@Seabass
You said: "
God's grace to Noah came attached with a condition"
That false!
Gen 6:14
"
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch."
The verb "make" is an imperative, a command.
--the fact it was commanded, if for no other reason, made it necessary for disobedience to God is sin and sin is the very reason men are lost-do not have grace in God's eyes.
-- building the ark was Noah's "plan of salvation" to escape the destruction of the flood. Not building the ark would be Noah rejecting that plan given to him by God's grace, Noah would be rejecting God's grace by not building the ark.
-- it would be
impossible for Noah to have been graciously saved from the flood apart from building the ark.
“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8).
That is what set Noah apart from the rest – "Sovereign Grace"!
Two issues at hand:
1)
why did Noah find grace in the eyes of God to begin with in Gen 6:8
2) would Noah have
continued to find grace in the eyes of God had he disobeyed and not built the ark
============================================
First issue first
Why did Noah find grace in the eyes of God to begin with in Gen 6:8?
Was Noah finding grace in the eyes of the Lord
random, capricious? Was it u
nconditional that is, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord regardless of the kind of life he lived whether he lived a good life or wicked life? Noah finding grace in God's eyes is a
mystery that can never be known?
NO to all of these questions for the text tells us why....
From Gen 6:5-8 a
contrast is made between the wicked world and Noah. The world was continually wicked "
BUT" Noah
found grace in the eyes of God. For Noah was
righteous, blameless and he walked with God and this is why Noah found grace in the eyes of God. Furthermore when God speaks to Noah in Gen 7:1, God says to Noah "
Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." So the context does not show Noah just as a random person picked out of a hat or that by a flip of a coin that God bestowed grace upon Noah for some random, capricious, unconditional or unknown reason.
Grammar: The verbs Noah "found", 'Noah "walked' & God "seen" are all perfect tense verbs:
Perfect (qatal): Views the action as completed, whole, or definite — something the speaker regards as a finished fact or a settled reality.
Gen 7:1
"
I have seen" means God is declaring that He has observed and confirmed Noah’s righteousness as a completed reality up to this point. The “seeing” is not a new discovery at the exact moment God speaks; it is a settled evaluation of Noah’s life and character.
"God had already described Noah this way earlier (Genesis 6:9 — “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God”). The perfect in 7:1 reinforces and confirms that assessment: “
I have seen [and therefore know] that you are righteous.” It is not limited to some distant past event. The perfect here carries the sense of “I have observed you to be righteous” — a factual statement about Noah’s proven character
throughout the time leading up to the flood, in contrast to the rest of that corrupt generation." Noah’s righteousness (by faith and obedient walk with God)
has been demonstrated, and on that basis God spares him and his household." AI
"Noah walked with God"
"In Genesis 6:9, the perfect form presents Noah’s “walking with God” as a completed reality — something God (and the narrator) can look back on as a definite, established characteristic of Noah’s life up to that point.
It is not describing a one-time event, but the overall course of his life as a finished, observable whole."
"The Hithpael stem adds a reflexive or intensive nuance:
it emphasizes repeated, habitual, or deliberate action.
It carries the idea of ongoing, continuous behavior — Noah actively and consistently conducted himself in this way. Many Hebrew grammarians and commentators note that this form highlights durative/continuous action
(a lifestyle sustained over time)." AI
- “Walking with God” is a Hebrew idiom for intimate fellowship, habitual obedience, and a life aligned with God’s will.
- It pictures a close, ongoing relationship in which a person lives in step with God — listening to Him, trusting Him, and doing what pleases Him.
- It is repeatedly linked in Scripture to obedience and keeping God’s commands. For example:
- Later in the same flood story, Noah’s obedience is emphasized: “Noah did everything just as God commanded him” (Genesis 6:22; 7:5).
- The same idiom is used of Enoch (Genesis 5:22, 24), and the New Testament connects it to faith and righteous living (Hebrews 11:5–7). AI
"The
perfect aspect here looks at Noah’s life as a completed whole up to the time of the flood narrative. God is declaring a settled evaluation: throughout his generations (in contrast to the corrupt world around him), Noah had lived a life of ongoing, faithful compliance with God’s will."
Was Noah’s Past Walking with God the Reason He Found Grace?
Yes — the text presents it that way, while still preserving the priority of grace.
- God’s grace/favor (Hebrew chen) comes first in the story (v. 8), emphasizing that Noah did not “earn” salvation in a merit-based sense. He was still a sinner in a fallen world. Grace is God’s unmerited kindness extended to him.
- Immediately afterward (v. 9), the narrator explains why Noah stood out and received that favor: his life had been characterized by righteousness, blamelessness, and walking with God. Later, God Himself confirms this: “I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation” (Genesis 7:1, perfect tense — a settled observation of Noah’s proven character). AI
=============================================
Second point: The issue now is would Noah have
continued to find grace in the eyes of the Lord had he quit walking with God by rebelling and disobeying God's command to build the ark?
NO!!!
Noah did not live a perfect sinless life thus he did not merit God's grace. Hence the grace extended to Noah was unmerited
BUT that grace required a response from Noah: "
make yourself an ark". Had Noah disobeyed God, then he would then be like the rest of the corrupt world and come under that same judgement the world received.
Yet “
Noah did all that the Lord commanded him” (Genesis 6:22). It should not be surprising Noah did all that was commanded him for we know from the perfect tenses "walked" and "seen" Noah had been living an obedient life to God up to Gen 6.
"The perfect tenses we discussed earlier describe Noah’s life up to that point as one of
consistent faithfulness." AI
Heb 11:7
“By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events not yet seen, in reverent fear built an ark
for the saving of his household."
The purpose of his build the ark was for the "saving of his house".
No obedience in building the ark = no saving of his house.
God's grace simply provided Noah an opportunity to escape the flood (God did not force salvation from the flood upon Noah). Therefore it was up to Noah to receive God's grace by building the ark or reject it by disobeying God by not building the ark.
His obedience was not a work of merit but a response to the grace God extended to him. If one wants to call his obedience a work of merit then that means God owed him salvation from the flood and one rips grace right out of the context.
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If you want to claim that the perfect tense of 'found', 'walked' and 'seen', that is, Noah's
past obedience to God is NOT why Noah found grace in the eyes of God in v6, then can you give us the reason why he found grace in the eyes of God in v6?
