Yet again, Habakkuk stood on a temple complex roof, gazing out from his perch as the land unfolded past the walls of the seemingly impregnable city. He knew the people were nervous, ever since the news of Ashkelon's great fall, ever since the fast service here that cold December day. Habakkuk had been coming up here ever since. The Babylonians had become nearly a fixture in the land; he could easily envision them surrounding the city, and Habakkuk knew that if they did, plenty of Judah's soldiers would stand sentry on the walls, looking out just as he was looking out. But the prophet wasn't looking out for the Babylonians. He was looking for God.
Things in Judah had been getting rough for a while now. In the moral collapse of those years, Habakkuk struggled with people's questions about why the Law of Moses seemed not to be working – why things had gone south so quickly, why God was putting them through this (Habakkuk 1:2-4). There was injustice in Zion's courts and violence in her streets, and those who were supposed to be setting an example were among the worst offenders. Habakkuk could see for himself “the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous” (Lamentations 4:13). And when Habakkuk asked, God pointed him at Babylon, an up-and-coming power nobody expected to be trouble (Habakkuk 1:5-11). But now it was.
Now, Habakkuk could read the writing on the wall; he'd heard with his own ears Baruch read out Jeremiah's prophecy: “Because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the LORD, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation” (Jeremiah 25:8-9). The thought made Habakkuk sick to his stomach. So Habakkuk prayed, urging God to abandon Babylon as an unworthy tool for pure hands (Habakkuk 1:12-17). Habakkuk was gearing up to have an argument with the LORD. That's what brought him up here. “I will take my stand at my watch-post and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer to my reproof” (Habakkuk 2:1). Even if in for a scolding, he had no plans to let it rest.
Time and again, Habakkuk had been coming up here, had been stationing himself in readiness for God's call. Habakkuk was determined. He wasn't giving up. He was waiting. And now, after an untold number of days or months, the LORD spoke to him. But there was no direct scolding in God's voice. “You're going to get a vision – a revelation,” God said. “And when you do, write it down right away. Document it exactly, legibly, clearly, on tablets, as a way of preserving it for the long haul (cf. Habakkuk 2:2).1 People are going to need that. On the one hand, what you see or hear in this vision is going to seem slow to be fulfilled, disconnected from the reality unfolding around you. It won't be an obvious truth, not in times like these. It's not going to pay off until when I mean it to, and that won't be until the plot wraps up in the season finale. On the other hand, this vision is going to be good news. It's going to be energizing and invigorating to those who read it and get it. Weary souls will find in it a reason to press on, even to run through the streets with what you document.2 It's so good, you'll want to mass-produce this message, to get a copy into every hand. It might seem too good to be true, especially as discouraging as the gap between now and the appointed time of fulfillment is. But 'it will surely come..., it will not lie.' Just the opposite: it will prove itself true, it will vindicate everything, it will make sense of it all. But at the appointed time, all will be clear – not a second sooner or a second later. When the time arrives, then 'it will not delay' (Habakkuk 2:3). Now, Habakkuk, are you ready? Got your pen and a tablet handy? Here goes...”
And then God began to unfold the key words: “Look, the swollen! His soul isn't upright within him” (Habakkuk 2:4a). The Babylonians sure seem 'swollen' with their greedy appetites, thinking they can do anything – that they can effectively stalk the land like the grim reaper, gobbling up the cities and nations of the earth endlessly (cf. Habakkuk 2:5). God openly recognizes that their idolatrous brutality isn't healthy or pleasing, isn't on the level. That's already a relief to Habakkuk. But they aren't alone: there are plenty in Judah who are 'swollen' by presumption that the gifts of Law and Land, Throne and Temple, are guarantees that Jerusalem is untouchable, that the presence of God's gifts overshadows any unrighteousness they do. They“did not believe... that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem” (Lamentations 4:13). They presume God is on their side, regardless whether they're on his. Judah's and Babylon's mirrored prides are like swelling tumors, not only disfiguring their respective souls within them but setting them on this destructive collision-course.
