Habakkuk was troubled by evil – in the nation and the evil of those the Lord was raising up to judge them. The Lord’s answer to his impassioned praying was to call for the righteous to live by faith and to show that, far from evil annulling his purposes, the Lord was actively pursuing those purposes and even using human sin and rebellion to further them. Sin would not have the final word; no, the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
In this last chapter of the book, we have the final response from Habakkuk to the Lord’s reply. Before we come to the substance of his words, it’s worth pausing to notice its form. Vv.1,19 make it clear that this chapter is written as a psalm and set to music. Here is a heartfelt response and reflection by Habakkuk to what God has said and it is set down in a finely-crafted poetic form, with appropriate musical accompaniment. Let me just say two things about that.
i. Some might think that the ability to write good poetry and music are incidental in the Christian life, that the truth needs no ‘dressing-up’ to make its point. This chapter offers no support for that viewpoint. Here are gifts from God that are harnessed in the service of God.
ii. And the fact that the Lord inspires this composition shows that he furthers his work in us by such means. He made us not only to be able to appreciate poetry and music but such that they can be of positive spiritual benefit to us. Such gifts, therefore, should not be despised but accepted with gratitude and used to God’s glory.
1. In awe of God’s greatness; in need of God’s mercy (vv.1,2)
So, Habakkuk has bared his soul before the Lord and has received his powerful reply. In v.1, he takes his stand with the worshippers of 2:20 and is awestruck by the greatness of God.
He has heard of the Lord’s fame and stands in awe of his deeds. The God who been active in history has, through his words and deeds, made a big impression upon Habakkuk as he has wrestled with the problem of evil in his day.
And as he stands in the presence of God, awed and humbled, Habakkuk prays once more: he asks the Lord to renew his deeds in that day, to do again powerful, redeeming works as he did in former times and, in his wrath, to remember mercy.
Habakkuk knows very acutely the needs of the times. If the situation is going to be changed, it needs God to act in power. But if God acted in power alone, the people of Judah would be consumed, since they deserve God’s wrath. As God’s plans to chastise his people by the Babylonians begin to unfold, Habakkuk pleads for mercy, that they would not be utterly consumed.
Habakkuk is praying for revival, for the LORD to show mercy to his people in the face of their sin. He is looking to the Lord to spare them through the coming calamity and to renew his work among them. He cared enough to enquire in the first place and now he is spiritually-minded enough to engage in passionate praying for revival.
His example is one we do well to emulate.
2. The ground of prayer: the deeds of God (vv.3-15)
Habakkuk grounds his prayer for God’s merciful intervention on the character of God as it has been revealed in history. That is a very important principle for us to grasp. For many, history is a dull subject but, seen from the right perspective, it is far from being so. For those with eyes to see (and the Bible helps us to see clearly) history is full of God and his powerful interventions and mercies.
In very poetic language, Habakkuk portrays the Lord here as the divine warrior, taking his stand against his enemies and delivering his people. Much of the language recalls the exodus from Egypt and the entry into the Promised Land, which were events that the people often recalled to inspire their hope in dark days.
It is possible, and right, for the church today to remember what God has done in the past and so to ask him to intervene in our own day. The basis on which Habakkuk prayed can also be the basis for our own prayers. But there is one area of crucial difference that we need to look at.
Habakkuk asked the Lord to intervene in power and mercy on the grounds of what he had done in the past. But those events were not the ultimate rescue in themselves; the exodus pointed forward to the true deliverance that Jesus alone was to effect through his death.
That means when we pray, it is to be on the basis of the finished work of Jesus. That truth has important implications for how and what we pray.
When we pray for the revival of God’s work in our own day, it must always be with the glad and humble recognition that God has already done the work, he has already won the decisive victory. Our praying is to be not for a decisive victory but for the outworking of what Jesus has already done.
It would be terribly wrong if our praying were ever to give the impression that really, what the Lord has done up till now is not very much indeed, that we are lacking evidences of his power and mercy. All our praying for revival should have the cross at its heart, as the supreme demonstration of the love and power of God and as the decisive, once-for-all victory over sin and evil.
