Galatians 3:11 and Habakkuk 2:4
Last time we saw that adopting circumcision would place the Galatians under the law, requiring that they keep the whole law. This has always been impossible, but now that the New Covenant has come and the Old Covenant done away with, there would be no offer of forgiveness when they sinned. If they are placing themselves under the Old Covenant law instead of under the law of Christ (Gal 6:2), offering sacrifices is no longer acceptable by God. The final sacrifice has been made on the cross through the death of his Son.
Following his argument, in Galatians 3:11 Paul writes that no one is justified before God by the law, for “the righteous shall live by faith” (Hab 2:4). What does this mean? Is Habakkuk 2:4 about a different way of life—the way of faith, which is opposed to the law? Is it a statement that those who believe that God will keep his promises and who live according to that belief will be saved?
Living by Faith
Matthew Harmon points to Tom Schreiner when he notes how God told Habakkuk that Babylon would come to punish Judah because they had failed to keep God’s Torah (Had 1:4–11). Habakkuk 2 gives a woe to the Chaldeans (2:6–20) for they will be humbled by God, but this will be accomplished in the future after Babylon takes the southern kingdom of Judah into exile. Schreiner writes, “The many allusions to the exodus in Hab 3 indicate the promise of a new exodus, a new deliverance for the people of God. Hence, Habakkuk functions as a paradigm for the people of God” (208). The judgment of exile is a test of faith for the righteous Israelite.
How does this text function in Galatians 3? Schreiner observes, “A right relationship with God is obtained by faith, not by keeping the law” (209). Habakkuk 1:4 reads,
“The law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.”
Even Habakkuk saw the failure of the law to do good. People needed more than an external law. Christ seals us with his Spirit, placing us into the new covenant where the law is written on our hearts.
While I agree with this interpretation, I want to look at another one put forth by Jason Staples in his new work Paul and the Resurrection of Israel. Others (such as Richard Hays; see his chapter “The Righteous One” as Eschatological Deliverer) have noted this too, but Staples incorporates this interpretation into larger themes within his book. This next section looks at Habakkuk 2:4 in Romans 1:17, as well as how “the just one” shows up in Acts.
Romans, Habakkuk, and “the Righteous One”
Paul begins his letters to the Romans by writing that Jesus “was declared the be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (1:4). This was “promised beforehand through his prophets in the sacred writings” (1:2). But how was this promised beforehand?
Paul later writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” That last bit is from Hab 2:4. Somehow there is a connection between the gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s righteousness, and Hab 2:4. Staples writes that Paul declares “that in his gospel, ’the justness of God is revealed’ in keeping with Hab 2:4, ‘the just one from fidelity will live’” (247–48).
But reading Hab 2:4 in context doesn’t seem to point to a future faithful Messiah, his atoning death, or his vindicating resurrection. While God’s righteousness (or “justness”) is connected with Jesus’ death and resurrection other places in Romans, it may be that “the just one” (ó δίκαιος, “the righteous one”) was used in other literature as a technical term to designate a messianic figure (248). Since all of our Bibles use the term “the righteous one,” this is how I will write it except when I quote Staples.
In 1 Enoch 37–71, Staples
points out that “the just one” is one of the primary titles for the messianic deliverer also called “the elect one” (e.g., 53:6, “the just and elect one”) and the “son of man” (e.g., 46:3, “son of man, to whom belongs justness and with whom justness dwells”; cf. 48:2; 62:5). The appearance of this “elect one of justness and faith” (39:6) will result in the vindication of the just, the destruction of the unjust, and the establishment of justness for all those who are just (39:6; 38:1–6; 53:1–6). As such, “the just one” of the Similitudes is, as Joshua Jipp explains, “quite simply, the mediator and agent through whom God executes justice” — a role that accords closely with what Paul assigns to Jesus throughout Romans. (248)
Acts and “the Righteous One”
Acts 3:14–15
We see this term come up three times when Luke refers to Jesus as “the righteous one” in the book of Acts. These three occurrences are 3:14–15; 7:51–53; and 22:24 (mentioned only in a footnote). In Peter’s speech, he declares, “But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead” (3:14-15). Both here and Romans 1:17 (and so Hab 2:4) associate “the just one” with resurrection life.
