuk has that God will not utterly destroy his people.
Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
God is stirring the Chaldeans against his people, but it is not for annihilation but for correction and chastisement.
The Chaldeans’ Wickedness and Coming Judgment
The Chaldeans’ Wickedness and Coming Judgment
Then in 1:13–17 Habakkuk complains that the proud and violent and idolatrous Chaldeans should themselves escape the judgment of God.
They certainly are no more righteous than Judah, even if God is using them to do his righteous work of judgment. So he protests in verse 17:
Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?
In chapter 1, then, Habakkuk protests first against the violence and injustice of his countrymen in Judah, and then against the violence and injustice of the Chaldeans whom God is sending to punish Judah.
Now, in chapter 2, Habakkuk takes his stand to await the divine response to his protests.
I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
In Habakkuk 2:2, 3, the Lord answers him in a vision.
We are not told what he saw in this vision, but whatever he saw changed his mind.
Because what he says about Judah in verse 4 is this
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
There is hope for those who will hold firm their trust in God as the calamity comes.
But what he sees about the Chaldeans in 2:6–19 is a five-fold woe.
Verse 6: “Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own.”
Verse 9: “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high.”
Verse 12: “Woe to him who builds a town with blood.”
Verse 15: “Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink up the cup of his wrath.”
Verse 19: “Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise!”
In other words, the great power of the Chaldeans will, in the end, come to nothing.
The nations seek in vain to fill the earth with their power and glory, but why?
When God says this in,
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Habakkuk need not fear that a rebellious nation will have the last say. The earth is the Lord’s, and he will fill it with his glory.
The chapter closes with these awesome words in verse 20:
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Let all the nations be still and know that he is God. His glory will fill the earth, not the glory of the Chaldeans.
So in answer to Habakkuk’s protests, God assures him that the pride of the Chaldeans will come to a woeful end (Habakkuk 2:6–20) and that any in Judah who humbly trusts God will gain his life. “The righteous shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).
Habakkuk’s Song of Praise and Faith
Habakkuk’s Song of Praise and Faith
The last chapter of the book is Habakkuk’s response to what he has heard.
But it is more than his own personal prayer.
It is intended as a psalm to be used in worship.
When it says in verse 1, “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth,” it means that the prayer is to be used to musical accompaniment with a spirit of excitement and triumph, literally “to reel to and fro”. Jumping for joy.
This is confirmed to be a psalm for singing by two things:
(1) the very last phrase of the book, “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments,” and
(2) the use of “Selah” at the end of verses 3, 9, and 13.
The reason this is important to see is that Habakkuk wants us to be able to sing this prayer with him.
It is not here to merely inform us about Habakkuk’s piety.
It’s here to show us how we should face the judgment of God.
The Chaldeans are coming against Judah for sure.
How should the godly prepare for this tribulation and calamity?
We should ask ourselves the same question.
Tribulation is coming upon the world, as Jesus said. How should we prepare for it? How shall we endure it?
First of all, in 3:2 Habakkuk prays,
O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.
Habakkuk has a sober and healthy fear of the judgment of God. So he prays that in the midst of wrath God will have mercy on him.
Then in Habakkuk 3:3–15 he sings the greatness of God’s power, and especially his power to save. For example, verse 13:
You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah
The prophet knew God’s power from his work in the past, and so he counted on his ultimate victory in the future.
So verse 16 says that even though his body trembles at the thought of the invasion, he “waits quietly” for what must be.
And finally, in 3:17–19, Habakkuk breaks out into a wonderful song of faith:
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
In other words, no matter how severe the tribulation when the Chaldeans invade the land, Habakkuk will never stop trusting God.
Even though God himself has roused this “bitter and hasty nation”, Habakkuk is confident that in wrath, God will show mercy to those who trust him and rejoice in him alone when all else fails.
The Main Point of Habakkuk
The Main Point of Habakkuk
Now as we step back from our survey, it shouldn’t be too hard to see what the main point of this little book is.
Negatively it is this: Proud people, whose strength or ingenuity is their god, will come to a woeful end, even though they may enjoy prosperity for a season either as God’s chosen ones in Judah, or as the victors over Judah.
All the proud, whether Jew or Gentile, will perish in the judgment.
But Habakkuk stresses the positive side of his main point, namely, “the righteous shall live by his faith.”
He states it as a principle in 2:4, and then he celebrates it as his own song in 3:16–19.
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.
When Habakkuk says, “Even when all the fruit and produce and flocks and herds are destroyed and my very life is threatened, yet will I rejoice in God,” — when Habakkuk says that, he shows us what he means by faith in 2:4: “The righteous shall live by his faith.”
He means banking your hope on God no matter what.
Remember that Habakkuk’s prophecy began with his attack on Judah’s violence and strife and perverted justice in Habakkuk 1:3, 4.
You might expect that when he comes to tell the people how to be saved in the judgment he would say: “Cease being violent! Do justice! Put away strife!” (That’s what Amos said.)
But he doesn’t. When the judgment is certain and the question is, “How can I gain my life before the wrath of a holy God?”
Habakkuk’s answer is trust him. “The righteous shall live by his faith”.
Amos had said to Israel,
Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said.
Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
So Habakkuk could have said to Judah: The righteous shall live by his goodness! The righteous shall live by executing justice in the gate!
And he would not have been wrong.
But that is not the heart of the gospel.
