Cain, a Doomed Sinner
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2019 · 10 February 2019
As we come to Genesis 4 we see the story of Cain. The first person born in the world, since Adam was created by God directly. And then Eve was created by taking material from the side of Adam. Cain is the first person born into the world. And so with the birth of Cain come a number of firsts. The first birth, which therefore constituted the first family.
The first sibling follows soon after with the birth of Abel and some even believe they were twins although that is not verified in the text. We have the first birth, then the first family and the first sibling. We also have the first family disaster. The story of Cain also reveals to us the establishment of society and shows us the flow of sin into human beings in history.
The story of Cain is the first opportunity for vengeance. We have in the story of Cain the first act of worship after the fall. The first expression of hypocrisy, the first occasion of false religion and the first act of self-righteousness. And the introduction of grace. But the main theme in the story of Cain is to introduce us to the first unbeliever who sinned against God.
Cain then is the prototype of the doomed person. He is the prototype of the lost sinner. And God always has clear purposes when he records for us stories in Scripture. And the account of Cain is given here in some detail in order that we might get a complete picture of the typical unbeliever. And so we call this Cain the prototype of the doomed. And the big picture here is God’s message.
Now the story of Cain is the story of a reprobate, a story of an impenitent man. It is the story of a rejecter of God's gracious salvation. Even the New Testament comments on this account. And in Jude 1: 11, we read, "Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain.” Here Jude is associating false teachers as being under divine judgment with Cain.
In 1 John 3:12, it says, “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.” So the New Testament identifies Cain as one who is associated with the damned in Jude. And one who is associated with Satan in 1 John 3. And Abel is called righteous.
Abel was a believer. He believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And he trusted in the promise of God as did his mother and father, Adam and Eve. The contrast then comes in Genesis 4 with this reprobate named Cain. Now beyond that it isn't really necessary for me to give you any more introduction. Just to repeat that here is the prototype of an unbeliever.
Genesis 4:1-7, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.”
“And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
Let us look at Cain‘s character traits. All of them are negative except the first one. At first there is a hopeful beginning in Verse 1, his mother says, "I have gotten a male child with the help of the Lord." The last is tragic; Verse 16, then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord.” Unbelievers have hopeful beginnings. So Adam had relationship with his wife, the Hebrew word Yada means to know.
Adam knew his wife. That is a euphemism for sexual relations, to know in an intimate way. It is repeated again if you look at verse 17 and "Cain knew his wife” is again Yada, And if you go down to verse 25 it's repeated again, "And Adam knew his wife again and she gave birth to a son this time the son's name was Seth." In each case, ‘Yada’ is used.
The word ‘know’ is also used metaphorically of intimate relationships. In Amos 3:2, God says, "Israel have I known." And what He means is that they are the people with whom he has an intimate covenant relationship. And in John 10, Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice and I know them." It does mean that he has an intimate relationship. So Eve conceived and gave birth to Cain.
God works the miracle of creation of new life. And Eve knew it; she knew it was not some evolutionary process. She said, "I've gotten a man child with the help of the Lord." Eve knew the child was born by the power of God working in her and in that child. The verb gotten, ‘cana’, means to acquire something. She says, "I have now acquired something that God has made along with me."
It’s interesting that Cain was named “that formed thing” that Eve and God had formed together. But Abel has a quite different name. Abel is the Hebrew word Hebel, which means a mere breath. And it expresses the brevity of life. And in the case of Abel, it was indeed very brief. Psalm 144:4 says, "Man is like a mere breath. His days are like a passing shadow."
We don't know how long he actually lived because there's no determined time before this incident which involves his murder. But measured against the long spans of life before the flood, Adam himself living for 930 years and also many people living for centuries of time, Abel's life was but a brief breath. Imagine the joy when two children were the first two ever born in the history of the world?
Verse 2 continues, “Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain was a worker of the ground.” These were both noble professions. They were many noble shepherds in the Old Testament like Jacob, Joseph, Moses and David. And of course the imagery of the great shepherd is put upon the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And there wasn't anything second-class about taking care of crops.
Even our Lord presents himself as the true farmer who sows good seed and brings in a fruitful harvest. And there are others in the Bible, some of them among the prophets, who were farmers. So they both had noble responsibilities and that's how life was divided. You either took care of the animals or you took care of the crops. But that's where the positives end for unbelievers.
It didn't take long apparently for Cain's and Abel’s characters to be revealed. And interestingly enough the revelation of their character is shown in an occasion of worship. When you get into the environment of worship, then the difference in character traits becomes apparent. And we find that Abel's worship was acceptable and Cain's was seriously flawed and not accepted.
