Habakkuk 2:4

The Just shall live by his faith.

Faith and the higher life

All men live by faith, and in our world man is the only creature who lives by faith. A world altogether without faith, where no man could trust another in anything, would be a most miserable world. Take away faith altogether, and all the social fabric would be one heap of ruins. Man is the only creature in this world who can live by faith. All creatures and all things depend upon God for the continuance of their existence as truly as man does, but it is man only who can trust in God. The fact that man can know God and trust in Him is a proof of his greatness and glory, and shows him to be the object of God’s special care and tenderness, as was shown by Christ in His Sermon on the Mount. Yet there are many men who do not trust in Him for His blessings, and live for His glory, in the enjoyment of them. Faith in Him is not a condition of the bestowal of His temporal blessings upon men. But men cannot have God’s spiritual blessings without faith in Him. To live for the spiritual and invisible is impossible without faith in God, and man is too great and glorious a being to live only for the present. The truth is, that the man of faith in God is the only man who truly lives.

I. The noblest character. In the Bible men are divided into two great divisions, the righteous and the wicked. The righteous is a man who trusts God’s Word, submits to God’s will, and lives in conformity with God’s righteous and holy law. He is a straight, or right, man--right in mind, in heart, and in life. The unjust man is s man with a crooked soul. In the Old Testament the word righteousness refers more to conduct than to the inward principle of spiritual life, and the righteous man is characterised by truthfulness, honesty, uprightness, tenderness, and unswerving fidelity to duty in relation to God and man.

II. The highest life. Man’s highest life is a life of trust in God. No man can live to himself in the highest sense of life, and if he tries to do so he will die in the very attempt. It is through the death of the lower self that the higher and true self can live. To enable men to do this was Christ’s object in coming to the world to live and die for us. Through faith men die in His death and live in His life, and this is the only way in which fallen man, who is dead in trespasses and sins, can find his life. The greatest thing the blessed Saviour could give for man was life, and the greatest thing He can give to man is life. In giving life Christ gives to men all they stand in need of for time and eternity. There is more in life than correspondence of an organism with its environment. There is a vital, mysterious principle, which manifests itself through the correspondence of the organism with its environment, and reaches its perfection when that correspondence becomes perfect. The highest life is the spiritual, which, said Christ, consists in the knowledge of God and Himself. The spiritual man not only lives and moves and has his being in God and His Son, as the true environment of spiritual and eternal life, but God in His Son must live in him. What is it to live according to the sense of the word in the text? It consists of three things--

1. Participation of God’s nature. Men live in God and unto God by becoming partakers of the Divine nature.

2. Perfect delight in God. We associate enjoyment with all conscious life. God has no way of giving joy but by giving life.

3. Usefulness for God. The crown of every life is its usefulness; its highest end is service. There is no true joy of life possible without life of service. The life which consists of the knowledge of God in His Son will be eternally progressive.

III. The condition of the blessed life of the righteous. “By his faith.” Man’s highest life is a life of living trust in a living God. Faith in God is the animating and sustaining principle of the life of the righteous. Only a person can be an object of trust, Faith cannot live but in the constant vision of its object. This living faith in God is given to man to enable him to do his work for God. The only faith worthy of the name is that which enables us to live the truest and highest life. (Z. Mather.)

The just

When we repent and believe the Gospel, we live--are raised from spiritual death to spiritual life.

I. The just. Behold, his soul that is lifted up is not upright in him. Works which are supposed to merit, naturally puff up the mind with pride. The prophet says, that proud disposition which you think merits, because of your works, is not an upright disposition. Good works cannot avail to justification. You must believe, not works. Good works are evidences of faith. The just are such as God justifies by faith in His own beloved Son. For Christ’s righteousness is to all, and upon all them that believe.

II. They are alive. Did they not live before? Yes, a natural life. They are quickened to a new and higher life. None are alive till born again of the Spirit. We must experience the “washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.”

