The Mystery of God's Justice | Habakkuk 1:5-11

February 2nd, 2025

In these verses God begins to unfold a mystery, a truth beyond immediate comprehension, regarding His future discipline of His people, Israel. Surely, God works in ways that are a mystery to us. Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us that the secret things belong to the Lord. Romans 11:33 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” In Job 11:7 Zophar asks, “Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?” Then in verse 9 he states, “Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.” The Israelites certainly didn’t understand why God would order them to march around Jericho for seven days but, when the walls fell, then they saw the results of this strategy. 

We might wonder why God would have Paul and Silas beaten and thrown into prison when they were not guilty of a crime, or why Joni Erickson Tada would be paralyzed from her shoulders down when, as a seventeen-year-old, she dove into the Chesapeake Bay. In the first case, God had a Philippian jailer He planned to save, and the second, a woman who has impacted the lives of millions of people. We might wonder why God would allow any young person to suffer a terrible illness and die. God’s ways are often a complete mystery to us.

God knows that His ways are mysterious, and He wants us to trust Him. Colossians 1:26 says that the mystery was hidden for ages and generations but has now been revealed to the saints. This mystery is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) Also, Colossians 2:2-3 says that the mystery is Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Paul writes in Romans 16:25-26 that the mystery “was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings and has been made known to all nations.” The mystery of God is Christ Jesus. We see the mystery of Christ first revealed in Genesis 3:15 when God promised a redeemer to crush Satan. 

The grand mystery is that Christ fully satisfied God’s justice. First Timothy 3:16 reveals the mystery of godliness: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” The mystery of godliness refers to the ability of someone to be saved: confession and repentance of sin, faith in Jesus who was vindicated by the Spirit, meaning that He lived a perfect, sinless life.  Through His incarnation, His perfect life, His sacrifice, and His being taken up in glory, He fully satisfied what God determined was just.

The redeemed can agree that Christ fully satisfied God’s justice, but it is sometimes difficult for us to comprehend God’s justice as life carries on. The tension we face is that it appears that God is not working because evil just seems to be going on as usual. Habakkuk struggled with the same tension: if God is just, why does evil seem to thrive? If He is sovereign, why does He allow the wicked to prosper? Habakkuk gave voice to the tension in his heart in his lament discussed in verses 2-4 of this chapter. In today’s passage, God responds to Habakkuk’s lament. God begins to open the curtain on just who He is and what He is doing.

God starts by telling Habakkuk to look and observe and be astonished and wonder at His justice. God’s justice is a mystery that calls us to trust Him. God wanted Habakkuk to marvel at His justice. God’s justice is sometimes unseen, His methods are unbelievable, and His plans are unstoppable. Our struggle is with the method God uses to unfold His justice, a method that defies human expectation and logic. Rather than immediate retribution or visible intervention, He orchestrates His purposes in a very detailed manner through unexpected means and unlikely instruments. God’s justice is sovereignly precise and is not hindered by any human power.

The verses considered today serve as a theological framework for understanding God’s justice. These verses contain a warning and some encouragement. The warning is that God’s justice will challenge us. God’s justice is a manifestation of who He is. A. W. Tozer said, “Justice, when used by God, is the name we give to the way God is, nothing more. And when God acts justly, He is not doing so to conform to an independent criterion, but simply acting like Himself in a given situation. God is His own self-existent principle of moral equity, and when He sentences evil men or rewards the righteous, He is simply acts like Himself from within, uninfluenced by anything that is not Himself.” That is who God is; that is what justice is.

The encouragement is for us to be a student before we think to be a counselor. Listen to what God is saying. Open your heart and mind to God’s words. God was telling Habakkuk to pause and listen to what He is saying and be astounded, then get engaged. God’s call to us is the same, to marvel at the mystery of His justice, then stand in awe of the wonderful counselor; then He says trust in Me. As we trust in Him, we will see that His ways are unseen, unbelievable, and absolutely unstoppable. 