Unbelievers offer unacceptable worship. This is characteristic of the doomed. It is that they offer unacceptable worship. And unbelievers generally speaking throughout the history of the world have been religious. In fact the whole of the human race is incurably religious. You can go to the darkest corners of the world and you're going to find people worshipping something.
They worship the sun, the moon, the stars, animals, reptiles, insects, a rock, a tree, a waterfall, a river, a lake, a mountain, a statue or an image of their own making. Some people even worship themselves. Mankind always has to worship something. And Cain was a worshipper. Verse 3 says, “In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground.”
We don’t know how old they were. They probably were young since their character would have manifested itself early, where they could have decided about their response to the Word of God and the promises of God. How did they know about it? Well, the two most potent evangelists for trusting God would be Adam and Eve. Who better understood what it meant to fall victim to Satan?
How many times did they plead with those boys to believe God and not Satan? How many times did they plead with them to put their faith in the promises of God because the promises of God brought joy and blessing compared to the promises of Satan brought death and destruction? I can't imagine anybody better equipped to get that message across than the two people who were thrown out of paradise.
Eve would have plead with her boys to trust God. And a father like Adam would have done the same. Cain and Abel could have told the story in every single detail about how the fall occurred and how wonderful it was in the garden and how sad it was that they couldn't go back. And they knew about the angel with the flaming sword in every direction to keep anybody from going in there.
Many times they had been told to believe that God was going to send someone who would bruise the serpent's head and overthrow this usurper and bring back paradise. And they were told that you need to honor God, to show respect, to worship God. We are sure that God had commanded those offerings, because otherwise how would they know to bring them to God.
So they were out of Eden, but they could still worship. Because God could be worshipped wherever they were. We learn in John 4 that God is not confined to Mt. Gerizim, he's not confined to Jerusalem, but God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth. God had told them he wanted sacrifices, so there was an altar built. And there comes Cain with the fruit of the ground.
It doesn't say he brought the first of a given crop, or that he brought the best. And by not saying it, he didn't bring necessarily the first or the best. But more significantly he didn't bring an animal sacrifice. And I'm convinced that God had instructed them to bring an animal sacrifice. Do you remember that picture of substitutionary death of an innocent victim to cover the sinner?
So here is Cain not admitting that he is a sinner. He is bringing what he has produced out of the ground. It appears to have been an offering of self- righteous human achievement. There are only two ways to offer to God. You approach God offering him what you've achieved. Or you approach God realizing that you deserve death and by offering a sacrifice as a substitute to die in your place you are allowed to live.
Apparently Cain didn't have any recognition of the sin. So here is the first example of human achievement and false religion. Later on in the Levitical Law, you can see it in Deuteronomy 26 and Leviticus 2, grain offerings were prescribed by God as reminders that God was the source of all their food. But the primary and necessary offering was the animal sacrifice for substitutionary death for sin.
And now from evil self-righteous Cain we come to righteous Abel. Verse 4, “And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.” This is very different. He brought not just animals, his offering is actually the fattest of the firstlings. The best of the best. The emphasis here then is on the quality of that offering as well as the character of it.
Animal sacrifice become clearly defined in the Mosaic Law in the book of Exodus and all through the book of Leviticus. And all those animal sacrifices were simply pictures of the one sacrifice that actually takes away sin. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And so God must have given them instruction regarding animal sacrifice. And not just any animal sacrifice, but the best without blemish.
The spotless lamb so wonderfully depicts sinless Jesus Christ. And the end of verse 4, here's the most notable thing, "The Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering." The Lord had regard for means He accepted Abel and his offering. First of all, God had regard for Abel. That means for his heart and for his spirit. That means his attitude, this man had faith inside his heart.
God always looks at the heart. And here was a man who worshipped God with his heart. Here was a believer in God. Here was a man with a righteous heart. And that's why it says, "The Lord had regard for Abel. And for his offering." That's the outside, the animals. The fact he offered what God required. 1 John 3:12 says, "His behavior was righteous." That means he did what was right.
Verse 5, “but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.” God had no regard for Cain’s offering and his heart. The New Testament makes it clear that he was evil. He is associated in Jude 13 with all the false teachers for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. So Cain is the prototype of the doomed people.
Unbelievers get angry over those who say this is the truth and this alone is the truth and this is the only way of salvation. Cain is self-righteous and he is stubbornly self-righteous. He lacks any contrition; he lacks any remorse. He's not sorry that he brought what he brought. He's not sorry about his disobedience. And he becomes angry with his brother and with God.
This is a man whose anger has reached the point of despair. In our world, the society of Cain still exists. And they work feverishly and angrily to obliterate the God of the Bible. Once a person becomes fixed in unbelief like Cain, they resent the message of the truth. The simple story of Cain is rich with instruction. And it translates right into our day. For there are still many today who walk in the way of Cain. Let us pray.