Genesis 4 marks the beginning of the rest of our story. It did not take long for the consequences of the Fall and the Curse to take root, ushering a downslope leading to false worship, pride, hatred, murder, and polygamy. The chapter grows darker by the verse. But at the end, we are not left without a light: a new hope arises which renews the promise made to the woman by whose offspring salvation will come. And the proper response is that people worship rightly by calling upon the name of the Lord.

This chapter contains narratives, interrogations, genealogy, and poetry. Let’s go over the chapter again, directing our attention to a few highlights, and discussing points that have puzzled readers and commentators for centuries. Then we will return to 3 areas of focus for the rest of this sermon: False worship is fatal; sin is not victimless; and a new hope of a better blood.

Retelling the Story

Some time after Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden, we have the first pregnancy. Adam knew Eve, meaning he knew her intimately. He did not meet her coming around a pear tree, and introduced himself, but the meaning is he had an intimate, personal knowledge of her that consummated in procreation and conception. It is an old but refreshing way of referring to sexual intimacy that unfortunately is often expressed in coarse language today. This intimacy was truly meant to build the one-flesh relationship God intended. The fruit of this event makes Eve rejoice in having been given an offspring, who may have seemed to be the realization of the promise from chapter 3 to crush the head of the serpent. She exults in saying God helped her create this son. Her hope may have been too high on him that we don’t get an explanation of why the second born was called Abel, which may mean that he was extra, a vanity, or a mere addition to the presumed son of the promise.

Both sons exercise dominion over the earth: fauna and flora. And both seem to realize they ought to honor the Lord who gave them such dominion. The timing of this offering may have been a celebration at the end of a season or a time of remembrance of the Fall. Abel brought an offering from the firstfruit of his flock and their fat, thus giving his best to the Lord. But Cain brought some of the grain, indicating a lackluster heart. They may have brought them to Adam in his figure as a priestly role; or maybe to the tree of life guarded by the cherubim. Regardless, we have to understand that God did not favor animal sacrifices over grain ones, nor does he dislike vegetarians. In fact, both types of sacrifices are commanded later in the Law. Cain’s offering may have even been more esthetically pleasing with the grain well arranged, while Abel’s was literally a bloody mess. But here’s the hint: God regarded Abel [first] then his sacrifice [maybe by consuming it by fire], revealing that Abel’s heart of true worship was in the right place, while Cain’s morbid heart led to false worship; and so God had no regard of him. Cain’s dark heart led him to anger and resentment. Instead of reevaluating his disposition and seeking repentance, he was falling into the blindness of hatred. Instead of being grieved by his own disobedience, he was angry at his brother and true worship, and by extension, at God. And so we have God’s 1^st interrogation of Cain, and the first of a contingent command often repeated in the Bible: do what is right, and you will be accepted; choose life. If not, sin is like an animal waiting to pounce for the kill, and you better have mastery over it: crush its head, before it poisons you to death.

But Cain’s hatred was growing, leading him to premeditated murder and fratricide. God comes again to interrogate him, yet Cain has the audacity to sarcastically retort whether he was responsible for his brother, expecting a “no” answer. But if we are not responsible for one another, how are we different from soulless animals? How can society flourish? God then takes his place as judge, for the blood of the murdered is crying to him, and justice means sin must be paid for. The ground that received Abel’s blood, that was cursed in 3:17, is now cursing Cain and refuses to give him its yield. Cain is driven away, even further east of Eden, wandering farther away from the presence of God. He still shows no remorse, and senses the punishment is weighty. He fears for his life, likely from future family members who might want to avenge Abel. And we find God showing again great mercy, on one hand apparently shunning human vengeance, on the other protecting Cain’s life even while exiling him. Much ink has been shed on the mark of Cain, and we do not have more information on it. It could be a tattoo, a scar, a forehead dot, or a dog or a tiger by his side.

