Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 221st episode. In this episode I’m bringing you another edition of Bible study content I’m creating for my church. This content is every bit as professionally produced as my normal episodes on MHB — and my intent is to continue cross-publishing them for your benefit. So without further delay I bring you: Summit Bible Study.
Hello friends and thank you for listening to another Bible study. Today we’re beginning our study of Genesis chapter four. This is the story of Cain and Abel. There is perhaps no text in all of scripture which manages to pack as much profundity into as few of verses as this story. I would contend that no story in scripture provides such crystal clear insight into human nature as the story of Cain and Abel. Throughout the previous studies as we’ve examined Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the story of paradise lost, and the global lapsarian consequences of original sin we’ve witnessed how Adam represented all of humanity. Genesis chapter four presents the very first subdivision within this representation. Cain represents all sinners and Abel represents all saints. Cain’s life is characterized by rebellion against God while Abel’s life is characterized by obedience. Most prescient in this story is the character of Cain’s interactions with God and how these interactions shape his view of Abel — motivating the very first homicide.
As we begin this study we’ll read about the birth names and callings given to each man. We’ll observe their practice of religious ritual and the variance in their success. After Cain’s sacrifice is rejected we’ll read about his anger against God, as well as God’s rebuking Cain for his anger. That’s probably the furthest we’ll get in this study but in the next several studies we’ll examine Cain’s murder of Abel. The text will reveal God’s arraignment of Cain, Cain’s deceptive pleas with God, and the sentence God served against him. Cain’s complaint that the sentence is more than he can bear gives us insight into the hellish circumstances which ensconce unrepentant sinners. Despite his complaints God ratifies His sentence against Cain and the chapter closes with a glimpse of Cain’s posterity — specifically the person of Lamech. As we study this chapter we’ll see how Lamech’s disposition is a generational distillation of Cain’s own wickedness. Lamech’s worldview is a vengeful inversion of Christ’s instruction for us to forgive others. At the close of the chapter God gives Adam and Eve another son named Seth and Seth himself has a son named Enosh. Scripture recounts this as the moment when humanity began to call on the name of the Lord. So let’s begin by reading verses 1 and 2:
Gen 4:1-2
1 Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.”
2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
Biblical record tells us Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters across their long lives. Cain and Abel appear to have been their firstborn. It’s possible the brothers were twins, with Cain being born shortly before Abel. If this is the case, then the biblical motif of the firstborn twin being hated while the second is loved would be upheld here. Such was the case with Esau and Jacob. We discussed how God’s permitting Adam and Eve to bear children was a revelation of His grace in the aftermath of casting them out from paradise. One of God’s first blessings for Adam and Eve was that they be fruitful and multiply. By His grace this blessing remained intact despite their sin. We explored how this promise of future generations underscored the protoevangelium, or first gospel, which God presented before He even finished declaring the curse. Our God’s love is so unimpeachable that He wouldn’t even finish cursing humanity without simultaneously offering the light of hope we could find in our Savior. The actual birth of their children would have solidified this hope for Adam and Eve. It was proof God hadn’t cut them off completely. It was all the hope they needed as they faced this new world of brokenness and disgrace.
The name Cain means possession, acquired, or gained. His name is a reference to Eve’s expression of joy when he was born. Eve said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.” She was probably very thankful and held him with such great expectation. One of the most unappreciated, and yet biblically undeniable truths of our time is that all children are given by God as gifts. Each child comes from directly from the hand of God. Scripture says God will not forsake the work of His hands and we know beyond any doubt that all children are the work of His hands. Understanding this truth helps comfort new parents as they embark on a journey of unknowns. This is especially true if the child is unplanned. Accepting this doctrine as true means no child is essentially unplanned. You and your wife may not have known about the child, but God designed the child from before the foundation of the world. Just like He did with you. It’s for this reason we should always remember to honor God and thank Him when He adds to our families.