III. How the believer lives this spiritual life. By his faith. The man who is justified by faith is made spiritually alive, and this life is maintained and supported by repeated acts of faith in the Son of God and Saviour of the world. Faith in Christ justifies, and by believing we receive righteousness and strength, and are made holy and acceptable to God. (R. Horsfall.)

Nothing better than reliance on God

The prophet means to show that nothing is better than to rely on God’s Word, how much soever may various temptations assault our souls. He sets the two clauses of the verse, the one opposed to the other: every man who would fortify himself, would ever be, Subject to various changes, and never attain a quiet mind; then comes the other clause--that man cannot otherwise obtain rest than by faith. The first clause I would render, “Where there is an elation of mind there is no tranquillity.” When the prophet says that there is no calmness of mind possessed by those who deem themselves well fortified, he intimates that they are their own executioners, for they seek for themselves many troubles, many sorrows, many anxieties, and contrive and mingle together many designs and purposes; now they think of one thing, then they turn to another; for the Hebrews say that the soul is made right when we acquiesce in a thing, and continue in a tranquil state of mind; but when confused thoughts distract us, then they say that our soul is not right in us: We now perceive the real meaning of the prophet. “Behold,” he says: by this demonstrative particle he intimates that what he teaches us may be clearly seen if we attend to daily events. The meaning then is, that a proof of this fact exists evidently in the common life of men--that he who fortifies himself, and is also elated with self-confidence, never finds a tranquil haven, for some new suspicion or fear ever disturbs his mind. Hence it comes that the soul entangles itself in various cares and anxieties. This is the reward which is allotted by God’s just judgment to the unbelieving. The prophet, in the second clause, places faith in opposition to all those defences by which men so blind themselves as to neglect God, and to seek no aid from Him. (John Calvin.)

Life by faith

In this connection there is a peculiar shade of meaning in living by faith. Immediate reference is to approaching trials of an extraordinary kind. There is a vision of national calamity, an impending invasion of the Chaldeans. It is declared that humility is the only upright attitude of soul, in such circumstances: and contrasted with the proud impatience which cannot wait for God, in His appointed time, is the meek reliance of the just man. “But the just shall live by his faith.”

I. Ordinarily, the just man lives by faith.

1. As it is the first act of that new spiritual life which the Holy Ghost produces in the soul. It is that coming to Christ which the Scriptures make anterior to every other gift or exercise of grace.

2. We live by faith, as it apprehends the plea by which the condemnation of death is set aside, or as it is a justifying instrument. We are said to live by that instrumentality which delivers us, and shields us from the operation of death.

3. We live by faith, as it unites the soul in mystical union with the Head, in whom there is all the fulness of life.

4. We live by faith, as it is in the range of its appropriation the highest and best condition of life.

5. We live by faith, as it is a principle essentially indicative of life, active, operative, and fruitful.

II. How does such faith survive in circumstances of extraordinary trial?

1. Calamity, that which exceeds the bounds of ordinary affliction. Such as war, famine, pestilence, earthquake.

2. Reproach for the faithful maintenance of truth and holiness.

3. The return of infidelity--extraordinary in that no completeness of defeat can prevent its returning invasion.

4. Another trial is apostasy. Faith is first in order; every other grace in the soul implies the precedence of this faith; hope herself must give up the sure and steadfast anchor, before this inner and ultimate life of faith can be destroyed. (A. T. M’Gill, D. D.)

