The Blood that Speaks Better

Introduction

English Standard Version Chapter 4

4 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” 13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 Then the LORD said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. 16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Let’s pray:

Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of your Scriptures. In the words that you have given us you have shown your heart towards your people, and you have laid bare the sins and desires of our own hearts. As we study this passage today, we pray that your Spirit will illuminate your gospel to us, and we pray that we will see the pernicious effects of sin and the incredible grace that you offer us in Christ. Bring our hearts deeper into your presence, oh Lord, and grant us your grace to hear the message that your Spirit has prepared for us. Amen.

Good morning church! It is my joy to bring our sermon to you this morning, and today we will be opening up to the very beginning of Scripture, to Genesis 4, and the story of Cain and Abel. This story of humanity immediately after the Fall has a lot to teach us about who we are and what we need, as well as the grace that God extends to us. But to fully understand the passage, we need to put it in its immediate context, and understand where it fits into the creation narrative and the story of Adam and Eve. The podcast “Bible Talk”, a 9Marks podcast hosted by Alex Duke, Sam Emadi, and Jim Hamilton, does a great job of setting the context for this story. If you aren’t listening to this particular podcast, you absolutely should. It is a phenomenal survey of biblical theology that walks through the Bible a few chapters at a time. Download it - you’ll be glad that you did! In their episode on Genesis 3.20-6.8, they speak about the internal divisions that Moses writes into the text of Genesis. As you progress through the first part of Genesis, you see that the narrative is broken up into chunks that are initiated by genealogies, typically started off by “these are the generations of...”. We can consider these to be the original “chapter divisions” of Genesis, and it gives us a hint that we should consider the text contained within these divisions as part of an intentional whole. The first time that we see this phrasing is in Genesis 2.4, where we read: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created...”, and the second time we see it is in Genesis 5.1, where we read: “This is the book of the generations of Adam...”

These divisions imply that we ought to consider Genesis 2.4 through Genesis 4.26 to be a coherent whole, where we need to understand the events of Genesis 4 in light of the creation of man and woman and the Fall. The story of Cain and Abel takes place in the context of sin, rebellion, and brokenness. I want us to bear that in mind as we begin to walk through our passage today. We will spend out time this morning focusing on two main points - the effects that sin has upon us (specifically, how it escalates, how it affects our relationship with others, our relationship with creation, and our relationship with God) and how this story points us to the redemption of our sins in Christ.

What We Learn About Sin and Ourselves

In the narrative, our passage begins after Adam and Eve have been driven out of Eden as a result of their disobedience. Chronologically, however, it isn’t as clear how soon the events of chapter 4 follow those of chapter 3 (this will become more important later in the passage, and we’ll return to it then). In verse 1 here, we are immediately faced with the consequences of the Fall. Recall that one of the curses proclaimed in Genesis 3 as a result of the Fall was that Eve’s pains would be multiplied in childbearing, that it would be painful to bring forth children. Eve conceives, and she gives birth to Cain. Her comment, “I have gotten a man with the help of Yahweh”, shows a hint of hopefulness. Remember that in Genesis 3.15, God promised that there would arise the offspring of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent - the first hints of the gospel in Scripture. Perhaps somewhere, in the back of her mind, there is the hope that this child will be the one who crushes the head of the serpent.

After Cain, Eve conceives again and bears his brother, Abel. The sons take divergent paths to their livelihood - Cain follows in the footsteps of his father Adam, working the ground as a farmer. Abel instead becomes a shepherd, keeping and caring for sheep. After some time, the brothers bring an offering to Yahweh. Cain brings some of the fruits and vegetables that he has been growing, whereas Abel brings the firstborn of his flock. The text tells us that God accepts the offering of Abel, but disregards the offering of Cain.