It’s true Eve bore her children in the context of pain which were the consequences of her sin — but this pain didn’t steal her attention away from the mercy of God that He would give her children at all. A good rule for your relationship with God as well as your relationships with other people is to never allow your complaints to drown out your thanksgiving. We can say with biblical confidence that it doesn’t matter how bleak your circumstances — you still have more reason to thank God than you have complaints against Him. If you don’t see it this way it’s simply because you aren’t paying attention to His grace. I think the currency which determines your ability to see God’s grace in your life is your trust in God. If you don’t trust God, your circumstances will rapidly begin to appear less than you’d like them to be. As we learned from Adam and Eve, this is true even if you live in paradise. But I think trusting God is durable to the depths of darkness as well. Even in the worst circumstances your trust in God will draw your attention to the myriad ways He is providing for you and blessing you.
Remember the protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15 when God promised a Savior from Eve’s lineage. It’s possible, and some would say probable, that Eve confused Cain as the promised redeemer. If this is the case then she was woefully mistaken in her evaluation. But I don’t think we should malign her for it. Samuel made a similar mistake when he stood before Eliab and assumed he was the Lord’s anointed king rather than David. It’s very easy for us to misjudge the quality of a person because we don’t see people as God sees them. When Samuel was considering Eliab as Israel’s chosen king, the Lord said to Samuel, “”Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Knowing we can’t see people the way God sees them reveals two important truths. First is that we’re basically guaranteed to make mistakes when trying to evaluate a person’s qualities. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to feel betrayed or feel like failures when we get it wrong. It’s both easy and common to get this wrong. The second is that we should keep our eyes open for the right person when God brings him to us. It’s not that our own discernments are entirely untrustworthy, it’s just important we maintain some flexibility in our judgments. If we hold fast to poor decisions about who is the right person and who isn’t, we risk closing ourselves off to the people God is sending us.
Eve thought Cain was the promised child who would overcome the serpent. In her mind she imposed a fulfilled prophecy over him which he was never equipped to satisfy. Not only would Cain fail at overcoming evil, but he wouldn’t even satisfy his role as priest of the family being the firstborn male. Eve thought Cain was a man from the Lord, but the truth is Cain would become an enemy of the Lord. When she had Abel she gave him a name which reinforced her false belief that Cain was the one. Abel’s name means, “breath” or “vapor” and can sometimes be understood as “vanity”. She was so taken up with Cain that another son seemed as extra to her.
This same kind of perceptual shift occurs when a person converts to Christ — albeit this time the perceptual shift is for good reason. When Jesus becomes Lord of your life, many other things seem as nothing at all. Another reason Eve may have named Abel as such is because she was beginning to see the vanity of a temporal existence. She knew her life, and his life, were but a vapor. Here today and gone tomorrow. This is the way of things in our mortal realm. While Cain’s name seems more privileged than Abel’s, Abel’s name becomes the true descriptor of the entire human race. When the Psalmist meditates on the nature of human life he says, “”Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.”
Perhaps the most important consequence of Abel’s name is the impartation of humility. If your own name signifies fragility and temporality, you have good reason to be humble. Contrast this with Cain’s name which symbolizes a fulfilled prophecy. Your vulnerability to disappointment is directly proportional to the heights of your expectations. If you expect a life of wealth, fame, and influence — you may think there’s something broken about the world when your life doesn’t unfold this way. Worse yet you may think God Himself is against you. Humble expectations for a life of faith and godliness will keep you content when the reality of this world settles in your heart.
Both Cain and Abel were called to work. It didn’t matter that they were heirs apparent to the entire world. God had sentenced humanity to work, and so they would work. Even before the Fall Adam was called by God to occupation. Remember Adam was charged with maintaining the Garden and naming the creatures God had made. There are two things you can’t live effectively without: the word of God and a calling from God. We are designed for work and purpose. Idleness may feel nice once in a while, but it causes us to breakdown both physically and spiritually. Idleness is dangerous because the breakdown it causes makes it more difficult to stop being idle. So you can easily slip into a vicious cycle of unsatisfying lack of purpose but no energy to get out there and establish one. Never underestimate the value of work for promoting your soul’s well-being.
