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We remember that in the thirteenth of Acts there has been recorded an outline of the
address that Paul gave at Antioch, and how that Gospel was summed up in the wondrous
words:
"Through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that
believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of
Moses" (Acts 13: 38, 39)
The heart and soul of Paul's Gospel is here revealed, it is the blessed and liberating
doctrine of "Justification by Faith". The moment we reach this truth, we are conscious
that we have reached the basic doctrine of the epistle to the Galatians, and turn to the
third chapter to find its key text:
"The just shall live by faith" (Gal. 3: 11).
When we turn to the epistle to the Romans, the atmosphere of conflict, of eager
zealous championship gives place to one of quieter and calmer reasoning and
demonstration, yet we have but to read the first half of the first chapter to realize that "the
gospel" is once more the theme (Rom. 1: 1, 9, 16) and that the heart of this gospel is still
found in the words quoted once more in Rom. 1: 17, "The just shall live by faith".
Justification underlies the whole doctrinal fabric of Romans, dikaios "just", occurs
seven times; dikaiosune "righteousness", 36 times; dikaioo "justify", 15 times and
dikaioma "righteousness", 5 times, or 63 occurrences in the one epistle of these various
aspects of righteousness.
Already while we have been recording these facts, the epistle to the Hebrews have
been passing before the mind. This epistle is so different from either Galatians or
Romans, that at first sight it does not seem very likely that any real connection will be
discovered, until we remember that in Heb. 10: we meet for the third and last time the
text "The just shall live by faith" (verse 38).
This quotation from the prophet Habakkuk is found nowhere else in the New
Testament and therefore its presence in these three great epistles cannot be lightly set
aside. Having seen that these three epistles are therefore linked together by this common
text we must endeavour to discover how it is that three epistles with so much individual
and distinctive teaching come to have this common basis.
We return to the chapter in Galatians where the text is found, and learn from its
context that the apostle used the text from Habakkuk to insist upon "faith" as distinct
from "works of law".
"But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident; for, The just
shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in
them" (3: 11, 12).
"The hearing of faith" over against the "works of the law" (3: 2, 5), Abraham's
"belief" and "faith" being the characteristics of his children (3: 6, 7, 9) and the