Why did Cain kill Abel?
-Most Christians act exactly like Cain, are you one of them??
Righteousness is all about Jesus, not you, hear me out.
The story of Cain and Abel has always been a little bit difficult for me to wrap my head around. Why did Cain kill Abel? Was it because he was jealous or angry or both? but Abel did nothing to him. It wasn’t Abel’s fault that God rejected Cain’s sacrifice right?
Recently God opened my eyes to the real reason Cain’s sacrifice was rejected and the reason Cain killed his brother Abel. It’s simple, SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Hang on Francis, how do you mean self-righteousness? You may ask. Well, thank you for asking politely. Let’s delve into the Bible (our only true reference).
In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. and why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous. 1 John 2:10–12
As you can see from the bible, …. why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.
Wait but what made Abel’s works righteous and Cain’s evil? What did Abel do that his works were righteous? Simple, he did nothing but brought the offering for sin. he brought the Lamb.
You see whenever you bring the Lamb, you bring Jesus to God (Jesus is our Lamb), this is putting your trust in Jesus, not in yourself. Bringing Jesus means you no longer trust in your self-effort to be made right with God, you don’t trust in your good works to be accepted by God, and you don’t trust in your flaws to be rejected by God (funny right?) you trust Jesus and His finished Work on the cross for your righteousness, acceptance, and remission of sins. God sees this and says your Works are righteous. This is what Abel did.
What made Cain’s works evil was that he brought the fruit of the ground that God has cursed. In essence, he was telling God “It’s not my fault, it’s your fault. I don’t believe I am a sinner. I don’t need to bring a blood sacrifice. I don’t believe the blood will cover my sins because I don’t sin” — This is what most Christians who trust in their good works ironically tell God and they are always pointing to one good work or the other for God to bless and accept them. They be like “ Lord, I forgave this guy today even before he apologized, so bless me” or “ Lord, I helped some needy guy down the street the other day, so you have to bless me”. This is evil work. This is the essence of most approaches to God nowadays. People come to God trusting their righteousness. I talked with someone some time ago, and he said that he’s not as bad as some other sinners. He was defending his righteousness.
You are a true Christian because of what Jesus has done on the cross. What you do or don’t do does not qualify or disqualify you. It’s if you believe in what Jesus has done and constantly put His work above your self-effort, this is what Justifies you.
Practicing righteousness is simply trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus.
Let’s go back to the story of Cain to see some truths.
6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” Genesis 4: 6–7
What is “do well” in verse 7, it is offering correctly. And it says, if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, here God presents Sin as a living thing. This is because, in Hebrew, the word Sin and Sin Offering are the same word CHATA. If we are to read this particular portion of the Bible in its context, Sin offering would be used instead of sin there. Youngs Literal Translation (YLT) puts it more accurately,
7 “Is there not, if thou dost well acceptance? and if thou dost not well, at the opening a sin-offering is crouching. and unto thee, its desire, and thou rulest over it” Genesis 4:7 YLT
This means that God brought to his opening (his house) a sin-offering, an animal, a lamb, and the lamb is crouching desiring that Cain would take him as an offering but he refused. This was before the Murder you know.
Then why did he murder his brother, you would be shocked to hear this but it is simply about Approaching God. One approached with Self-righteousness while the other approached with no righteousness of his own but with the Lamb’s righteousness. One approach produced Love while the other produced Hatred even Murder.
So, what should we take home from all this;
- We are not righteous by what we do or do not do. We are Righteous by what Jesus has done.
- When we approach God, we should not approach with our won righteousness but with the righteousness of Jesus.
If you’ve not accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, please say this prayer “Lord, I believe you died for me and have taken away all my sins, past, present, and future. I confess you as my Lord and I confess that you rose from the dead and are alive right now. Thank you, Lord, for loving me even when I was most undeserving of your love. In Jesus’ name. Amen”
Sorry if this felt like I was rambling, I wanted to get it out here.
Please comment on the section that touched you or the section you don’t understand. Share this with someone that needs to hear it (it is a form of evangelism you know). Follow me if you want me to ramble more on some more topics by God’s Grace.
God bless you.
