“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis 6:8)

This is the first place where Grace is mentioned in the Bible, although not the first place where God’s Grace was manifest. That would be in God’s Grace shown to Adam and Eve by slaying the innocent animals in their place and clothing them with the skins, Genesis 3:21. There is a clear testimony of God’s Grace through a type of the LORD Jesus Christ Who would come in the fulness of the time and work out their salvation by His righteous obedience unto death, Galatians 4:4.

Here now the story of Redeeming Grace continues in Noah. The story is traced from the fall in Adam until his wickedness was so great that God’s justice demanded punishment. But it concludes with these Words of Hope for Noah and his family. It does not say that Noah earned or merited this Grace, but rather the Grace of God found him and God set His favor on him, out of all those that God would punish in His justice. Noah did not find favor in the eyes of men. They hated and persecuted him as a preacher of Righteousness, Christ the Righteousness of God, represented in the ark that bore the justice of God on behalf of Noah and his family, undeserving though they were, 2 Peter 2:5.

What Grace then for Noah and his family, whereby the world condemned him, as well as his own flesh, knowing himself to be THE SINNER, yet by the Spirit of God able to testify as the apostle Paul, “By the grace of God I am what I am...” (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Such is the Grace of God for all of His elect, chosen from eternity in Christ Jesus, God’s Son. All those that He has chosen in Him went through the judgment of God already when He came into this world and endured the cross for them. None of those that have found Grace in the eyes of God were exempt from God’s judgment. However, In the Ark (Christ the Substitute) they are saved from wrath and forever secure in HIM. Genesis 7:16 declares that it was God that shut him in. When God shuts a sinner in His Son, no condemnation can ever harm or remove that one, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19)

As William Gadsby wrote in his hymnal these words:

“In Christ, his Ark, he safely rides, Not wrecked by death or sin, How is it he so safe abides? The LORD has shut him in!”