But God hasn't finished the sentence yet. There's more to be told: “And the righteous – by his faith he shall live” (Habakkuk 2:4). This is the opposite of swelling up, getting puffed up with arrogance or presumption. It's the opposite of what Babylon's doing and the opposite of what the leaders of Judah are doing. If for Babylon to claim entitlement over the nations is swollen, and if for Judah's elite to presume God's on their side is swollen, then faith is deflating ourselves and making sure we're on God's side. The word God uses here for 'faith' mainly means being faithful, being reliable. The righteous are going to get life because they trust God's faithfulness and mirror him, not Babylon, by being faithful back. They're going to prove in their lives that they're reliably loyal to the LORD, and they're going to act in ways, do the works, that show how much they trust God. Faith is both trusting God and being reliably attached to God, especially when there are strong temptations to do neither.
Maybe Habakkuk finds this tough to hear. He's spent all this time peppering God with his questions, objecting to God's plans, gearing up for an argument. If the pure God can resort to impure tools, is he faithful, is he trustworthy? Does God really have our good at heart? That's what Habakkuk's been asking. Now he's the first to get this revelation. He can either give up hope, or he can wait and trust that God is going to work all these things together for good after all. He's already waited with his burning questions and his pointed challenges, day after day after day. Can he put on the gloves of trust to handle them safely, until the appointed time comes? Will he stay on the LORD's side amidst the monstrous mystery, and follow God where eyes can't yet see?
Because that's what faith is going to mean in his day. Whenever exactly Habakkuk records this revelation, it won't be long now until things get a lot, lot darker than they have been. In fact, by this point, the countdown of the Babylonian Exile has already begun, ever since Baruch read that scroll. Some captives have already been handed over and led away. Many more will follow. Those who chafe under divine discipline and greedily grasp for independence, those in Judah who mirror Babylon's swollen logic, will face a day of fire and woe. But those who have faith will believe the warnings of prophets like Habakkuk. During lulls in the siege, they'll have an opportunity to slip out before the great destruction.3 It's thanks to their faith that they won't be trapped inside when things go up in flames. They'll sensibly act on their faith, scattering to then regather after the final fall (Jeremiah 40:11-12). For them, faith will literally – and quite immediately – lead to life.
In the wake of the conquest, many who were outside the city will be left behind in the new Babylonian province – whether in the wasteland ruins of Judah or the mostly unscathed territory of Benjamin.4 Others will be carted away to Babylon's hinterlands, to toil away in obscurity in the belly of the beast. But in either case, see Judah's big picture. The unbreakable dynasty of David has been dethroned. The Land is now owned, for all intents and purposes, by pagans again. The Temple's been defiled and burned. The psalms are silent, and other than grain and incense in the temple rubble, no sacrifices can be made – certainly no animals on the altar (it's no more). The priests have nothing to do. It's the end of the life of Israel as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). There remain only an aggregate of Jewish remnant communities, in and out of the land, but no sacrifices can be offered for the forgiveness of sins or for thanksgiving to God. It seems impossible to worship, impossible to be righteous; and even if they could be righteous, the visible blessings promised by the Law look impossible. For all intents and purposes, this marks the death of the holy nation. Nation after nation is being digested in chunks by Babylon, eventually to be wholly dissolved away – can Judah be any different?
And faith is the one thing that says 'Yes!' – yes, not because Judah is worthy, but because the LORD is faithful. The LORD is faithful even without Throne and Temple, even without Land and Law. Faithful trusting, faithful living is the only thing that can conceivably count in days like that. When righteousness in line with the Law is impossible, then and there it becomes clearest that abiding faithfulness to God means abiding faith in God, trusting him enough to stay on his side when he looks like he's turned away. It means rebuilding hope in what seems to be the sealed tomb of Judah's identity, clinging to the LORD's faithfulness to be still our saving grace. It means trusting that graves as deep as this are no obstacles to a God whose faithfulness outlasts death itself.