A lot of ink has been spilled about why God accepts Abel’s offering and not Cain’s. Some suggest that Cain’s offering wasn’t the “firstfruits” of his labor, and was therefore inferior to Abel’s, but the text doesn’t indicate for sure that Cain didn’t bring the firstfruits or that this is the reason for God’s rejection. Others suggest that animal sacrifices are preferable to plants, but that doesn’t really make sense in light of the future provisions for grain offerings in Levitical law. Some others even more creatively suggest that God prefers the animals because farming keeps a person rooted to a single spot, whereas a herder like Abel would be moving around and would come into contact with the world - but then again, God later chooses for himself a people and plants them in a particular place. One commentator even suggests that God’s preference is just sensory - the barbecued meat gives off a much more pleasing aroma than roasting vegetables! While I’m in full agreement with that commentator that the meat would certainly smell better, if we are looking for reasons why God preferred one over the other, the text just doesn’t provide them. I’d argue that this gives us a hint that the reason for God rejecting Cain’s sacrifice is not with the offering itself, but with the person who is offering it.

In Isaiah 1.10-17 we read about what really pleases God when it comes to sacrifices:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

Hear the word of the LORD,

you rulers of zSodom!

Give ear to the teaching of our God,

you people of Gomorrah!

11  “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?

says the LORD;

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams

and the fat of well-fed beasts;

I do not delight in the blood of bulls,

or of lambs, or of goats.

12  “When you come to appear before me,

who has required of you

this trampling of my courts?

13  Bring no more vain offerings;

incense is an abomination to me.

New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—

I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

14  Your new moons and your appointed feasts

my soul hates;

they have become a burden to me;

I am weary of bearing them.

15  When you spread out your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers,

I will not listen;

your hands are full of blood.

16  Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;

remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;

cease to do evil,

17  learn to do good;

seek justice,

correct oppression;

bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the widow’s cause.

The sacrifices themselves are not what God actually desires. What God desires is the heart behind the sacrifices, one that comes to him in humility and repentance, one that seeks to do what is good, what is noble, what is righteous. We get a peek into the heart of Cain when we see his reaction to his sacrifice being rejected. Instead of examining himself to understand the reason for this rejection, he immediately becomes angry and depressed. Rather than seeking to understand what is wrong with his heart, Cain instead chooses to wallow in his anger.

God sees Cain’s anger and speaks to him, pointing out how his heart is wrongly aligned. “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

God gives Cain an opportunity to admit the state of his heart, to explain his anger, but Cain remains silent. The second question, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” drives home the point that Cain is not currently “doing well”. This is the reason for the rejection of his offering - not a deficiency in the offering itself, but a deficiency in his heart, one that is bent away from God. Cain is presented with a choice. He can turn from his sin in repentance and seek to “do well”, or he can persist in his sin and be conquered by it. The word translated “crouching” here is interesting, because it appears to be connected to an ancient Near East tradition of a demonic being that would crouch in the doorway of a house with the aim of doing harm to the occupants therein. What a terrifying image that is! But as we shall soon see, it is an apt one.

Cain’s response to Yahweh’s intervention follows immediately in verse 8. He goes out and speaks to his brother. For a moment we might be hopeful about their conversation, that he perhaps asked Abel why it was that God was pleased with him so that he could change his ways. But these hopes are quickly dashed in the second half of verse 8, when Cain rises up against his brother and murders him in the field. Well, that escalated quickly! But this is what happens with sin - what seems to be manageable one day becomes completely unmanageable the next. It grows and grows, consuming everything with it. In his Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis talks about humanity as being “bent” away from God because of our sin. I think this is a wonderful illustration. If we think about two lines next to each other, one that represents God and the other that represents man, that bent line away from God will only continue to move further and further away. Without some sort of divine intervention, that is our trajectory! Our sin will continue to escalate, continue to drive us further and further away from God unless it is dealt with.

Friends, I implore you to seek to put sin to death in your lives. Richard has spoken the past two weeks about some of the sins that creep into the church that seem respectable - the sins of untruthfulness and quarreling. If we find those things in our hearts, if we don’t put them to death we will see the same sort of escalation that drives us further and further away from God. I want us to also see how the response of sin here is non-sensible - killing Abel accomplishes absolutely nothing other than adding to Cain’s guilt. His argument over the validity of his sacrifice is not with Abel, it is with God! And so it is with our own sin as well - so often it results in collateral damage because instead of dealing with the root cause of the problem we lash out, seeking someone else to blame and punish. And all that does is make things worse!