It is also important that we learn from Habakkuk here that we are submitting ourselves to the Lord’s timing. In v.16, Habakkuk says he will wait patiently for calamity to come upon the Babylonians. When it came, that would mean deliverance for the people; he is prepared to wait patiently for that time. In doing so, he is honouring the sovereign rights of the living God.
The fact that our nation is in desperate need does not mean we can dictate to the Lord. He knows what he’s doing, doesn’t he? We can trust that, can’t we?
3. “Endurance inspired by hope” (vv.16-19)
Having prayed for God’s reviving mercy and having laid out the grounds for that hope, in vv.16-19 Habakkuk writes of his (and the people’s?) readiness to wait in hope and even to rejoice in God in the midst of the dark days.
What we’re seeing here is the application of the truth of 2:4: the righteous will live by faith. In the most poetic language, Habakkuk describes the emptiness and the seeming hopelessness of the days he lived in (v.17) but that will not stop him from waiting in genuine expectation and with sincere, unaffected joy in his heart.
How can he say such things? Where does this hope spring from that inspires such endurance on his part? It springs from the reality of the character of God and his powerful interventions in the history of the people. If he could look back to the exodus and resolve to wait in hope and eager expectation, how much more should we, who regularly feast at the Lord’s Table, how much more should we be steadfast in our hope and overflowing in joy?
Yes, the days are evil; yes, the ground seems so hard; yes, we are often at a low spiritual ebb – yet the God who sent his Son into this world to die and rise again will not allow that work to go to waste. The Lord Jesus will see and rejoice in the fruits of his suffering.
Knowing that, we too can be people of genuine hope, a hope that leads to believing prayer and faithful service. All may seem dark and dismal, fruitless and futile, “yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.” It is the Sovereign LORD who is our strength and who make us strong and stable, enabling us to go on the heights. To him be the glory. Amen!
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Habakkuk 2:6-20
We began looking at the prophet Habakkuk last week, a man whose heart was aching and whose mind was confused. His trouble centred on the fact that God’s people were living as anything but – the land was filled with violence and shame. What would God about it?
The answer was that he would judge his people by raising up the Babylonians to conquer them. But to Habakkuk that was simply making the matter worse; they were even more evil than the people of Judah. Where was the justice in that?
And, perhaps even more distressing, where would this leave God’s plans to save a fallen world through the nation of Israel, as he had promised to do? No wonder Habakkuk prayed with such feeling.
The answer in 2:1-5 was that God remains in control of the situation and, knowing that, the righteous must live by faith. Habakkuk and others must rest in the character of God and take the long view. What follows in 2:6-20 elaborates the point that the Lord will judge those he had sovereignly used to judge his people.
1. The Justice of God
The first substantial point made here is that the God of the Bible, the living and true God, is not indifferent to sin, whether committed by individuals or nations. Nothing goes unseen by him; he has no blind-eye to turn toward it but takes it all in hand to deal with one day.
And deal with it he will. Sometimes people say, “There’ll be hell to pay” when something’s gone wrong; in this case, it is literally true. Five times, woe is pronounced over those guilty of the crimes listed here. One writer has aptly said that “This series of woes is designed to show that ultimately sin, evil, crime, greed, oppression, debauchery and idolatry are doomed to destruction.”
The simple fact is, as God tells us over and again in the Bible, you reap what you sow. He may use Babylon for his own purposes but their own interest was in boosting their pride and lining their pockets. That kind of behaviour will inevitably have its consequences and so the woes are pronounced.
And so we see that, as each woe is elaborated, the justice in view is one of like-for-like – those who have killed will be killed; those who have plundered will be plundered; those who have ravaged and exposed others will themselves be ravaged.
This is a consistent biblical principle that God has built into the very fabric of creation – nature teaches us the point and time and again it is captured in the Bible for us to ponder. He stands up to the proud but gives grace to the humble.
The God revealed in the Bible is active in the affairs of nations. He cares what happens; although he can as Lord use wickedness to advance his own purposes, he never condones it; rather, as here, he condemns it.
But even as he condemns the evil, of individuals as well as nations, there is sadness in the tone of his voice. It has been noted by scholars that these woes are a parody of a funeral lament and could, therefore, be seen as a taunt. But there is also genuine sadness in the heart of God at the tragedy that befalls the impenitent.
