Understanding the Bible - Part 3

Knowing Evil

     A desire to gain the knowledge of good and evil drove Eve to eat from the forbidden tree and Adam followed her lead.  They had known only good in Eden.  Now they had been thrust out into a cruel world where survival would only come through toil as all that was perfect begins its decay into corruption.  The first child born into this world becomes the personification of evil and much to their sorrow, Adam and Eve gain full knowledge of what evil means.  Once you have read Genesis 4:1 through 4:26 you are ready to consider the three questions:

1.  What does it reveal about God?

• God is forgiving.  Despite the expulsion from Eden, we see in this chapter God’s continued interaction with humans.  He did not abandon Adam and Eve.  He continued to visit them and their children.
• God cares for us.  God shows concern for Cain’s emotional disposition following the criticism of Cain’s offering.  He warns Cain of the perilous path upon which such emotions could carry him.
• God is just.  While we do not know exactly why God rejected Cain’s offering, we can perhaps draw some conclusions.  Abel brought the firstborn from his flock of sheep as his offering.  One imagines it must have been emotionally difficult for Abel to sacrifice the gentle creature he had raised since birth.  God could relate to the magnitude of this gift on two counts.  First, God sacrificed innocent creatures to provide skins to clothe Adam and Eve when they were ashamed and had only leaves to cover them.  It could be that Abel had heard the story of the sacrifice from his parents and was imitating God’s act of sacrifice by giving up something that was dear to him to honor God.  Second, one cannot fail to notice the imagery in Abel’s sacrifice as it relates to the plan God had already formed to one day sacrifice his son Jesus, the Lamb of God.

 
     Cain, on the other hand, offered “fruit of the ground”.  Keep in mind, that God had placed a curse on the ground due to Adam’s sin.  So Cain was offering God things that had sprung up from cursed ground.  Abel had offered something precious and unique – a firstborn living creature.  Cain had offered something cursed and common – an assortment of crops that he had harvested from cursed ground.  For God to have accepted Cain’s ill-conceived offering would not have been fair to Abel, who had made a true sacrifice for God.  It also would have failed to have set the proper pattern of foreshadowing of the plan that God had created for the redemption of mankind.
 
     Further evidence of the just nature of God is displayed in the punishment Cain faces for his act of murder.  God enforces consequences for the shedding of blood.  God drives Cain out from his presence.  This drives home the point that sin brings separation from God.

• God is merciful.  God did not strike Cain down for killing Abel.  God responded to the despair Cain expressed over his banishment by giving him a mark of protection.  While we do not know the quality of Cain’s life after his banishment, we see that he was able to raise a family and build a city.

 
2.  What does it reveal about us?

• We are capable of great evil.  The first human born outside of Eden killed his brother in a jealous rage.  It did not take generations of separation from the paradise of Eden to bring humanity to its lowest point.  It happened in the first post-Eden generation.  Anyone who believes in the inherent goodness of humanity should think long and hard on the story of Cain and Abel.
• Failure to control our emotions can lead to sin and possibly separation from God.  God himself warned Cain about the sin Cain was in danger of falling into and still Cain gave in to his jealousy and anger and committed the most heinous of acts.

 
3.  What does it reveal about God’s relationship with us?

• God desires a relationship with us.  Even after the rebellion in Eden, we see that God was still visiting and conversing with the family of Adam and Eve.
• God wants us to understand his will.  God was not being cruel to Cain by rejecting his offering.  God was teaching Cain to learn from the experience and do better next time.  It was an opportunity for Cain to better understand the will of God, but instead Cain could not see past his anger.  If you give someone a gift with the goal of pleasing them, is it not better to know what they really prefer as opposed to having them pretend that they like something that they really do not?

 
Key Passage
 
                “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, ‘For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.’” – Genesis 4:25
 
              This is the key passage because it describes the unrelenting advancing of God’s plan for salvation.  The first two offspring of Adam and Eve were destroyed – one through a mortal death and the other through a spiritual death.  But God replaced Abel with Seth and through Seth the seed of Eve would begin its march through time to the Virgin birth of Jesus.
 
Other Notable Points

• One can see the descent of the Fallen world into violence right from the beginning.  First with Cain and then we learn that a few generations later Lamech killed a man for wounding him.
• You might be wondering where Cain’s wife came from.  As distasteful as it sounds, she was most likely a sister.  Since we are not told of the creation of any other humans beyond Adam and Eve, we are left to assume that the earliest generations were formed from the unions of brothers and sisters and then cousins.  The purity of human bloodlines that soon after Creation would have made such unions possible without the risk of genetic deformities.  There were also no established social prohibitions against such relationships.  It was not until the establishment of the Mosaic laws that God speaks out against such relationships.

 
Final Thoughts

• In this chapter we see the Fallen nature of humans on full display.  We are capable of great evil.  Failure to understand the will of God and control our emotions can lead to sin and separation.
• God’s mercy and forbearance knows no bounds.  We see God’s continued fellowship with humans even after the rebellion in Eden.  We see his continued mercy by banishing Cain instead of executing him.  God even gives Cain a protective mark to ease his mind.
• God’s plan for restoration will not be stopped.  Even after the death of Abel and the banishment of Cain, God blessed Adam and Eve with another son, Seth, to establish the bloodline through which the savior will be born.