In chapter 2, Habakkuk shifts from being a complainer to being a learner, with the key line coming in verse 4 – “the righteous will live by faith.”
God’s answer to Habakkuk’s second complaint begins with an instruction to make the message public, and a note that understanding the His answer will require patience. He is about to share a vision of the future, a vision that starts with the coming invasion of the Chaldeans and stretches through the unfolding of His plan to the coming of Christ and Christ’s return.
To recap, Habakkuk started with a complaint about violence within his own society – God’s answer is that the Chaldeans would come to bring His judgement on Judah. Habakkuk then objects to the use of this evil people, but closes his second complaint with a promise to seek and wait for God’s answer.
And so God answers, contrasting the arrogant with the righteous and the upright – those who do what is right in their own eyes versus those who seek to follow the way of God. “Righteous” here is innocent or justified in a legal sense. Faith is the firm, faithful response to the word of God. Martin Luther says, “Faith is a living, unshakable confidence in God’s grace.”
The object of our faith, though, is of vital importance. We cannot let faith simply be wishful thinking – if we put faith in things that do not deserve it, we will be let down. Blind faith is like dropping a coin into a wishing well – Biblical faith is like tracking a package. Faith requires understanding God’s promises and submitting to His sovereign will and plan. Faith in things that God does not promise will be disappointed – but so also will be a faith that does not expect anything of God, which inevitably turns into faith in ourselves, in our own ability to make the change that is needed.
The full importance of this verse is only for revealed in the gospel of Christ. New Testament writers quote this verse three separate times: Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38.
In Romans, Paul cites this in the context of introducing the gospel, within which “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.” In Galatians, Paul uses this verse to show that even in the Old Testament, the Law itself was insufficient to achieve righteousness: “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law” – because the righteous live by faith.
This verse is one of the many breadcrumbs God scatters throughout the Old Testament – some of which Habakkuk may have been aware of. Ezekiel, who was likely a contemporary, also prophesied about the coming exile, and about God’s ultimate response:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
Ezekiel 36:25-27
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
We see similar promises across the prophets – that God will ultimately upend the natural order of things, that righteousness will no longer be something we do in order to gain God’s favor, but will become something that God imputes to us if we rely on Him in faith – which itself returns itself back to God as an act of worship and sacrifice.
Are you righteous today? What do you base your righteousness on? Do you want to be made righteous, founded upon the saving work of Christ, through faith in His death and resurrection? That righteousness through faith is only true righteousness we can achieve, and it is offered to us freely.
And if we have taken that step of faith, how are we living that out? Are we living with the faith of the centurion, knowing that Jesus has things well in hand even if we cannot see it? Are we seeking the promises of God that we can rest on in faith? Are we living every day in that “living, unshakable confidence in God’s grace?”
– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, May 2, 2021