The account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 is intriguing. The account can be studied in many different ways, and it carries such great meaning and significance. The account can also invite us into philosophical introspection, although this is not the subject for today.
Instead, we must begin in Genesis chapter 3, where we find that God clothed Adam and Eve with goat skins. There is much which is not recorded there, but many good writers believe we must extrapolate and draw out a great deal of meaning from the text which we do have.
First, and most importantly, we must notice that the first command from God was only given to Adam. However, Eve summarized the command, although incorrectly, when she was tempted by the serpent. We have no account of either Adam or God explaining the command to her. We must, therefore, assume from the text we do have that either Adam (through instruction) or God (through revelation) taught Eve the commandment of God.
Second, we see God clothing Adam and Eve with goat skins in the first act of redemption recorded in the Bible. We must assume, therefore, that one or more goats died. How did they die? Did God kill them, or did God direct that Adam and Eve perform this act? Why did they die? Further, knowing that the soul which sins must die (Genesis 2:47, Ezekiel 18:4), we see here the first substitutionary sacrifice and the first blood shed in remission for sin (Matthew 26:28, Hebrews 10:18). It is reasonable to extract from the record we do have that God explained (through revelation) to Adam and Eve the necessity for a blood sacrifice as the remedy for sin.
Third, from where did Abel conceive of the need for a blood sacrifice? How did he know that a blood sacrifice was better than a grain offering? How did he know that a sacrifice was necessary or valuable at all? Here, we must understand that we are made for worship, and we are created in the image of God to worship Him. We cannot discount the knowledge revealed to Adam and Eve by God of the need for a blood sacrifice as the remission for sin. The penalty of death is imposed for sin, and the only means to reconcile the breach between humanity and God is a blood sacrifice. We cannot know whether God revealed this to Abel or if Adam and Eve explained this need to him. It is clear, however, that Abel understood the need for a blood sacrifice.
What, then, do we make of Cain’s sacrifice? Are we to assume that he was not told or that he did not understand? This would seem to be an impossibility given that Adam, Eve and Abel all understood and experienced the need for a blood sacrifice.
G. Campbell Morgan in his book, The Triumphs of Faith, writes that Cain, in the act of murdering Abel, “expressed what sin really is.” Is this not rebellion? The first sin was committed by Lucifer, and it was an act of rebellion against God. That rebellion was helped by pride. Cain acts no differently from Lucifer here. First, Cain rebelled against the instruction by God to bring a blood sacrifice, and Cain makes up his own rules. Second, Cain is obstinate because of his pride, and it is his pride which prevents him from obeying God.
We could perhaps better understand this in a relationship such as marriage or parenting. Each party has an obligation to love, cherish and surrender to the other. When one withholds love or refuses to cherish, it is rebellion against the obligation and against the person to whom the obligation is owed. Many times, pride is behind the rebellion. Knowing we are created in the image of God to worship Him, refusing to worship Him in the manner prescribed is rebellion, and our pride rears its ugly head in justifying an alternative worship. Further, Cain had a responsibility of obedience to God and commitment to Abel, and murdering Abel was another act of rebellion. Once again, it is his pride which fuels the crime in believing himself to be better than Abel and allowing a wounded ego to drive his motives.
Thus, we turn to Cain’s offering. The decision to bring an offering from the ground as opposed to a blood sacrifice originated in rebellion. Rebellion is the very foundation of all sin, the very origin of sin, and it is often fueled by or coupled with pride.
It would, therefore, be a reasonable conclusion that Cain committed an act of idolatry and that his offering is the foundation of idolatry – or better put, idolatry is the result of rebellion and pride. Later in the Bible, we are given a command to refrain from worshiping graven images and understand that worship of Baal is idolatry. In modern times, we hear of worshipers bringing food to graven images.
Idolatry, then, is expecting God to accept us on the basis of what we choose and of our own effort. Cain did, after all, choose to bring the fruit of his labor and expended labor to accumulate the offering. It is a works-based salvation conceived within Cain’s mind. Anything we bring to God that is not a blood sacrifice will not be accepted because only blood shed is accepted as the remission for sin.
Understanding this, any form of works performed to make ourselves righteous or purchase salvation is idolatry. The only means to God which we are given is through the blood, and since the cross, the only means we have to God is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). Anything we do on our own terms is idolatry and abhorrent to God. We are not accepted by the fruit of our own labor.
Today, we have various forms of works-based righteousness, including standards of morality which are said to be evidence of righteousness. We have “entire sanctification” from which it is said that we cannot sin even if we wanted to. We have the pre-tribulation rapture which weakens the glory and majesty of Christ by claiming that the full glory of Christ will be revealed without touching the earth and without notice by the ungodly and that God will spare us from seeing tribulation. We also have churches choosing to wholesale embrace abortion, transgenderism, and homosexuality and expecting that God will bless their choice for what worship and love should be. We also have emotionalism in church services, loud music, girations, tongues, and so forth. All is ineffectual to save and does not move us any closer to acceptance before God. It is all a form of idolatry. Where is Christ in all this?
Only a blood sacrifice is accepted, and only those who come to God through the cross of Jesus Christ will be accepted. Sadly, we have sorely gotten away from the cross today, and it is no wonder murder, mutilation of children and adults, and death (both crime and abortion) is on the rise. From our idolatry springs such evil just as it did with Cain, and with it we repeat the sins of Cain upon many who are innocent.
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