I. Unseen (v. 5)

• A Wonder to Perceive

God’s justice is often not seen. The oracle that Habakkuk beheld was a revelation of the hidden work of God and a revelation of the justice of God. By God’s grace, He begins to pull back the curtain to give Habakkuk a glimpse of His mind and character. The first thing we understand regarding God’s unseen character, being His justice and the mysterious nature of His justice, is that it is a wonder to perceive. Habakkuk helps us understand God’s response through the medium of poetry, employing parallelism. 

• A Wonder at Work

In the first part of verse 5 we find four imperatives: look among the nations, see, wonder, be astounded. These imperatives are given in groups of two. There is an action and then that action is amplified. Here God wants us to wonder at His justice, to see, to wake up, to open your eyes and see what is happening. God wants us to take our eyes off our surroundings and draw our eyes up to Him. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray to our Father who is in heaven. James 1:2 tells us to count our trials as joy, but the only way we can do this is to look above our circumstances and look to God, the source of joy. In Isaiah 40:26 we are told to lift our eyes and see the stars that God has made and named. Isaiah is saying perceive God’s handiwork in creation and recognize that God’s work leads us to trust in Him. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the sin of those who trust in Him.

II. Unbelievable (vv. 6-10)

God told Habakkuk to take his eyes off idolatrous Israel and look at the nations around him, those wicked, violent people. Habakkuk was lamenting over the sin of Israel, but God wants him to focus on the pagan enemies around him. God is telling Habakkuk that He is sovereign over all nations; He is not a national Deity, He governs the whole earth. God calls Habakkuk to gaze on the horizon and see that a storm is coming directly at him. God told Habakkuk to ponder and learn from what he sees, to meditate on what he sees, then he can respond appropriately.

• The Agent of God’s Justice

God then tells Habakkuk to be astounded by what he sees, for God want Habakkuk’s reaction to be that of bewilderment. God was also saying that the entire world will be shocked when He uses the Chaldeans to discipline Israel. God’s justice often defies human logic and contradicts any expectation that we might have. Jeremian 18:16-17, referring to the punishment for Israel’s sin says that God will make “their land a horror, a thing to be hissed at forever.  Everyone who passes by it is horrified and shakes his head.” People will be astonished that God would discipline His people in this manner.

Isaiah 29:9 says, “Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!” God is telling Israel to trust in Him, not in Egypt. The people walk around in a stupor, totally confused because God’s justice defies logic and understanding. God is telling the universe to look at Him, for His character and justice are being revealed. He wants everyone to be astonished by what He is doing, to allow the astonishment to linger in their minds, leaving us in a state of awe of Him. God’s justice and character are always good but not always clear. Job said to his friends, “Look at me and be appalled, and put your hand over your mouth.” (Job 21:5) Job wanted his friends to see him in the state he was in and be bewildered; let it linger in your mind, stop giving me advice, and wonder at what God is doing through me.   

Concerning Christ, Psalm 118:22-23 says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” We stand in awe of God’s plan that resulted in Israel rejecting their Messiah – it defies logic. God’s work is unexpected; it is wonderous, and it is good, and that is what makes Him God. Paul, speaking of the wondrous work of salvation, quotes Habakkuk 1:5 in Acts 13:41. As Paul and Barnabas traveled on his first missionary journey, they spoke to the Jews in the synagogues, walking them through the redemptive history from Abraham to David, leading them to the fulfillment of the promises in Christ Jesus. Paul proclaimed the death and resurrection of Christ as a fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophesies. Then he quotes this verse and says, Look, you scoffers, be amazed and perish (be judged). Paul tells the Jews that God is doing a work that they will not believe. This is the gospel that God has been working out in their history. 

The wonder of God’s working can also cause us to believe. After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples who still doubted even though He stood in their presence and showed them His wounds. Luke 24:41-43 tells us that “while they were still not believing because of their joy they were still marveling”. Jesus asked for something to eat. They gave Him boiled fish and He ate it before them. This entire scenario made no sense to them, they were bewildered because it defied logic and their understanding of the world. They were not supposed to understand this because it was God working.