Let’s return to our passage. After the deed is done, we see that Yahweh again comes to speak with Cain. Notice the echoes here of the story of Adam and Eve in the garden - God comes to seek out the wrong that has been done. He first gives Cain a chance to repent, asking “Where is Abel your brother?”, echoing his call to Adam and Eve in the Garden of “Where are you?” It is not as though God does not already know the answer to the question - he is simply giving Cain a chance to own up to his sin. But in another striking example of how sin escalates, Cain does not respond like Adam did, where he confesses that he is hiding because he is afraid. Instead, he lies! He disclaims any responsibility for caring for his brother when he asks “Am I my brother’s keeper?”. In Genesis 3 we saw how sin destroys our relationship with God, how it ends up driving us out of his presence because of his holiness (a theme that we will see again a little bit later in this passage). In Genesis 4, we see how sin destroys our relationships with one another. One brother is now dead because of the other’s jealous anger, even though he had literally nothing to do with why Cain’s sacrifice was rejected by God.

The other important thing that we see here is that it is impossible for us to hide our sin from God. We can, like Cain, choose to lie about what we have done and deny our responsibility for it, but our sin cries out for punishment and vengeance:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

10 And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.

Friends, no matter how sneaky and how clever we think we are about being able to hide our sin, the truth will come out. God is not blind to our transgressions. He sees them and he knows them. We might do our best to put up a good veneer and pretend that nothing has happened, or we might try and lie like Cain did to cover our tracks, but there is no escaping the omniscience of God. He sees and knows all of our sins, and they kindle his justice and his wrath.

Abel’s death cannot go unpunished, his blood cries out for vengeance, and in the very next verse we see the consequences of Cain’s sin. Notice how it parallels (and simultaneously escalates!) Genesis 3. Just as the ground was cursed as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin, Cain also is cursed from the ground. Cultivating the land had become a backbreaking work for Adam, but from now on it would no longer be possible for Cain. Because of the curse, his profession and his livelihood were now gone. Just as Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden and away from the presence of Yahweh, so Cain is condemned to be “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth”. He will find no rest in his own land, and he will wander further and further from the presence of God.

Cain’s next words carry more truth than he can possibly know:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

Cain’s punishment is indeed great, and it is indeed more than he can bear. But so it is with all of our sins. The punishment that we deserve is more than we can possibly bear. Cain has been driven from his home and hidden from the face of God, and he fears for his life. Why would he be afraid for his life? Remember back at the beginning of the passage, how I noted that the amount of time that has passed between the events of Genesis 3 and 4 is not entirely clear? We often assume that Cain and Abel were the first and second children of Adam and Eve, and that this all took place before any other children were born. But in Genesis 5, we see that Adam fathered Seth (Abel’s “replacement”, who appears in Genesis 3.25) when he was 130 years old, and that he had other sons and daughters. There’s nothing in the text that demands that these three were born first and sequentially. Why is that important? Well, it is very possible that there are many other brothers and sisters of Cain and Abel who are living in the lands outside of Eden. So then Cain would be right to fear for his life, because it would mean that his brothers and sisters would be looking to avenge the death of Abel! It’s another tragic example of how sin destroys not just our relationship with God, but also our relationship with one another. Sinning only ends one way - with our sins being made known and us being driven from the presence of God - and yet we persist in committing it!

And just as we see in Genesis 3, Yahweh also provides a bit of mercy for Cain. He places a mark on Cain, something that sets him apart and demonstrates that Yahweh is his protector. While Cain may be banished from the presence of Yahweh, he still remains under his protection so that no one will kill him. This may seem to be strange, especially knowing what we do about later Mosaic law, where a murderer is to be punished by death. But what we see here is that Yahweh’s judgment against Cain is restrained by his grace - something that we would do well to remember.