Life is due to faith

The prophet here places faith in opposition to all those defences by which men so blind themselves as to neglect God, and to seek no aid from Him. As men therefore rely on what the earth affords, depending on their fallacious supports, the prophet here ascribes life to faith. But faith, as is well known, depends on God alone. That we may then live by faith, the prophet intimates that we must willingly give up all those defences which are wont to disappoint us. He then who finds that he is deprived of all protection, will live by his faith, provided he seeks in God alone what he wants, and leaving the world, would fix his mind on heaven. The prophet understands by the word amunat, that faith which strips us of all arrogance, and leads us naked and needy to God, that we may seek salvation from Him alone, which would otherwise be far removed from us. We perceive why Habakkuk has put these two things in opposition the one to the other--that the defences of this world are not only evanescent, but also bring always with them many tormenting fears--and then, that the just shall live by his faith. Faith is not to be taken here for man’s integrity, but for that faith which sets man before God emptied of all good things, so that he seeks what he needs from His gratuitous goodness: for all the unbelieving try to fortify themselves; and thus they strengthen themselves, thinking that anything in which they trust is sufficient for them. But what does the just do? He brings nothing before God except faith: then he brings nothing of his own, because faith borrows, as it were, through favour, what is not in man’s possession. He, then, who lives by faith, has no life in himself, but because he wants it, he flies for it to God alone. The prophet also puts the verb in the future tense, in order to show the perpetuity of this life; for the unbelieving glory in a shadowy life; but the Lord will at last discern their folly, and they themselves shall really know that they have been deceived. But as God never disappoints the hope of His people, the prophet here promises a perpetual life to the faithful. (John Calvin.)

The use of faith in a time of general declension in religion

What is a calamitous season?

1. When it exceeds the bounds of affliction, or when the dispensations of God’s anger in it cannot be reduced to the head of affliction.

2. When judgments fall promiscuously upon all sorts of persons, and make no distinction.

I. How we shall live by faith; what faith will do in such a season.

1. Faith will give the soul a reverential fear of God in His judgments.

2. It will put the soul upon preparing and providing an ark for itself.

(1) This ark is Jesus Christ.

(2) There must be a door in this ark. To obtain an interest in Christ is the general work of faith in these days.

(3) It will put us upon the search and examination of our own hearts, what accession we have made to the sins that have procured these judgments. The sins which do and have procured these judgments are--open and flagitious sins of the world. And the sins of Churches and professors. These latter include lukewarmness; contenting ourselves in outward order; want of love among ourselves; earthly-mindedness.

II. How faith will carry it under other perplexities that may be coming on us.

1. How we may live by faith under reproaches.

(1) Faith will give us such an experience of the power, efficacy, sweetness and benefit of Gospel ordinances and Gospel worship, as shall cause us to despise all that the world can do in opposition to us.

(2) It will bring the soul into such an experimental sense of the authority of Jesus Christ, as to make it despise all other things. Faith will work this double respect unto the authority of Jesus Christ--as He is the great Head and Lawgiver of the Church, and as He is Lord of lords and King of kings.

(3) Faith will bring to mind, and make effectual upon our souls, the examples of them that have gone before us, in giving tile same testimony that we do, and in the sufferings that they underwent upon that account.

(4) Faith will receive in the supplies that Christ hath laid up for His people in such a season.

(5) It is faith alone that can relieve us with respect unto the recompense of reward.

(6) Faith will work by patience when difficulties shall be multiplied upon us.

2. How we may live by faith, under an apprehension of the great and woeful decays in Churches, in Church members, in professors of all sorts; and in the gradual withdrawing of the glory of God from us all on that account.

(1) This is such a time of decay among us. A sense of it is impressed upon the minds of all the most judicious and diligent Christians, that do abound most in self-examination, or do take most notice of the ways of God. They recognise the open want of love among Church members; want of delight and diligence in the ordinances of Gospel worship; and our worldly-mindedness, conformity to the world, and security. A sense of this general decay ought to be an exercise and concern to our minds. God is dishonoured by this general decay. The world is offended and scandalised by it. The ruin of Churches is hastened by it.

(2) What is the work of faith under this condition? It will remind the soul that, notwithstanding this, Christ hath built His Church upon a rock that it shall not be utterly prevailed against. It will remind the soul that God hath yet the fulness and residue of the Spirit. Faith will cheer us by saying, “Are not all these things foretold thee?” And it will put every soul in whom it is upon an especial attendance unto those duties God calls him unto in such a season. Such as self-examination; great mourning, by reason of God’s withdrawing Himself from us; watchfulness over ourselves, and over one another, that we be not overtaken by the means and causes of these decays; zeal for God and the honour of the Gospel, that it may not suffer by reason of our miscarriages. (J. Owen, D. D.)