And that's what it's going to mean for Judah to come to life again. This exile was decreed for seventy years, not for eternity (cf. Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10). The kingdom may have crumbled, leaving only its dry bones behind – but God can put meat on them bones (cf. Ezekiel 37:1-14). On the other side of exile's death, this revelation promises a future and a hope called resurrection! The resurrection of the nation, at least. And Jerusalem will be rebuilt: “Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in!” (Isaiah 26:2). A righteous nation, keeping faith with the LORD – that's a nation come to life, for the righteous will live by faith.
But maybe Habakkuk has some questions yet. Judah as a nation might rise up, but what about all the individual members? What about those righteous people whose blood was shed in Jerusalem's streets – where's their hope found? And if Judah is reformed, not as an independent kingdom but as a mere province under one or another empire, governed only sometimes by a son of David who doesn't even reign on David's throne, is that really the end of exile? Is this all God has in store? Has Judah, has Israel, yet come to life until the kingdom is restored?
The vision, God told Habakkuk, is for the appointed time of the end, the last days. And even when some came home from Babylon to resume life in the land, even when the temple that was Judah's beating heart was rebuilt, they knew it wasn't yet the time of the end – not until they saw the dead raised (cf. Daniel 12:1-3). All through this time, from Habakkuk to Malachi, “God spoke... by the prophets.” But then, at last, “in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus came into the world, and those living in those days could already say, “The end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11) – or, at least, the beginning of the end. The time was appointed. Jesus had come to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). By the way he lived each day, he proved himself to be “Jesus Christ the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1). And, as the Righteous One, when the cross loomed as a dreadful wonder, he entrusted himself fully to God. Even hanging on the cross, with Jew and Gentile swelling in brutish boasting against him, “he trusts in God” as his faithful Father (Matthew 27:43). And what did Habakkuk's vision foretell? “The Righteous One – by his faith he shall live!” (Habakkuk 2:4).
Habakkuk's vision proved true in the hugest of ways. By his faithfulness unto death, by trustingly committing his spirit into his Father's hands, the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, should live, shall live, must live! The Father crowned his Son's perfect faith by raising him to new life. Jesus lives! He lives because of the faith he showed! His faithful journey through the world flowered so perfectly on the cross that it promptly called forth life, the life of the world to come, resurrection life, as the crown of that faithfulness and that righteousness.
The apostles saw him – and in seeing him, they saw the vision coming true in a way they never expected. And even a Pharisee named Saul – Paul – saw him, got knocked down on the road to Damascus by the sight and the sound of him. Until that day, Paul was consumed by zealotry for the Law as the way to bring life back to Judah – and he strove to have his violent zeal for the Law counted to him as righteousness, as the ancient priest Phinehas did (Psalm 106:31). But Habakkuk's vision said that faith was what would make the righteous live. And now his own eyes showed him that Jesus has been “raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25), our being set right, having God impart righteousness to us. It isn't the Law that makes that happen; it's Jesus' resurrection, and just like Habakkuk said, it functions on faith, when we believe that God raised Jesus as Lord – for just as Father Abraham was credited as righteous by walking trustingly with God, to the point of believing God would raise the dead (Romans 4:16-22), so now Paul believes in just such a God as Abraham knew. And that faith is credited to Paul as the righteousness he'd always sought by the Law. So now Paul will spend the rest of his days as a herald running with Habakkuk's vision in hand (cf. Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11). For, he says, his existence has become totally animated by Jesus' faithfulness to him and his faith in Jesus: “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
And, Paul insists, this isn't for himself alone. 'Faith' and 'works of the Law' – that is, zeal for everything in the Law of Moses that marks Israel out as separate from the nations – are two contradicting principles for life. And he's worried about those who try to stake their claim to life on the Law's ethnic rules and regulations, who try to keep a wall around God's Jewish people instead of welcoming the new creation that's arrived in Christ. He fears they're stumbling into the threatened curses Moses laid down, and so missing out on life (Galatians 3:10). But those who stake their claim to life on faith instead – trusting the God who raises Jesus from the dead, and giving themselves to him as faithful children – have a different way, Abraham's way. They receive a righteousness that God imparts, a baptismal gift lived out and deepened day by day through practiced faithfulness. And that gift is open to Jews and Gentiles alike, apart from the Law that was given for the old creation (Galatians 3:11). “So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9). And it's this that makes God's own righteousness plain as day and strong to save – which is good news for all (Romans 1:16-17)!