And unless we have the heart, that part of God’s message will become a dreadful legalism and a horrid burden to the conscience.
Habakkuk’s message comes close to the heart of the gospel.
When he says, “The righteous (or the just) shall live by his faith,” he implies two things.
One is that all those who are righteous are also ones who have faith in God.
Having a right standing before man and God always includes faith in God.
The other thing Habakkuk 2:4 implies is that faith is what saves from God’s wrath.
“The righteous shall live by his faith” means: just people are people of faith, and faith is what secures their life and keeps them safe for eternity.
Close to the Heart of the Gospel
Close to the Heart of the Gospel
The reason Habakkuk’s message comes close to the heart of the gospel (but doesn’t reveal the heart) is that he does not tell us explicitly how righteousness and faith are related.
He simply says, “Righteous people have faith, and this faith saves them.”
The heart of the gospel is that the righteousness which God requires comes by faith, and it is possible for us sinners to have it because Christ died for our sins.
Genesis 15:6 says, “Abraham believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
The relationship between trusting God and standing righteous before him is that God looks at our faith and counts us righteous.
The reason God can do that for us sinners is that Christ took the punishment for our iniquities on himself.
Already in Isaiah 53:11 this is plain:
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
When God reckons a person righteous because Christ died for him and because he puts his trust in Christ, that is what we call justification by faith, and that is the heart of the gospel, the best news in the world to people who know they are sinners and God is holy.
But let’s not move beyond Habakkuk too quickly.
There may be more here than we think for the encouragement of our faith.
The judgment of God is coming, most immediately in the Chaldean invasion of Judah, but finally at the end of the age.
What is it that will bring life instead of death in the judgment?
Before I give Habakkuk’s answer, let me make clear that if this is not your question, you are in a dream world.
You are living in a fool’s paradise of unreality if you do not ask with all your heart, “How can I stand in the judgment, which is coming?”
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Those who resist God
Romans 2:5 (ESV)
...are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
On that day it will appear clearly to all how utterly naïve it was for millions of people to live their lives as though the God who made this world for his glory would never call them to account for how little he has meant to them.
It squares with Scripture and with reason:
because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Because of this, we should all ask ourselves: Am I ready to take my stand in the divine courtroom and hear the Judge pass an eternal sentence on me?
There will only be two verdicts in that day, and one or the other of them will be passed on every person: He will either call us “condemned” or “justified,” give us hell or heaven, eternal death or eternal life.
If you want to know how to be ready to gain your life on that day, listen to Habakkuk 2:4. “The righteous shall live by his faith.”
Habakkuk knew that everybody in Judah was a sinner.
And he knew that the holiness of God prevents him from ignoring our sins:
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?
So Habakkuk taught that the only thing that could save us is faith.
Faith in what? In God’s mercy. In Habakkuk 3:2 he prays, “In wrath remember mercy.”
Habakkuk couldn’t see ahead to how God would preserve both his holy hatred for sin and his merciful forgiveness of sinners who trust him.
But God had revealed it, and so he proclaimed it: the righteous shall gain their lives in the judgment by faith.
He knew that when he called them “righteous,” they weren’t sinless.
He meant that those who are right with God in spite of their sin are those who trust God for his mercy.
But how can a holy God, who hates sin, show eternal mercy on sinners who simply trust him for mercy?
God did not reveal that much to Habakkuk.
The New Testament Revelation of the Gospel
The New Testament Revelation of the Gospel
But he did to the apostle Paul, and the answer is the death of Christ.
Paul said it like this:
and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Let’s put that into the reality of our lives.
When you put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, when you give up trying to lead your own life and establish your own worth, and instead surrender your heart to him and trust on him for your future, three things happen.
Your sin receives its deserved condemnation.
God’s righteousness receives its deserved glorification.
And you receive your undeserved justification.
1. Your sin receives its deserved condemnation.
1. Your sin receives its deserved condemnation.
You may be drunk with self-confidence now before the awesome holiness of God.
But, I promise you, on your deathbed (if God gives you a chance) you will sober up in a hurry, and be scared to death that in a day or two you will stand with all your sin before God.
Sin must be punished. But God, who is rich in mercy, sent his Son to take our sin on himself and suffer for it.
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
If you trust Christ in faith, the death he died becomes your death. Your sins become his, and you bear them no more.
They have received their deserved condemnation.
2. God’s righteousness receives its deserved glorification.
2. God’s righteousness receives its deserved glorification.
It took the death of Christ for God’s righteousness to receive its deserved glorification.
If his righteousness had not been at stake, he might have swept your sin under the rug.
But he glorified his righteousness by requiring an infinitely valuable sacrifice — the death of his own Son.
It is unthinkable in a moral universe that God could simply let bygones be bygones.
The sins you committed ten years ago are as vivid and horrible and condemning as if you did them last night.
The righteous God cannot forget and ignore sin — unless there is an atonement — a sacrificial substitute.
Therefore, he sent the Son, so that our sin might receive its deserved condemnation, and his righteousness might receive its deserved glorification.
3. When you trust in Christ, you receive undeserved justification.
3. When you trust in Christ, you receive undeserved justification.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
The Just Shall Live by Faith
The Just Shall Live by Faith
Habakkuk taught us that when judgment comes, the righteous shall live by his faith.
And when that seed comes to full flower in the New Testament, we see that the reason the righteous live by faith is that the just are justified by faith.
As Paul puts it
and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,