The life of faith

The text may be taken in two ways. In a moral sense, as regards the circumstances of the Jews. In a theological sense, as respects that great object on which believers have fixed their eye in all ages of the Church. The Rabbis give a very curious exposition of the words, “I will stand upon my watch.” They translate, “I will confine myself in a circle,” and explain that the prophet drew a circle, and made a solemn vow that he would not go out of it, until God had unfolded those dark dispensations to him, which seemed so injurious to His perfections.

I. Explain the terms of this proposition, “The just shall live by faith.”

1. Who is the just or righteous man? There are two sorts of righteousness, according to the law, and according to faith. By righteousness after the law understand that which man wishes to derive from his own personal ability. By righteousness of faith understand that which man derives from his own personal ability. To have faith, or to believe, is a vague expression. Faith is sometimes a disposition common to the righteous and the wicked; sometimes the distinguishing character of a Christian; sometimes it is put for the virtue of Abraham; sometimes it stands for the credence of devils. Faith is a disposition of mind that changeth its nature according to the various objects which are proposed to it. We are inquiring about saving faith, and have to inquire what is its object. It is Jesus Christ as dying and offering Himself to the justice of the Father. We must distinguish two sorts of desires to share the benefits of the death of Christ. A desire unconnected with all the acts which God is pleased to require of us; and a desire that animates us with a determination to participate these benefits. Jesus is proposed to the believer’s mind and heart and conduct. There are two kinds or causes of justification.

1. The fundamental or meritorious cause.

2. The instrumental cause.

That is the fundamental which acquires, merits, and lays the foundation of our justification and salvation. By the instrumental we mean those acts which it hath pleased God to prescribe to us, in order to our participation of this acquired salvation. If faith justifies us, it is as an instrument, that of itself can merit nothing, and which contributes to our justification only as it capacitates us for participating the benefits of the death of Christ. Justifying faith is a general principle of virtue and holiness.

1. Justifying faith is lively faith, a believer cannot live by a dead faith.

2. Justifying faith must assort with the genius of the covenant, to which it belongs.

3. Justifying faith must include all the virtues to which the Scriptures attribute justification and salvation.

4. Justifying faith must merit all the praises which are given to it in Scripture.

5. Justifying faith must enter into the spirit of the mystery of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ.

II. Objections made against this doctrine.

1. IS it pretended that the design of excluding holiness from the essence of faith is to elevate the merit of the death of Christ?

2. Dost thou say, thy design is to humble man? What can be more proper to humble man than the system we have expounded?

3. Dost thou say, our system is contrary to experience?

4. Or that our justification and salvation flow from a decree made before the foundation of the world, and not from our embracing the Gospel in time?

5. Or dost thou still object, that, although our system is true in the main, yet it is always dangerous to publish it; because man has always an inclination to “sacrifice unto his own net,” and by pressing the necessity of good works, occasion is insensibly given to the doctrine of merit? (J. Saurin.)

Faith, a life-giving power

Righteousness has been defined as the fulfilment of relations. But those relations are not primarily relations of earth. The higher relation rests on revelation. It is our relation to God. “Life “ is not here, living in the sense of existing., nor in the sense of exercising existence. Three ideas have to be added to the primary idea of existence. This life is conscious, satisfying, everlasting existence. “Faith” is the realisation of a future, the conviction of the invisible. Faith in a person is the realisation of that person, the having him so present to the eye of the soul that the presence is a power. Too often by faith is meant the realisation not of a person, but of a thing; not of Jesus Christ as all that He is, and God in Him, but of one single thing about Jesus Christ--His atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, and even this rather in the aspect of the death than in the aspect of the life, rather as a fact accomplished and done with than as a reality having in it the motive of a dedication, and the power of a life. (Dean Vaughan, D. D.)