What happens is that, when faith is given, then Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, begins to “dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17). And the Righteous One dwelling in your heart is the start of righteousness – and then God can “strengthen [you] with power through his Spirit,” and make Christ dwell in your heart more abundantly, and make you “rooted and grounded in love,” until at last you grow to be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19). That happens when faith becomes a way of life, when we faithfully cooperate with God, that righteousness might abound all the more. Any spiritual life of grace that's in you now, it's based 100% on the Righteous One dwelling in your heart. It's based on being allied to Jesus, whose very life is proof of the faithfulness of God who sets things right by resurrection. It's rooted in the Spirit who instills faith that makes possible everything that was impossible under our own steam, and who gives a yet truer life.
For there's one last time Habakkuk's vision is quoted in the New Testament, and that's in Hebrews 10. Now, it isn't the vision that's coming; it's Jesus himself, coming back as the Coming One. “'Yet a little while, and the Coming One will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.' But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Hebrews 10:37-39). The first hearers of Hebrews were tempted to shrink back from the gospel into their old lives, because things were hard and the dark night was dragging on. But to shrink back from the gospel sets us up for destruction. It's true that, until the end of the end, the Babylons of the world will keep rising up, will keep catching nations in their nets of influence or violence, will keep offering to idols. It's also true that, until the end of the end, some in the New Judah – the Church – will shrink back or swell up or otherwise make a mess of what should've been faith. But at the end of the end, the Coming One will come.
And when Jesus comes in glory, those who lived in swollen ways of arrogance or presumption, and those who shrink back, will know that they've fallen short, stumbled into God's displeasure. But those who walked in faith without swelling up or shrinking back will save their souls. At the end of the end, their faith will be crowned as their Lord's has been. Habakkuk himself will rise in glory, for it was “through faith” that “the prophets” like him carried their burdens (Hebrews 11:32-33). So too will rise those righteous men and women whose blood was shed in Jerusalem. So will a whole host of martyrs and confessors and saints and the spirits of the righteous made perfect, from generation after generation. And if we endure in the life of faith now, then so will we.
What it calls for is persisting in trusting God enough to run down the clock and hold on. It calls for making loyalty to God a way of life. It calls for hearts that believe in a God who raises the dead, who's doing something new in Jesus that the world never saw before, and that redefines everything. It calls for living reliably on the basis of that richness of mercy and grace. For such life both comes from and strengthens Christ dwelling in our hearts, and Christ in our hearts will take over. And as we live out the righteousness God imparted to us, then as much as this long wait might look and feel like death, in the end we'll know what a crowning glory is true life! That's the dream, that's the hope, that's the promise of Habakkuk's vision: the faith of the righteous yields life from the dead, life as it's meant to be – if only you and I will humbly wait, enduring in faithfulness and trust that the Coming One will come at the appointed time, that all things will be made new, that faith will at last be sight. Until then, “you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36). Keep trusting that all his promises are Yes and Amen in Christ, and build your life daringly on that belief. So be faithful to God, waiting for the One who was and is and is to come without delay. And that's no pie-in-the-sky lie – you can hang your life on faith like that. And it'll give you life, life from a new world, and when that world comes at Christ's hands, you'll have it to overflowing. Thanks be to God!
1 Thomas Renz, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, NICOT (Eerdmans, 2021), 274.
2 Thomas Renz, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, NICOT (Eerdmans, 2021), 275-276.
3 Oded Lipschits, The Rise and Fall of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Eisenbrauns, 2005), 77.
4 Oded Lipschits, The Rise and Fall of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Eisenbrauns, 2005), 94-95, 104.
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