Judgement is necessary and, because it sets things right, is a cause for joy. That is part of the biblical picture; but so too is the sight of the Saviour weeping over impenitent Jerusalem as he contemplates its fate at the hands of the Romans for its sin in rejecting him.
The situation may seem to be getting out of hand to Habakkuk but God remains in control, just as he was when Jesus was slaughtered, just as he is today when all seems so dark and distressing. His justice will prevail and his purposes will not be thwarted.
2. The Glory of God
And here we have, in a famous and thrilling verse, a description of what those purposes ultimately are. People can rage against God and commit the most awful crimes, filling the world with filth and seeming to destroy the last vestiges of its original goodness. Yet, in the face of that, we see asserted here that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Could there be any statement more daring or more encouraging against such a backdrop? The earth that is filled with violence and shame will one day be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God!
The term ‘knowledge’ speaks of an intimate and living relationship with God. Here the Lord says that the whole world will be bathed in the wonder of that relationship – to its fullest extent, “as the waters cover the sea”.
There was a time in the OT when the temple was completed and God’s glory filled that house. Here, we read of a time when his glory will fill the earth and his glory will be known and rejoiced in. Sin will not have the last word; God will be known. He will be all and in all.
And this promise and purpose were going to be accomplished through the one of whom it was said by those who knew him, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
God’s promises seemed to be hanging by a thread in the dark days of the OT as sin ran riot in Israel. But, in reality, the danger was only apparent – sin was never going to win; God would come in the person of his Son to deal with it through the unveiling of the truth and the grace of God.
God is involved in the affairs of nations, not simply to judge sin and then leave the field. He is involved in order to reclaim his world and to remake it in holiness and righteousness, having saved it through his own Son and his once-for-all death on the cross.
3. The Presence and the Reality of God
That statement was the first of two outstanding declarations about the living God contained in this passage. We close with the second in v.20: “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”
V.18f describe the utter futility, the nonsense, of idol worship. People make images, bow down to them, put their trust in them and hope to be taught by them.
We can laugh at such folly but it still happens today, as equally foolish and powerless gods are worshipped – gods of money and leisure, of pleasure and gain.
How sad and tragic to see people made in the image of God looking in every other direction for help and blessing. It won’t come; it can’t come. All other gods are idols – useless and lifeless.
But the LORD, the Almighty God, is in his holy temple. The one who made us and all things, the eternal God who existed before us and doesn’t in truth need us, this God is not under threat; he is in his holy temple. He is truly at the centre of the universe and all reality. This is the true picture.
And the call of this verse is for all the earth to be silent before him. The idols are silent because they’re dead and lifeless; this silence is of an altogether different kind – it’s the awe-filled worship of creatures standing before their Maker and gazing on his beauty and majesty, and gladly acknowledging his complete sovereignty and utter worthiness.
Do you stand with them today – in awe before the God who made you and all things, who is high over all, beyond the reach of sin and chaos, whose gracious and redeeming purposes are not under threat but are being steadily worked out?
This is why the righteous can – and must – live by faith.
The answer was that he would judge his people by raising up the Babylonians to conquer them. But to Habakkuk that was simply making the matter worse; they were even more evil than the people of Judah. Where was the justice in that?
And, perhaps even more distressing, where would this leave God’s plans to save a fallen world through the nation of Israel, as he had promised to do? No wonder Habakkuk prayed with such feeling.
The answer in 2:1-5 was that God remains in control of the situation and, knowing that, the righteous must live by faith. Habakkuk and others must rest in the character of God and take the long view. What follows in 2:6-20 elaborates the point that the Lord will judge those he had sovereignly used to judge his people.
1. The Justice of God
The first substantial point made here is that the God of the Bible, the living and true God, is not indifferent to sin, whether committed by individuals or nations. Nothing goes unseen by him; he has no blind-eye to turn toward it but takes it all in hand to deal with one day.
And deal with it he will. Sometimes people say, “There’ll be hell to pay” when something’s gone wrong; in this case, it is literally true. Five times, woe is pronounced over those guilty of the crimes listed here. One writer has aptly said that “This series of woes is designed to show that ultimately sin, evil, crime, greed, oppression, debauchery and idolatry are doomed to destruction.”
The simple fact is, as God tells us over and again in the Bible, you reap what you sow. He may use Babylon for his own purposes but their own interest was in boosting their pride and lining their pockets. That kind of behaviour will inevitably have its consequences and so the woes are pronounced.