The just shall live by his faith

The great Babylonian empire was swallowing up the smaller nations round about. To the prophet who believed in the Holy Almighty God, ruling in the earth in righteousness, this was a mystery. It was a strange problem. He could not understand why that great empire should grow greater, and why the nations round about should thus be turned into their net, and brought under their rule. Bad as the Jewish people were, they were not so far astray from the true God and from righteousness as were the men of Babylon. Why then should this nation control? He stands and looks at this mystery, and finds that he has no solution for it. He is perplexed and baffled. But like a wise and true prophet, he goes aside and stands upon what he calls his watch-tower that he may see what God will say. He will be quiet and still in heart, waiting for the Divine message to come to solve the difficulty. The text is the answer.

I. The uplifted soul, and its penalty. What is it for a man to be lifted up? It is to be proud, haughty, to have a feeling of self-dependence and self-sufficiency. It is to forget God, and to assume that a man’s life is in his own hands. There are many things that will produce an uplifted soul. Such as worldly success; intellectual culture; a man’s unbelief. There is hardly a step between unbelief in God and a man having a vain, proud, self-satisfied, and uplifted soul. Such a soul is not upright. It is crooked, perverse, froward. That is the penalty. For what is the glory of man? It is to know God, and to live in fellowship with Him. The great glory of man is righteousness. How do those who are “lifted up” carry themselves in times of trouble? They are ground to pieces--broken up. What strength have they for the day of adversity?

II. The true life for man. It is a Divine message spoken to the just man. “Your duty is to live by faith.” This faith is the antithesis of “lifted up.” It is a spirit of trust in God, a devout belief in God, in the righteousness and the love of God: it is lowliness and humbleness of mind; it is a feeling of true dependence upon the great Father in heaven. All the holy and just men who ever lived a true and noble life, have done so because they have lived by their faith. How will this work? God becomes a reality to the soul that is full of trust and prayer. God draws near to us as we live in faith and spirituality to Him. We make great mistakes in the matter of realising God and the love of God. Try by argument, by subtle process of reasoning, by investigation, to find out God and to know Him, and you are baffled. It is by faith God becomes known. And a life of faith and devoutness gives strength for obedience. Faith brings us into union with the great Source of all life, and causes us to be equipped with power for obedience in righteousness. The path in which Christ walked, and we are called to walk--the path of self-sacrifice, purity, meekness, love to enemies, trust in God, moral courage--this path is one which severely strains and taxes all the powers of a man. Hindrances and temptations throng around you at every step. Christian victory is not so much a stern exercise of resolution as a devout consecration to God; not so much self-straining as self-surrender to God; a loving consent to the guidance and inspiration of the Divine Spirit. The hour of quiet, simple yielding up of self to God, with utter dependence on His moulding touch and strengthening grace, is always the hour of our fullest power for obedience. There is another element that enters into the life of faith--peace, serenity, joy. The outward circumstances of life are never without some kind of discord or pain. If we make ourselves dependent upon the perfect adjustment of outward things for peace, then never will peace be ours. Open the portals of the soul, with lowliness and childlike dependence before God, bow in hushed submission, and then into the soul, noiselessly, yet with living power, like the calm dawn of a summer day, peace will come. Live the life of faith, and you will find God everywhere, and your character will grow in righteousness, and your peace and joy shall flow and abound like the waters of a great sea. (Thomas Hammond.)