Abel was a keeper of the flocks and Cain was a tiller of the ground. It’s important to notice how their callings are different from one another. This difference would have facilitated trade between them when necessary. In the body of Christ, we need to embrace the differences between us because these differences promote mutual commerce. Mutual commerce is important for loving relationships because we can’t do everything on our own. Being supported by our loved ones in some ways, and then supporting those loved ones in other ways, is one of the great keys to a happy family. A collection of people who have distinct gifts and then use effective trade to support one another will always be more durable than a singular, multi-talented person.
Farming and groundskeeping became occupations of the poor later in Israel’s history. When the Babylonians captured Jerusalem their captain, Nebuzaradan, left the poorest people behind to be vinedressers and keepers of the ground. But it’s interesting how even the most humble occupations are absolutely critical to the survival of kings. No farms, no food as they say. For this reason Cain and Abel weren’t dishonored by this kind of work, rather it was an honor they should be trusted to do it.
Abel is the younger of the brothers, but the story seems to indicate Abel began his work life before Cain did. It’s possible Abel’s example attracted Cain to his own future occupation. Either way, Abel’s role as a shepherd was fitting for his obedience to God. Moses was a shepherd, David was a shepherd, and of course Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd. Taking care of God’s creation and living a life of contemplation is appropriate for those devoted to God. This job would have provided the kind of solitude which makes a great opportunity for prayerful conversations with God.
We need to keep the health of our souls in mind when we choose an occupation. Regular exposure to sin comes with a cost. I realize we need heroes like soldiers and police officers, but even those roles should not be taken lightly. All steps should be carefully considered for how you might protect your soul in such a job. Generally speaking, you should seek after jobs which are good for your soul and promote your relationship with God. Suffering needlessly or surrounding yourself with ungodly company when you don’t need to are unwise choices for how you spend your work time. Ideally you can find an occupation which both provides for your family and gives you plentiful opportunities to serve and enjoy God. I realize conditions are not always ideal. Let’s continue with verses 3-5:
Gen 4:3-5
3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground.
4 Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering;
5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.
Adam, being the father, was the priest of his family. As we discussed earlier, Eve probably thought this office would belong to Cain in the future. This passage gives us a look at Cain and Abel’s sacrificial devotions. Each of them brought an offering to the Lord, likely through Adam, in the process of time. This could have been at the end of the year. It could have been part of some annual fast commemorating the Fall. Or it could have simply been on the seventh day of the week, which would have been the end of the week. When they brought the offerings is less significant than what happened when they did.
The first point of interest here is that Adam would be appointed priest of his family at all. It’s a revelation of God’s grace that He would trust Adam with such divine appointment after his history of apostasy. Allowing Adam into the priesthood served several purposes. It tested Adam’s faith in God’s promises. It demonstrated Adam’s obedience to the remedial law. And most importantly it revealed God’s initiative to settle correspondence between Heaven and Earth. God’s blessing Adam with the priesthood foreshadowed the good news to come when Christ’s atoning sacrifice tore the veil between man and God.
The ritual worship of God is not some novel concept. It was practiced from the very beginning with the very first humans on earth. Religious worship is an institution as ancient as life itself. If you consider the heavenly host of angels and their perpetual worship of God — the institution extends even further back than humanity. God spoke about this institution to Israel through the prophet Jeremiah when he said, “”Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls.” Of course that reprobate generation of people didn’t listen. Godliness and sin are not equal opposites. No more than God Himself is an equal opposite of Satan. I think many people get that confused and either inappropriately debase God or mistakenly elevate Satan. Truth and lies are not equal opposites. The truth is eternal and has always pre-existed lies, sin, and profanity.
Scripture commands parents to bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. If Adam did his job right, Cain and Abel would have been brought up in this way. The conduct parents model for their children is very frequently the same conduct the child will adopt once he or she is able to act on his own. This pattern has so much staying-power that a strong majority of Christians have Christian parents, and a strong majority of secularists were raised by secularists. It’s possible to break the pattern, but doing so takes intentional awareness and a desire for truth.
