Genesis 4: Cain And Abel, Their Faith Was Presented In Their Sacrifice
I believe this is a perfect topic to discuss on the backdrop off my last post Priest Adam Apologia. I had the privilege to teach about this bible story a few months ago during a Wednesday night service. At the time I did not understand what I knew about Adam and the vocation that was given to him. We will see that he passed it on to both his sons as soon as we start to read Genesis 4. My main focus at the time was to look at the lives of these two brothers and what I noticed was there was more depth to Cain’s story. What I came to find is that Cain perfectly displayed the human condition after the Fall: God offered him a chance of restoration, and God warned him that sin had a desire to reign over him.
When we begin to read Genesis 4 we see that Adam and Eve fulfill what God commanded: be fruitful and multiply. I think that it is worth noting that God still had a close covenant relationship with them even though they had fallen. We have to understand that their lives were truly history in the making. Everything that they experienced was a new experience from conception, to child birth, to Eve coming to knowledge that her body was designed to produce sustenance for her infant son Cain until he could eat something solid. There are many more examples I can give here but the point I am making is even when they had fallen, God still showed them what they needed to do. Things we take for granted now had to be taught to Adam and Eve. Think about children losing their baby teeth to make room for their adult teeth. We know this is supposed to happen, but Adam and Eve had to be told. There is no way that Adam and Eve would know what to do unless God was still there with them showing them everything. Let’s look at the story of Noah. In Genesis 6 God warns him that He was bringing judgement on the earth in the form of flood waters and He told Noah how to construct the vessel for his family and two of every kind of animal to enter it. So God was concerned with saving humanity. After all, the Messiah would eventually be born into the world.
When the day came for Cain and Abel to present an offering to God we do not know how old these brothers were. All we know is that Adam was 130 years old when he fathered Seth after Cain killed Abel. So they could’ve been mature in age and some how on this particular day they both knew to bring an offering to God. I am sure we can agree that we do not volunteer on our on to bring a sacrifice. That takes a certain level of obedience that is obtained through the process of sanctification for us to bring anything to God. So it would appear that on this day they presented their offerings as a sign of obedience. I am sure you are thinking that it sounds off base for me to say that Cain was being obedient by presenting an offering. But at the same time you would not hesitate to agree that Abel was showing obedience by bring his offering. So if one was obedient, they both were. I am not talking about the difference in what they brought, just that they both brought something in the first place. The whole act of bringing an offering to God is so you can draw nearer to Him. The person who is bringing the offering is actually performing a type of worship and is seeking restoration from God. As I continue to read I have to keep in mind the writer (Moses) and the intended audience (Israel). Here it is Cain is partaking in a the same tradition that Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were known to do when God was establishing a covenant with them or restoring them. And here it is Cain was offered a seat at the same table that they were offered. How could this be? We can go through the entire Bible and we will not find anyone who was deemed unworthy to perform this type of worship before the Lord.This type of worship would only be performed by a few chosen people. We will see if anyone performed a sacrifice in an unworthy manner like the sons of Aaron what would happen. We as Christians to are told not to partake in the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner. Because we understand this whole sacrificial system is serious business and it is our only way back to him. It started in the garden and it culminated with Jesus’ death on the cross. So Cain was in right standing with God when he presented his offering. The writer understood this and so did the first readers of these five books. Furthermore I have never read that the Israelites took offense to Cain bringing an offering to God- and Israel was never shy about complaining!
There are other details in Cain’s story that we should look at to get a sense of his relationship with God. After his offering gets rejected -look what God tells him. In Genesis 4:6–7 we see God telling Cain that if he brought Him what He desired Cain would be accepted. This interpretation has been debated and I will not get into that on this post. What is not up for debate is God’s statement to Cain that sin is crouching at his door and it’s desire is for Cain, but Cain must rule over it. The hebrew word used here is mashal,(which means he was to reign, have dominion, and to have power over it). So this tells us yes Cain, just like all of us, was born with a fallen nature but up until he had the thought kill Abel, sin did not govern his life. This echoes back to God’s original commission to Adam before he fell in the garden to exercise dominion over creation, “mashal” is the same word that was used here. After Cain fails to rule over sin and kills his brother, God puts a sign on Cain to preserve him from being killed by someone seeking retribution and God says to him,” that he is driven out from His presence”. It wasn’t until he allowed sin in and acted on that sin is when he was considered unworthy to be in God’s presence. This was the same punishment that the Israelites would face if they sinned before God- they were cut off from their people. To sum this up we see a man who was born into a fallen world, with a fallen nature who God still had a desire to restore. God warned him to bring what was necessary to be accepted and not let sin reign over his life. Once Cain sinned that is when God cut him off from His presence and His people.
My hope is that if you go back and read this chapter you will see that there is a lot more in this story than what you might have originally thought. Now I want to take moment to talk about how their faith in the promised Seed was made evident by the offerings they presented. Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commended him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. We see that Abel had faith and his offering showed it. What Abel understood is that his only hope for restoration was tied to the promised Seed- he understood that he could not save himself. Abel knew that because his father allowed sin in the world he was born with a depraved human nature and nothing was good in him. Abel understood that it would take an acceptable offering and it had to be the best of his flock, an innocent lamb had to be offered. Abel brought God a foreshowing of the Messiah to come.
Cain, on the other hand, did not have the faith to present an acceptable sacrifice. There is no doubt in my mind that he was told about the Messiah to come. Cain reminds me a lot of Israel who thought that because they were the physical seed of Abraham they were in right standing with God. Their hope in the Messiah to come was misplaced and when the fulness of time came they missed him. Cain showed that he wanted to be accepted by God because we see his frustration and disappointment when he was not. Cain’s faith in the Messiah was misplaced, he may not even understood that this promised Seed was not about him. Either way the offering he presented reflected this. The offering he brought had no life in it. The offering he brought was from the cursed ground that was caused by Adam’s sin which is why his offering was rejected.
