‘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).

At this point in the narrative the writer of the letter has a change of emphasis where the results of faith are concerned. The verses concerning Abel and Enoch were more concerned with what the faith of those men had achieved. For instance due to his faith, Abel’s sacrifice was more pleasing to the Lord than Cain’s, just as Enoch’s faith meant that he was blessed in his bypassing death as his lifestyle, that so pleased the Lord, was due to his faith. However, the next examples show a slight change in the writer’s agenda. What he now wants to do is to emphasise faith in the Lord even where things concerning his purpose for the individual were yet to come. In verse 3 of this chapter the writer had sown a seed to develop the idea that belief in the Lord’s creative power, which these Jewish Christians had not witnessed but accepted, was not so dissimilar to belief in the promises that the Lord had made to people of the past. This being even when their total fulfilment lay somewhere way off in a future that they would not live to see! This writer will now do this with the example of Noah and two more that would really get their attention. The father of the nation of Israel, Abraham and Moses the lawgiver!

There is a sense the example of Noah is slightly at odds with the latter examples, particularly when it comes to Abraham and Moses. However, there is a very definite similarity, which is why he is included as an example under what I have termed the ‘change of emphasis’ concerning the results of faith. Verse 7 highlights Noah’s faith in that he was warned by God of the coming judgement in sending a flood upon the Earth. This was shown in the action he takes as he: ‘in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.’ The story of Noah is found in Genesis 6:9-9:29 and this verse illustrates much of it. Noah is seen as righteous by the Old Testament standard of righteousness (Genesis 6:9). By this it would mean that he was the kind of man who would have done ‘right by all’.  In other words, if you had lent money to Noah you would have got it back on time with appropriate interest or if you needed any help you would have got it from Noah!

But the writer of the letter’s agenda at this point is demonstrating faith. Noah took an immense step of faith in building an enormous boxlike vessel on dry land, hence effectively preaching to that wicked and unbelieving generation that judgement was coming (2 Peter 2:5). Just think how: “crazy old Noah” would become the butt of all the jokes of those who lived round him (there is much in extra-biblical sources which suggests this). But faith in the Lord’s Word kept him going in that he believed judgement was coming even if there was no other visible evidence to suggest it at that point!

John Calvin sums up Noah’s attitude thus: ‘Yet Noah paid such respect of the Word of God that he turned his eyes from the contemporary view of things and went in fear of the destruction which God had threatened as though it were present to him. Therefore the faith which he had in the Word of God prepared him for obedience to God, proof of which he afterwards gave by building the ark.’[1] But look at the results of this faith which was so powerfully proved in his obedience to God’s command. His family was saved, and he: ‘became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.’ 

Once again, Noah is one of those: ‘people of the old’ (v2) who are commended because of their faith in what was unseen. But in this sense, Noah sees the full results of his faith in that he and his family were saved. The next few verses show that seeing the results of one’s faith was not always the case in this life, a lesson that would have been very poignant to these wavering Jewish Christians.

[1] John Calvin, The Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistle’s of St Peter, Calvin’s Commentaries, (Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1963)  165.