This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 14, 1995.

We are continuing our message from this morning, and as we do, we are looking first of all at Romans 10, beginning at verse 1. Now give your attention to the reading of God’s holy word. This is Romans 10, verse 1. My heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by that righteousness.

But the righteousness based on faith speaks thus. Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we are preaching. That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

For with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon him. For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him whom they have heard not? And how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach unless they are sent?

Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things.” And then returning to Habakkuk, chapter 2, we are reading verses 2 through 4. Then the Lord answered me and said, Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time, it hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it carries, wait for it, for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

Pray with me. Our Father, we thank you for the justifying work which you have accomplished in Christ and you train our souls to rejoice in the means of our justification, namely our faith, lest there be any boast in us, any vain glory in us. So Father, we would take our stand upon the finished work of Christ and see that our faith is directed toward what you have done in him. We ask, Father, that this may be centerpiece for the proclamation of your word throughout the world, and most particularly that your church, the church that has professed these things, would be faithful in the proclaiming of them still. Lord, we ask Where this has been lost from view, it may return, and that your people may be strengthened on every hand. We pray, our God, that it would please you then to grant mercy to us as we look to you and we look to your word. This we ask for the sake of Christ, the living word. Amen.

Now, it may not be our custom to think about the covenant in connection with the prophets of God. To our thinking, the covenant is associated with patriarchal times, covenants made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or it is associated with God’s dealings with Israel through Moses, and even the renewal of the covenant with the people of Israel during Moses’ lifetime.

We may, if we know our Bibles fairly well, think of the covenant also in relationship to the reign of David, for instance. And being Reformed in our convictions, Calvinistic in our orientation, we most definitely see the covenant in the creation. And we see that there in the creation and the creation story and the subsequent accounts that were given in the early chapters of Genesis, the covenant structure, both of works and of grace, set before us there, and we of the habit of mind rehearse these things regularly in our catechism, in our confessions, in our profession of faith. But it is quite possible that even being Reformed and Calvinist Christians, we are unaccustomed to thinking specifically about the covenant when it comes to the prophets of God and their messages. But be assured that the covenant is very much in view. There is, of course, the general sense of things.

The Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, are concerned to present to us God’s covenant of grace. We know that. and that covenant of grace as a single story progressively unveiling, unveiling God’s marvelous love for us, unfolding before our eyes, that story whereby God, through his great love, binds himself to bring his people into an eternal fellowship and communion with himself. This he does This he does apart from any merit on his people’s part, they being wholly undeserving of his favor. But because of his grace to the unworthy, whom he has chosen for himself and saved through the death and resurrection of his son, his only dear son, we stand in vital covenantal communion with Him, the promise of which is our eternal felicity and glory.

So yes, of course, as we have been schooled, the Prophet fits the covenantal framework of God’s self-revelation to us in Scripture. However, we may not be as clear about the fact that the prophets are God’s covenantal prosecutors. Have you thought of them along those lines? That the prophets are God’s covenantal prosecutors.

It is here specifically that we are forced again to recognize the legal, the forensic character of the covenant. The covenant has an essential legal quality. And from Moses’ time, it is clear to us that the covenant is communicated to us in written form, in a written document, which serves as a legal contract. That covenant is inscribed upon tablets. It is written down in the law of the Lord in the Torah, in the Pentateuch of the Old Testament. And the prophets subsequently are called, are assigned a specific task with regard to the covenant in its legal identity and character.

And that is to prosecute the Lord’s case with regard to His covenant. The prophets then served as something of God’s district attorneys in prosecuting his case, even his case against his people, and bringing the covenantal sanctions of his covenant to bear.

