ABEL
We begin this section by reminding ourselves of the generosity of God. We see that God's generosity does not compromise His law, and that obedience does not earn us blessing, but enables us to receive all that God has already provided in Christ.
What is wrong, (if anything) with telling people to trust in God when they are going through difficulty, and leaving it at that?
What sort of man do you think Abel would have been, had he continued to live in community with others?
Preamble: The Generosity of God.
'The gospel is that God sets to rights man's relationship with himself by an act of sheer generosity which depends on no payment man can make, which is without reference to whether any individual in particular is inside the law/covenant or outside, and which applies to all human beings without exception. It is this humbling recognition - that he has no grounds for appeal either in covenant status or in particular 'works of the law' that he has to depend entirely from start to finish on God's gracious power, that he can receive acquittal only as a gift, which lies at the heart of faith for Paul.'
Prof J. Dunn in 'Romans', p 178
Although his life was cut short by the brutal act of his brother, Abel lives on in perfect freedom in the Lord, this speaking of God's grace and sheer generosity to those who deserve nothing.
Something of the flavour of this eternal life is captured, albeit in a pale way, in the following poem written by a Christian woman after the untimely death of her soldier husband.
'Shall I wear mourning for my soldier dead; I-a believer? Give me red, or give me royal purple for the King.
At whose royal court my love is visiting. Dress me in green for growth, for life made new, For skies his dear feet march, dress me in blue, In white for his white soul; robe me in gold. For all the pride that his new rank shall hold. In earth's dim gardens blooms no hue too bright, To dress me for my love who walks in light.'
quoted by Dr W. Barclay at the funeral service of his daughter in 1956.
Contrast the above poem with the words of Francois Mauriac below that speak of the inevitability of death and the ending of life's adventure. This paints a bleak picture especially when we consider that through accepting God's generous gift of life, physical deal leads to the greatest adventure yet.
'But as the years go by, and as our time to come grows shorter, and when the stakes are down, the book finished and in the printer's hands, and when the human adventure is nearing its end, then the characters of a novel no longer have room to move about in us: they are caught between the hardened impenetrable mass of
our past, into which nothing can now make its way, and that death, near at hand or farther off, which is now present.'
Francois Mauriac quoted in Entrepreneurs of Life p 195 Ed Oz Guinness
Abel chose to live the right way - God's way - and so Abel lives with the Lord in the freedom of life that only God could provide.
Although we will encounter great difficulty in our lives and possibly find ourselves falling apart at times, if we constantly give our lives over to the Lord He will graciously renew and uplift us. God wants to be generous to us. God wants to encourage us, uplift us and renew us as what we have become falls away, as we take root and grows in His mercy, love and compassion. Dr Stanley Jones in his book "The Divine Yes" captures something of this renewal with the following words:
Once I saw a beautiful church made up of rejected pieces of marble that were brought together into a whole.
It made a very beautiful sanctuary. I have picked out certain things; pieces left over from the wreckage of my life, and am trying to put them together into a temple of God - a workable way to live. If our life has gone to pieces, take the pieces and give them back to God, and he will make something out of them. It is amazing what God can do with a broken heart, or life, when you give him all the pieces.'
Dr Stanley Jones in 'The Divine Yes' (written shortly before his Father took him home), page 117.
Abel Knew That He Was A Sinner
Original sin is a condition that came about through the fall. Present sin is the continuing working of that condition. It speaks of a lack of conformity to God's law, and neglect of God-given obligations. Abel knew that he was a sinner (hence he brought a sacrifice to God), yet was also aware of God's grace (His sacrifice was provided by God).
Speaking of later sacrifices Dr Freeman says:
'The Levitical ritual of the special selection, presentation, slaying and sprinkling of the blood of the victim, together with the solemn ceremonies and confessions of the worshipper, must have graphically impressed upon their consciousness the ideas of sin and guilt, the desert of punishment, the substitution of the innocent, and the covering of sin.'
Dr Hobart Freeman, The Doctrine of Substitution in the Old Testament, p 105
In the following quote, Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out that we only really become who we should be in relation to God. A child that refuses to take a Father's advice, or who continually blames others for what is going wrong in life is going to end up with a chip on his or her shoulder and unable to take the hand of friendship offered. Abel was not like this. He was aware of the gulf between self and God, and that it was due to sin. He approached God through God's provision.
For Christian philosophy the human person comes into being only in relation to the divine person which transcends it, opposing and subjugating it.the Christian person arises solely from the absolute distinction between God and man; only from the experience of the barrier does the self-knowledge of the moral person arise. The more clearly the barrier is recognised, the more deeply the person enters into responsibility.
Dr. D Bonhoeffer in, Witness to Jesus Christ, p 46
Abel could know about grace because God was willing to offer grace and not simply bring the full penalty for transgression down upon fallen man. Where judgement could have been exercised in full measure we find judgement being exercised with the purpose of reconciliation. Abel was a sinner and God did not overlook Abel's sin. God accepted Abel because he approached through God's provision that ultimately points to, "the Lamb slain from the creation of the world." (Rev 13:8).
God's grace and generosity does not overlook the law
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31 Note also Deuteronomy 6:4-5
It is because of His love that God shows me I am a sinner.
'There had to be the Law before the Gospel could come. Man had to learn the difference between right and wrong; men had to learn their own human inability to cope with the demands of the law, and to respond to the commands of God; man had to learn a sense of sin and unworthiness and inadequacy.'
R. Barclay An Alphabet of Barclay p 110
If Abel had not been aware of his need of God's grace then how could he have approached God with the right offering?
Although Abel lived long before the written Law, he would still have known (Rom 10:17) what was acceptable in God's sight and what was not - what was right and what was wrong.
God has given us His written Law to enable us to see what He is like and understand His true position on all things, as well as ours; (lawbreakers)!
God is not a hypocrite
God's law is about loving God and others, therefore God Himself must be willing to love others or else he would be nothing but a hypocrite.
At times we see amazing ways in which fallen man helps those around him (even those who do not deserve it). If we are able to help others then how much more is the perfect one able to help us? Maybe the following is of help in thinking about this.
If a man saw another person being mugged, he should, (according to the Law of Love - love your neighbour) do something about it. He may personally intervene, restrain the attacker or go for help if he is not able to do anything else. He loves his neighbour and is not simply a spectator. God is not simply a spectator.
The law of love would also require that the mugger (if caught) be punished for the crime. This would not be done in a malicious or vindictive way but in order to protect society from a criminal and hopefully make the criminal aware of consequences to actions so that they would seek to do something about it. God is not vindictive. He desires to instruct others and us through punishment.
The man who had intervened and was instrumental in the custodial sentence could go and visit the mugger in order to help him find the right path to live by. God reaches out to the offender.
An imperfect man in an imperfect world can reach out to help someone who is being mugged. How much more then, can the perfect One reach out to us?
Christ came under the Law and fulfilled it (He did not overlook it) so that we could find forgiveness by admitting our sin and accepting Him as Lord and Saviour. He is our representative, the only mediator between man and God (1 Timothy 2:5).
'What God provides by his free grace can be appropriated by man only through faith'
Dr Carson in, Right with God p56
In all this we see God's love. There is no parallel to God's love anywhere in this Universe. Therefore the only reason we can speak about His love is because God has revealed it. He has revealed His heart is both word and action. It is in receiving love that we are able to love others.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Obedience enables us to receive that which has already been provided for us. It does not earn us blessing.
If a parent asks a child to go into the kitchen so that the child can eat the meal that has been prepared, the child's obedience does not earn the meal. The child's obedience simply enables him or her to partake of that which has already been provided.
Obedience enables us to continue to receive that which has already been provided for us.
Our conduct does not lead us to earning righteousness as some sort of meritorious act that can save us. Our conduct reveals the attitude of a heart in one who has already received great blessing from the Lord.
It is very important to see this. Life is not about earning blessing from God, it is about appropriating what is already ours in Christ. The believer who learns this is one who seeks to obey God out of love and not as a soldier demanding pay at the end of a day's work. This fact is underlined in the following quote:
'It is of utmost importance to underscore the fact that grammatically the Decalogue is in indicative, not imperative form - these are statements of what the believer who has experienced God's grace will voluntarily do, not commands of what he must do to deserve or earn God's love. They represent the perimeters or boundaries of God's kingship, beyond which the believer will not stray, but within which He is essentially free to respond joyfully and voluntarily.'
Dr H. Hummel in, 'The Word Becoming Flesh,' p74 (highlights mine).
God Takes The Initiative In All Things
God always takes the initiative and acts first so that people can see who He is and what He is like. Throughout scripture we see that it is God who acts first and then encourages man to respond. For example, right at the beginning it was God who approached Adam and Eve.
One of the greatest events in the O.T. was Israel's deliverance from Egyptian bondage. In it we see the same principle we have been writing about: God acts first and then calls man to respond. God delivers His people from Egyptian bondage in such a way that all can see His absolute supremacy (Exodus 3-15). Later He gives them His commandments so that they known how to fully appropriate the freedom He has brought them into. (Exodus 16-19; 20-23)
Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD. Exodus 6:6-8.
When God spoke with His people it was not as a harsh tyrant (such as was Pharaoh). It was as a father gently and powerfully instructing a child. God wants to be known, He wants us to understand Him and trust Him in all things. Hence the following words in Deuteronomy.
In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders - great and terrible - upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness. Deuteronomy 6:20-25
God is a Father who desires the very best for his children. We must see him as our Father who is absolutely holy and awesomely loving. He instructs us because He loves us.
Fatherhood is, by necessity legislative and judicial. The very intensity of its desire to foster the true life of its children forces it to watch them with sleepless vigilance, to lay upon them those laws which promote that life, and to visit their departures from truth and goodness with stern fidelity. So far from true fatherhood being easy-going in these respects, its eye is more searching and its judgment more inflexibly righteous, than those of any judge nearly concerned in the conduct of those who appear before him.
Lidgett in 'The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement' p230
When people are going through a hard time there are those who would say to them, "trust in God" and leave it at that. We need to be encouraging people to see who God is because, for example, we may be asking them to trust in a God whom they think is against them.
Abel knew
Abel's offering to the Lord reveals the response of a thankful heart and not simply blind reactions to harsh rulings.
Abel would have known that God is the restorer of broken relationship. Abel would have known that God's instruction/law ('this is the way you are to live'), was given in love.
Abel knew he was a receiver of grace and mercy. He knew that everything he was able to give to God was because of what God had given to Him. He knew that His actions did not earn blessing, but revealed that which had already been graciously provided.
Many Christians live is spiritual poverty because they think they can earn from God. In doing so they receive the work of their own hands (Matthew 6:2-4) and nothing else!
'Most of us live depleted existences: weak, zestless, apprehensive, pessimistic, 'neurotic'. And the reason is that when we perform a good deed, we advertise it, display it - and thus collect and enjoy the credit them and there.'
Dr O Hobart Mowyer quoted in Spiritual Foundations For Strong Character by Oz Guinness p 246
What sort of man would Abel have been in an Israelite community?
'An Israelite could not have sung the familiar song 'God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, he's so good to me' (though the words echo the Psalms) without being reminded also of its ethical consequence: 'God asks me to show that goodness to others.'
Dr C. Wright, Old Testament Ethics For The People Of God, p 42
Abel would have loved others with the love He had received. Because we have received love we can respond in love. 'My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.' (John 15:12)
Abel would have known God's presence as the presence of a loving Father and would have encouraged all to put their trust in God.
God has brought you into His family and placed His Spirit in your life to help you and encourage you. How can we not seek to encourage others to live the right way?
But the Holy Spirit does not live within as a spy; rather he acts as a collaborator who reminds us of our credit balance in Christ and encourages us to live in his triumph already accomplished for us.
Dr D.G. Barnhouse, God's Heirs p 145
Abel would have exercised discipline over his community because he would want the very best from people. Let us remember that when God chastises His children it is for their benefit, not His.
We tend to think of discipline mainly in terms of chastisement and correction, but Scripture shows that in its widest sense disciple involves positive encouragement and training. Applied to God, it refers to the whole nurturing process by which he 'brings up' his children and shapes them in the way he wants them to go.
Dr David Peterson in Possessed by God page 71
Abel knew God and a person who really knows God seeks to behave the right way before the Lord. He or she delights in all that is of God (Psalm 1:3).
To be conformed with the Risen One - that is to be a new man before God. In the midst of death he is in life. In the midst of sin he is righteous. In the midst of the world he is new. He lives because Christ lives, and lives in Christ alone. "Christ is my life" (Phil 1:21). The new man lives I the world like any other man. Often there is little to distinguish him from the rest. Nor does he attach importance to distinguishing himself, but only to distinguishing Christ for the sake of his brethren.'
D. Bonhoeffer, Witness to Jesus Christ, p 228
God's ability to love and care for His people is seen in that he is a Shepherd leading his sheep to green pastures (Ps 23, Is 40) and the husband buying back his wayward wife from slavery (Hosea). This love would have been reflected through the life of Abel.
For Israel, reflecting the character of God meant such things as generosity to the poor (especially at harvest time) and justice for all people including the alien, orphan and widow. Abel would have cared for all people regardless of ability or social standing.
Abel would have judged the things that went on around him the right way.
Now it is evident what is right in a judge or ruler; it is to clear the innocent and condemn the guilty, to find out and give effect to the truth in any particular cause. It is particularly right in the judge or ruler to see that right be done to those who are weak or without human helpers, to stand by them and plead their cause, such as the widow or the orphan. Justice will be done to all, and the judge is warned against favouring the poor unjustly because they are poor. The function of the judge was wider than with us; he was both judge and advocate; not judging as judges do now, on evidence set before him by others, but discovering the evidence for himself.
Dr Davidson in Theology of the Old Testament p 133
The major motivation for Abel was personal thanks and gratitude for what had been done. If this man had gone on to live in an ever increasing community he would have shown the heart of his heavenly Father to those around him in the way he cared for them.
How do we reflect the heart of our Father in the Christian community He has placed us in?