Even more ink has been spilled on who Cain’s wife was. I spent a lot of time reading references from different Christian viewpoints, and others like JW, Midrash and more. While the bottom line is we don’t know, let’s review some of the main ideas. Many believe Cain married his sister or a very close relative (e.g. niece). In 5:6, we read that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters. Within this early context, it was not wrong to do so. After all, Adam married Eve who was taken from his side, almost technically himself. Abraham married his half-sister (Gen 20:12), and it was common for people to marry their cousins. In fact, marriage of cousins is still very prevalent in many parts of the world today. This may seem odd to our modern western ears. After all, laws against incest are later even found in the Pentateuch. They were important because as humans had more descendants, there were more genetic mutations and disease carriers, which meant the closer one marries, the higher likelihood the offspring could develop a disease. As there became more inhabitants later, there was no need to marry this close since other options were readily available, nor was there a need to increase the chance of children developing diseases from recessive genes.

Another theory often cited is that there were other humanoids around, namely the Neanderthals, who lacked the Spirit of God breathed into Adam, but with whom people like Cain intermarried, and as such the offspring inherited the Spirit from one of the parents. I personally find the Neanderthal idea not very likely for many reasons, but also for the fact that 3:20 says Eve was the mother of all living, and as I mentioned in my prior sermon from Genesis 1, the fact that Christ came in Adam’s line as a man is very important for the story of salvation.

Moving on from this, v.17-24 are the 2^nd narrative in this chapter, which lacks any reference to God. We have the genealogy of Cain down to his 5^th descendant Lamech. Throughout this genealogy, we have another undermining of God’s purpose for humanity when Lamech became the first bigamist, rebelling against the one husband-one wife design. We see in his offspring the marks of civilization: dwelling in tents; nomadic lifestyle; caring for livestock; finding happiness in recreation and music; and also making instruments for work and weapons for war, from bronze and iron. Despite no mention of God, or being away from his presence, his providence allowed this lineage of humanity to flourish. But we also witness Lamech’s pride in his dark poem where he boasts in telling his wives about how he killed a young man merely for injuring him, and how he knows how to multiply by 11 as he elevates Cain’s lack of remorse, repentance and humility by invoking an exponential vengeful attitude toward anyone who might want to bring justice.

We finally come to a glimpse of light at the end of this chapter: there is a new offspring, this time more humbly named by Eve as Seth, meaning God was giving a new foundation and a renewed hope. And this leads to the first instance of people beginning to publicly worship the holy name of God – Yahweh.

False Worship Is Fatal

Very early in human history, we find evidence of false worship. So much hope was put on the firstborn of Adam and Eve, not the least of which is seen in how Eve named him. He may have grown up hearing the story of the Fall and the promise of salvation. His parents may well have been pious, seeking to honor God after having disobeyed him, wanting to do the right thing. But at some point, Cain’s pride was kindled: his heart could have falsely believed that he would inherit the promise regardless of his faith, or that he would fulfill it by crushing it all. When Abel came on the scene, he was merely an afterthought, literally a vanity. Cain’s religion was self-religion; his creed was his own voice. He had become autonomous, a law unto himself. But is this not the very basis for disunity, hatred, and enmity? Self-religion does not love humanity nor serve those created equally: it only regards its own self. It is the creed of the Pharisee who goes to worship and disregards the true penitent standing nearby (Luke 18:9-14). It is the creed of the worst despots in human history, and frankly, had we the power to do such acts, self-religion would lead to us making the worst deeds.

No wonder then that when he tried to worship God, Cain’s heart was not in the right place. His offering represented the darkness of his disobedient heart: keeping the best for himself, he brought the leftovers to appease what he thought was a capricious deity who enjoys taking the best from people without giving anything in return. Maybe he was frustrated by the stories of God cursing the ground and exiling his parents from the garden. Maybe he was listening more closely to what the serpent was still saying. Instead of being an enemy to the serpent, he had more animosity toward the Creator. When enmity should have been between the son of Eve and the father of lies, the son chose enmity with his own brother and became himself the offspring of the serpent. Eve had been pleased when God gave her Cain. The promise seemed to be realizing. But soon her hopes were to be crushed. For the seed of Eve crushed the head of his own brother, instead of the head of the serpent. Such are the deadly dangers of misinterpreting God’s word.