Life by faith

Take the text as it stands on the page of the Hebrew prophet. This oracle of Habakkuk really means, “A righteous man shall live by his fidelity.” You will best understand the beauty of a Scripture passage when you look at it in its original setting. Habakkuk lived near the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity. In his large insight, in his poetic fire, he claims kindred with his mightier predecessors, Amos, Micah, Isaiah. He was faced by a new and eminently painful problem, he was precluded from holding out to his people any near or direct hope. And he was right. Habakkuk had to face the problem of the strength of the wicked and the humiliation of the just. The aggravations of the problem arose from the struggles of suffering innocence, but hitherto they had mainly presented themselves in individual instances. When the sufferer was a nation, and God’s chosen people, it was natural that terrible misgivings should overcloud the souls of men. In the very moment of repentance and reform came the threat of exile terrible and remediless. The Chaldean power was upon them; there was no remedy, save in comfortless endurance, ands hope yearning but still deferred. In those days of endurance and hope deferred, the lives of men, the life of the prophet himself, the life of that whole generation might ebb away. But the faithful are never utterly forsaken. For the prophet himself and for his nation, for all time, it was granted him to see at least in germ, to set forth at least in outline two of the universal truths on which the consolations of our little human life must rest. The answer that came to the prophet in his watch-tower was this, “The righteous man shall live by his fidelity.” Does this seem obscure, meagre, and unsatisfactory? The prophet caught its meaning. He breaks out, and concludes his book with one of the most splendid poems in the whole Bible. Nothing, neither drought nor desolation, could shake Habakkuk in his inextinguishable trust in God. The soul of the Chaldean is arrogant and wicked. That is enough. Then because God is God, in the pride and injustice of the oppressor lie the certain germs of his final overthrow. “The moral law is written on the tables of eternity.” And the righteous shall live by his faithfulness. Is he faithful? That is enough. Because God is God, righteousness not only contains the promise of life, when rightly understood, it is the only life. The just man, the ideal nation is not under the crushing disadvantage which he imagines. The power to serve God never fails, and the love of God is never rejected. There is the oracle to the troubled prophet, and to the trembling nation. It has two side. The first is the old law, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” The other is, “The righteous man shall live by his fidelity.” What more would you have? Righteousness may be hated and persecuted. Wickedness may be lapped in luxury; but nevertheless, righteousness is life, sin is death. (Dean Farrar.)

Habakkuk

The design of this prophecy is to confirm the servants of God in their belief of His power, and reliance on His providence, as the Ruler and Disposer of the universe, notwithstanding the prosperity wherein wicked men are sometimes seen to flourish in the earth, while the pious and godly are tried with affliction and adversity. The practical principle of religious faith is that, let the probable consequences of present advantage or loss be what they may, it is our true wisdom always to hold fast by God, and put our trust in Him. Habakkuk prophesied in the reign of Jehoiakim, son of the pious Josiah. But he, instead of imitating the piety of his father, followed the Evil practices of his more distant ancestors, Amen and Manasseh. He and his subjects abandoned themselves to every sort of profaneness towards God, of violence, oppression, deceit, and dishonesty towards each other, and of sensuality and debauchery in their own lives. Such was the state of the kingdom of Judah when Habakkuk saw his “burden.” He first inquires of God why injustice was suffered to prevail in Judah, and the wicked to oppress and get the advantage over upright and religious persons. The answer of God proclaims the speedy arrival of the Chaldeans, as a scourge of God. The mind of Habakkuk was even more disturbed with the expectation of the dreadful excesses of the Chaldeans, than it had been at the sight of the enormities already practised in Judea. He therefore, with all humility, proceeds to ask the reasons of so apparently strange a dispensation. He professes his own confidence in Cod, and his persuasion that the Chaldeans are not really the favorites of God, but only the executioners of His wrath. Having been allowed to put these questions, the prophet describes himself as anxiously waiting to have them answered. Here the second chapter opens. The “lifting up” in the text means the withdrawing of our trust in God, either through careless arrogance, which makes men forget their dependence upon Him, or through unsteadiness of faith, which leaves them to be tossed about, without stay or foundation, like a feather, a leaf, or any other light and worthless body, that is lifted up and whirled about in the air. “His soul which is lifted up,” withdrawn from an entire dependence on God, “is not upright in him,” for he murmurs and is discontented at the arrangements of God’s providence in things, pertaining to this life.” A man’s soul is not upright in him, who makes light of the expectation of a future state, and of the rewards and punishments to be therein distributed by the righteous judgment of God. Or who cavils at, and finds fault with any of the commandments of God, as burthens grievous to be borne. Or who trusts to his own performance of the law for acceptance. “The just shall live by his faith.” Faith has always been the support and comfort of the humble and confiding servants of God. (James Randall, M. A.)

