Who gets ahead in this world? Is it those who climb on top by cancelling others? Is it the people who advertise themselves with self-confidence? Is it those who know how to manipulate markets to increase margins? What is success?
By our standards, Noah was successful. He floated a limited company while everyone else was being liquidated. He won the Monopoly game.
But our preoccupation with competition creates a world where the strong win and the strugglers lose. God is not a Capitalist. God was not pleased when Cain asserted himself by wiping Abel out. The legends of old boasted of their warrior exploits, but God saw it differently: The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5)
God regretted the day he gave us dominion over creation. Why? We turned that authority into domination of each other. That’s the opposite of God’s heart (6:7). The monopoly game — dominating each other — makes the world pointless: corrupt in God’s sight and full of violence (6:11).
“The world is not enough,” according to 007. He’s probably right: a world dominated by evil is pointless. God takes responsibility for his mess (6:12-13). Rather than leave the decaying world to spiral down and destroy itself, God gave one person a chance.
God called Noah back to the original mandate: to care for all the creatures of creation through the most turbulent of times. While others could not see what was coming, God guided Noah to build a rescue vessel for his family and the creatures of God’s world (6:14).
So here’s the irony: while the ancient legends were fighting each other for territory, Noah received the world by faith.
Hebrews 11:7 (my translation, compare NIV)
By faith(fulness) Noah, warned about things not yet visible, apprehensively constructed a vessel to save his household. In doing so, he condemned the world and became the inheritor of righteousness by faith(fulness).
Noah’s faith(fulness)
No pressure, Noah, but did you realize that everything depended on your faith(fulness)? If one person believed God and faithfully followed God’s instructions, the earth had a future. If there’s no one living by faith(fulness), there is no future.
That’s the sense in which Noah’s faith(fulness) condemned the world. Noah was not berating the population for their badness. That was not his commission. Noah was doing right, i.e. building a rescue vessel. Why was one guy doing right in a world where others weren’t? Because he believed God and faithfully followed God’s instructions. The evidence of his righteousness was his faith(fulness) to God.
That’s how Noah inherited the earth. Warriors (gib·bôr in Genesis 6:4 and 10:8-12) try to take it for themselves, but God does not surrender the earth to those who grasp power (Genesis 11:4-7). It is by faith(fulness) to God, not by dominating others, that the meek inherit the earth.
That’s how a humble boat-builder inherited God’s world. While others were destroying each other, Noah was constructing a rescue vessel — doing right because of his faith(fulness).
That’s how Noah became the forerunner of what God would continue to do through history: Noah became the inheritor of righteousness by faith(fulness).
Living by faith in a violent world
It’s hard to live faithfully when others are not. Hebrews 11:7 was addressed to a community who endured in a great conflict full of suffering (10:32). Some had to choose between family and faith, choosing to lose their immediate inheritance because following the God-appointed Christ who rose out of death was the only way for us all to inherit a better world (10:34).
I’m glad Noah never gave up building that boat. Through his faith(fulness) we’ve inherited the world.
What others are saying
Donald A. Hagner, Hebrews, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 186:
Noah in turn became heir of the righteousness that comes by (lit., “according to”) faith. The language is at first glance the language of Paul (cf. Rom. 3:22, 24; 4:13). But in context it cannot be read in a Pauline way. Noah’s faith expressed itself in action (cf. Gen. 6:9, 22; 7:1). Our author is not arguing the doctrine of salvation against the legalism of Judaizers but describing how righteousness is fundamentally a matter of faith in the unseen, leading to appropriate action. The key is not in the “believing” alone, as it is in Paul, but in faith as the cause of proper conduct. This for our author is the tradition of righteousness in which Noah became enrolled (cf. 10:38).
B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews the Greek Text with Notes and Essays, (London: Macmillan, 1903), 358–359:
Both here and in v. 4 διʼ ἧς [through which] may be referred to Faith, but in both cases, the form of the argument seems to require a reference to the outward expression of the Faith. The sacrifice of Abel and the ark of Noah were, so to speak, the Faith of each made visible. And so it can rightly be said that Noah through the ark — the embodiment of his Faith in deed — became heir of the righteousness according to Faith. … Noah is the first man who receives the title of ‘righteous’ in the O. T. (Gen. 6:9)
Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: Hebrews, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 331–332:
I do not read that Noah ever entered into any dispute with the men of his times. He never argued, much less did he wish them ill; he simply believed and told them the truth. He kept his own faith intact and went on building his ark, thus practicing what he believed. …
So you see that faith has a condemning power toward an ungodly world. You do not need to be constantly telling worldly people that they are doing wrong; let them see clearly the evidence of your faith. That will bear the strongest conceivable witness against their unbelief and sin, even as Noah, by his faith, “pronounced sentence on the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
Related posts
- The faith of Enoch (Hebrews 11:5-6)
- The faith of Abel (Hebrews 11:4)
- What faith expects (Hebrews 11:1–3)
- When faith is a struggle (Hebrews 10:37–39)
- Looking for a city (Hebrews 11:10)
Seeking the kingdom 