And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”
—Genesis 4:10 ESV
Most of us have an acute sense of justice. If anything has even a hint of being unfair, it drives us crazy. To be sure, we are designed this way, but there is truly a realm where the battle for fairness can quickly rise to a fever pitch of emotional intensity: sibling rivalry.
Whether between brothers, between sisters, or between sisters and brothers, it doesn’t matter; the intensity of the rivalry can far exceed anything man can make up—from Pepsi vs. Coke, Red Sox vs. Yankees, or an Indiana vs. Purdue basketball game. Just ask any parent who hears the nearly constant comparing of the size of ice-cream servings, the number of trophies, or the grades on report cards.
Enter Cain and Abel, the world’s first siblings, and a story that causes lots of confusion and debate in Christian circles. Their story is not so much misused as it is misunderstood. The crux of the storyline doesn’t seem right or fair. Why is one brother’s offering to God accepted while the other’s is rejected? The surface reading raises many questions, requiring us to study harder and dig deeper.
As with other stories in the Bible, uncovering the context is critical. Dad and Mom (Adam and Eve) have made a huge mistake and plunged the universe and the human race into a fallen state through their disobedience in the garden of Eden. Evicted from the garden, where life was fruitful without effort, the first couple is now cast out of Paradise to work the ground and develop their own garden for survival’s sake.1
Before this sin came into the world, Adam and Eve were commanded to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28), but this does not come to pass until after they are banished from the garden—so their children are born with the sin nature (and all who follow will as well). Two brothers are born from Adam and Eve’s union. The first was named Cain, and the second Abel. We are not told the age difference; it is even possible they were twins. All we know from the text is this:
Adam was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, “I have had a male child with the Lord’s help.” Then she also gave birth to his brother Abel.
Genesis 4:1–2
So far so good. But since the sin nature is passed on, it will soon show itself in the lives of these two boys whose early lives we are told nothing about. Though they come from the same stock, the boys are very different—one a farmer, the other a herder. Neither task should be seen as superior to the other, though many who read this story mistakenly come to that conclusion. Still, the differing occupations are the perfect seeds for some sort of rivalry, or in this case, an opportunity for jealousy to raise its ugly head.
An untold amount of time passes until we arrive at a good day gone bad.
In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but He did not have regard for Cain and his offering.
vv. 3–5
So the boys have given themselves to their select line of work and they bring the fruit of their labors before the Lord as an offering to him. God likes the one, but rejects the other, and this is the place where our feathers get ruffled. What gives? Cain brings a basket of organic fruit, vegetables, or grain as an offering, and Abel brings some high-quality meats. Again, both offerings would be honorable, so a closer read is needed to shed light on the subject.
Notice that Moses (the writer of Genesis) points out that Cain brought “some of the land’s produce,” whereas Abel brought “some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.” It would seem that Abel’s offering was the best of an animal that could never produce that offering portion again (unlike the harvest from the ground), and therefore it may be perceived as a greater and costlier offering.2
Could this have made Cain’s offering somehow inferior in God’s sight? Scripture doesn’t record for us if God gave special instructions for the sacrifice, but could it also be that Abel presented his offering properly and Cain didn’t? It’s possible, but that seems to be conjecture—an argument from silence. We simply are not given those details.
Are there other clues? Yes. I suggest this likely comes down to a heart issue. Many scholars take a big-picture look at Genesis and conclude that Cain was “self-absorbed”3 and had an attitude problem, and that this may have been what God was responding to when the two men brought their offerings to him. One brother was worshiping from the heart, and one was not, something that only God himself can see, which is why it makes it difficult for us, the reader, to understand since we don’t know what God knows.
This conclusion is further supported when we read commentary on this event that comes later in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews. Notice how the writer describes Abel in the famous “wall of faith”—a summary of believers in biblical history who lived and worshiped by faith.
By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was approved as a righteous man, because God approved his gifts, and even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith.
Hebrews 11:4
It is obvious here that the words faith and better sacrifice inform one another. In other words, they modify each other. Because it was done in faith, Abel made a better sacrifice in God’s sight. By implication then, Cain’s sacrifice was not done in faith or with an attitude of worship. Therefore, God rejected it.
So the nature of the offering (whether grown in the ground or harvested from flocks) doesn’t seem to be the problem. The problem comes from what was in each man’s heart when the offering was given. Cain was going through the motions; Abel was worshiping in faith.
This lesson hits deep into the lives of those who claim to be followers of Christ today. Some go through the motions, others are genuine. Today, there are many in our churches who think they are genuine believers, but unfortunately they are not. They may have been raised in the church all their lives and therefore assume they are Christians. They may have all the right words, know a lot about the Bible and can quote much of it, have given themselves in service to others, and may even have a history of giving generously to the church. But unless their hearts have been changed, “born again” by the Holy Spirit through genuine repentance and saving faith in Jesus, they can be tragically self-deceived.
This is a painful subject to bring up, but it is one reason why the church today is often as weak as it is and why many so-called “Christians” don’t truly act like Christians. The gospel of God’s grace needs to be explicitly preached and taught so that desperate hearts stand a chance of experiencing real life transformation and change. We have to proclaim the truth about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the need for sinners like you and me to repent and believe that God in Christ has provided atonement for and forgiveness of our sins through the cross.
But when this is not the central message of the church, it becomes weak, people are sold a lie, and “going through the motions” and “playing church” become the norm. It becomes nothing more than a religious social club with some humanitarian causes mixed in.