Faith crowned

He that believeth God’s Word so as to walk worthy of the great things which He has promised to do for him, shall have his faith crowned with a happy accomplishment. From these words we raise the following observations--

1. We see the method which God has taken in revealing to us things to come. He has thought it sufficient to reveal to us the things themselves, without notifying the time when they shall be performed and manifested in the world.

2. We see the great sin of infidelity, and how much of the Divine displeasure we incur, when we disbelieve any Word of God, only because the completion of it falls not within the time which we had reckoned upon for the doing of it.

3. We hear the blessing which accompanies our sincere belief and dutiful observance of God’s Word. “The just shall live by his faith.” This is the only true life that men can live. (W. Reading, M. A.)

The life by faith

The immediate cause which gave rise to these words was the strong temptation of the prophet to distrust the providence of God, arising from the prosperity of the wicked, and their cruel oppression of the righteous. He points to faith in God as the sustaining, animating principle of the righteous man until his trial should be over. Consider the various ways in which it is true of the just man that he lives by faith. The just man’s faith in God is the belief and conviction of his mind of the reality and truth of all that God has been pleased to assure him of. It is the persuasion that all God’s promises to him are true, and will be fulfilled--a persuasion so real that he is supported by it, and acts upon it. What is this life of the just man that is spoken of here? Not mere animal life. Not mere intellectual life. It is the spiritual life of the soul before its redeeming Lord. It is a life peculiar to the just, such as none else lives. A life of acceptance with God, of love to God, of obedience and submission to Him.

1. Man is justified, declared just before God, through this great principle of faith.

2. To his faith in God the just man owes the life of obedience and holiness which he lives before Him.

3. Faith represents God as the source of strength in present trial, and of comfort in all affliction. Such a belief is absolutely necessary, in order to stir up man to exertion and perseverance in his spiritual contest with evil.

4. Faith, assuring the mind of the Christian of the glory that awaits him in the future time prevents the discouragements that he meets with, and the denial to which he submits, from overcoming his patient perseverance in well-doing. (H. Constable, M. A.)

The portraiture of a good man

Whether the man whose soul here is represented as “lifted up,” refers to the unbelieving Jew, or to the Babylonian, is an unsettled question amongst biblical critics; and a question of but little practical moment.

I. A good man is a humble man. This is implied. His soul is not “lifted up.” Pride is not only no part of moral goodness, but is essentially inimical to it. A proud Christian is a solecism. Jonathan Edwards describes a Christian as being such a “little flower as we see in the spring of the year, low and humble in the ground, opening its bosom for the beams of the sun, rejoicing m a calm rapture, suffusing around sweet fragrance, and standing peacefully and lowly in the midst of other flowers.” Pride is an obstruction to all progress and knowledge and virtue, and is abhorrent to the Holy One. “He resisteth the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

II. A good man is a just man. The just shall live by his faith.” To be good is nothing more than to be just.

1. Just to self. Doing the right thing to one’s own faculties and affections as the offsprings of God.

2. Just to others. Doing unto others what we would that they should do unto us.

3. Just to God. To be just to self, society, and God, this is religion:

III. A good man is a confiding man. He lives “by his faith.” This passage is quoted by Paul in Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; it is also quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:38). (Homilist.).

Justifying faith

It is as if the prophet had said: Depend upon it, when this world has done its best and its worst, it will plainly appear that the great question between it and the Church is, whether it is better to trust in one’s self, one’s own wisdom, and fame, and riches, and high spirit, or to go altogether out of one’s self, and to live entirely on the heavenly righteousness which God gives to His own people. The world rests upon itself, the Church lives by faith. Faith is that by which we abide in Christ. The spiritual life within us depends in some special manner on this grace. How impossible that those men should have true faith who allow themselves in self-righteousness. What difference can it make in point of pride and presumption, whether a man trusts in his own faith, or in his own works! In either ease he trusts in something of his own. The true faith in Christ leads immediately to the obeying of all His commandments. Faith in Christ will make our fortunes in the world of small consequence: and will help us to endure trials patiently. (Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times. ”)