And so we see that, as each woe is elaborated, the justice in view is one of like-for-like – those who have killed will be killed; those who have plundered will be plundered; those who have ravaged and exposed others will themselves be ravaged.
This is a consistent biblical principle that God has built into the very fabric of creation – nature teaches us the point and time and again it is captured in the Bible for us to ponder. He stands up to the proud but gives grace to the humble.
The God revealed in the Bible is active in the affairs of nations. He cares what happens; although he can as Lord use wickedness to advance his own purposes, he never condones it; rather, as here, he condemns it.
But even as he condemns the evil, of individuals as well as nations, there is sadness in the tone of his voice. It has been noted by scholars that these woes are a parody of a funeral lament and could, therefore, be seen as a taunt. But there is also genuine sadness in the heart of God at the tragedy that befalls the impenitent.
Judgement is necessary and, because it sets things right, is a cause for joy. That is part of the biblical picture; but so too is the sight of the Saviour weeping over impenitent Jerusalem as he contemplates its fate at the hands of the Romans for its sin in rejecting him.
The situation may seem to be getting out of hand to Habakkuk but God remains in control, just as he was when Jesus was slaughtered, just as he is today when all seems so dark and distressing. His justice will prevail and his purposes will not be thwarted.
2. The Glory of God
And here we have, in a famous and thrilling verse, a description of what those purposes ultimately are. People can rage against God and commit the most awful crimes, filling the world with filth and seeming to destroy the last vestiges of its original goodness. Yet, in the face of that, we see asserted here that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Could there be any statement more daring or more encouraging against such a backdrop? The earth that is filled with violence and shame will one day be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God!
The term ‘knowledge’ speaks of an intimate and living relationship with God. Here the Lord says that the whole world will be bathed in the wonder of that relationship – to its fullest extent, “as the waters cover the sea”.
There was a time in the OT when the temple was completed and God’s glory filled that house. Here, we read of a time when his glory will fill the earth and his glory will be known and rejoiced in. Sin will not have the last word; God will be known. He will be all and in all.
And this promise and purpose were going to be accomplished through the one of whom it was said by those who knew him, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
God’s promises seemed to be hanging by a thread in the dark days of the OT as sin ran riot in Israel. But, in reality, the danger was only apparent – sin was never going to win; God would come in the person of his Son to deal with it through the unveiling of the truth and the grace of God.
God is involved in the affairs of nations, not simply to judge sin and then leave the field. He is involved in order to reclaim his world and to remake it in holiness and righteousness, having saved it through his own Son and his once-for-all death on the cross.
3. The Presence and the Reality of God
That statement was the first of two outstanding declarations about the living God contained in this passage. We close with the second in v.20: “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”
V.18f describe the utter futility, the nonsense, of idol worship. People make images, bow down to them, put their trust in them and hope to be taught by them.
We can laugh at such folly but it still happens today, as equally foolish and powerless gods are worshipped – gods of money and leisure, of pleasure and gain.
How sad and tragic to see people made in the image of God looking in every other direction for help and blessing. It won’t come; it can’t come. All other gods are idols – useless and lifeless.
But the LORD, the Almighty God, is in his holy temple. The one who made us and all things, the eternal God who existed before us and doesn’t in truth need us, this God is not under threat; he is in his holy temple. He is truly at the centre of the universe and all reality. This is the true picture.
And the call of this verse is for all the earth to be silent before him. The idols are silent because they’re dead and lifeless; this silence is of an altogether different kind – it’s the awe-filled worship of creatures standing before their Maker and gazing on his beauty and majesty, and gladly acknowledging his complete sovereignty and utter worthiness.
Do you stand with them today – in awe before the God who made you and all things, who is high over all, beyond the reach of sin and chaos, whose gracious and redeeming purposes are not under threat but are being steadily worked out?
This is why the righteous can – and must – live by faith.
Habakkuk 1:1 - 2:5
Some Bible books are a bit like acquaintances – they don’t rate as close friends but you do see them from time to time when you’re in the company of your close friends (NT quotations). When you happen to bump into them on their own (via a Bible reading programme?) you may find you don’t really know what to make of them, they seem to speak a different language and seem so different to your close friends. And so you make your apologies and offer to do lunch someday, being careful not to say when or where, and you run-off to find your more familiar friends.
