There are two points of view from which we may study the lives of men, according as we place ourselves with the spectators, or with the actors. With the former we may scrutinize the conduct, and mark the consequences which flow from it; with the latter we become cognizant of the motives, and trace upwards to their source the otherwise hidden springs of action. The history of Cain and Abel afford us an illustration of this.
In reading the account handed down by Moses we are placed in the position of spectators; in reading the brief notice of the history in the epistle to the Hebrews we understand the position of Abel, and learn the guiding principles of the two brothers. No antediluvian record, if any such existed, survived the flood; to revelation, therefore, we are wholly indebted for what we do possess. Fifteen centuries elapsed between the date of the writing of Genesis and that of the epistle to the Hebrews, during which the outward history (i. e. what a spectator might have recorded) of their sacrifices, was all that God had been pleased to disclose. But, when in the fulfillment of His counsels, ordained before the foundation of the world, the message of His grace went forth to all men; and the seed of Jacob had to renounce the earthly promises made to their fathers, if they would receive God’s salvation; the secret history of that day’s offerings was revealed. God unfolds truth in season. Till then its application would not have been understood, for it Concerns not Israel merely, but all men, as it speaks in language clear and loud of a sinner’s acceptance before his God. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.” (Heb. 11:44By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. (Hebrews 11:4).)
What a value God has put on this history! “By it he being dead yet speaketh.” A voice then comes to us from the other side of the flood to which man would do well to give ear: and as we listen to it we can be at no loss how to understand its purport, or how to translate its language; for God the Holy Ghost has given us His divine comment on that history. So, whilst we read in Genesis of the awful wickedness to which a child of Adam can stoop, we learn in Hebrews the principle on which one born in sin can be held righteous before God. Of the sacrifices of Adam and Eve we have no record. They were created in innocence, and fell through positive transgression. Their example, then, as to sacrifices, men might plead, did not meet their case. Adam and Eve were directly answerable for their fallen condition, but we enter the world sinners from our birth. Hence the sacrifices of Cain and Abel just meet our case. For like us they were children of Adam, born in sin, inheriting by birth an evil nature. Their position is ours as children of the same father; the ground of their acceptance is the ground of ours likewise, as they possessed by natural generation, in common with us, a nature at enmity with God. Hence, on the first occasion that could arise, this question of a sinner’s acceptance before God, so intimately connected with the everlasting welfare of man was clearly raised, and the controversy definitely and plainly set at rest, as “the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his Offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.” (Gen. 4:4-54And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. (Genesis 4:4‑5).) A look from the Lord settled the question between them, and has taught us that the question was then settled for us.
“By faith Abel offered,” &c. —Then with Abel it was obedience to a revelation from God, but how communicated it has not pleased Him to record-nor does it concern us. It is the fact of a revelation having been vouchsafed, and not the manner of its communication, we require, to throw light on Abel’s actions. With him, then, what he should offer was no question of choice; he learned what God required, and brought it. Thus, at the outside of the garden of Eden, in the wilderness. of Sinai, and at Mount Calvary, we behold how in all ages God has declared what that sacrifice is which He can accept. Before the flood, as well as after it, souls to be accepted had to learn this. Yet with all the light of revelation, the accumulated knowledge of ages, and the boasted enlightenment of this nineteenth century, are not many souls even in this country in as thick darkness about the teaching of Cain’s and Abel’s offerings, as if that history had never been written, or God’s word they had never heard of? Few there are, probably, who have never heard of Cain and Abel; but how many are there among that large class who, acquainted with the statements of Moses, have understood the meaning of that voice, which though he is dead, yet speaketh? Are we strangers in our day to language such as this— “That men may be saved in different ways, if only they are earnest and upright?” The narrowness of past generations must be overcome; the bigotry of those who refuse to divorce salvation from the atonement can no longer be endured! Are such voices from the altar of Abel or are they echoes from the offerings of Cain?