The life of faith in the midst of a self confident world

The subject here is, how they that are just continue to live. The bond of this union, whereby a man becomes just is confidence--trust--faith. What is this living T It is put in opposition to the characters on the other side, who are not upright, the man shall live unto God by this principle of confidence. The very same principle that brings him to Jesus for righteousness that he may be just, works in him when he is in Jesus, and by it he lives. It requires such a principle as this to live consistently. There is no such thing as Christianity made easy. The power of uprightness is in faith, and no man but a man of faith will be found thoroughly upright. (Hugh M’Neile, M. A.)

Faith

These words were spoken to Habakkuk, to check him for his impatience under God’s hand. They are just as true for every man that ever was and ever will be as they were for him. It always was true, and always must be true, that if reasonable beings are to live at all, it is by faith. Because everything that is, heaven and earth, men and angels, are all the work of God. We do not remember enough what we do know of God. All things lie, like a grain of dust, in the hollow of God’s hand. Think of the infinite power of God, and then think how it is possible to live, except by faith in Him, by trusting to Him utterly. After all, what can we do without God? The life of our spirits is a gift from God, the Father of spirits, and He has chosen to declare that unless we trust to Him for life, and ask Him for life, He will not bestow it upon us. If we wish to be loving, pure, wise, manly, noble, we muse ask those excellent gifts of God, who is Himself infinite love and purity, wisdom and nobleness. And it is by faith in Christ we must live,--in Christ, a man like ourselves, yet God blessed for ever. It is a certain truth, that men cannot believe in God, or trust in Him unless they can think of Him aa a man. All that men have ever done well, or nobly, or lovingly, in this world, was done by faith--by faith in God of some sort or other. Without Christ we can do nothing--by trusting in Christ we can do everything. (C. Kingsley.)

Living by faith

The prophet is speaking of a time of terrible calamity, which was to come upon himself and upon all his people. One event is to happen to all,--to the righteous, and to the wicked. Some of his people shall meet these terrible calamities with the spirit of pride, refusing to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. And, seeing that those who do not bend under God’s providences, are invariably broken by them, the prophet contrasts the position of such persons with the position of those whom he describes in the text, and he remarks, “The just shall live by his faith.” What is it for a man to live, in God’s sense of the word, and to live in a time of calamity? Such a man will hear God’s voice in the calamity; he will hear the rod, and Him who hath appointed it. The man who really lives, in a time of calamity, will see God’s face even in that time; he will see the face of God behind the cloud. He will not be crushed by calamity. “The just shall live by his faith” means, he shall be equal to the claims which are made upon him, even in times of calamity, by the support which he derives through the operation of his faith. Faith is not mere assent. It follows belief in a particular kind of testimony. If we believe a worthy testimony, a certain state of heart must follow that belief. It is trust or reliance. Take the word “just” to represent a justified sinner, and that man shall live by his faith.

1. Man is introduced into a new life by this faith. Trusting in God’s beloved Son, life is immediately given to him. He no sooner trusts, than all that is involved in everlasting life becomes his. This is God’s free gift to him.

2. Man has support in time of trouble through faith. Hope is closely related to faith. If you would have a stronger hope, you must have a stronger faith. There is a work which faith performs that hope cannot accomplish. Hope has a limited sphere, faith has not. Faith has to do with all that God has said about Himself, and about His Son, and about His Spirit, and about the privileges of the redeemed, and about the destiny of the redeemed. Faith is the principle whose operations render God’s descriptions of unseen things real to us, so that His words take the place of facts. One effect of the faith of a Christian is to bring us into an entirely different style of life from that in which those men live who walk by sight. It must be so. Note some of the points of difference between a believer and an unbeliever. One holds the world tight, the other holds it with a slack hand. One orders his life by the will of his fellow-men, the other by the will of God. Then ask yourselves whether you have what the Scriptures call “faith,” the faith that saves. (Samuel Martin.)