Gen. 4:1-8
You are correct if you noticed that we are not
in consecutive order of Genesis. The
reason is because I overlooked this passage.
That is a failure on my part because I know that this passage is foundational
to the revelation of the Messiah in the writings of Moses. So let’s consider what we learn of the
promised Savior in the story of Cain and Abel.
What we learn, of course, is that the shedding
of blood would be a part of the story of the “Seed of the woman” who would be God’s
solution to man’s sin and guilt that separates him from God.
In the story, both men are doing right in that
they have come to worship God and to give Him thanks. It makes sense that each man brings some of
the prosperity with which God has blessed them.
But when they come with their offerings, the LORD looked at or
acknowledged Abel’s but not Cain’s. It
was at this point that God explained to Cain what he needed to do. The story makes it very clear: sinful man
cannot properly give the Creator thanksgiving without a blood sacrifice. He will not look at their gift.
Gen. 3:15 tells us the Savior will be
human. Gen. 4:4-7 tells us you cannot be
right with the Creator apart from a blood sacrifice. These two truths are back-to-back in Genesis,
even though they occurred years apart.
You might think that we see that God required the shedding of blood for
the remission of sins because we have perfect hindsight. You might doubt that Cain and Abel (and Adam
and Eve for that matter) understood this at that time. But I would maintain that from the beginning
people understood God because they paid attention to His words.
God made a connection between the sin that
controlled Cain and his ability to please his Creator. If you do well, will you not be
accepted? And if you do not do well, sin
lies at the door. And its desire if for
you, but you should rule over it. To
be “accepted” is to be lifted, given right standing. The standing in question here is the sinner’s
standing with God, the same question that faced Adam and Eve.
The writer of Hebrews understood this when he,
by the Holy Spirit, saw the faith of Abel.
He offered a more excellent sacrifice and “obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts.”
Abel was accepted because he brought a blood sacrifice. From that point on this is what men knew they
were to do. They were, as created beings,
to bring offerings to God to express their thanks, and those offerings were to
involve the shedding of blood. It was
not hard for people to make the connect, that the resolution to the sin issue,
involving the “Seed of the woman,” would require the shedding of the blood of
that Man.
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