But there is amazingly a flip side to this whole matter. of the Prophet’s relationship to the covenant. For not only do the Prophets play the role of the Lord’s prosecuting attorney, but they also play the role of defense attorney, the role of advocate, and are called upon to pronounce the marvels of God’s comfort and forgiveness even to His obstinate people. thus magnifying the Lord’s grace. Yes, the legal aspect is very essential to our understanding of the nature of the covenant. We must not overlook it, but we must not lose sight at the same time of that end to which the covenant presses, namely that deep and abiding communion. intimate communion between God and His own, the covenant defined as that bond that exists between God and His people. The prophets then, serving even as defense attorneys, advocates for an obstinate people, pronouncing upon them and to them the marvels of God’s comfort and forgiveness, thus accepting His grace and bringing before us once more His intention, which is to bring us to Himself, that we might never be lost from His embrace. So profound is this aspect of the Prophet’s ministry in relationship to the covenant.

But oftentimes these prophets are portrayed as embodying the people they represent, taking the people into themselves, as if the people they represent cannot be separated or considered apart from them, the prophets. We hear in this the suggestion of that theme of substitution, covenantal identity and substitution, in which the prophets seem to stand in the place of the people, even standing there to bear their sin, thus in their persons anticipating and proclaiming the coming of that Lamb of God, which will take away the sin of the world. These latter features of God’s covenant dealings through his prophet are seen very clearly, are they not?

In the prophecy of Isaiah, they are echoed in the prophecy of Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah. Read those two prophets in tandem, understand how they force you to this conclusion, how the prophet takes up the people whom he represents in himself and anticipates the Christ in his advocacy. We remember the songs of the servant in Isaiah’s prophecies. We remember also the famous eye passages in Micah, where he seems to take the people to himself and speak for them, even taking to himself their identification in sin, in offense, in judgment, thus anticipating the sufferings of Christ. But now we are a century after Micah’s and Isaiah’s prophecies. Other prophets arrive. They also bind to the covenant and with specific messages about God’s covenant. Do you hear Jeremiah? Do you hear what he has to say about the covenant? How he announces that the days of the old covenant are over, that a new covenant is in view, and that specifically in his thirty-first chapter. Read that chapter. Be energized afresh with respect to the nature of God’s great enterprise, his covenantal enterprise.

That message is somewhat startling for us. or in that message through the prophet Jeremiah, we are being told that there will be no near refurbishing of the old order. The old order has run its course. The old order will not do. God’s new covenant is in view, and this new covenant will mean the inscribing of God’s law, His commandments upon the hearts of His people, so that in the new day God’s people will not be good simply because they do good, because they are commanded to do good and follow, but they will be good and do good because they are good.

Their hearts having been transformed, their hearts having been changed, they having been given new hearts. But it isn’t as if this new covenant that comes inscribed upon hearts in a hidden fashion will be without its own documentation, its own inscribing.

Do you notice what the Lord commands to Habakkuk, a relative contemporary of Jeremiah? He commands Habakkuk to inscribe, to write down the vision that is being given to him, verse 2 of that second chapter. And you will note the way in which it is stated, he is to record the vision and inscribe it on tablets. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds like an inscribing enterprise of earlier days, as if that inscribing enterprise from the Sinai is in view. The act of writing down the vision parallels the acts of God himself and of Moses in inscribing the covenant at Sinai. But Habakkuk is writing afresh. He is documenting afresh. He is inscribing afresh. A new day is in view. It has come.

But particularly in view in this later day inscripturation is the putting into writing of that which reaches out to touch the coming. of the new covenant administration of God. It is presently, in Habakkuk’s day, distant. But the prophet now, in response to the command of God, will reach out from his time, and he will touch that future day. He will touch the future day of the arrival of God’s new covenant for his people.

Now this new covenant that is set before the eyes of Habakkuk and through Habakkuk before the eyes of the people of Israel pertains specifically to the fact that Judah and Jerusalem have come under judgment that the covenant with regard to them runs its course because they have been faithless. The sentence of God’s justice then is read out because these of the covenant, that old administration, have failed miserably under the weight of that covenantal arrangement. Habakkuk is used as witness to this very thing. If there is any question about it, the Lord can ask him to take his place in the dark, and the Lord can then be the interrogator and extract from the prophet his testimony concerning the faithlessness of Judah and Jerusalem, as much as the prophet may be surprised about the end to which that brings.

