CAIN AND ABEL - TWO BROTHERS OUTSIDE EDEN
In this section we will examine how God designed a 'circle of life' whereby mankind was meant to receive God's love, grow in it and express his love back to God. However, when man sought to go his own way there were disastrous consequences. Since then, man is still found struggling to control his environment.
Have a look at the questions below and see if you can answer them.
1. How do we know that Cain had at least some knowledge concerning who God is?
2. In what way can Cain be called an idolater? Give examples of idolatry from both the Old and New Testaments.
3. What are some of the dangers in making wrong covenants?
God's covenant with fallen man
God's purpose in making covenant with fallen man was so that man, the transgressor, could benefit from all that God is and does.
In offering a covenant relationship to fallen man, God not only seeks to protect us from what the self has become, but enables us to find our true freedom in Him.
Throughout scripture we see that God has always sought to continue working out the covenant that Adam broke, and His decision to do so was made before the world began (Eph 1:4, 2 Tim 1:9-10; Titus 1:2, 1 Peter 1:20, Rev 13:8).
Man's response
The history of man from the very first - and the same is true of the history of every individual man - consisted, not in the keeping but the breaking of the covenant, not in the receiving but the rejecting of the promise, not in the fulfilling but the transgressing of the command, not in the gratitude which corresponds to the grace of God but in a senseless and purposeless rebellion against it, a rebellion which at bottom is quite negative but terribly real even in this negativity."
Dr Karl Barth, 'The Doctrine of Reconciliation', p81.
The 'freedom' that we so often choose is the lordship of self with all the subtle flavours of life that appear to offer freedom, yet end up imprisoning us. We strive for independence, when we would be safer depending on our Creator.
Cain's actions did not enable him to experience the freedom that he thought they would. Instead, his thinking led to a negative emotional response which fuelled his actions as he led his brother to a place where he could kill him. This is an example of erroneous thinking pulling man deeper into his own pit.
Cain and the Circle of Life
Cain had the wrong view of the circle of life (He was the giver and God the receiver / that which he gave should earn merit with God), as do so many today. Take the following quote for example:
Circle of life swallows up God. Many non-Christian faiths use circles as a means of expressing this all-is-one philosophy."
Dr Peter Jones, 'Gospel Truth, Pagan Lies', p 18
Adam and Eve were created to receive from their heavenly Father. God is always the giver and wanted man to receive His love and grow to maturity of being under His wise counsel and care.
Think of a parent walking round a garden with a small child, and sharing all the beauty of the plants with the child. As the parent does so, the child grows in knowledge and is blessed by the parent.
The child is receiving from a loved one and the mind and heart is at peace. The child is safe and secure and there is an inner sense of well-being and contentment.
Later in the day the child brings a bunch of flowers to the parent, purely as an expression of love. This helps us understand the real circle of life.
God is a Father who shares Himself with those He has created. Even when man fell into sin God was still willing to share, and was able to do so because of His own forthcoming work (in Christ).
God is always the giver and we the receiver. We can only return to God that which He has freely given to us. We can only come to Him through Christ and by the workings of His Spirit and not our own achievements. This is the circle of life.
God gives of Himself to us. We receive and grow in wisdom, knowledge and understanding, and are able to respond in love to God. Cain did not respond in love, but brought His own achievements to God, making Cain the giver and God the receiver.
The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. Romans 8:6
Cain did not begin by acting his way out of God's presence. He began by thinking his way out of God's presence.
God's presence can make us feel uncomfortable as well as letting us know we are loved. In His love we are confronted with what self is really like at times.We come face to face with His awesome unconditional love and become aware of how sinful we are.
"Valjean saw himself then, so to speak, face to face, and at that same time through that hallucination he saw, at a mysterious distance, a sort of light which he took at first to be a torch.
Looking more closely at this light dawning on his conscience he recognised it had a human form, that it was the bishop.When he wept, the light grew brighter and brighter in his mind - an extraordinary light, a light at once entrancing and terrible.
His past life, his first offence, his long expiation, his exterior degradation, his interior hardening, his release made sweet by so many schemes of vengeance, what had happened to him at the bishop's his recent act, this theft of money from a child, a crime all the meaner and more monstrous in that it came after the bishops' pardon - all this returned and appeared to him clearly, but in a light he had never seen before.
He could see his life, and it seemed horrible; his soul, and it seemed frightful. There was, however, a gentler light shining on that life and soul."
Cain was an idolater
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. John 5:21
An idol is anything in creation that we put before God. Cain thought he knew best, and built his own worldview concerning self and God. In Cain's eyes his offering was good enough, yet the result was ongoing and progressive separation from the only one who could really help him.
O.E.D says that idolatry is, "Any thing or person that is the object of excessive or supreme devotion or that usurps the place of God in human affairs."
Idols are an expression of a universal tendency - the tendency to substitute something in place of God.
Sometimes it is our vulnerabilities that cause us to worship something apart from God. Note, for example, the golden calf mentioned in Exodus 32:3-4 and Nehemiah 9:18. Paradoxically the calf they created to worship was also the god they created to manipulate - to manage and to master.
