Year 1, Week 1, Day 3

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Genesis 6-7.

Today’s reading concerns Noah and the situation leading up to God sparing Noah and his immediate family. I was struck by what today’s reading shows about God’s actions of judgment but also grace. As things continue unraveling spiritually and morally, God reveals His assessment of the human condition: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” (Genesis 6:5-6). God has had enough; His grief gives rise to judgment—universal judgment. Whoever the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men” were, and whatever they were up to, simply illustrated the depth of human wickedness. It was the last straw; human evil could not be allowed unanswered any further: “So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:7).

But today’s reading not only displays God’s judgment, it also displays His grace: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis 6:8). Understanding the significance of this statement concerning God’s actions toward Noah is extremely vital in our awareness of how salvation operates. Was Noah an exception to the condition of human evil? Did the assessment, “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” apply to everyone but Noah? The universal condition of human unrighteousness is without exception: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12).

Then how Noah “found favor in the eyes of the LORD,” is vital to grasp in understanding how salvation works. To speak of Noah finding favor is not to suggest that Noah earned favor. Noah did not intrinsically possess righteousness before God. Thus, Noah did not earn God’s favor; Noah was shown God’s favor. Favor connotes grace, that is, an action that is unearned and undeserved. When God shows favor, it is not because He has peered into the human heart and found a righteousness that He approves of. When God shows favor, He creates and/or declares a righteousness and did not previously exist-where it was not found beforehand. The foundation of God’s rescuing, saving, redeeming work of sinners is His own grace. Grace initiates; it is not merely reactive.

So when we read of Noah finding favor from God, we are learning that God did not give Noah what he earned or deserved, that is, judgment, but that God gifted Noah a status or condition that he would not had obtained on his own. But once this grace was shown to Noah, it did result in nothing less than an alteration of the kind of person that Noah was. The grace that God showed Noah was evidenced in Noah taking God at His Word and acting on what God said: “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female…Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.” (Genesis 6:18-19, 22).

When God shows grace, reliance upon His Word is formed: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). As God works His grace into our lives to the point that faith is formed, then God declares that such dependence upon His promises is to be reckoned as righteousness in His sight: “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:4-5). Noah’s righteousness as a gift from God.

But in saying that Noah’s righteousness was a gift from God, and not native to himself, that is not to say that Noah was left the same. God’s grace, while finding Noah in a state of unrighteousness, did not leave him in that state. God’s grace creates. Noah did emerge as distinct from all the others who would justly perish. Noah, in believing God, built an Ark, while everyone else continued in their unbelief toward God: “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” (Hebrews 11:7). The work of grace through faith becomes visible in obedience to God.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe

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