When the Lord did not accept his heart nor his gift, should he not have been vexed by his own disobedience rather than being angry at his brother and his Maker? His false religion was focused on wanting to receive a deserved favor in return for a small offering. Abel’s was a true religion, one of giving thanks to the God who gives hope, and one of giving our best worship in response to God’s undeserved forgiveness. If our act of worship leads us to anger, to envy that of our brother or sister, and even to killing them or assassinating their character, what would be the motive of our hearts? It vexes me today to see Christians seeking to undermine the worship of others, often crouching at the door – or in the comment section – ready to pounce upon any opportunity to assassinate the character of another believer, sitting on a throne of pride and self-righteousness from which to issue judgments right and left.

Cain was in a very dangerous spot. God mercifully warned him to return to the right way, to repent, to embrace true religion, to let go of selfishness, to have mastery over sin. But he became callous and committed premeditated murder. He showed no remorse, no care, no desire to repent. He feared the punishment more than the weight of sin. It was not guilt or shame that weighed him down, but it was the punishment for the guilt that burdened him the most. See here some marks of unbelief: anger over God’s approval of others; disregard for warnings against sin; denying responsibility; and refusal of punishment. Contrast this with humility in acceptance and correction of the wayward way. Running away from the presence of God, Cain found no dwelling place. The only lasting place of peace and dwelling is within God’s will and in his presence. That’s why sin, especially if hidden and unrepentant, leads to wandering. But God’s forgiveness leads to freedom, to peace and abiding. One of the marks of true religion is siding with God against our own sin.

When we do not find forgiveness, it’s likely we rather seek to be vengeful toward those who sin against us. Their sin, even if similar to ours, becomes elevated in our eyes, and we hate it more in their lives rather than hating it in our own. This makes us more accusatory, vengeful and hateful. But when we seek and find forgiveness, we find freedom and peace, and only then we can know the grace of caring for those who need deliverance from their bondage to sin and its darkness. [Instead of destroying one another’s innocence, we would lead one another in the path of righteousness toward freedom]

Sin Is Not Victimless

The first victim of Cain’s sin was his own self. Then came his brother, and surely the sorrow to his parents and the family. Sin does not only take our innocence away; it drives us to destroy the innocence of others. But there is also a concept of societal and generational sin. In many ways, sin affects those around us and those who come after us by its consequences, guilt, shame and punishment. But it can even affect our offspring genetically. Nowadays there’s a lot of scientific evidence that our experiences can affect the behavior of our offspring. This could be adaptation to the environment, to food, to exercise, but it could also be how trauma or disease can affect downstream genes, and along the same line, I posit sin can do that. You see around our functional genes, there is a lot of genetic material [called the epigenome] that can change with experience, trauma, environment – and likely sin – to even affect how we live and behave in the future. This is not to say that we do not have responsibility for our own sin, and instead we should blame it on our ancestors, but this means that our own sin can victimize even our descendants by causing them harm, or leading them to be more prone to certain behaviors and sins.

Another way sin can affect generations downstream is visible from the parts of the world where history and events from centuries past, including the sins of the fathers, continue to haunt today and keep undermining the chances of generations of children from living together in harmony. When we look at Cain and his genealogy, we can see glimpses of this. Cain who had no remorse and no repentance fathered children who apparently had no regard for God and no desire to know him. In fact, there is no mention of God in verses 17-24. The way of Cain leads to death. The city he built was the city of man, not the dwelling place for God. He sought to make a lasting name for himself. Still, we see the development of different aspects of civilization under God’s providence, and we see that godless people can still flourish under common grace, but we also see the downstream effects of sin, especially as we come to the 7^th descendant from Adam in the line of Cain: Lamech.

In Lamech we find sin expanding in more complex ways, from family to society. First, he flaunts the design of God in marriage as he marries two wives, becoming the first bigamist mentioned in history. The names of his wives and of his daughter focus on pleasure and appearance, revealing the trends of his local culture. His pride expands even more toward abusing human life by killing a young man, then even further by writing a poem to celebrate this murder, to declare his lack of remorse and his opposition to repentance, and to proclaim even more pridefully that he would be able to avenge himself exponentially more than God would do his ancestor for this murder, should someone desire to avenge the murdered young man.

