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Verse 11

Now that no man is justified by the Law before God, is evident: for, The righteous shall live by faith; and the Law is not of faith; but, He that doeth them shall live in them.

No man is justified by the Law ... The reason this is true is cited in Galatians 3:10. There was another important indication of the same truth, which Paul then quoted from Habakkuk 2:4, "The righteous shall live by faith"; thus the prophets had borne testimony to the fact that the purpose of God, even in the Old Testament, was looking for an "obedient faith" in his children, and not merely for the legalistic type of rule-keeping which was the essence of the Law. The Law did not even require faith, as seen in the quotation Paul gave here from Leviticus 18:5, the meaning of which may be paraphrased, "No matter about faith; do the Law and live." This was the essence of Judaism. See note 2, at the end of the chapter.

Now regarding the conceit that would make Habakkuk say, "The righteous shall live by FAITH ONLY? such a meaning was never in any Old Testament usage of faith. As we have already observed, trust/faith or faith only simply did not pertain to the word in the Old Testament. Paul was here merely pointing out that, from the beginning, God had been interested in receiving "faithful obedience" from his followers, and not a mere faithless rule-keeping. We might add that the meaning of trust/faith or faith only is also foreign to the meaning of the word in the New Testament, or even in the Greek language, as Professor Howard has so effectively demonstrated.

There was still another sense in which the Law was a curse, and Paul quickly pointed that out.

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