Part of being brought up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord means learning you should honor God with what you have. We should honor God with the gifts He has given us. This often takes the shape of honoring God in accordance with our professions and our possessions. You shouldn’t feel pressure to do what others are called to. If God hasn’t given you a specific gifting, this probably means your greatest method of honoring God will come elsewhere. A worship leader honors God through his gift of singing. If you’re not a gifted singer, you’re not less of a Christian simply because you don’t lead worship. Perhaps your gift is in caring for others, so you should remain focused on pastoral care and stay in your lane with how you work to honor God. This was the case with Cain and Abel, each brother brought sacrifices associated with their own profession.
God is pleased when we bring our sacrifices with an upright heart. It’s not enough to fake your offering when you don’t actually care about the beneficiaries of it. For instance, your offering may promote expansion of the kingdom of God in your community and it may provide relief for the poor. But if your own motivation for giving is to garner the praise of others and you don’t actually care about the kingdom of God or the well-being of the poor — your sacrifice does not please God and you’re better off just keeping it. The reason Cain’s offering was insufficient and rejected by God was a problem which originated in his heart. His spiritual wickedness infected the quality of his offering.
Cain’s lack of quality may or may not have been apparent to a common bystander. I suspect Cain hid it well if he thought he could get away with lying to God Himself. We have reason to believe Adam accepted both Cain and Abel’s offerings without notice of discrepancy between the two. But God noticed. God sees not as man sees, and he could see the deception in Cain’s heart even if the outward quality of his offering seemed unimpeachable. This same mask was worn by the religious elite of Jesus’ day. The Pharisees and the tax collectors were hypocrites yet they seemed faithful in their religious conduct. In this way sometimes only God can tell whether a person is authentic. But God can always tell whether a person is authentic. Cain’s offering may have seemed good enough even to himself, he may have deceived himself in an effort to conceal his sin. This self-deception is never exculpatory because God is One who convicts you of sin. God told Cain he was doing wrong, and God reminded Cain that he himself knows what he’s doing wrong.
Cain’s offering was mentioned first, and this could indicate that Cain was even quicker than Abel to bring his sacrifice. A wicked person may hear as many sermons, say as many prayers, and be as generous as a Christian — but none of these performance displays absolve the guilt of sin. It’s actually not uncommon for an unrepentant sinner to use exhibitions of religiosity to cover up his or her own misdeeds. That was the primary offense of the Pharisees. This deception may start as a way to alleviate the shame of sin. The sinner’s calculation may be one such that if he does enough good he can offset the bad he knows he’s continuing to do. But eventually these motivations become more nefarious and soon the sinner uses religious practice in order to facilitate increases in his sin. Perhaps the most heinous example in our own generation has been that of the predator priests in the Catholic Church. These men used positions of spiritual authority and overt displays of piety to gain access to children so they could victimize them. One can hardly think of a more demonic, more evil instantiation of the sin of taking the Lord’s name in vain.
So how do you ensure that your own sacrifices and religious expressions are pleasing to God? It’s simple: the motivation of every sacrifice and every act of worship should be God’s acceptance. You may make sacrifices for the well-being of your neighbor, but all the while your focus should be on God and your motivation should be for Him. When you give money to your church, you should understand this tithe is an expression of your worship to God. The church itself may use it to pay utility bills or plant a new location, but that’s never the point of giving and so your focus should remain vertical. When you can work as unto the Lord and be generous as unto the Lord, you’ll find that the subject of your efforts no longer matters so much. You may have a terrible boss who doesn’t inspire good work, but good work is still possible for you if you remain focused on honoring God Himself through your work. Your boss becomes irrelevant in such an exchange. Paul reminded the Corinthian church that, “while at home or abroad, his ambition is to be pleasing to God.”
We discussed how the difference between Cain and Abel was probably more in their character than in their actual offerings. Cain was a wicked man who walked in creative union with sin. In this way he was an inventor of evil — indeed he committed creation’s first homicide. Cain was submitted to the reigning power of the world and of the flesh. These character issues born of Cain’s godlessness made his offering an abomination to the Lord. Proverbs 15:8 says, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, But the prayer of the upright is His delight.”
