According to Paul, Noah built an ark, because God warned him that he would destroy mankind with a flood! Therefore, believing what the Lord had told him, Noah built the ark, as God commanded him to do, in order to save himself, his family and the different kinds of land dwelling animals. (Genesis 6:13-22; Hebrews 11:7). It was in building the ark that Noah demonstrated his faith in God. Genesis 6:9 informs us that he walked with God, which was similar to what the Scriptures tell us about Enoch (Genesis 5:22). Paul interprets ‘walking with God’ to be a demonstration of faith (Hebrews 11:6). In other words, Noah not only ‘believed’ God existed, which, no doubt, at least most of his contemporaries also did, but Noah, through obedience, demonstrate his trust that God would, not only judge the world by destroying it, but would also favor him and those closest to him, (Genesis 6:7-8).
Through his labor in building the ark, which probably took 120 years (Genesis 6:3), Noah demonstrated his trust in God through his long diligent effort. This is what made him an heir of righteousness, which means he not only offered God nominal belief, but Noah’s obedience to the word of God for about 120 years demonstrated that Noah believed God and trusted the Lord would save him and his family. Such a thing the rest of the antediluvian world was unwilling to do.[1]
By building the ark, Noah became a preacher of righteousness (2Peter 2:5). No doubt, his contemporaries ridiculed him for building a ship so far inland, and Noah was then able to rebuke their behavior and warn them of God’s coming judgment, but this doesn’t necessarily have to be true for Noah to be a preacher of righteousness in the antediluvian world. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines katakrino (G2632 – judge, condemn) as: “by one’s good example to render another’s wickedness the more evident and censurable.” Noah’s diligent obedience to God in the face of implied ridicule was preaching in itself through his example of faith.
Paul drew a parallel between Noah’s behavior and what Paul hoped his believing Jewish brethren would continue to do. Just as Noah’s building the ark during the wicked and violent antediluvian world, believing Jews during the first century AD lived in what Moses termed a corrupt and perverse generation (Deuteronomy 31:27, 29; 32:20), a generation which would cease to be considered the children of God (Deuteronomy 32:5; cf. Deuteronomy 14:1). Just as the Flood judged and destroyed that world, so the Lord, during his public ministry on earth, promised to come to judge and destroy the nation that was persecuting his children who trusted in him (Matthew 16:18, 27-28).
Therefore, if the process of building the ark was Noah’s judgment upon the antediluvian world, then, similarly, the process of the Lord’s building his Church (Matthew 16:18), in the midst of a wicked and adulterous generation (Matthew 12:39; 16:4), was also his own judgment in the first century AD upon the unbelieving Jewish nation, who had become so corrupt that his covenant with them had to come to an end (Deuteronomy 31:27, 29; 32:20).
Jesus promised to send prophets, wise men and scribes to this rebellious generation (Matthew 23:34), and they would persecute and slay those sent to them. In so doing, they would bring upon their nation and Temple complete desolation (Matthew 23:31-33, 36-38). Thus, those prophets, wise men and scribes, together with those who would believed the preaching of their Gospel, would express the righteousness of God by their faith in the word of Jesus (Romans 1:16-17; 3:21-22; Philippians 3:9).
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[1] See my earlier study in 2Peter: The Angels Who Sinned.
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