Remember what the Prophet said in the opening complaint to the Lord, verses two through four of the first chapter? He says in that fourth verse, the law is ignored and justice goes begging. Habakkuk himself has said it. But you know that this verse can just as well be read, the covenant is ignored. And justice goes begging. The old covenant, the old order has fallen to the ground. Reform, revival, none of this will do any good. The only thing that will do any good is something new, regeneration, life from the dead and for the dead.

The newness of this new covenant is even hinted at by the Lord as He speaks to Habakkuk in the verses that we read this evening. Notice the very general, even universal, reference in verse 4. As for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith. Now, admittedly, the Jews of Habakkuk’s day were all too ready to read this verse through their Jewish spectacles. The first part of that verse, the part about the proud one, the part about that one whose heart is not right within him, was understood by the Jews to pertain specifically to the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, who were going to be invading the land of Judah and overrunning the city of Jerusalem. Not that the opening of that fourth verse doesn’t have application to certain select, vain, and haughty Jews. But this first part of the verse, verse four, would be understood by the Jews to relate specifically to their enemies, in this case to the Babylonians and those like Babylonians, including Jews among their own number, who were barbarous. and Babylonian in their attitudes and in their actions.

When we come to the latter part of this fourth verse, the part about the righteous living by his faith, when we come to this part, however, the Jew of Habakkuk’s day was all too ready to read this part of the verse as an exclusive Jewish domain. Who but the Jew could be just or righteous? Who but the Jew could have the kind of faith in view? Who but the Jew could live?

But you note now how the newness of the covenant is anticipated in what the Lord says to Habakkuk here, in that this verse has a general reference, it has a universal reference. The latter part of the verse is no more restricted than the first part. The tone and the intent are general and universal. The verse applies the universal character of the New Covenant. All Gentile and Jew alike are condemned for their pride.” Who is exempt? Even Habakkuk himself is condemned for his pride. And in this sermon from the Lord, the prophet is being addressed. Of course, there is another feature to this passage.

In the context of God’s dealings with Habakkuk personally, it broadcasts the new covenant. Namely, the change in the man himself. change that communicates the transition of the ages in God’s program of salvation. The movement from the old as seen in the earlier Habakkuk of chapter 1 to the new as seen in the later Habakkuk in chapter 3. But that’s a subject for another time.

Tonight we want to close by making a claim But while the new comes, and there is this principle of discontinuity at work, at the same time, the covenant that comes in its newness bears the imprint and even the forms of the old. So there remains a continuity for God’s dealings. We have already pointed out that the new is written down just like the old. That’s one point of continuity.

But like the old, the new carries with it the curse. You remember the curses. The curses from the Pentateuch, the curses from Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. It is not just the old that carries the curse, the new also carries its own curse. and in that it is like the old. And here in this fourth verse of the second chapter, that curse is summed up in what God has to say about the proud. You take the most heinous and you deal with all others beneath it. You take the most serious and all the lesser sins are included within it. The old curse finds its parallel in the new that is directed now against the proud at the opening of verse four. The point is, the proud are not right. The proud are not righteous. The proud do not stand. God is opposed to the proud. He gives grace to the humble.

But also, like the Old, the New carries with it its own blessing. Do you remember the blessings of the Old, enumerated for you on a number of occasions? You can think of them listed for you throughout the Book of Deuteronomy. But here in verse 4, a blessing also belongs to the administration of the New and that, magnified, immeasurably. As that blessing belongs to those who live by faith, live by their faith. We can go further.

Like the Old, the New does not ignore the formality of public ratification of covenants. You remember the public ratification ceremonies of the Old Covenant. In the Old, God bound himself to his people, and that by way of public oath. He swore himself to his people, taking oath upon himself that he would be destroyed if he failed to keep the terms of the covenant.