God’s ways often astound us before they bring us comfort. It is in the awe and wonder that deepens our trust and strengthens our faith. One when Jesus and His disciples were crossing the lake, a storm suddenly arose while Jesus was asleep. His disciple were terrified, but when Jesus commanded the wind and waves to be still, His disciples were astonished and asked among themselves, Who is this that commands the weather! Their fear and doubt ultimately caused them to marvel at this miracle and it led to deeper faith. (Luke 8:22ff) God told Habakkuk to look among the nations, to observe, to be astonished and wonder. God wanted Habakkuk to witness something that is unexpected. God’s justice is not only a wonder to be perceived but it is also a wonder at work. Even when justice seems absent, God is working in a way that we don’t perceive. This parallels John 15, where Jesus said that both He and the Father are working. God’s work is ongoing.

God’s justice is always at work, and God tells Habakkuk that, in his day, not far into the future, he will see the hand of God’s justice at work. A promise that Habakkuk and we must cling to is Lamentations 3:22-23 which speaks of God’s mercies being new every morning. When life’s circumstances seem overwhelming, we need to remind ourselves that God’s mercies are renewed every morning, for great is God’s faithfulness. Mercy is a tempering of God’s justice. If God’s mercies are renewed every morning, then God’s justice is at work all the time.

Most of the time, God’s justice is beyond human comprehension. Even if God were to describe His plan in great detail, we still wouldn’t understand it. Isaiah 55:8 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.” Justice is a part of God’s character; it is woven into His divine purposes. God says to Habakkuk, I understand your lament, but you don’t understand My character or the nature of My justice. God’s justice brings to mind an underground river; it is flowing all the time and imperceptible to those above ground, yet it is preparing to emerge at just the right time. This is often the way of God’s justice. Isaiah 43:19 says, “Behold, I will do something new; now it will spring forth; will you not know it?” God tells Habakkuk that the water is about to breach the surface, and it will be in a way that he doesn’t expect. God begins to pull back the curtain and reveal the mystery of His character.

We need to understand that God’s justice has always been flowing beneath the surface of universal history. This is what He told Habakkuk. He told Habakkuk to look at the nations and believe that what is happening is not random, He is sovereignly doing something with each of them. He is shaping events, nourishing His purposes, bringing the righteous up to the surface and, at the prefect time, you are going to see who God is. That perfect time was the person and work of Jesus Christ. The greatest mystery of God’s justice is not in how He dealt with the nations, but in the cross of Jesus Christ. God’s justice is not so much about judgment; it is more about salvation, mercy, and hope. This is why Paul quotes Habakkuk 1:5 in Acts 13:41, "Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.” He was telling them that now is the day of salvation; now you should believe.

God was telling Habakkuk, now that all has been laid before you, look among the nations, observe, be astonished, and wonder, and place your faith in Me. This what God is calling us to do. Do you trust in God’s character and justice, even the mysterious justice, even when it is delayed? Do you marvel in God’s justice, especially when it is revealed in Christ Jesus? Do you trust in Christ for your salvation? If not, remember today is the day of salvation, tomorrow may be too late.

Nations rise and fall but Christ reigns forever. We, as a church, are to worship Him; we are to look, to observe, to be astonished and astounded, not only at God’s justice in history, but His justice at the cross. As we wonder at God’s justice, may that lead to faith and obedience and hope in the coming Kingdom. God first gave Habakkuk a theological understanding of His justice, then He will give him a very practical understanding of His justice.

Selah:

1. How have you been wronged and feel that God is ignoring your injustice?

2. Was there a time when you felt that God’s justice was never going to be revealed but later saw that He was working out His justice? If so, describe the situation.

3. Explain how God’s justice was fully satisfied at the cross.