The Righteousness of Noah

Q: I was reading about Noah (in Genesis 6) the other day, and it says more than once that he was a righteous man. Dictionary.com describes righteousness as `morally upright; without guilt or sin`. How would Noah have known what was moral and upright in a society that was so corrupt? (Genesis 6:11-12)

A: We presently live in an age where homosexuality is seen as natural and acceptable behavior, the murder of unborn children is said to be a woman's "right," fornication is expected and taught as being inevitable, drug use is becoming more widespread, suicide bombers murder in the name of their god and Biblical values are being undermined daily. It could easily be said that our society is corrupt. Yet, in the midst of it all, you have Christians that God sees as righteous because of our faith in Jesus Christ. This is not much different than it was in the time of Noah. Noah was a direct descendant of Adam. Therefore, it is not much of a stretch to think that Noah was steeped in the godly traditions of his ancestors. When Noah was born, Lamech, his father said of him, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed (Genesis 5:29)." This is evidence that God's curse on the ground (Genesis 3:17) was still common knowledge at the time of Noah's birth. It was this knowledge of God, and His righteous decrees, that most likely was a foundation used by Lamech when raising Noah.

I believe it is safe to say that despite how corrupt the world was during Noah's lifetime, his knowledge of, and adherence to, those godly foundations set him apart from the world around him. This is why scripture says that "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God (Genesis 6:9)." Like Christians today, who walk with God, Noah represented a remnant of godly individuals who are saved. It is my understanding that Noah's name means "rest." The remnant in this case, Noah and his family, were spared God's judgement of mankind by finding rest in the Ark Noah built that would carry them through the destruction of the Flood. The Ark that saved them was a picture of Jesus Christ. Christ, in effect, is the Ark that saves us from the coming destruction and delivers us safely into God's presence in Heaven. God sees the imputed righteousness of Christ on every believer and gives us rest in the midst of the corruption that surrounds us. Because of our faith, God will keep us "strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:8)."

There is another important reason that Noah found favor in the eyes of God. Just after the Fall, God told the serpent that He would "put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers (Genesis 3:15)." The offspring of Eve mentioned here is God's way of alluding to the future birth of Jesus Christ. Now, if Noah had been deemed by God to be as wicked and violent as the rest of mankind then Noah's subsequent death in the Flood would have snapped the prophetic link from Adam to Jesus. Therefore, there would be a huge discrepancy in the Messianic prophecies about Jesus and the need for Him to come. The reason God judged mankind with the Flood was because of the way in which sin had manifested itself. It is not beyond reason to assume that if God had wiped Noah and his family out along with the rest of the world that the need for man to be redeemed from his sin would have been wiped out as well. There is no need to redeem mankind when there is no mankind left in need of redemption.

"For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many (Romans 5:15)!" Sin and death entered this world through Adam. Forgiveness and life are found only in Jesus Christ, the last Adam. All mankind is born into this world dead in sin and in need of forgiveness and the life of God found only in Christ. Believers owe Noah a debt of gratitude for him being found righteous in God's sight. For if he had not been found righteous, not only would we not have had the opportunity to come to Christ by faith for salvation, we most likely would had never been born at all. Yes, Noah kept alive the curse of sin that we have all inherited, but more importantly, he kept alive the hope of redemption we have in Jesus Christ. Because of our faith in Christ, like Noah, we are righteous in the eyes of God, without guilt or sin, and are safe from the coming storm.