The great shame about that kind of approach to the Bible – quite apart from what it says about our attitude to the one who gave us the Bible – is that we miss out so much. If we would only spend time with these acquaintances, we would find in them a depth we never realised was there, we would find them engaging and profound.
Habakkuk’s book may be one of those acquaintances. It gets at least 3 honourable mentions in the NT – at some very strategic points, no less – but in its own environment it looks less inviting. After all, very little indeed is known about its author and, whilst the historical situation it addresses is discernible, it isn’t dated as many of the prophets are. So we might feel the cards are stacked against us and it would be more prudent to make our visit brief.
I hope a slightly more extended visit over these next weeks will show us how mistaken that is.
1. Habakkuk’s complaint: ‘Lord, you don’t seem to care’
The situation that Habakkuk describes may be distant in time but should be familiar enough in terms of scripture: the people have turned away from God. Not all of them, certainly; there was always a righteous remnant. But sufficient have forsaken him to make the land full of violence and oppression (notice how Habakkuk piles up the adjectives here).
It is that situation which prompts Habakkuk to pray. Before we look at his prayer and the Lord’s response, I just want to suggest that the fact Habakkuk is concerned is worthy of our attention.
It reads as though he is complaining to the Lord, which in a sense he is. We might want to tut-tut but there is a challenge there for us: are we concerned enough about the state of the church and the world to wrestle before God over it? Or are we so wrapped up in the smaller details of our small lives that we are blinkered and have a blind spot in the very place where Habakkuk’s heart bled?
2. The cure is worse than the disease: Is God righteous or not?
So what is Habakkuk so worked up about? In 1:2-4 he lays the situation before the Lord: the land is full of violence and oppression; God’s people are living a lie – they are called by his name but they live as though he didn’t exist.
Given that they are his people and given that he is holy and righteous, Habakkuk wants to know why the Lord hasn’t done anything about it – “Why do you tolerate wrong?”
Maybe he was expecting the Lord to come in mighty reviving power to transform the nation but the answer he receives only leads to further anguish and confusion on his part. In 1:5-11 the Lord tells Habakkuk that he is going to deal with the situation in a way that was scarcely imaginable: he was going to raise up the Babylonians to chastise his people.
But this only intensifies Habakkuk’s sense of confusion. The problem he has is not that the people don’t deserve to be judged but that the cure seems to be worse than the disease. The Babylonians are utter pagans, notoriously violent and destructive; if God raises them up to world dominance then those who are more wicked than Israel will prosper even more (1:12-17).
How can this be right? How does this uphold God’s righteousness?
The Lord’s reply in 2:2-5 emphasises the fact that judgement will one day come. Yes, he will use the Babylonians to chasten his people but they will be responsible for their sins and will one day answer for them in judgement. No one is getting away with anything.
And Habakkuk’s response to this situation must be to rest and trust in the Lord’s sovereign and unsearchable wisdom (2:4).
The lesson for us ought to be clear, too. There are many situations that grieve and confuse us. It is not wrong to take our grief to the Lord and to ask him why. But we must then be ready to allow his word to address us and humble ourselves before the greatness of his power and wisdom. Habakkuk had to do it and so must we.
3. The big picture: If the law is paralysed, what will save us?
But there is a deeper significance to the problem that Habakkuk is wrestling with. In fact, if there wasn’t a bigger picture, it would mean when Paul quotes 2:4 he was guilty of just scanning the OT for a text to make his point, which isn’t how he uses God’s Word.
The bigger picture is tied to the Lord’s purpose in choosing Israel to be his people. That purpose was to bless the world through them, for salvation to come into the world through this people.
For many in Israel, the means for that would be the law, the torah. But as Habakkuk looks at the nation, he sees that the sin of the people has paralysed the law (v.4). If that is so, how will the Lord’s saving righteousness be effected? Is sin going to finally stymie the living God? Is Satan going to win after all?
The point Habakkuk makes here about the law is also made by Paul in Rom. 8:3 when he says “the law was powerless” because “it was weakened by the flesh”. The mere giving of the law to sinful people could never effect their rescue. The law was always going to be powerless to rescue. It could highlight sin but it couldn’t deal with sin.