And so Cain goes, like his father before him, away from the presence of Yahweh, and settles in the land of Nod, which literally translates to “the land of wandering”.

The story of Cain and Abel is a tragic tale, a tale of how sin will harden a heart and destroy a family. A tale where murder cries out for vengeance. And a tale that the New Testament authors knew pointed to something even more important.

What We Learn About Jesus

When we try to apply Old Testament narratives to our own lives, it is tempting to try to envision ourselves as one of the characters - perhaps we see ourselves as David trying to slay the Goliaths that rear up in our own lives (which entirely misses the point of the story of David and Goliath). And with this story, it is tempting for us to try to identify with Abel. Perhaps we feel as though the entire world is arrayed against us as Christians - that we have done nothing wrong, and yet we are being persecuted - sometimes even unto death. It’s a tempting way to look at the passage, but the truth is, in this story, we are certainly not Abel.

We are far more legitimately to be identified with Cain.

Friends, the Scriptures tells us that another shepherd has come, one who rather than shepherding sheep is shepherding souls. Another shepherd who has offered a far more righteous and acceptable sacrificial life than anything we could have offered. While we were still wallowing in our sins and bringing our own unholy sacrifices, he demonstrated with his perfect life that there was no condemnation to be found for him. And yet we, jealous of his righteousness and persistent in our own sin condemned him to death on a cross. Because our own deeds were not righteous, we killed him! And yet, despite that fact that we deserved condemnation, God has still showed us mercy through his Son, Jesus.

Hebrews 12.18-24 tells us this:

English Standard Version Chapter 12

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

While Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance and resulted in curses, Jesus’ blood cries out for our redemption. His sacrifice undoes the curses of our sin - it reconciles us to God, it reconciles us to creation, and it reconciles us to one another.

The blood of Abel cast Cain out of Yahweh’s presence, but the blood of Christ reconciles us to God because it covers over our sins and declares us righteous! Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5.21:

English Standard Version Chapter 5

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This good shepherd, who deserved none of the punishment that he suffered, through his death gives us his righteousness. When God looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Christ rather than our own unholy sacrifices and filthy rags. Matthew’s gospel tells us that when Jesus died, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. If you recall, the temple curtain separated the holy place from the holy of holies, where the presence of Yahweh dwelt amongst his people. It was embroidered with cherubim, the same warrior angels that God had placed in front of the entrance to Eden way back in Genesis 3.23. These were the ones who guarded entrance into the presence of Yahweh himself - as the children’s book “The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross” puts it: “It is wonderful to be with God - but because of your sin, you can’t come in.” But with Christ, a way was made back into God’s presence - because of his righteousness, we can come in! We who are in Christ need no longer fear that the awesome holiness of God will overwhelm our sinful nature and kill us instantly. Because in Christ, Yahweh has reconciled us to himself.

The blood of Abel pronounced more curses on the groundWe also know from Genesis 3 that because of sin, creation is broken. But the prophets looked forward to a day when that brokenness would be undone, when creation would be the way that it was always intended to be. Isaiah speaks of the coming redeemer in Isaiah 11 and prophesies the following in verses 6-9:

English Standard Version Chapter 11

6  The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;

and a little child shall lead them.

7  The cow and the bear shall graze;

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9  They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

Paul tells in Romans 8 about how creation groans while waiting for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed, knowing that through the redemptive work of Christ that it will one day be free from the effects of sin. The blood of Jesus promises a new heavens and a new earth, a new creation in which Yahweh will dwell amongst his people and “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” All the things that have ruined this world will cease to be because of the blood of Jesus, and creation will be made whole once again.

