My reflection text for this editorial is the seemingly paradoxical Habakkuk 1:5-6a (all references NLT), “Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it. I am raising up the Babylonians…”
The mighty to save?
Similar to what I noted in my editorial last month, the raising up of Babylon seems like a paradox because the prophet was appealing to God on behalf of his people, appealing for salvation and it was not coming. They were God’s people and God seemed deaf. Habakkuk’s nation, Israel, was imploding—evil deeds, misery, destruction, violence, arguments, fighting, lawlessness, injustice, wickedness, perversions (Habakkuk 1:2-4). It was outright moral decay—at least compared to God’s right ways.
The people themselves probably didn’t consider their actions to be so deviant. They had become accustomed to these things as norms for their society. Their criterion for morality had become aligned to something else. Something much more self-serving. The influence of Sin always leads in this direction.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
What was God’s response? To take up Babylon as the chosen tool for transformation. If Israel’s morality had shifted out of alignment with God’s good ways, they would suffer from the tyranny of a people who had taken such a morality to its extreme. Not that God was in any way affirming or endorsing Babylon as a moral exemplar.
No, this was a case of “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7), always with the intent of bringing God’s beloved to repentance. Greeks understood this as "metanoia", a transformation of mind. In New Testament usage, a turning back towards a commitment to God’s righteousness.
As Paul notes in Romans 12:2, our change of being ("metamorphosis") starts with a change or renovation of our mind ("nous", the root of "noia"). Such a change isn’t solely as spiritual as you might think. In the context of the chapter (and book), our transformation is catalyzed by our interrelationships with one another in Christ. The process is communal but enabled of course by the Holy Spirit now at work within those who follow Christ.
That is why it is non-conformant to the ways of this world. People in the world do not naturally submit to one another, especially if they are different. We do not tend to allow ourselves to be shaped by outsiders, as some in the body of Christ may naturally be to us. This kind of mutuality is not valued or well understood by people in the world. If they do aspire to it (e.g. utopians), they cannot achieve it for long. The world, left to itself, is Habakkuk’s Israel at best, Babylon at worst.
Habakkuk, a sentinel, stood guard at his watchtower to await further information from the Lord (Habakkuk 2:1). But the Lord did not elaborate on the impact of Babylon unleashed. The prophet, however, correctly surmised that the Lord’s plan was to bring Israel to repentance.
A warning to heed
All empires share voraciously exploitative characteristics in the pursuit of their idea of a common good.
The unconfirmed assumption was that Babylon would be punished for its brutal and idolatrous exploitation. While literal in Habakkuk 1 (Nebuchadnezzar’s devastating invasion was not far off), Babylon in biblical apocalyptic literature is always synonymous with empire, regardless of the empire’s origin or name. All empires share voraciously exploitative characteristics in the pursuit of their idea of a common good.
While Habakkuk received no further word about the imminent invasion, he did receive a glimpse of what we might today call the apocalypse. Slow in coming it may be, but it will not be delayed, says the Lord (Habakkuk 2:3). It will be fulfilled as sure as the gospel of God’s Kingdom will be preached everywhere so that all nations will hear it (Matthew 24:14). The end is nigh!
A foretelling of the rise of colonial capitalism… and its forthcoming demise.
Habakkuk 2:4-20 might as well be a foretelling of the rise of colonial capitalism… and its forthcoming demise. For all the benefits globalized industrialization has provided us with, there is a horrific cost.
Most of us fail to comprehend the full extent of the dark side because it is eclipsed by the narrative of good presented with the blinding light of a tactical nuke. To fill out the metaphor, we only need to wait for the invigorating blast to wash over us before we’ll see the devastation left in its wake. Don’t be fooled. None of us is innocent of this. We are all complicit. The prophecy calls us to repent.
The proud, the self-reliant, the wealthy, the arrogant, the greedy, the consumers, the powerful, the extortionists, the colonizers, the lenders, the murders; the property owners, the dishonest, the swindlers, the investors, the tax avoiders, the civilization builders, the corrupt; the workaholics, the alcoholic and addict creators; the creation rapers, the animal takers, the violence makers; the clever inventors, the false-hope crafters, the false-god mongers, the false-promise givers, are all tried, judged, and convicted.
As if you don’t get enough doom scrolling content on social media! It kind of makes my point though. While Habakkuk’s word from the Lord was “for a future time… describing the end” (Habakkuk 2:3a), it sounds awfully familiar.
Our faith rightly aligned
But in the midst, punctuating the doom, God says, “The righteous will live by their faithfulness to God” or, in the KJV, "the just shall live by his faith" (Habakkuk 2:4), “For as the waters fill the sea, the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory of the LORD.” (Habakkuk 2:14), and “But the Lord is in his Holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.” (Habakkuk 2:20).
