The word righteous, like the word holiness, causes most people to become a little fearful. We tend to think in terms of sinless perfection and most people would answer, “no I am not righteous”. The confusion clears up when we return to God’s Word and allow Him to teach us by means of that Word. None of us could live such high moral lives as to be righteous. Righteousness is, therefore, something declared by God about us. We look then to this theme to know that God uses the term to refer to those who are faithful to Him. If one is faithful to God then they are righteous. Upon such a standard, the Christian would, therefore, answer, “yes, I am righteous”.
The world’s first major movement from God caused God to declare that He would in fact destroy all humanity within a 120-year period (Gen. 6:3). In the midst of such evil, wherein every thought of humanity was focused on doing wrong, there was one man who lived a different life (Gen. 6:5). The man was Noah and Moses writes to tell us that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen. 6:8). No declaration here that Noah was a perfect man. Instead he was a man faithful to God and hence is described as one who found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
There was, at this time, no written code for man to live by. How then did Noah achieve the goal of being found to be righteous? Man was created in the image of God on day six of the creation week (Gen. 1:26). He was therefore obligated to live unto the One who created him. If when Adam was created he had the power to think, speak and act, such knowledge was given to him directly in the sense that he was created full grown. Humans after Adam were supposed to live in the same manner or for the same purpose. Years later we find Moses writing that “…then began men to call upon the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26).
From the time of Adam until this announcement in 4:26, there were now two separate cultures that were beginning to form. One that chose to be faithful to God and one which did not. Those who chose to live up to the way they were created by God constituted the faithful ones. Those who did not are the ones described in Genesis 6:5. The hopeless situation of the world is seen in the fact that out of all humanity only Noah and his family chose to serve God. God knew at that point that destruction was the way He would deal with the tremendous growth of sin in the world.
What kind of man was Noah? Peter says that Noah was a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5). Righteousness, by definition, was a call for man to be faithful to the One who had created him. If I am made
in the image and likeness of God, I am obligated to live up to that image and likeness. The world of Genesis six had separated itself from that image and likeness. The root cause can be seen in the fact that righteous people began to marry with the unrighteous with the result being a departure from what they were created to be (Gen. 6:2). Noah had a three-fold obligation at this point. He was to build an ark to save himself and his family (Gen. 6:14; Heb. 11:7). He was to warn all he could by preaching to them of righteousness as Peter wrote about. Peter tells us that during this time (of the 120 years) while the ark was being built, that the longsuffering of God waited.
Who would be saved or who would be lost? It would be up to each individual to chose the right kind of life. The third obligation that Noah had was to maintain his faithful conduct to God while the ark was being built. His efforts are described in this way. Noah did all that God commanded him (Gen. 6:22). His life is not an example of sinless perfection rather it is a statement of a man and his family choosing to be faithful to the image and likeness of God.