Romans 1:17 ...the righteous will live by faith. What does it mean?
Without prejudice from the context, Paul compared the situation of the believers in Rome to that of the believers in Habakkuk's time. i.e. both of them lived in a depraved society and longed for God's intervention but He seemed to be slow to act. The righteous will live by faith was God's answer to Habakkuk.
Here's an extract from
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/03/habakkuk-24.htmlA 1st cent. ce exegete, Paul of Tarsus, did likewise (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11). Not that his take on the text decides the sense of the original. On the other hand, it is not unusual for ancient authors to understand a traditional text in conformity with its plain sense.
However one interprets the particulars of 2:4b, the gist, as we shall see, remains the same: the upright person, in the face of injustice and calamity, will live out his life on the basis of trust in the trustworthiness of the vision vouchsafed to the prophet, namely, that an end to the calamitous situation will come, and not delay.
The grammar and referentiality of 2:4b can be understood in any of the following ways:
(1) The upright one will live (in the midst of the current crisis) on the basis of his ‘trustingness,’ his faith-in / faithfulness-to (the vision and the counsel of the giver of the vision)
(2) The upright one will live (in the midst of the current crisis) on the basis of its (the vision’s) truthfulness.
(3) The upright one will live (in the midst of the current crisis) on the basis of *my* (God’s) faithfulness (so LXX originally, per S, B, Q, V, and Wa).
(4) The upright one will live (in the midst of the current crisis) on the basis of ‘faith in it’ (the vision).