The blood of Abel cries out for vengeance in our relationships, calling for brother to hunt down brother to avenge innocent blood. I used to work in Papua New Guinea, and in the area where I worked one of the biggest social issues was the culture norm of revenge killings. Someone would be killed from one tribe (perhaps even accidentally), and that could only be rectified by killing someone from the tribe that killed them. And then someone else would need to be killed, and so on and so forth, with no justice ever being done. But the blood of Jesus cries out for reconciliation with our brothers and sisters. The church of Jesus calls together people from every race, every tribe, every language, every socio-economic status under the banner of the blood of the lamb. As Paul writes in Galatians 3.28-29:

English Standard Version Chapter 3

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

The things that drive wedges between us and cause us to hate one another have no place in the church of Jesus! Because of his great love and mercy toward us, we have been grafted in as part of the promise that was made long ago to Abraham, that he would father a great nation and that through his offspring the nations would be blessed! Jesus calls his people to him completely indiscriminate of who they are and of what they have done - no one is outside of the redeeming grace of our Lord, and when we are washed with his blood we leave our biases and our petty rivalries at the foot of the cross. In Christ, we are not only reconciled to God, we are also reconciled to one another!

Finally, the blood of Abel speaks to the escalation of sin, how it is like a ratchet that moves every tighter in one direction, binding us tighter and tighter into its grip until we are smothered by it. But the blood of Christ breaks that cycle. The grace of Christ opens our eyes to the relentless downward spiral that sin creates. His mercy reveals to us the depths of our own depravity, how without the power and work of the Holy Spirit we are only capable of choosing sin instead of good over and over again. But his blood breaks the power that sin holds over us. To quote Paul again in Romans 6.20-23:

English Standard Version Chapter 6

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When we are slaves, we are bound to continue doing the things that we have always done. But once we have been set free, we are free to turn away from our old ways, to put our sin to death, and to seek after righteousness. Through the grace of Christ we are empowered to break that cycle of escalation. Charles Spurgeon has an illustration for it that I think is quite apt:

300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon How to Be Repulsed by Sin (Psalm 51:17; Jeremiah 31:18; Luke 18:13; 2 Corinthians 7:8–10)

Here is a knife, with a richly carved ivory handle—a knife of excellent workmanship. A woman, we will suppose, has had a dear child murdered by a cruel enemy. This knife is hers; she is pleased with it and prizes it. How can I make her throw that knife away? I can do it easily, for that is the knife with which her child was killed. Look at it; there is blood still on the handle. She drops it as though it were a scorpion; she cannot bear it. “Put it away,” she says. “It killed my child! Hateful thing!”

Now, sin is such a thing. We play with it until we are told it was sin that killed the Lord Jesus, who died out of love to us—pure, disinterested love. Then we say, “Hateful thing, go away! How can I endure you?”

May that be the way that we always see sin from now on!

Friends, I hope that after all we have spoken about this morning that you can see and affirm that Jesus Christ really is the true and better Abel, the ones whose blood cries out not for our condemnation, but for our redemption and adoption into the family of God. His blood does, indeed, speak a “better word”.

Let’s pray.

Gracious God, when we look at our lives we are able to see firsthand the ruinous impact of sin. We see how it pits brother against brother, father against son, mother against daughter, family against family. We see how it drives us away from one another just as it drives us away from you. Father, we pray today that you would renew afresh our understanding of the vileness of our sins, that you would help us to see their consequences amongst those that we love, and that you would remind us that it was our sins that ultimately nailed Jesus, the one who had never sinned, to the cross. Refresh us anew with a deeper understanding of your mercy, how rather than the blood of Christ condemning us even as we justly deserve, it instead offers us grace and freedom from our slavery to sin. Help us to see the need in our hearts for your presence, and give us the strength and the willingness to turn away from the temptations of this world that we might glory in the work that Christ has accomplished at the cross. Let the inclination of our hearts not be towards anger, quarreling, arguments, or anything other than extending the grace to others that has been extended to us. Sanctify our hearts, we pray, by the blood of Jesus, which speaks a better word than all of the other empty claims of this earth. We stand in amazement of your great love and your great mercy for us, let that grace and love be reflected in every part of our lives, and let us strive to put sin to death wherever it may be found.

Amen.