God’s primary concern is always your spirit. Everything you do in life is downstream from your spirit. Your actions, indeed even your perception itself, is entirely predicated on your spirit. This is why it’s not possible to be Christlike without the Spirit of God inside you. Cain had given himself over to an evil spirit while Abel remained righteous. Abel’s heart was upright and his life was pious, and these attributes were the sole reasons God respected his offering. Psalm 11:7 says, “For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face.” The warmth of God’s countenance shined on Abel because of Abel’s righteousness. Abel was a holy man, as much as human beings can be, and this holiness was imparted to his offering. Jesus tells us good fruit cannot come from a bad tree, and so it’s not possible for a wicked person to give offerings or perform works that are pleasing to God.
Earlier I mentioned how Cain’s spiritual maladies infected the quality of his sacrifice — and I maintain that evaluation now. Hebrews 11:4 explicitly points to this difference in offerings between Cain and Abel when it says, “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” I think in the case of Cain and Abel the difference in offerings was mostly spiritual in nature. But this spiritual nature doesn’t foreclose on the truth that wicked people very often perform worse by worldly standards as well. A person who goes to work thinking of himself as a victim of some kind of systemic oppression will not perform as well as an industrious person who is thankful for the goodness of God. Spiritual sickness and self-deceit very frequently cause actual work and actual sacrifice to be lesser-grade.
Cain wasn’t giving God his best either in life or in sacrifice. Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof. This means Abel brought the best sacrifices he could bring and included the very best parts of them. Abel understood God is first and God is best and so Abel’s sacrifices should reflect those qualities. Cain, on the other hand, probably brought whatever crops he had on hand. He may have even withheld his most marketable crops or the crops which would benefit him the most. In this way he pretended to give his best while knowing he wasn’t giving his best. This is the mindset Cain carried through every domain of his life. This mindset is what I call the spirit of Cain — and it’s this mindset which underwrites the narcissistic victimhood characteristic of pathological economic systems like communism. One of the most famous dictums of communism’s recent iterations in the Soviet Union was this: We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.
People possessed by the spirit of Cain will pretend to give their best and then become angry when their offerings are rejected. They’ll accuse God and whoever their state leaders are of systemic injustice and point to this fake injustice as an excuse for their failure to sacrifice. When others within the same system, and under the sovereignty of the same God, do make proper sacrifices and see the fruit of success — these Cain-acolytes will hate them and even seek to kill them just like Cain killed Abel. They do this because successful people are living proof of their own lies. Abel was righteous and he was accepted because of his righteousness. Abel represented the ideal which Cain refused to meet. So Cain killed him rather than live under this reminder of self-inflicted failure.
Scripture indicates the great difference in Cain’s sacrificial disposition was a lack of faith. Abel had an eye to God’s sovereignty as his rule and he was motivated by God’s glory. Abel made his sacrifices in such a way that caused him to be dependent on God as his Redeemer. Cain hedged his bet and gave only what he thought was necessary to redound to his credit. If scripture describes Abel as righteous, this must also mean he was a penitent believer. He was aware of his own sins and his own insufficiencies, and he depended on God’s grace to cover them. By contrast Cain remained arrogant. Imagine the hubris it must take to think you can deceive God. Cain’s arrogance made him like a Pharisee who glorified himself while remaining unjustified before God.
When God rejected Cain’s offering, Cain became so angry that he couldn’t contain the emotion from his face. Scripture says Cain’s countenance fell. When a person’s countenance falls in this way it’s not an expression of sadness or despair. It’s more like the blinding darkness of rage and malice. This is the kind of darkness which controls someone who has spent thousands of hours ruminating on his own resentment. Cain resented God and Cain resented Abel. Cain was indignant that God would judge such a difference between his offering and his brother’s.
Anger is an interesting emotion because in many circumstances it’s correct for being there. Cain was correct to be angry for his offering being rejected — but he was simply angry at the wrong things. He should have been angry with himself for his own infidelity and hypocrisy. Cain’s misconduct caused forfeiture of God’s acceptance and this was a good reason to be upset. But his resentment and the false prism of victimhood through which he viewed himself misdirected his anger and made it sinful. There are other examples in scripture of a person’s countenance falling in holy shame and repentance. The publican in Luke 18 wouldn’t even lift his eyes to heaven as he beat his own chest and asked for God’s mercy.