The biggest idol we encounter in life is self. However, God is always willing to help us deal with this self - as can be seen from His words to Cain. Cain chose to ignore God - but how can we be sure that he really knew God in the first place?
The answer is seen in that God did not have to introduce Himself to Cain. Theophanies occurring later in the Bible always speak of (see previous notes) God informing people about who He is. This was not the case with Cain or Abel - God was already known.
In reality an idol is anything that pushes God to the margins of our lives and takes His place at the centre. How many people live on the edge of Christianity - by walking as close to the ways of the world as possible without getting burnt, so to speak?
Man is a covenant being and will seek to form relationships with people or things around him, no matter what. This can be tied in with idolatry, which is substitution - putting something before the author of life and serving it as if it will give us the sense of security and fulfilment that we all need. Take Zacchaeus the tax- collector for example.
Zacchaeus worshipped money, and none of the religious teachers of the day or temple practices could break down this false idol. Money was his god. However:
When Christ came on the scene, Zacchaeus was so challenged to the core that he gave back four times the amount he had cheated people out of (Luke 19:2-8).
The amazing change that came about in Zacchaeus is seen in realising that, according to Jewish law, he would not have had to give so much back, because he had confessed to the act before he was detected by the authorities. Due to his personal confession he would only have to give back what he had taken plus one fifth. Jewish law required four times as much recompense when someone had been convicted of stealing (Exodus 22:1). Zacchaeus confessed, (and so was due the lesser punishment) but amazingly he still gave the higher amount.
Worshipping anything apart from God can, at times, have an effect on our general well being. For example.
Dr Stanley Jones writes of a man who suffered a lot with asthma and had tried everything the doctor had prescribed - to no avail. The man was then asked by the doctor if he had any inner tension, and replied that he did not think so. But the next day he had this to say to the doctor:
"I haven't been able to dismiss from my mind what you said about tensions. In fact I haven't closed my eyes all night, for I've talked to the Chief all night. As I prayed it seemed that letters of fire appeared on the ceiling: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." Then the same thing was on the darkened walls and the floor too - it was everywhere.
I began to realise that I had been a selfish, egocentric individual. I had been fighting my way up in the business world for years to the place where I am now making big money. But the struggle has been so all-consuming that I have pushed God's kingdom into a secondary place.
But I promised the Chief this morning that I am going to quit worrying about the kingdom of Frank Derfer and think about the kingdom of God. I shall ask for a position of lesser importance in the company so I can spend more time working for God. I don't know whether it will cure my asthma or not; I'm not doing it for that reason; but I do know that God had to allow me to come to a bed of affliction where I nearly died to make me realise I had been essentially selfish."
Dr S. Jones, 'Christian Maturity', page 360
Cain and His Own Covenant.
Cain was in covenant with self (this is who I am, this is how I serve self in order to feel good). Cain sought to live by his own feel-good methods and took out his anger and frustration on his brother Abel. Cain chose to ignore the light shining upon his life. He was effectively in covenant with self, this being an expression of his unbelief.
"The Christian life is made up of light given and obedience to the light rendered, both these ingredients are necessary. The first alone produces barren intellectual orthodoxy; the second alone if the light is not carefully checked, can produce fanaticism."
J. Metcalfe, 'The Bible and the Human Mind', p 60
The active manifestation of any covenant is service or slavery. Jesus said that "everyone who sins is a slave to sin." (John 8:34).
We show that we serve ourselves when we have to continuously control our environment in order to feel good. Cain sought to control his environment, and deal with his inner turmoil by killing his brother.
The "I will" of Cain (seen in his rebellion to God and subsequent actions) is a relationship with self that often totally disregards others.
Whether we like it or not, man has a disposition to make a covenant with something or someone. This may not always be wrong, but will be wrong when it becomes the idol we serve.
Understanding that we have a disposition to forming wrong covenant relationships helps us understand why there are so many warnings in scripture about the danger of being enticed to serve other gods. For example:
So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today - to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul - then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them Deuteronomy 11:13-16
Israel was told not to enter into covenant relationships with other nations because invariably the life of a nation was linked with their gods. In working with other nations, and possibly gaining victory over others, there would be the possibility of saying "Israel only succeeded because there were Moabites, or Amorites etc amongst them".
All that Israel did, and all that we do needs to point to God first and foremost. He will not share His glory with another:
I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. Isaiah 42:8
When that which we serve or are enslaved to is attacked we can react by seeking to pull down those we perceive as attacking us, or redouble our efforts to prove that what we are doing is right. Cain was challenged concerning his whole approach to God. He sought to deal with the inner conflict this produced in killing his brother whom he probably viewed as a competitor, and the reason for his own ill feeling.
How many Christians may be enslaved to their way of living - and serving their own ideas about how life is lived - as indeed Cain was thousands of years ago.
We Have seen how wrong thinking can produce inner conflicts and numerous snares to our security in God. God, in His wisdom and love has provided a way for mankind to be brought back into a covenant relationship through the work of Christ. The offer of true life is there for all who will accept it.
Now revisit the questions at the beginning of this section and see if you can add anything to your answers. What have you learned about man's ways and God's ultimate plan in this session?