In Habakkuk 2, four of the people bind themselves by their faith. They bind themselves by their faith, and that parallel you see to the binding enterprise that was corollary to God’s binding of himself in that old administration. The word used here in the Hebrew for the faith of those who are justified is that which is derived from the root from which we get the word, Amen. But the righteous shall live by their Amen, by their public ratification of this new covenant, its terms, and their relationship to it. Their amen with respect to God’s workings and dealings. In other words, the people in their faith are here envisioned as pronouncing their amen upon the vision that comes from God through the prophet Habakkuk, which he has been commanded to inspire. And they have pledged themselves to live faithfully and steadfastly in terms of the promises communicated in that vision, the realities that are seen at the root of that vision, the actions of God on behalf of His own.

The verbal form of this word for faith in Habakkuk 2.4 is used elsewhere in Scripture, interestingly, in Genesis 15, verse 6, and Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. He believed, that is, he spoke his amen, he ratified with his own life his relationship to the God who had made promise to him. Do we envision, then, our faith as a private matter? our relationship with our God by some sort of private seance with God, some private ceremony by which we satisfy ourselves that we belong to Him and He belongs to us.

Not so! Not in the Old Testament, not in the New Testament. In view is a public gratification on your part. Why do we demand that you stand in front of this congregation and you profess your faith? that you declare your faith before these people and before the Lord, a public exercise. Is that something we’ve just made up? Is it something we invented to keep you all under control, so that it would be apparent to us at the very outset that you’re going to do everything we tell you? Not at all. It’s part and parcel of the covenantal character of your religion, of the faith that you confess.

Now do you think I’m off the wall? I want you to turn to a New Testament passage. I want you to look again at Romans chapter 10 verse 9. And I want to challenge you and ask you, is a public ceremony of confession in view in that text? I think that you will conclude with me But the answer to that question is yes. There is a public act by which you seal your faith in covenantal bond to your God. How do I know that? Because it is a confession made with the mouth. That’s what Paul says. If you confess with your mouth.

So are you talking to yourself in your bedroom at night? Are you having a private conversation with yourself? It’s public because others are supposed to hear it. You are foreswearing yourself before God and before others. That’s why it has to be by the mouth.

Romans 10.9 is built upon Habakkuk 2.4. And it is built upon Genesis 15, verse 6. It has in view your proclamation of an amen to what God has done on your behalf. It is your part of the covenantal ratification ceremony.

But how has God foresworn himself in the new administration? What has he said? What has he said publicly? What he said publicly was on a cross outside the city walls of Jerusalem. The Lord said his amen in the cross, and then in the tomb in the garden as he raised his son from the dead. There’s the Lord’s public ratification of his covenantal intention.

And now, you see, you are called to ratify your relationship to him with your Amen, that Jesus is Lord, and that God has raised him from the dead. You are a people of the covenant. Do you understand that you, being justified by faith, have in view the fact that you have foresworn yourself with your amen to all that God has done? And no amount of pride is to keep you from living in keeping with that profession and that solemn. Amen. What about your amen? What about your lives lived in light of the amen that you have spoken? The righteous will live by their amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, may we see the glories of your word, the scope and the depth of your word. May we drink deeply of the fountain that you give us and the bread you provide us. May we eat well of that. And Lord, may this be for the nourishment of our souls that we would be assured that our Amen does in fact register within the framework of the covenant. Our Amen of faith to what you have done. and that in response to your amen, when delivering up your son for us, that he might bear the weight of our offenses and take our sins away, and then be raised from the dead on the third day, that we might live in righteousness.

O bless us, Lord, even in our weakness. May we not be numbered among the proud, even as we are delivered from pride itself through the One who is meek and humble, Jesus Christ Himself. And by Him and in Him may we be presented before You, He the very foundation of our claim to You. To this, then, Lord, we say Amen, for Jesus’ sake.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.