Turning to the Mosaic account we learn that on one point both the brothers were agreed; they owned that it was right for a creature to bring an offering to his God. Cain seemed as ready as Abel to yield up to the Lord something of what he possessed. There did not appear any backwardness on his part in bringing an offering to the Lord. The ground had yielded increase to reward his toil, and he was willing to present part of it to Him by whose power and goodness the earth was fruitful at all. The occasion on which they thus approached God is not mentioned. Sufficient for us is it to remark that Cain, by his offering, though he acted wrongly, condemns many a one in this day who receives favors from God, enjoys them, learns the value of them, and looks for a renewal of them each morning, without once stopping to think of the Giver, or inquiring in what way He can be approached and worshipped.
“Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of the flock, and of the fat thereof.” The amount of Cain’s offering has not been revealed, nor the number of Abel’s sheep, but both, doubtless, drew nigh with no niggard hand: and now these two sons of Adam, born in sin, stand with their respective offerings before the Lord. Cain, doubtless, brought of the choicest of his harvest, the fattest of the fruits of the ground—beautiful sight, we may believe, for the outward eye to admire; whilst Abel, doubtless, stood with the finest of the firstlings of his flock, with their fat. Observe, there is no mention of the blood. This is in perfect keeping with the character of their service that day. Throughout the book of Genesis, it may be remarked, there is no mention of blood in connection with sacrifice to God. It is not till the redemption of the people of Israel was to be consummated, and the law to be given, “added because of transgressions,” that its efficacy is brought out, or the blood mentioned at all. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” is a truth never to be forgotten; but on that day it was not, it would appear, a question of sins to be forgiven, for we read not before this of a single thing that they had done wrong. The question raised was about the acceptance of a sinner, not about the remission of sins. This is an important distinction, and gives great weight to this history of Abel. It was the nature, and not the acts of that nature, that Abel’s sacrifice bring into prominence. The blood makes atonement for sins, but a nature can only cease to exist by death. Death therefore must come in ere a nature can be put away. So we have here the death of the firstlings, and the offering with them of their fat, without the mention of the blood. The death of the animals foreshadowed the death of the substitute; their fat, as we learn from the Levitical ritual, the perfect obedience to the will of God of the Substitute, in the inmost recesses of His nature. For, observe, it is not fat lambs that we read of but the firstlings, with their fat. Doubtless the firstlings were the best of their kind, the fattest of the flock, but that explanation will not satisfy the term “and the fat thereof.” “All the fat is the Lord’s,” we read in Lev. 3:1616And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savor: all the fat is the Lord's. (Leviticus 3:16), and with the inwards, formed “the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savor.” How expressive must the mention of the fat with Abel’s offerings have been to the children of Israel, hearing that history for the first time probably, just when they had learned at Sinai the value of the fat in God’s eyes. The mention then of the fat has a voice, and the offering of Abel a meaning which we can interpret. Cain acted in self-will in the offering he brought, Abel approached as a sinner, put the death of the substitute between him and God, and offered with the animals their fat, thus prefiguring the perfect answer within of the true victim to the will of God; as it is written of Him, “My reins also instruct me in the night seasons.” (Psa. 16:77I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons. (Psalm 16:7).) Abel then drew near acknowledging his need of the death of a substitute. Cain approached as a righteous man who had already a standing before God. He ignored his condition by the fall, so was rejected; Abel owned it, offered accordingly, and was accepted. The fruits of the ground were witnesses against Cain of the fall, for the ground was cursed for Adam’s sake; the dead victims likewise testified of it, for death entered the world by sin; but they spoke also of the divinely appointed way of putting away sin by the sacrifice of God’s own Son. Hence “the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering; but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.” Neither of them drew nigh without offerings which spoke of the fall (whatever they offered must have done that); but Cain thought to set himself right with God without the death of a substitute, whilst Abel acknowledged the need of another’s death ere he could stand in acceptance before God. Abel thus confessed that as far as man was concerned his condition was irremediable, for he was a sinner; Cain manifested a disposition by his fruits to make good his standing, and miserably failed, as all must who act in the spirit in which he acted, and refuse to accept the atonement made by the Lord Jesus. Abel took the place of a sinner—a lost sinner; Cain of a soul able to maintain its ground before a holy God. Was this thought confined to the days before the flood? Is it not largely entertained still?