What answer does the Lord give Habakkuk here? He tells him there is a solution, his righteousness will be vindicated, sin won’t have the last laugh; but that time was then still future: “the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.” Or as Paul so aptly put it, “When the time was fully come, God sent forth his Son…”; “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…” (Gal. 4:4; Rom. 5:6).
What the law could never do, God was going to accomplish in the most unexpected way (more remarkable than raising up the Babylonians) - sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering and through him to condemn sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3).
But that was all future for Habakkuk; he wasn’t told how God would resolve this challenge to his righteousness, to his saving faithfulness. He was only told that one day it would be. What he is told is how he and others should respond: “the righteous will live by his faith”.
They must put their hope in the God of the covenant. Their trust is not to be in the law; if it was, they would be gravely disappointed because sin has paralysed the law and the law is powerless to do anything about it. No; their faith must be in God that he will one day act in person to deal with sin.
Paul’s point in quoting this verse in Rom. 1:17 and Gal. 3:11 is to emphasise that this has always been God’s way of saving; it never was through the law but was always a matter of faith; “The righteous will live by faith”. He, of course, is dealing not with anticipation but fulfilment; the time has come and God has acted to deal the death blow to sin through his own Son dying in place of sinful humanity.
So the righteous, those who put their trust in God, will live by faith. The verse in Habakkuk and as used by Paul is a little ambiguous: it could refer to faithfulness or to faith; it could have God in view or man. Where Paul quotes it in Rom 1:17 it’s very likely that he has both in view, for he speaks of salvation being “from faith, for faith” which many take to mean “from God’s faithfulness to man’s answering faith”.
Today still “the righteous will live by faith”. It is how we come to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ and share in his blessings. But it is also how we are to live our lives: with faith in God, in the dark days when we see no sign that Jesus will return, when we doubt our own salvation, when sin abounds and there seems to be no answer.
The emphasis must always be on trusting God, hoping in his faithfulness that was revealed in Jesus and sealed in the sending of his Spirit.
Is that where your trust is this morning – not just for yourself but for the church and, indeed, for the whole world? “We walk by faith, not by sight”; “The righteous will live by faith.”
The great shame about that kind of approach to the Bible – quite apart from what it says about our attitude to the one who gave us the Bible – is that we miss out so much. If we would only spend time with these acquaintances, we would find in them a depth we never realised was there, we would find them engaging and profound.
Habakkuk’s book may be one of those acquaintances. It gets at least 3 honourable mentions in the NT – at some very strategic points, no less – but in its own environment it looks less inviting. After all, very little indeed is known about its author and, whilst the historical situation it addresses is discernible, it isn’t dated as many of the prophets are. So we might feel the cards are stacked against us and it would be more prudent to make our visit brief.
I hope a slightly more extended visit over these next weeks will show us how mistaken that is.
1. Habakkuk’s complaint: ‘Lord, you don’t seem to care’
The situation that Habakkuk describes may be distant in time but should be familiar enough in terms of scripture: the people have turned away from God. Not all of them, certainly; there was always a righteous remnant. But sufficient have forsaken him to make the land full of violence and oppression (notice how Habakkuk piles up the adjectives here).
It is that situation which prompts Habakkuk to pray. Before we look at his prayer and the Lord’s response, I just want to suggest that the fact Habakkuk is concerned is worthy of our attention.
It reads as though he is complaining to the Lord, which in a sense he is. We might want to tut-tut but there is a challenge there for us: are we concerned enough about the state of the church and the world to wrestle before God over it? Or are we so wrapped up in the smaller details of our small lives that we are blinkered and have a blind spot in the very place where Habakkuk’s heart bled?
2. The cure is worse than the disease: Is God righteous or not?
So what is Habakkuk so worked up about? In 1:2-4 he lays the situation before the Lord: the land is full of violence and oppression; God’s people are living a lie – they are called by his name but they live as though he didn’t exist.
Given that they are his people and given that he is holy and righteous, Habakkuk wants to know why the Lord hasn’t done anything about it – “Why do you tolerate wrong?”
Maybe he was expecting the Lord to come in mighty reviving power to transform the nation but the answer he receives only leads to further anguish and confusion on his part. In 1:5-11 the Lord tells Habakkuk that he is going to deal with the situation in a way that was scarcely imaginable: he was going to raise up the Babylonians to chastise his people.
