What do y'all mean when you say "Righteous people who have not heard the gospel"?
My understanding is that the Bible teaches us that ALL men commit sin no matter how good they appear. That means no man is Righteous in God's eyes, which is the whole point of Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind since he was without sin.
I didn't mean righteous in the sense that they meet God's standard of perfection, but rather that they lived well enough to fall under God's grace, absent having either the revealed "Old Law" or the Christian understanding of salvation through faith by grace. Examples would be Job, and Noah.
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I. WHY NOAH FOUND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD
A. HE WAS "A JUST MAN" - Gen 6:9
1. Some translations say "righteous"
2. This likely refers to his moral relation to God (Keil &
Delitzsch)
B. HE WAS "PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS" - Gen 6:9
1. Other translations (NASV, NIV) use the word "blameless"
2. Not that he was sinless, but that there were no blatant faults
3. He was a man of moral integrity among the people
C. HE "WALKED WITH GOD" - Gen 6:9
1. This is how he manifested his righteousness and integrity
(Keil & Delitzsch)
2. In walking with God, he imitated the example of Enoch, his
great-grandfather - Gen 5:24
3. Walking with God in Noah's case likely involved...
a. Calling upon the name of the Lord (which began in the days
of Seth - Gen 4:26)
b. Offering sacrifices to God (which began in the days of Cain
& Abel - Gen 4:3-4)
D. HE "DID ACCORDING TO ALL THAT THE LORD COMMANDED HIM"
1. Twice this is emphasized in the Scriptures - Gen 6:22; 7:5
2. We learn from the writer of Hebrews that this obedience of
Noah came from faith - He 11:7
E. HE WAS "A PREACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS" - 2Pe 2:5
1. He not only "lived" a righteous life
2. But he also "proclaimed" the need for righteousness, even though
he lived in a very ungodly world
[Noah certainly was an unusual man, but perhaps we see well why only he
and his family "found grace in the eyes of the Lord."