Genesis 6:8 tells us that Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord and Genesis 7:1 that he was a righteous man. He acted in faith by following God’s instructions (Genesis 6:22; see also Galatians 3:6). This would then be the reason why he was protected by God from the flood together with his family—the seven others (his wife, his three sons, and their wives, Genesis 8:18).
5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;