Americans are correct to be angry when they witness a death at the hands of law enforcement. But many times the facts conclude their anger should be directed at the ideologues who manipulated the victim into thinking he should be afraid of the police and therefore resist arrest. The same is true for the anger we feel when we see illegal immigrant families being deported to their home countries. We have a right to be angry at this sight, but the facts conclude our anger should be directed at the derelict administration who opened the borders and allowed them to come illegally in the first place. They were deceived and betrayed for political advantage. They were called to put their lives in danger as they journeyed forward to false hopes of a better future — and the people who called them knew about the heartbreak which awaited when the laws began to be enforced again. We have a right to be angry, but we must be angry for the correct reasons.
Cain’s anger revealed his enmity with God. He lashed out at God as if God treated him unfairly. When a sinner takes umbrage with the rebukes of God brought on by our own sins, this is a good indication the sinner’s heart is not humbled. Proverbs 19:3 summarizes Cain’s problem in a single sentence: “The foolishness of man ruins his way, And his heart rages against the LORD.”
Cain’s anger also revealed his enmity with Abel. What’s interesting about Cain’s resentment of Abel is that we have no record which indicates Abel ever slandered Cain or did anything to provoke him. By all accounts Abel was faithful and righteous. This probably meant he was a good brother to Cain as well. So why would Cain kill him? I think Cain’s murderous hatred of Abel was born of the fact that Abel’s life proved Cain was lying to God. Abel was the example of an ideal Cain refused to meet. Abel had the privilege of being publicly accepted by God.
It’s very common for unrepentant sinners, especially once they’ve been rejected by God, to be hateful towards those who are distinguished by God’s acceptance. When Jesus is pronouncing woes to the Pharisees He points out that they neither enter the kingdom of God themselves nor suffered those that were entering to go in. So the Pharisees hated people who were covered in the righteousness of Christ because the contrast proved their own self-righteousness was worthless.
When we read about Cain’s murdering Abel our first thoughts might be that he overreacted. But I think this is what envy and resentment really do to a person. These sins are corrosive and they eat you from the inside out. This is part of the reason Christ called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs. They appeared religious on the outside but on the inside they were full of rottenness and dead men’s bones. Eventually, when the cup of your sin has filled up, the envy spills out on your facial expressions and in your actions. Sometimes it can even make you physically sick. For as much simmering resentment Cain harbored against God and against Abel — it’s actually no surprise his anger would end in homicide. Let’s finish our study by reading verses 6 and 7:
Gen 4:6-7
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
This is the moment where God reasons with Cain in an effort to bring him to repentance. We saw a similar scene unfold in the Garden of Eden when God asked Adam and Eve some poignant questions to reveal what they had done. One of the primary offices of God’s Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin. He is the one who answers, often painfully, when you ask God, “What am I doing that I shouldn’t be doing and what am I not doing that I should be doing?” God is attempting to steer Cain back from the brink and prevent a furtherance of his sin. This moment is a revelation of God’s unsearchable kindness that He would extend grace and opportunity to such a vile man as Cain. God lowered Himself to deal tenderly with a man who He knew was murderous at heart.
When Peter describes God’s patience he puts it this way, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” God’s grace means getting what we don’t deserve and God’s mercy means not getting what we do deserve. All of us have been recipients of both, and so none of us have grounds to question the extension of God’s mercy to others. We might be screaming for God to withhold His mercy from Cain and therefore save Abel’s life. But for whatever reason God didn’t see it this way, and we are in no position to cross-examine Him.
The story of the prodigal son communicates the seemingly unbalanced nature of God’s grace and mercy. In this parable, the father readily embraces the prodigal when he returns home. The elder son who never left his father became angry at this embrace. The father reasons with his elder son by saying, “‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”
Notice how God asks Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?” None of our sinful passions or shameful outbursts escape the observing eyes of God. He’s aware of every detail of our lives, even down to our facial expressions. But God wasn’t simply pointing this fact out to Cain. He asked the question to inspire Cain to look inside himself and actually ask why he was so angry. Most of us could benefit from stopping down and taking inventory of ourselves during heated or disquiet moments. If we ask ourselves: is there a real cause, a just cause, or a cause proportionate to my reaction here — I think we’ll discover that we frequently overreact. We also tend to measure our problems as bigger or more severe than they really are.