Acts 7:51–53
The second instance comes in Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin:
You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. (Acts 7:51-53)
Stephen mentions “the coming of the righteous one,” which according to Staples suggests understanding Hab 2:3–4 as a messianic prophecy. It might not seem so when we read the OT, but this seems more likely when we read the LXX version. Habakkuk has complained about God’s silence over the wicked Babylonians coming to judge sinful Israel—“the wicked swallow up those more just than they” (Hab 1:13). And God promises a future deliverer:
For the vision is still for the appointed time: he groans toward the goal and will not fail. If he delays, wait for him! For he will certainly come and not be late. If it is puffed up, his breath is not upright in him. But the just one by his fidelity will live. (Hab 2:3-4)
“Your Holy One”
According to Staples, modern interpreters read the verbs of Hab 2:3 as referring to the vision mentioned in the first line of v.3. Staples notes, “But this reading makes little sense; the prophet has just been given the vision (Hab 2:2) — how then can he be told to wait for what he has already received and written down? The Greek translator of the passage certainly did not read the verbs of verse 3 as referring to the vision” (250). This reading might have become commonplace by the first century. John the Baptist sends disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Lk 7:19). As Hab 2:3–4 (LXX) above reads,
If he delays, wait for him! For he will certainly come and not be late… But the righteous one by his fidelity will live.
Psalm 16:10–11
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades/Sheol,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
Acts both identifies Jesus as “the righteous one” and “points to the resurrection as the proof of Jesus’ status as God’s ‘sacred [holy] one’ (Acts 2:27; Ps 16:10), for whom ‘it was impossible to be held in [death’s] power’ (2:24)” (250). Luke interprets the promise of life in Ps 16:10 to one figure—”your Holy One”—“as a messianic prophecy realized in the resurrection of Jesus, confirming Jesus’ status as that messianic deliverer” (250).
The Righteous Lord
Paul makes a similar connection to the resurrection as proving Jesus’ status when he declares that “[God] commands all people everywhere to repent, 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” (Acts 17:30–31).
This Jesus is none other than who “God exalted… at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). This is exactly how the Messiah functions as the revelation of God’s righteousness in Romans Rom 3:21–26, 5:15–21, and 10:1–13. See also Phil 2:8–9 where Jesus faithfully obeys to death, is raised up and exalted, and given the same name “Lord” which Paul expects his readers to confess (Rom 10:9).
Getting Back to Romans
Given this and the connection between Rom 1:17 and Hab 2:4, it at least appears that “Paul understands Jesus’ resurrection as the fulfillment of Habakkuk’s prophetic promise of resurrection to ‘the just one’” (251).
In Paul’s opening to Romans, God’s righteousness is revealed through the resurrection of his Son, “Jesus (Israel’s) Messiah, who has been made ‘Lord’ and to whom all the nations owe their obedience (1:4-5)” (251).
The resurrection confirmas that Jesus is the coming deliverer of Habakkuk’s vision who has come to fix the injustice about which Habakkuk was complaining.
Hope for the Galatians
So following Paul’s argument in Galatians, all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Gal 3:10; Deut 27:26). But the Righteous One will live by faith (and not by the law).
Through Christ’s faithfulness and obedience to God, he was the perfect Israel(ite) who perfectly kept God’s law (fulfilling Lev 18:5, “The one who does them shall live by them”—Gal 3:12). He died on the cross, having down no wrong, and “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Gal 3:13)—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Deut 21:23).
Hope for Us
We cannot fulfill the law on our own, and we cannot be justified by the law. Only one was able to keep the law and “live by them,” and he died on the cross and took Israel’s covenant curses upon himself. He took God’s wrath for their sins—and ours. This was accomplished “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal 3:14).
Now we follow in his footsteps. Just as Jesus believed in the Father’s plan and promises and obeyed, so we believe in the Father’s plan, work, and promises through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and we obey. We do this even though we do not obey perfectly! But we under the new covenant have forgiveness through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We read in Rom 8:11, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Because the Righteous One was resurrected and lives for ever, we who have faith in him will live forever too.
Other Options
While Gupta writes off this interpretation in his commentary, and Harmon doesn’t mention it, I think it has a lot of explanatory power. Staples focuses on how Hab 2:3–4 functions in Romans, but he draws in wider texts to show the scriptural matrix working in Paul’s mind. And it seems to make sense in Galatians 3:10–14. Or does it? What do you think? Does the first interpretation above put forth by Harmon, Schreiner, and others make better sense of the text? Or does Staples’ interpretation have a ring of truth to it? Feel free to leave a comment and offer your thoughts.
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