This second narrative brings us near the end of a very dark chapter thus far. Things have deteriorated very quickly. Jude 11 invokes a curse on those who walk in the way of Cain, which is the way of false religion, pride, hatred, envy, deceit, unrighteousness (1 John 3:12), strife and murder. After all, the way of Cain is the way of death: fratricide was one of the first sins committed outside the garden. This was followed by the beginning of many atrocities in the city of man, which will eventually lead to the complete destruction of the offspring of Cain by the flood, and the erasure of their genealogy from the book of life. The first son, the offspring on whom so much hope was placed, was a false hope. Yet the Bible is a book of hope, and the story God is writing reveals his purposes for thousands of generations to come to him.

A New Hope of a Better Blood

Adam and Eve had heard about death, and maybe even feared it. Little did they know their own firstborn would bring about this first breach in nature, and would break their own hearts: the innocent blood of Abel was spilled by his own brother. The cursed ground received it, and as the blood was righteous, the curse grew deeper, making the land less fruitful, ushering more toil and more sweat. This righteousness of the blood of Abel is mentioned in several places in the NT (Matt 23:35; Heb 11:4; 1 John 3:12). The blood cries out to God (v.10) for justice, just like the blood of the martyrs under the altar in Rev 6:9-10. Hebrews 11:4 reminds us that the blood of Abel, though dead, still speaks. This blood proclaims the righteous act of worship of Abel and declares that in the world where God is sovereign, there is hope of justice to the one who received injustice, and punishment to the one who continues in evil. There is no indication that the blood of Abel speaks otherwise – other than accusation and a cry for justice. We find a hint of this in Hebrews 12:24 which says that we believers have come to Jesus whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

“Abel’s blood, even the best and dearest, never brings salvation in the presence of God; instead, it increases the burden of the curse. But Christ’s blood speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel” (von Rad). Every wrongfully spilled blood, and particularly that of the righteous and the martyrs, speaks against injustice; such bloods bring accusation, but never healing. Only One Blood brings salvation and healing, and that is the blood of the One who is truly God and truly Man, thrice holy from eternity past, lived a holy human life, fulfilled all righteousness, died an atoning death, the Lamb of God slain for the sin of the world, risen to eternal life, vindicated by the Spirit for he was the only one who was truly and fully righteous, ascended into heaven where he will judge righteously, and he will return with healing in his wings and restore his children and this world to Eden in the new heavens and the new earth.

The chapter began by Eve rejoicing in that God who made the first man has now partnered with her in making the second man. We do not have any commentary on the state of her heart as she saw her hope being dashed by her very firstborn. In one day, she was deprived of her first 2 children: one cast into the ground; the other cast away from the presence of God. But after 23 verses of darkness comes a new hope. God gives another offspring that will bring forth the promised deliverance from the schemes of the serpent and the pangs of death.

This is reason not only for hope, but for praise and worship. This should be the proper response to such an act of God who desires those made in his image to return to his glory. Believers in his name must proclaim him, revel in his attributes, pray before him, and call upon his name in praise and worship. His name is Yahweh, the I Am, the One who was, and is, and is to come, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, in whom there is no condemnation, from whose love these is no separation. He is the mediator of the new covenant by his own blood that speaks a much better word than the blood of Abel. Abel may have sacrificed one lamb for himself; Passover Israelites sacrificed one lamb yearly for a family; the Day of Atonement sacrificed one lamb yearly for the nation; the Father sacrificed one Lamb – his own Son – once for all for the whole world.

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And so brothers and sisters: we have 2 declarations from God. The first is a call for us to resist sin and do what is right in obeying him, and he will accept us. Our aim must be to please him and to honor him as the only Master over us. And the second declaration is a new Grace, a new gift, a new life, a new covenant and a new promise when people call upon the name of the Lord. And none who calls upon the name of the Lord will be put to shame.

REFERENCES

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/cain-able-god/

Allen P. Ross. Creation and Blessing. pp.152-170.

Gerhard von Rad. Biblical Interpretations in Preaching. P.22 [Translated by John E. Steely. Nashville: Abingdon, 1977.]