Adam and Eve walked with God; Abel walked with God, and Enoch, also made righteous by faith, walked with God living an obedient life while surrounded by wicked and perverse God-haters. Our famous brother Noah was also a member of that remnant of believers to whom God had given the gifts of repentance and faith.

Hebrews 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence (to God) prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

This summation of God’s interaction with Noah and his faith response is fleshed out in the book of Genesis. Turn with me to Genesis 6:5,

5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. 9 These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.

Did Noah’s righteousness or good behavior endear him to God? Or, was the faith gifted to him by God, the cause of his being declared righteous in the eyes of God? You know the answer, don’t you! Apart from God’s gift of grace, Noah would have been like all the rest, a child of wrath without hope and without God in the world. Like everyone else, Noah had gone astray from the womb speaking lies and loving sin, but he was called out of that mass of corruption and caused to believe in God and His promise of a Redeemer. Through this gift of faith, Noah became the righteousness of God in Christ!