Noah’s Faith (Heb 11.7)
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
My grandson Noah was born last week. His name was chosen with the biblical Noah very much in mind, an exemplary believer praised in Hebrews 11. I offer this devotional message as thanksgiving to God for both of them.
ITS GRACIOUS ORIGIN
It is popularly imagined that God chose to save Noah on account of his good behavior as a meritorious reward. An old country song says,
Well the Lord looked down from His window in the sky and said / I created man but I don’t remember why / Nothin’ but fightin’ since creation day / I’ll send a little water and I’ll wash’em all away // So the Lord came down to look around a spell / And there He found Noah behavin’ mighty well / And that is the reason the Scriptures record / Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Few know that Pelagius composed these lyrics. Actually no one knows that because I am just kidding. It is true that “Noah found grace [or, favor] in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen 6.8), but Scripture also teaches that Noah was born a sinner like everyone else and deserved to be drowned with the rest of apostate humanity (e.g., Gen 6.5; Eccl 7.20). Then, God gave faith to Noah the unbeliever, chosen by grace alone, before he ever responded to God in a righteous way (cf. Gen 6.9). That may have been long before the ark story, but sovereign grace, God’s unmerited favor, accounts for all the blessings in Noah’s life. Genesis 7.1 indicates divine approval and commitment but does not overthrow in the slightest the biblical gospel of free grace.
ITS REVELATORY BASIS
God’s verbal warning to Noah about the flood as a future, yet unseen judgment (Gen 6.13) was a revelation to him. He could have known about it in no other way. The original Greek verb used in this phrase is passive, “having been divinely instructed,” emphasizing God’s activity. Noah’s faith came by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10.17). Without God’s Word, no saving faith is possible, because faith is believing God and whatever God says, especially His warnings about judgment and merciful promises about salvation, ultimately through Christ.
ITS REVERENT RESPONSE
Having heard the divine warning which came to him instead of others at first, Noah “moved with fear,” or it could be translated, “having been moved with fear,” another passive verb again emphasizing God’s gracious activity upon and within Noah. Still, it was Noah himself who revered God with an implicit faith that trembles at His threatenings as much as it hopes in His promises. Many think that fear has absolutely no place in spirituality, but Noah’s example exposes their mistake. Commenting on Romans 3.18, Professor John Murray wrote, “In the teaching of Scripture the fear of God is the soul of godliness and its absence the epitome of impiety” (in loc.).
ITS PRACTICAL MANIFESTATION
Our text’s language links Noah’s godly fear with his practical preparation for the coming deluge of divine wrath. “In reverent fear [he] constructed an ark” (ESV). His calloused hands proved a sensitive heart; the sawn lumber was a testimony of faith in God, since God had commanded he do this. “Faith without works is dead” and cannot save anyone (Jas 2.14, 17).
ITS FAMILIAL EFFECT
“To the saving of his house” means that Noah built the ark with the express intention of saving his family members from drowning. His wife and children were his special responsibility, as husband and father to them, and He provided in this way for his own household. We can infer Noah’s deep concern for their spiritual well-being also. This “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet 2.5) ministered the Word to his own family first.
Each real Christian in a given family has a sanctifying effect upon the family as a whole (1 Cor 7.14), and sometimes this indicates God’s salvific purpose toward them (1 Cor 7.16). George Whitefield powerfully applied 1 Timothy 5.8 to “the great duty of family religion” in his sermon of that title. “It is true indeed, parents seldom forget to provide for their children’s bodies, . . . but then how often do they forget, or rather, when do they remember, to secure the salvation of their immortal souls?”
ITS TESTIMONIAL CONDEMNATION
Noah “condemned the world” by the exercise of his faith in the construction of the ark, “its mocking laughter forever silenced when all came to pass exactly as he had forewarned” (P. E. Hughes, in loc.). “Condemned” has the sense here of exposing their unbelieving folly. He condemned the world “not as the judge of it, properly and authoritatively; but as an advocate and a witness, by plea and testimony” (John Owen, in loc.). And all true Christians will finally participate in this churchly condemnation on that great day of the Lamb’s wrath when unbelievers shriek with fear (Rev 6.16, 17).
ITS ETERNAL INHERITANCE
Noah “became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” In other words, “he received the promise of righteousness, which made him an heir of it, and of that eternal life and salvation for which it fitted him, as well as to which it entitled him” (Matthew Poole, in loc.). Elect from eternity, glorified for eternity—the absolute sovereignty of God insures it (Rom 8.29, 30).
May God be pleased to grant my little Noah, and you my hearers, this saving faith with its unlimited blessedness! Amen. Ω