I was listening to a message by Gbile Akanni yesterday and of the many things he said, the one that struck me most was a question he asked in passing. He said “what kind of righteousness was God seeking that He found only in one man; Noah”?

It was almost like I got disengaged from that point on, tossing the question around in my head and pondering on an answer. We might remember that after God created man and sin entered the world, they began to act up, to the point of angels thinking it okay to have sexual relations with daughters of men to bear children, who came out as giants. The bible says that God looked on all of these, particularly the hearts of men and He regretted that He had made man (I can’t imagine how bad it was but for God to regret something, must be very serious).

So He decided that He will end the world and in that same thought, start with one man who had found favour, some versions say grace in His sight. The bible described the one man called Noah as righteous.

My first thought was that Jesus had not come to die yet, so this righteousness and grace was far from a result of Jesus’ blood, so it occurred to me that Noah was righteous by his conscience and works and because of him, mankind is preserved.

Thankfully We don’t have to prove our righteousness now to save even just ourselves. The bible actually calls us the righteousness of God just by reason of the fact that a righteous blood was spilled on our account. If God ever thinks to come and find righteous men, we would be named amongst them.

We have no idea how blessed we are to be named Gods righteousness. It doesn’t come with pride but with responsibility, that we bear the blood of Jesus in place of anything that could have made us unrighteous. It’s a humbling reminder to live each day knowing our identity and also our responsibility.

We’re named righteous because Jesus is.