But, it may be asked, why were the fruits of the ground an offering God could not accept from Cain; when He afterward commanded the children of Israel to offer of their first fruits unto Him? The answer is plain. Their cases were very different. Israel, as a nation, were already redeemed, and had a standing before Him; with Cain it was the question of an unredeemed sinner’s acceptance. Cain should have learned that the only ground of his standing before God was through the death of another. With Israel this had been already settled by the blood of the paschal lamb, and manifested by their passage through the Red Sea. Do we not discern the difference of these conditions in the language addressed in the New Testament to sinners and to saints?
To sinners the message is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” To saints the word comes, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Acts, 16:31. Rom. 12:11I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1).) As redeemed by blood, God looks for that from His people, which it would be presumptuous for the unsaved soul to offer.
Now the identification between the offering and the offerer comes out,— “The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.” Could He have accepted Abel without his offering? Impossible. Could He have accepted the offering without the offerer? Impossible. For by faith Abel offered. He manifested the obedience of faith, and so received the sure consequence-acceptance before his God. “He obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.” He had no need to ask his father or his mother (if they were present) whether he had been accepted, the Lord would have him learn it direct from Himself, so he could leave the place of sacrifice with his mind at rest about it. Abel knew all about it, Cain did likewise. To both was it made plain, that the one was owned as righteous that day, who had taken the place of a lost sinner, needing the death of a substitute; and Cain’s conduct comes out to us in all its enormity and presumption, when we learn what Abel’s firstlings foreshadowed.
But how graciously did the Lord deal with Cain, when He manifested displeasure at his rejection. Was the Lord unrighteous in His dealings with the two brothers? “If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted?” Or, as the margin reads, “have the excellency.” But to do well was to own, like Abel, what one born in sin needed. How little do men understand this? Yet, what higher or truer ground could Abel take, than simply to confess what he was? It was in this Cain had failed. Yet the Lord would not for that finally cast him off, so He added, “If thou doest not well, sin,” or as is more commonly understood, a sin offering “lieth at the door:” and, if offered, his sin would be forgiven, and his position as first-born would still remain to him— “unto thee shall be his desire (i.e. Abel?) and thou shalt rule over him.” Here we have the first mention of an offering. God told him what to do, but he refused to obey, and instead of the sacrifice, as pointed out, he took his brother’s life. Was he desirous to secure the rights of the first-born, and so slew his brother, as others afterward could say, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him; and the inheritance shall be ours?” It may have been so, but Scripture is silent about it. One thing, however, is clear, the way of acceptance, even after he had sinned, was pointed out to him, so he was left without excuse, when he turned from the place of sacrifice, without having brought the sin offering. The Lord Would not allow him to be ignorant of what he should do, any more than Abel of the results of what he had done. Multitudes have fallen into Cain’s mistake, but what the Lord told Cain He tells them. For Cain and for them a sacrifice must be offered up. But in Cain’s case it was the offering up of one from the flock; in the sinner’s case now, it is trusting wholly to the sacrifice of God’s Lamb on the cross. How clearly then is the whole question of a sinner’s acceptance shadowed forth in this brief history. How has this history spoken to the heart of the readers of these lines? If hitherto it has been read simply as the record of a by-gone age, with which we are not concerned, now may. its voice penetrate to the depths of the heart, and it be found speaking directly to each soul. We read here what Cain and Abel respectively offered; but we read in it also what men are doing in these days, and how each one should act, if desirous to be found on the same side as “righteous Abel.”
From that day the paths of the two brothers outwardly diverged. Abel’s body was shortly afterward laid in the grave, and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and builded a city, and called it after his son, Enoch. His posterity became famous as inventors of instruments of music, and workers in brass and iron. The flood came and obliterated all trace of his city, if it existed till then, and all trace, too, of Abel’s grave; and the strains of music Cain’s family had first evoked, were hushed forever into silence as the waters overflowed the earth. But there is a voice which Cain’s malice could not silence, nor the overflowing waters drown; and, whilst all of Cain’s race, with their arts and works, perished in the deluge, this voice still speaks to sinners, telling what they need, as Abel found, who by faith offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, and by it, though dead, yet speaketh! C. E. S.