Romans 1.17b-The Righteous Man Shall Live By Faith
Prairie View Christian Church
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday June 10, 2007
Romans: Romans 1:17b-The Righteous Man Shall Live By Faith
Lesson # 22
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 1:16.
This morning we will continue with our study of Romans 1:16-17, which contains the theme of this epistle and contains the assertion that Paul is not ashamed of the gospel of God, which is based on two premises: (1) The gospel is the power of God for salvation (2) The gospel reveals the righteousness of God.
Romans 1:16 contains the theme of this epistle and the assertion that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 1:17a contains Paul’s second assertion that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God.
This morning we will study Romans 1:17b, in which Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4 in order to support his assertion that by means of the communication of the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
Habakkuk 2:4, “but the righteous shall live by faith.”
Romans 1:16, “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.”
Romans 1:17, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’”
In order to support his assertion that by means of the communication of the gospel message, the righteousness of God is revealed in those who accept the gospel by means of faith, the apostle Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4.
This verse is quoted three times in the Greek New Testament (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38).
In Galatians 3:11, the apostle Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4 in order to prove that no one is justified before God by obeying the 613 mandates contained in the Mosaic Law.
Galatians 3:11, “Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, ‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’”
In Hebrews 10:38, the writer quotes Habakkuk 2:4 in order to demonstrate to believers that it is imperative that they remain faithful to God in order to please God and receive a reward at the Bema Seat Evaluation of the church.
Hebrews 10:35-38, “Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING 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.”
In Romans 1:17, Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4 in order to demonstrate that the righteousness of God is manifested in those who exercise faith in the subject of the gospel message, which is Jesus Christ.
“As” is the comparative conjunction kathos (kaqwv$) (kath-oce), which is used with the indicative mood of the verb grapho, “it is written” in order to introduce a comparative clause that indicates a comparison with the statement “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.”
The conjunction kathos, “as” with the indicative mood of grapho, “it is written” introduces an Old Testament passage, Habakkuk 2:4, which supports Paul’s assertion that by means of the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
“It is written” is the 3rd person singular perfect passive indicative form of the verb grapho (gravfw) (graf-o).
Perfect tense of grapho is an “intensive” perfect emphasizing the results or present state produced by a past action.
In Romans 1:17, the “intensive perfect” tense of the verb grapho emphasizes the present permanent and authoritative state of the Old Testament Scriptures that was produced by the past action of the Holy Spirit supernaturally guiding the human authors of the Old Testament in communicating in writing God’s will to man with perfect accuracy.
In Romans 1:2, the apostle Paul describes the Old Testament Scriptures as “holy,” which emphasizes the writings of the Old Testament prophets were divine in quality and character and in origin.
The writings of the Old Testament prophets were “holy” in the sense that the writings of the Old Testament prophets were set apart by God in order to reveal His will, purpose, and plan for mankind and to reveal who and what man is and who and what God is and what He has done for mankind through His Son Jesus Christ.
Thus, it follows that the Old Testament Scriptures are true and unchanging or immutable.
The doctrine of inspiration contends that, God the Holy Spirit so supernaturally directed the human authors of Scripture that without destroying their individuality, their literary style, their personal interests, or their vocabulary, God’s complete and connected thought towards man was recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of Scripture.
Therefore, the Bible in its original languages is the exact record, the mind and will of God and contain the very words of God, and therefore, bear the “authority” of divine authorship.
2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed (theopneustos) and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
2 Peter 1:20-21, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made an act of human will, but men moved (phero) by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”
“But” is the adversative use of the conjunction de (deV), which reflects the use of the conjunction we (w+) (waw) in the disjunctive construction in the Hebrew text of Habakkuk 2:4.
In Habakkuk 2:4, the conjunction we introduces a clause that is in contrast with the previous clause found in the same verse, which states that an arrogant person’s soul is not right with God.
“The righteous” is composed of the nominative masculine singular definite article ho ( (O) and the nominative masculine singular form of the adjective dikaios (divkaio$) (dik-ah-yos).
In Romans 1:17, the adjective dikaios describes the permanent state or condition of the person who exercised faith in the subject of the gospel message which is Jesus Christ resulting in God the Father imputing the righteousness of Christ to them.
Therefore, the adjective dikaios describes the permanent state or condition of the believer who received the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ from God the Father the moment they trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior.
The righteousness of Christ refers to the character of Christ having perfect integrity in the sense that His character is perfectly sound, perfectly adhering to the will of God, which is love, upright, honest, perfectly whole, undiminished, sound, unimpaired and in perfect condition.
The righteousness of Christ refers to the character of Christ having perfect virtue in the sense that His character is perfect moral excellence, goodness, and His conduct is conformed perfectly to the will of God.
Therefore, the adjective dikaios describes the believer as receiving “positionally” the righteousness of Christ.
By “positionally” I mean that God views the believer as possessing the righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ.
“Shall live” is the 3rd person singular future middle indicative form of the verb zao (zavw) (dzah-o), which refers to experiencing eternal life in time by appropriating by faith the teaching of the gospel that the believer has been crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ.
Eternal life is a particular quality of life, namely the very life of God that has no beginning and no end and transcends time, matter and space.
Eternal life is an attribute of all three members of the Trinity: (1) God the Father (Jo. 5:26; 6:57; 1 Th. 1:9). (2) Son of God (Jn. 5:26, 6:35 Phlp. 2:16; 1 Jo. 1:1) (3) Holy Spirit (Jn. 6:63; Rm. 8:2).
Eternal life is the very life of God and has no beginning and no end and is received as gift from God the moment you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior.
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His uniquely born Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
The Lord Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God and therefore He is also the incarnate eternal life of God and to reject that He is God is to reject eternal life.
1 John 5:11-12, “And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.”
1 John 5:20, “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”
The Lord Jesus Christ who is the eternal Word God came into the world in order that He might give eternal life to men so that they could have fellowship with God.
1 John 2:25, “This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.”
The Lord Jesus Christ is eternal life (Jn. 14:6) and His teachings are spirit and are eternal life (Jn. 6:63).
John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
John 11:25, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.’”
John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’”
In His Great High Priestly Prayer recorded in John 17, the Lord states that eternal life is knowing the Father experientially.
John 17:1-3, “Jesus spoke these things (John 13-16); and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know (ginosko, “to know experientially”) You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son experientially in the sense of personally encountering them through the process of fellowship as They are revealed in the pages of Scripture and prayer by God the Holy Spirit.
It also involves being affected by this encounter with the Father and the Son resulting in the gaining of practical spiritual wisdom and more of the character of Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ who is the eternal, incarnate Word of God came into the world in order that He might give eternal life to men and He did this so that men could enjoy and experience fellowship with God.
1 John 1:1-3 teaches that the apostle John and other eyewitnesses observed closely and had physical contact with eternal life as it was manifested by the Lord Jesus Christ during His 1st Advent (cf. Jn. 20:27).
1 John 1:1, “Who has always existed from eternity past, who we have heard, who we have witnessed with our eyes, who we observed, even our hands touched concerning the Word who is the life (of God).”
1 John 1:2, “That is, this One who is the life (of God) was revealed (by the Holy Spirit) and we have witnessed and we testify and we are proclaiming (from God) at this particular time for the benefit of all of you this One who is the eternal life (of God), who indeed by virtue of His divine nature has always existed face to face with the Father and was revealed (by the Holy Spirit) for the benefit of all of us.”
1 John 1:3, “Who, we have witnessed and we have heard, we also are proclaiming (from God) at this particular time for the benefit of all of you in order that all of you without exception might also continue to experience fellowship and this fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus who is the Christ.”
In His “bread of life” discourse recorded in John 6:22-69, our Lord taught that the eternal Word of God became a human being in order to give eternal life to those who would believe in Him.
As the believer appropriates the Lord Jesus, the Lord becomes the believer’s life.
He can become life to the believer, because He is the “living bread.”
Colossians 3:3-4, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Eternal life gives the believer the capacity to experience fellowship with God.
Eternal life is received as a gift through faith alone in Christ alone and is appropriated after salvation by the believer who obeys the Spirit of life who reveals the will of the Father through the communication of the Word of life.
The believer experiences eternal life in time and thus experiences fellowship with God in time by obeying the will of the Father of life, which is revealed to the believer by the Spirit of life through the communication of the Word of life.
The believer who is obedient to the Father’s will, which is revealed by the Holy Spirit through the communication of the Word of God will live in eternal life and thus experience fellowship with God.
Romans 1:17, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’”
In Habakkuk 2:4, the statement “the righteous shall live by his faith” is translated by the LXX (Greek translation of Hebrew Bible) and by the New Testament writers without any pronoun (“his”).
The grammatical construction in the Hebrew text of Habakkuk 2:4 links the noun `emunah (hnWma$) (em-oo-naw), “faith” with the verb chayah (hyj*) (khaw-yaw), “shall live” rather than with the noun tsaddiq (qyD!x^) (tsad-deek), “righteous” which emphasizes how to go on with life after salvation and not how to become righteous.
“By faith” is composed of the preposition ek (e)k), “by” and the genitive feminine singular form of the noun pistis (pivsti$), “faith.”
The preposition ek is a marker of means as constituting a source and thus indicates that faith is the means by which the believer experiences eternal life and fellowship with God and constitutes the source from which he experiences eternal life.
The noun pistis, “faith” is used in the active sense and refers to the believer’s faith in the Word of God after salvation, which demonstrates itself in obedience to the Word of God and is reflected in his conduct and Christ-like character.
The noun pistis, “faith” is a “genitive of means” indicating that the believer’s faith in the Word of God after salvation is the means by which he experiences eternal life and fellowship with God.