But this only intensifies Habakkuk’s sense of confusion. The problem he has is not that the people don’t deserve to be judged but that the cure seems to be worse than the disease. The Babylonians are utter pagans, notoriously violent and destructive; if God raises them up to world dominance then those who are more wicked than Israel will prosper even more (1:12-17).
How can this be right? How does this uphold God’s righteousness?
The Lord’s reply in 2:2-5 emphasises the fact that judgement will one day come. Yes, he will use the Babylonians to chasten his people but they will be responsible for their sins and will one day answer for them in judgement. No one is getting away with anything.
And Habakkuk’s response to this situation must be to rest and trust in the Lord’s sovereign and unsearchable wisdom (2:4).
The lesson for us ought to be clear, too. There are many situations that grieve and confuse us. It is not wrong to take our grief to the Lord and to ask him why. But we must then be ready to allow his word to address us and humble ourselves before the greatness of his power and wisdom. Habakkuk had to do it and so must we.
3. The big picture: If the law is paralysed, what will save us?
But there is a deeper significance to the problem that Habakkuk is wrestling with. In fact, if there wasn’t a bigger picture, it would mean when Paul quotes 2:4 he was guilty of just scanning the OT for a text to make his point, which isn’t how he uses God’s Word.
The bigger picture is tied to the Lord’s purpose in choosing Israel to be his people. That purpose was to bless the world through them, for salvation to come into the world through this people.
For many in Israel, the means for that would be the law, the torah. But as Habakkuk looks at the nation, he sees that the sin of the people has paralysed the law (v.4). If that is so, how will the Lord’s saving righteousness be effected? Is sin going to finally stymie the living God? Is Satan going to win after all?
The point Habakkuk makes here about the law is also made by Paul in Rom. 8:3 when he says “the law was powerless” because “it was weakened by the flesh”. The mere giving of the law to sinful people could never effect their rescue. The law was always going to be powerless to rescue. It could highlight sin but it couldn’t deal with sin.
What answer does the Lord give Habakkuk here? He tells him there is a solution, his righteousness will be vindicated, sin won’t have the last laugh; but that time was then still future: “the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.” Or as Paul so aptly put it, “When the time was fully come, God sent forth his Son…”; “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…” (Gal. 4:4; Rom. 5:6).
What the law could never do, God was going to accomplish in the most unexpected way (more remarkable than raising up the Babylonians) - sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering and through him to condemn sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3).
But that was all future for Habakkuk; he wasn’t told how God would resolve this challenge to his righteousness, to his saving faithfulness. He was only told that one day it would be. What he is told is how he and others should respond: “the righteous will live by his faith”.
They must put their hope in the God of the covenant. Their trust is not to be in the law; if it was, they would be gravely disappointed because sin has paralysed the law and the law is powerless to do anything about it. No; their faith must be in God that he will one day act in person to deal with sin.
Paul’s point in quoting this verse in Rom. 1:17 and Gal. 3:11 is to emphasise that this has always been God’s way of saving; it never was through the law but was always a matter of faith; “The righteous will live by faith”. He, of course, is dealing not with anticipation but fulfilment; the time has come and God has acted to deal the death blow to sin through his own Son dying in place of sinful humanity.
So the righteous, those who put their trust in God, will live by faith. The verse in Habakkuk and as used by Paul is a little ambiguous: it could refer to faithfulness or to faith; it could have God in view or man. Where Paul quotes it in Rom 1:17 it’s very likely that he has both in view, for he speaks of salvation being “from faith, for faith” which many take to mean “from God’s faithfulness to man’s answering faith”.
Today still “the righteous will live by faith”. It is how we come to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ and share in his blessings. But it is also how we are to live our lives: with faith in God, in the dark days when we see no sign that Jesus will return, when we doubt our own salvation, when sin abounds and there seems to be no answer.
The emphasis must always be on trusting God, hoping in his faithfulness that was revealed in Jesus and sealed in the sending of his Spirit.
Is that where your trust is this morning – not just for yourself but for the church and, indeed, for the whole world? “We walk by faith, not by sight”; “The righteous will live by faith.”
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