We are not told how long a stunned Habakkuk stood in his tower, mouth agape, as he silently considered God’s condemnation of exploitative self-reliance. But we do know that Habakkuk’s eventual reaction was to sing of the awesomeness of God, the brightness of God’s glory, and the fact that God’s wrath is a renewing power that will sweep over the earth and the heavens as New Creation is brought forth—a song of salvation.
Peace will not finally come to this rent-relationship world because of some human concept of good.
Sometimes you need a big dose of apocalyptic prophecy to jolt you back into reality. Not your preferred socio-political reality, but God’s reality. Peace will not finally come to this rent-relationship world because of some human concept of good.
Any good we can imagine will inevitably fall into any number of the wicked ways listed above. The imposition of what humans think is good is the very essence of Sin—self-determined judgement of what is good (and, by contrast, evil), which I call a "will to knowledge" (Genesis 3:5).
Whether politically right or left, liberal or conservative, capitalist or socialist, secular or religious, individualist or collectivist, colonising industrialist or indigenous, inclusive or exclusionary, open or ordered, every one of our ideologies vying for dominance in our global reality is a human’s idea of good. And what did Jesus say in response to being called “good”? “Only God is good” (Mark 10:18). Keeping in step with God’s Spirit is the only way to stay on the path to New Creation, and it’s a mighty narrow way to walk.
The broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13) is a two-way freeway where the flow flips from one side to the other as the pendulum of popular opinion demands something the majority feel they are missing out on. In 1906, writer Alfred Henry Lewis popularised the idea that “There are only nine meals between (human)kind and anarchy”.
It’s looking mighty likely that we are heading for a significant period of disruption.
With the rapidly increasing gap between the uber-wealthy haves and the struggling have-nots, and the diminishing middle feeling increasingly disempowered, it’s looking mighty likely that we are heading for a significant period of disruption in the West and an eruption of power-grabbing elsewhere. If not the actual fulfillment of the Lord’s second word to Habakkuk (which I do not for a minute believe is out of the question).
Anyone who is aware of what is going on in the wider world will realize that there are plenty of nations where food insecurity might mean three or more days without a meal (nine meals). In most cases they do not live in a state of anarchy. They do not have the luxury of such a response. Most of them live under varying degrees of tight control, if not tyranny. Rather than rise up and create change, the best they can hope for is a more benevolent dictator.
The poor do not have the agency to build a better world for themselves, and many citizens of nations that have been relatively stable for some time are feeling the same way. That is one reason why an increasing number of global commentators are predicting more and more hard-line nationalists will find their way to power.
People actually do want another hero—a savior who will fight for them and provide what they want. Sadly, rarely does it turn out that way. People in power are usually puppets for the exploiters. When asked about political uprisings around the turn of last century, Alfred Henry Lewis attributed them to "The wolf in the man. A man is selfish. Also he is destructive as a matter of instinct".
Our sure and certain hope
Habakkuk found joy in the God of his salvation.
Yet, in the midst of a vision of horrific devastation, Habakkuk found joy in the God of his salvation (Habakkuk 3:18)—in that joy was strength and surefootedness. Both are needed to walk the narrow way of Jesus our Christ, the only one anointed to rule righteously and maintain justice with loving mercy. He is the original Creator and Lord of the New Creation, otherwise known as when the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord (Habakkuk 2:14).
According to Habakkuk 2:4-20, the end may well begin with a great Babylon rising up in violence to sweep across the earth with destructive power and greed (has that not already happened with capitalist consumerism?) but, according to the prophet, it will be destroyed from the inside. The exploited will turn on the empire builders, including creation, represented by the stone walls and ceiling beams, the very building materials exploited from the land to make their homes and cities. In short, a revolution is predicted.
As with all apocalyptic predictions, the power behind this final revolt is unclear, but it will be the Lord’s doing. This is no popular uprising—too many are complicit in perpetuating the systems of unrighteousness. Everything that the people have placed their hope in will be turned to ashes (Habakkuk 2:13) like Sodom and Gomorrah, and the exploited will look on at their exploiters’ downfall with mocking jeers, leaving those who remain “trembling and helpless” (Habakkuk 2:7).
Echoing back from 700 years into the future, perhaps Habakkuk could hear Mary, pregnant with Jesus, singing with him in harmony,
“His mighty arm has done tremendous things!
He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.
He has brought down princes from their thrones
and exalted the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away with empty hands.
He has helped his servant Israel
and remembered to be merciful.
For he made this promise to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children forever.” (Luke 1:51-55 NLT)
While Habakkuk refrains with, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord” (Habakkuk 3:18)
Rejoice! Our Savior has come and is coming again. A blessed Christmas to you all.
Dr Jay Mātenga is a contexual theologian of Māori heritage. He serves as the Executive Director of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Mission Commission and Opinion Editor for Christian Daily International. Jay has served cross-cultural missions for over 30 years, with missionary deploying agencies and missions alliances. Jay's passion is to strengthen participation by the people of God in the purposes of God towards co-creating new creation for the glory of God. Jay keeps a monthly blog and other contributions archived at https://jaymatenga.com.
