Then in Genesis 4 we have a new scene, which opens with a change in the name of God. It is no longer the test of creation, as God made it, and this accordingly is marked here. He is called “Jehovah”; He is not designated by the former mingled or compound term “Jehovah-Elohim,” but by “Jehovah” simply; and this is found afterward, either “Elohim” alone or “Jehovah in the other names of special character, as we shall see,” until the call of Israel, when we have an appropriate modification in the expression of His name. But Adam now becomes a father, not innocent, but fallen before he became the head of the race. Cain was born, and the fallen mother gave the name; but, oh, what a mistake! I am sure, not that she was exactly entitled to give the name, but that it can be proved that she gave a singularly inappropriate one. She thought her firstborn a great gain, for such is the meaning of the name “Cain.”
Alas! what disappointment and grief, both of the most poignant kind, followed before long. For Abel too was born; and in process of time it came to pass that they brought their offerings into “Jehovah” – a term, I may observe, that is here in admirable keeping. It was not barely as He who had created all, but the God that was in special relationship with man – Jehovah. This is the force of it. Cain looked at Him in the place merely of a Creator, and there was his wrong. Sin needed more. Cain brought what might have sufficed in an unfallen world – what might have suited an innocent worshipper of One who was simply known as Elohim. It was impossible that such a ground could be rightly taken longer; but so Cain did not feel. He makes a religion from his own mind, and brings of the fruit of the ground now under the curse; while Abel by faith offers the firstlings of the flock, and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel, and to his offering. It is the great truth of sacrifice, of which Abel’s faith laid hold, realizing and confessing in his slain lamb that there was no other way in a ruined world for a holy relationship, and for the confession of the truth too, as between God and man. He offers of the firstlings of his flock – that which passed under death – to Jehovah.
“And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.” And Jehovah speaks to him thus – “Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” The principles of God’s nature are immutable. Whether people are believers or not, whether they receive the truth or not, God holds to that which belongs to His own moral being. That anyone is capable of meeting the character of God in an unfallen state is another matter. It is the same principle in Genesis 4, which we find more explicitly stated in Romans 2, where God shows His sure judgment of evil on the one hand, and His approval of that which is good, holy, and true on the other. So with Cain here – “and if thou doest not well”; and such was the fact. His condition was that of a sinner, and he looked not out of himself to God. But what characterizes this scene is not the state in which man as such was – this we had in chapter what man did in that fallen state, and more especially what he did in presence of God and faith. Certainly he did not well. “And if thou doest not well,” it is said, “sin lieth at the door.” Evil conduct is that which makes manifest an evil state, and flows from it.
I do not think that the expression means a sin-offering, as is sometimes supposed; for it does not appear that there is ground for inferring that the truth of a sin-offering was understood in the slightest degree until long afterward. “By the law is the knowledge of sin”; and until the law was brought in there was, as far as scripture tells us, no such discrimination, if any, between the offerings. They were all merged in one; and hence it is that we find that Job’s friends, though guilty in the Lord’s sight, yet alike with him offer burnt-offerings. When Noah brings his sacrifice, it is evidently of that nature also. Would there not have been a sin-offering on these occasions had the law been then in force? Most wisely all such details awaited the unfolding of another day. I merely use these scriptural facts to show what seems to me the truth that sin here does not refer to the specific offering for it, but rather to that which was proved by evil conduct.
Notwithstanding God maintained the place that belonged to the elder brother. But nothing softened the roused and irritated spirit of Cain. There is nothing which more maddens man than mortified religious pride; and so it is here proved, for he rose up against his brother and slew him. And Jehovah speaks to him once more. It was sin not as such against God in leaving Him, like Adam’s, but against man, his brother accepted of God. “Where is Abel thy brother?” To God’s appeal he answers with no less hardness and audacity than falsehood, “I know not.”
There is no real courage with a bad conscience, and guile will soon be apparent where God brings His own light and makes guilt manifest. Let us not forget the deceitfulness of sin.
“What hast thou done?” said Jehovah. “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.” Justly now we have him self-cursed from the face of the earth, pronounced a fugitive and vagabond. But the will of man pits itself invariably against the known will of God, and the very man who was doomed to be a fugitive sets to work that he may settle himself here below. Cain, as it is said, went out from His presence, and dwelt in the land of Nod; a son is born in due time who builds a city called after his name. Such is the birth of civil life in the family of Cain, where we find the discovery and advance of the delights of man; but, along with the progress of art and science, the introduction of polygamy. The rebellious spirit of the forefather shows itself in the descendant Lamech.
But the chapter does not close until we find Seth, whom God substituted (for this is the meaning of the name), or “appointed,” as it is said, “instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” And so Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos. Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah.