Genesis 4 is intended to be a historical message. In verse one, the connection with what precedes is very clear. The history here recorded is tied to the Paradise narrative with the conjunctive phrase, "And Adam," or "And the man" Adam is presented as being familiar to us from the preceding events, with no further introduction necessary. Also, his wife is simply presented by her name, Eve, "mother of all living," which according to Genesis 3:20, she had been given by her husband following the Fall, whence Eve bore in her womb two seeds (Genesis 3:11-17).
But the Woman being deceived, was in the Transgression The Original Sin 1/3 The Original Sin 3/3
This history traces the enmity God has placed between these two seeds and foreshadows the Promise. The writer must first dispose of Cain and his ungodly line that have NO part in the Promise or Kingdom of God. Then he returns to Seth through whom the line of Promise is maintained. The story of Cain and Abel points out that from the very first men have been divided into two great classes, viewed in connection with God's Promise and Presence in the world.
Whilst it is to the self-reliant and God-defying energy of the descendants of Cain that we owe much of the external civilization of the world, the descendants of Seth pass away and leave only this record: that they "walked with God".
Genesis 4 is the historical account of the sinful misapplication of God's command in the garden, to "multiply and fill the earth" which produced DEATH by Eve's reasoning with Satan through the agency of the serpent, instead of awaiting God's uncompromised Word revealed through her husband in due season.
This is the first mention of a sexual relationship between Adam and his wife. Cain had already been conceived by the serpent prior to Adam having knowledge of his wife. Eve saw in Cain the fulfilment of the natural promise of Genesis 3:15, and looked on her first child as God Himself, the 'Deliverer', who would restore them to Eden. It is unusual for the mother to justify Cain's name by declaring "I have begotten a "MAN" with the Lord," when Cain was but a babe. To Eve, however, Cain was the 'Man child' (Revelation 12:13) who would smite the Serpent. Eve did not claim to bear Cain by Adam but supposed he was gotten, acquired, or created with the Lord.
It is NOT said of Eve that she conceived again and bare Abel (which is the usual Scriptural way of intimating a second birth) but simply that she bore him after Cain. That a difference was from the very first put between the two, is plain from the remarkable language which she applies to the firstborn, "I have gotten a man from the Lord;" and indeed from the very names given the two brothers respectively. Cain signifies 'acquired one'—Eve was deceived by Satan who incarnate the Serpent, she and thought Cain was the Son of God, whereas she KNEW Abel was the son of her own husband and named him accordingly.
Abel means 'a son', which well suits the first-born child of man. Hence we have the line of the serpent through Cain (falsely supposed to be the Son of God), and the line of Adam, beginning in Abel. The etymology of Cain and Abel are quite separate.
From their birth, at the same time, there was a difference put on these two sons of Eve. It was understood from Genesis 3:15 that the race was to be divided into two great sections, of which one only was to be reckoned as truly and spiritually the seed of the woman while the other bore the character and fell under the doom, of the seed of the serpent.
Eve regarded her firstborn son as the very individual who was to be the Saviour and understood at the same time that this Saviour was to be a divine person. Hence her words, "I have gotten a man" or 'the man', 'the Lord,' the very Jehovah—Him who is God as well as man. Or, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." So Eve was STILL deceived at Cain's birth. But because "that which is flesh is flesh;" and born by sex, Cain was in need of redemption himself and could not possibly be the Redeemer (I Corinthians 15:45-49).
At all events, it is plain that in her judgment Cain was chosen rather than his comparatively lightly esteemed half-brother, whose very name in Hebrew means 'vanity,' or 'nothingness.' (Though of course, Adam and Eve did not speak Hebrew).
Like the spiritual serpent seed, (Adam's children deceived on the Word), and God's elect, these step-brothers, representatives of the two great classes into which, the family of man is divided, manifest their differences NOT in the object, NOR in the time, BUT in the spirit, of their worship. "And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof" (Genesis 4:3-4).
Like the spiritual seed of the wicked one and the Holy One, the descendants of the serpent and of Adam both worship the same God, and receive the same anointing of His power and glory (Matthew 5:45; Acts 2:17). Their seasons of worship are also the same; for the expression "in process of time," or "at the end of days," denotes a stated season (corresponding with Passover). Again their manner of service was to a large extent the same. They presented offerings to God of two kinds, corresponding remarkably to the two kinds of offerings ordained under the Levitical dispensation—those which were properly expiatory, and those which were mainly expressive of duty, gratitude, and devotion.
"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts" "And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering He had NOT respect" (Genesis 4:4-5).
Clearly, acceptance of the person MUST precede the acceptance of the service; and the acceptance of the person is by faith. Both men offered an excellent sacrifice. The sacrifice of Abel had no more efficacy in itself than the offering of Cain, to commend him to the favour of God. Abel was not accepted on account of his offering; nor was Cain rejected on account of his. But Abel had faith and a revelation of the original sin, and that he was the true seed of Adam for whom the True Seed of the woman would give His life. He was justified to God by a faith which was expressed in his sacrifice—an eye for an eye, and a life for a life—speaking of the coming Kinsman Redeemer.
"Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22). For the life is in the blood which is the evidence the life has been sacrificed. The innocent life of the lamb typed Christ, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8) whose innocent life was given in substitution for the guilty lives of Adam and his seed.
Cain, on the other hand, presented an offering of the first fruits without faith. He actually believed he was Adam's firstborn, and with no revelation of the original sin, understood no need for any substitute life to be offered. (Of course the Lamb, which represented Christ the second Adam, could NOT be applied to Cain who is NOT in Adam's race and has NO substitute). Cain therefore offered the first fruits of the harvest, a type of adoption, placement, or recognition of a son—the baptism of the Holy Ghost or new birth—WITHOUT a blood offering, and was REJECTED by God because he was NOT God's Son. Neither was he Adam's son.
Cain was "born in sin:" death stood between him and Jehovah. But in his offering, there was no recognition whatever of this fact. He treated Jehovah as though He were, altogether, such as himself, who could accept the sin-stained first fruit of a cursed earth without the blood atonement.
Cain saw no need for Atonement and in type, sought to be placed as a son (or born-again) without Calvary. Cain was NOT a son of God; he had NO faith (I John 3:4-10). Cain obtained witness that he was UNRIGHTEOUS but went about to establish a righteousness of his own, bringing an offering as one entitled in his own name, to present it,—as one seeking, by means of it, to satisfy his God. His was not the guiltless simplicity and uprightness of a sinner receiving a free pardon, and in consequence, rendering a free service, forgiven much, and therefore loving much. His was the cold and calculating homage of contented self-confidence, paying, more or less conscientiously, its due to God, with heart unbroken by any true sense of sin, and spirit unsubdued by any melting sighs of the riches of redeeming love.
"Cain was begotten of that wicked one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were EVIL, and his brother's righteous" (I John 3:12). He was not the son of Adam, who was "the son of God" (Luke 3:38).
The Bible establishes every Word in the mouth of two or three witnesses. To demonstrate further to future generations of Bible believers that there existed NO relationship between God and Cain, He gave him an opportunity of finding the acceptance Abel had found. By faith. But instead of humbling himself to penitence and faith, God's grace provoked in Cain wrath, and he frowned upon God (Genesis 4:5).
Still God pleaded with him and said, "When you fail, I have provided a sin offering." It was very near him, he did not need to work or strive for it, it was already at his disposal and subject to him; it may be appropriated and used by him and awaits his pleasure. Cain had but to go to the door of Abel's sheepfold, take and offer a lamb by faith—and he would have been accepted by God and still had Abel's respect as his elder brother. But it must be offered by faith, but when faith was revealed, Cain knew clearly he had NO claims upon God through Christ, OR the birthright.
Now, sin is to Cain as Eve was to Adam—flesh of his flesh and Cain is to rule over sin as man is to rule over his wife. The natural mind is the mark of the beast, and the way of Cain (Jude 10-16). Wisdom versus faith—creeds and trinities, etc., against the revealed Word of God. The enmity of Cain's carnal mind, his INTELLIGENCE, however, prevailed. Cain could NOT be subject to the Law of God; nor would he submit himself to the righteousness of God. He was enmity with God and enmity with the seed of Adam (Genesis 3:15; Romans 8:7; I John 3:12).
When Cain's anger could not reach the great Being of whom chiefly he complained, he vent it on his brother who was within his reach, when Abel reluctantly shared the revelation which amply revealed the original sin, showing that Cain was NOT Adam's son, NEVER had the birthright, and is NOT redeemable.
After the murder, Cain deliberately determined not to revisit the sanctuary—"the Presence of the Lord," (for it is afterward said that upon receiving his sentence, he departed thence), confident he has settled the matter of primogeniture and inheritance by slaying Abel. In his confidence he even assumes an air of defiance, almost as if he were the wronged and injured party.
"Where is Abel thy brother"?
"I know not," is his impatient and unfeeling reply—"Am I my brother's keeper? (My brother might have kept himself. Or his God with whom he was so great a favourite, might have kept him)."
Thus Cain exults in his success, in getting the better of the feeble and unprotected simplicity of his righteous brother, and almost upbraids the Lord with the little care that He seems to take of His Own.
But Abel's blood had a voice, for "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints", and "He makes inquisition for blood" (Genesis 4:10; Psalms 116:15; 8:12). Abel is the first of that noble army of martyrs, "whose righteous blood" would come on the people that rejected the Lord's first Coming (Matthew 23:35), and the spiritual serpent seed, who have rejected Him since, and are today crucifying Him afresh unto themselves and the world (Revelation 5:9-10; 17:6; 18:24). Cain, on the other hand, is doomed to be a castaway, as are all his seed and those of Adam's race without the faith of Abel.
Cain was so apprehensive of that doom he cried, "It shall come to pass, that every one that finds me shall slay me." So God set a mark on him, (and every religionist has it), and stated "whosoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken sevenfold". But for this express prohibition, the murderer's fear would infallibly and justly, have been realized. The murderer, Lamech, in a subsequent generation, imitating Cain's example, gloried in his impunity (Genesis 5:24); and soon the earth was filled with violence. As we read and daily witness, the days of the Coming of the Son of man resemble these days immediately before the flood (Matthew 24:37). The murderer is once again exempt from the punishment of death and the earth is again filled with violence and lawless infidelity as in the age which the flood surprised. So evil will times become in Daniel's Seventieth Week, that the church will slay the scanty remnant of the woman's seed (foolish virgin), and those which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, the 144,000 elect Israelites (Revelation 12:17; 6:11; 14:12-20; 17:6; 18:24).
One cannot 'give' faith, only 'receive' it. God is the only One Who can 'give' faith. As a Christian brother and minister of God I will share but cannot 'give' my faith to another. God alone is the Giver of faith and every good gift. If we sincerely desire faith in His revealed Word above our necessary meat, we will approach the written Word with prayerful reverence, always prepared to be found wrong, knowing assuredly the whole Bible is inspired and without contradiction.
In summary we have seen Eve was beguiled by the Serpent, then introduced her husband to the mystery of procreation, and was in Genesis 3 already mother of all that is living, bearing in her womb the seed of the Serpent and the seed of Adam. What doctors call 'a case of superfetation'.
God's law of reproduction requires every seed bring forth of its 'own' kind, so there can be no change in specie. God's plan was for man and woman to reproduce life through the marriage union, but from the first conception, the fruit of sexual union has been DEATH and not life. Clearly, the Word of His commandment of Genesis 1;28 which was ordained unto life (John 6:63), was from the beginning perverted to something which was no longer His Word. It was altered as the denominations have added to and diminished His Word to write creeds, becoming anti-Word and antichrist and no longer His Word, and ordained to DEATH (Revelation 22:18-19).
A link between sin, sexual conception and death is evident from the Fall as man is "conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity." "What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" "Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble," and "the wages of sin is death" (Psalms 51:5; Job 15:14; 14:1; Romans 6:23).
Without faith, or a revelation of what took place in the Garden of Eden, causing the downfall and degradation of the human race, it must seem indeed strange that birth by woman, which was ordained to bring life, should bring death, whilst birth by the Man, the Word, brings Eternal Life. Clearly our natural birth is NOT by the Word and NOT fulfilling Genesis 1:28 as God intended, but is after SIN. You surely see that SIN was associated with birth from Eve's FIRST conception—Cain—because it resulted in DEATH, not life, bringing God's curse upon the Serpent, his seed born of woman, and upon the earth (Genesis 3:14-20; I Timothy 2:14-15; I John 3:12). The curse will remain upon the earth until it is regenerated, the serpent will be eternally on his belly, but the serpent seed is anathema and will be utterly destroyed.
If God opens our eyes of understanding we will surely see that Satan used the serpent as his agent of temptation—before God changed his form and placed him on his belly. And it was not an apple which caused the Fall or that made the first couple, who had been naked and not ashamed, aware of sexual differences and the purpose of their reproductive organs, feel so shameful that they covered their genitals from one another and from God.
Finally, if Christ was the prophetic seed of the woman born without sex, Cain was the seed of the woman born without human male instrumentality. God put enmity between the sons of Adam and the descendants of Cain, and that enmity is STILL there.
The Cainite race is summed-up in six generations with no indication of worship of the one true God, but a devotion to earthly things apart from God, by the natural ingenuity characterized by the race. When this race intermarried with the sons of Adam, God destroyed the world by the flood. After the Flood they spread throughout the world and God told Moses when he encountered them in the Promised Land, he should annihilate them all down to the babe in arms. Their end is perdition.
By contrast, Adam's lineage is summed-up in seven generations, and in the birth of Seth's son came a revival of prayers and true worship whereby the sons of God were separated from the sons of Cain, and called themselves by His Name. Jesus Christ was born of Adam's race to be the KINSMAN Redeemer for Adam's race, whose end is glory.
This enmity also exists between the spiritual serpent seed, or church carnal, and the Seed of the second Adam, God's elect, for the son of the bondswoman always persecuted the son of the free. But the son of the bondswoman is cast into outer darkness. The Dragon (or spiritual serpent) seed manifest as Rome and her harlot daughters, will seek to destroy the True Seed of the Woman, but Christ will translate His Bride. Satan's church will persecute and martyr the remnant of her seed and they who keep the Commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ and then Christ will cast the natural and spiritual serpent seed into a Lake of Fire. bb930113.htm
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