God knew Cain was both overblowing his own problems while at the same time refusing to take responsibility for them. After asking about his anger, God’s questions become more pointed to show Cain he has no justifiable reason to be angry — at least not at God. God reminds Cain that He sets before men life and death, blessing and curse, and then men difference themselves based on which path they take. The rules of the creation were exactly the same for Cain as they were for Abel. When God says, “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” He’s invalidating Cain’s claim that the system is unfair to him. Cain has the same opportunities as Abel, but Cain’s disposition toward God and toward sin are causing him to fail.
Most Americans today live with access to more wealth than 99% of human beings who have ever lived anywhere on Earth. And yet this same spirit which possessed Cain possesses so many of us today. We claim the system is oppressive or unfair to us. We claim we are marginalized and closed off from the gardens of success. Rather than dismantling the “system” which has eliminated poverty and improved quality of life faster and more efficiently than any economic or governance system before it — we should ask ourselves if the problem is us. Are we to blame for our own struggles in the context of such relative wealth? Where is the sin in our lives and what is our disposition toward the sovereign authority of God and the necessity of sacrifice? We have the same opportunity to look inside ourselves and realize the problems we blame on “structures” or social elites are really insufficiencies in ourselves which we need to overcome. That’s a much better story to tell, with a much happier ending, than the story of false victimhood promoted by Cain and those who are like him.
Let’s further examine the binary of life and death God offered Cain. He told him if he does well then he would be accepted. Not only that, but God seemed to suggest Cain himself knew this was the case. Indeed he had just witnessed Abel demonstrate this truth. God is no respecter of persons, and so He didn’t favor Abel any more than He favored Cain. God doesn’t harbor hatred for His own creation, so if we find ourselves at enmity with God we have only ourselves to thank. We can argue about freedom of the will and I myself tend to think our lives are more pre-determined than we’re comfortable accepting — but regardless of free will it’s still true there is not a single condemned sinner in Hell who wouldn’t have been a glorified saint in Heaven had they simply obeyed the Lord.
God’s forgiveness is such that had Cain repented in this moment and reformed his heart and life then God would have accepted him as if it never happened. Cain’s sin would be fully and entirely pardoned. Cain’s comfort and honor would be restored, and God would work all things together for good for him. God’s extension of grace to Cain in this moment should be a reminder for us that it’s never too late to repent of our sins and invest our faith in Jesus Christ. You’re not too damaged or too evil for the healing of God’s Holy Spirit. You may feel like you’ve wasted too many years of your life, but God is able to do exceedingly more than you can imagine in a short amount of time once you’re walking with Him. The pathway to God’s mercy always runs through repentance of sin. God Himself is preaching the gospel to Cain in this moment, and He offered its benefits even to one of the most notorious sinners — the world’s first murderer.
On the other side of things God also sets before Cain death and a curse. Cain had already transgressed against God by offering an improper sacrifice. Now God reminded Him that if he fails to do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for him. During this dispensation a proper sacrifice would have meant righteousness imputed onto you. This is why Abel is called righteous Abel. But the inverse was also true. If you abused the sacrificial system and tried to manipulate God or others, sin would be imputed to you. Cain approached God as a sinner, and so he was rejected and frowned upon as a sinner.
Cain brought this ominous charge onto himself. In this moment God is warning him that if he persists in his misconduct his heart will harden. The more his heart hardens against God, the more prolific and the more heinous his sins will become. When you’re caught in sin you really only have a few options. You could repent and humble yourself before God, which leads to the Spirit of God sanctifying your heart. You could deceive yourself by perverting the word of God in order to accommodate your sin. Or you could simply double-down and embrace evil, hardening your heart against God and making it more difficult to have any relationship with Him at all.
