Genesis 6:8-13
‘Noah found grace…. Noah walked with God…. The Earth…was corrupt before God, and the Earth was filled with violence…. God looked at the Earth, and…it was corrupt…. All flesh had corrupted its way on the Earth…. And God said.. .: “The end of all flesh has come before Me. For the Earth is filled with violence…. I will destroy…the Earth!”‘ Genesis 6:8-13.
Calvin commented: “‘ Noah found grace ‘…. One man was found whom God — when He had determined to destroy the whole world — would yet preserve. He briefly describes what kind of person he was….
He was just and upright among the men of his age… . The word tamiym …is of the same force as ‘upright’ or ‘sincere’; and is opposed to what is deceitful, pretended, and vain…. If…we desire to be approved by God and accounted righteous before Him, we must not only regulate our hands and eyes and feet in obedience to His Law. But integrity of heart is above all things required, and holds the chief place in the true definition of righteous ness…. They are called ‘just’ and ‘upright’ who are not in every respect perfect and in whom there is no defect, but who cultivate righteousness purely….
“God does not act towards His Own people with the rigour of justice, as requiring of them a life according to the perfect rule of the Law…. If only no hypocrisy reigns within them, but the pure love of rectitude flourishes and fills their hearts — He pronounces them according to His clemency to be righteous….
It was a remarkable instance of constancy, that Noah — being surrounded on every side with the filth of iniquity — should hence have contracted no contagion…. The singular virtue of Noah is here commended. So let us remember that we are in structed what we ought to do, though the whole world were rushing to its own destruction….
“Dreadful was the confusion in the time of Noah, when he had not even one associate in the worship of God and in the pursuit of holiness! If he could bear up against the corruptions of the whole world, and against such constant and vehement assaults of iniquity, no excuse is left for us — unless with equal fortitude of mind we prosecute a right course through innumerable obstacles…. He had ‘ walked with God ‘…. He may fix all his thoughts on God, and make Him the sole Arbiter of his life….
“Equity being extinct, all men had plunged into sin …. He declares that the love of oppression; that frauds, injuries, rapines; and all kinds of in justice prevailed…. ‘ The Earth is filled with violence ‘…. God intimates that men were to be taken away, in order that the Earth…might be purified. Moreover, in speaking only of the iniquity and violence, of the frauds and rapines of which they were guilty towards each other — he does it.. .because this was a more gross and palpable demonstration of their wickedness.”
The end of all flesh was near! But Noah found grace — and so he walked with God!