But the Bible is clear; we are only Christians when we genuinely believe we are saved by grace through faith—a faith that is real, with its object being Jesus Christ—a faith that cannot be faked or manufactured. Behavior modification does not save us, speaking Christianese (using Christian terms and phrases) does not save us, giving money and serving humankind does not save us, and getting baptized (a human action) does not save us. Outward actions are all insufficient. Only faith, in the heart, given as a gift by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:8–9) can save us, and then human actions prompted and empowered by the Spirit proceed from that.
Only the kind of faith that turns from sin and turns toward Christ has the power to transform a heart, to bring it from death to life, from darkness to light. Otherwise, we are lost and still living by our fleshly sinful nature. And no matter how religious-looking or -sounding someone might be, if they are merely going through the motions, God will know it.
Cain and Abel’s story is a perfect example of God seeing the heart behind the “religious activity.” Humans look at outward things, but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). He knows who loves him and those who love themselves. He knows who is coming to him out of duty instead of faith.
Cain’s lack of faith—the transforming kind I am talking about—was not only evident in his offering, but his lack of faith and disdain for God and his commands resurfaced later in what we now know to be the first murder recorded in Scripture. Though God had warned Cain about the dangers of sin, Cain let the sin in his heart overtake him, and out of jealousy and pride he took his brother’s life.
And when God called out to him and asked him where Abel was, he uttered the now famous sarcastic response, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9 ESV). Thus Cain, the man who merely went through the motions in his relationship with God, revealed his true nature and character after he was “called out” about his empty offering.
Instead of responding to God in repentance and faith, Cain reacted violently to his embarrassment and shame, killed his brother, lied about his whereabouts, and responded sarcastically to God when called on to give an account.
So we too can soften our hearts, fall at the Lord’s feet in repentance, and receive his mercy and grace, or we can harden our hearts, live a self-deceived life, and ratify the sin nature we’re born with. We can become resistant to God’s authority and brush off God and his commands with an attitude that is bent toward self—just like Cain did.
The contrast couldn’t be clearer. One man worships in faith while the other merely pretends to do so. But who you are is far more important than what you do. One is a matter of the heart; the other is an activity that will have no eternal value unless it is done in faith.
What I like about Cain and Abel’s story is that it also provides us with an excellent example of how to interpret the Bible correctly. Though there are some clues in the Genesis 4 account as to why God may have rejected Cain’s offering and accepted Abel’s, we can learn much more when we use a cross-reference, like the one in Hebrews 11, to shed more light on the event so that we can draw some healthy conclusions.
Scripture actually helps us interpret Scripture, because behind the scenes all of it is inspired by the same author, the Holy Spirit. He used different writers, but he inspired the very words in the Bible—words from God’s heart. It was not given through divine dictation, but rather God used the very personalities, experiences, and expressions of each writer to shape the inspired text into what God intended.
Therefore, Hebrews 11 sheds brilliant light on the events of Genesis 4. We are not told that Abel presented a better offering, but that he presented a better sacrifice. The sacrifice of Abel’s offering done in faith ultimately foreshadowed the cross of Christ, the sacrifice that atoned for our sin. Therefore, as the author of Hebrews rightly says, Abel’s life and sacrifice “still speaks” to us today, in the sense that the biblical story teaches us how to approach God in faith for what he has done through the sacrifice of Christ.
Though the story did not end well for Abel (at least on the earthly side), it didn’t end well for Cain either. He was once again confronted by God about his sin, and God subsequently set forth serious consequences. He was cursed. He no longer had the privilege of farming the soil, the life that brought him joy. His sin robbed him of his joy.
Instead, he wandered the face of the earth, driven from the life that fulfilled into an emptiness that never satisfied. Similarly, people today will never find true satisfaction in the life they were designed to have until they find it first in a relationship with their Maker and Redeemer.
Professor of Old Testament and theology Victor Hamilton writes about Cain’s banishment,
In some ways it is a fate worse than death. It is to lose all sense of belonging and identification with a community. It is to become rootless and detached. Perhaps we, the readers, should at this point view Cain not so much as a villain but as a tragic character. Cain, once a farmer, is now ousted from civilization and is to become a vagabond. Rootlessness is the punishment and the wilderness is the refuge of the sinner.4
Indeed, it is a tragic story. Cain is discouraged, he feels the separation from God that sin brings, and ironically he fears for his life. But God spares him instant death, and puts a permanent mark on him so that no one who finds him will kill him. God is merciful to Cain, even though the mark would be a constant reminder of what he had done.
As the narrative concludes, we are told that “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden” (Genesis 4:16 NASB ). Kenneth Mathews, a biblical scholar on Genesis, notes that Nod is a play on the Hebrew word nād, which means “wanderer.”5 That makes Cain a wanderer wandering in the “land of the wanderer.” Though one can never truly leave the Lord’s presence (since he is omnipresent), the text clearly implies that Cain is separated and alienated in his relationship with God. He experiences, in some ways, a hell on earth. Later in Scripture, the apostle John will tell us that Cain “was of the evil one,” a man whose “works were evil” while his “brother’s were righteous” (1 John 3:12). Nothing could be sadder than belonging to the Evil One, or Satan.
But this is the reality for those who are not worshiping the one true God from the heart. We must get past the idea that people are safe simply because they look and act religious or do religious duties or are seemingly upright, moral people. We all need the gospel to bring us deliverance from sin and faith that leads to eternal life. Anything else is merely going through the motions, and to live that way is to live away from the presence of the Lord.
So let us walk by faith so that we may live a life that pleases God and offer ourselves in thanksgiving to the Lord. That is the kind of life that still speaks today.