When God is pulling Israel out of the depraved morass of the pagan tribes throughout the Middle East, He impresses on them the importance of observing His specific ordinances. If God’s people neglected to act on the things He commanded them do, they’d become much more vulnerable to acting on all kinds of abominations. Resisting sin is not entirely about avoiding commission of the sin. It’s not a negative enterprise. The most important part of resisting sin is positively acting on the things we already know God has commanded us to do. The godliness of Christ comes in part from His sinlessness, but most of His character is associated with what He did and what He does, rather than with what He doesn’t do.
If you expect to become Christlike simply by avoiding sins but also neglecting the forward commands of God, I think you’ll fail in that project. I think the positive movements are indispensable to freedom from sin. You won’t have what you need to be Christlike unless you’re first willing to make proper sacrifices. Devotion to God is protection from sinful temptation. These two things are inextricably linked. In the same way that devotion to God and freedom from sin are connected, so are sin and punishment for sin. Sin and its punishment are so tightly interweaved that their connection is reflected in the Hebrew language for both.
Punishment for sin is unavoidable and never far from the sin itself. No one gets away with anything. The punishment may seem asleep for a time, but it will be awakened and the sinner will realize it never slept at all. When the leaders of the tribes of Reuben and Gad petitioned Moses that he might allow them to hold land on the first side of the Jordan River, Moses was concerned they wouldn’t join the other tribes in the war effort against Canaan. They promised him they would. Next we read:
[Num 32:20-23 NASB95] 20 So Moses said to them, “If you will do this, if you will arm yourselves before the LORD for the war, 21 and all of you armed men cross over the Jordan before the LORD until He has driven His enemies out from before Him, 22 and the land is subdued before the LORD, then afterward you shall return and be free of obligation toward the LORD and toward Israel, and this land shall be yours for a possession before the LORD. 23 “But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.
Here Moses is highlighting the connection between sin and punishment. They are so much one entity that if you sin your sin itself will expose you. Remember a crucial part of Satan’s deceiving Eve was convincing her there would be no consequences for her sin. You surely will not die! The serpent said.
So Cain had reason to be angry but only with himself for forfeiting God’s favor. He had no reason to be angry at God. Neither did he have a justifiable reason to be angry at Abel. Cain was the firstborn and being the firstborn meant he was preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. God never sought to remove this advantage from Cain and neither did Abel. Abel’s successful offering had no designs at transferring Cain’s birthright. This assurance should have functioned to ameliorate Cain’s raging sense of envy against his brother. But it didn’t. Perhaps it even made it worse because, being the firstborn, Cain should have been the stronger and the more righteous brother. He should have provided a godly example for Abel to follow. But instead Abel provided an example of why Cain was lying.
In the sight of God, faithfulness does not foreclose on our duty to serve our masters on earth. So a faithful person is still duty-bound to serve an unfaithful master. This is true so long as service can be rendered without disobeying God. God blessing Abel changed nothing about Cain’s dignity as firstborn, and Abel was righteous to continue to respect this dignity. Faithfulness to God does not warrant disloyalty or disrespect in our other relationships — nor does it excuse it.
This is why it’s so absurd that Emperors and entire governments have hunted and persecuted Christians across the landscape of history for fear the Christians will overturn their regimes. Christians don’t lead revolutions. It’s not in their doctrine to do so. In fact the opposite is true, Christians are called to honor those whom God has placed in authority so long as honoring them doesn’t require we disobey God Himself. A wise leader should desire no one more than Christians to be his subjects, because Christians make the best subjects. They live in quiet obedience of the chosen authority whenever they can and their doctrine teaches them these authorities were placed by God’s providence.
A wise ruler should desire Christians for subjects just as much as Cain should have desired a brother like Abel. But sin destroys the mind and causes you to see these things through the lens of evil and hatred. And just as Cain murdered Abel, good Christians all around the world have been persecuted when they should have been loved. When sinners deteriorate into the kinds of people who call good evil and evil good, too often Christians become their ultimate target. And I think that will set us up nicely for our next Bible study which will open with history’s first homicide. We will see how these tragic delusions seized Cain’s mind and darkened his vision until he thought it was a good idea to murder his own ideal.
So until next time, thank you all for listening in and joining me on this study. I hope these are as beneficial for you as they are for me. Godspeed.
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