Cain Kills Abel

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AStudying God’s Word

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Studying God’s Word

Introduction

Last week we continued our study of the corruption of the universe at the time Adam sinned. We said that the impact of the fall was universal.

Encourage anyone who has notes from the last lesson to use them.

• Who can remember some of the specific impacts of Adam’s sin and the curse God pronounced in Genesis 3? The entire creation now groans from the corruption in the universe. God cursed the serpent to crawl on its belly and eat dust; Satan was doomed to be crushed by the Seed of the woman; the woman would have increased pain in childbirth and desire to have authority over her husband; Adam was to work hard to provide food and would eventually die; the ground would produce thorns and thistles; the animals were all cursed.
  • Don’t forget! Review the Optional Supplements and determine where you can use them.
  Even though God had cursed his originally perfect creation, he also offered hope. A Savior would come to take the penalty for Adam’s sin (a penalty that we all bear, being “in Adam”) and for our own sin, and eventually to restore the creation. At the consummation, there will be a new heaven and earth where the effects of the curse no longer have a hold. There will be no more death, disease, and suffering for those who are “in Christ,” but eternal death for those who do not trust him.

  We have a glorious hope of redemption provided through Jesus and a great opportunity and responsibility to share that hope with those who do not know Christ.

Two Offerings

Our lesson today will look at the first murder recorded in Scripture—Cain killing Abel. Some very important ideas in the text will help us understand what led to the murder and show us a wonderful connection to the gospel. And, we will deal with one of the tricky little questions that skeptics offer as a challenge to the Bible.

Let’s read Genesis 4:1–15 together and begin our look at this infamous event. Have someone read the passage aloud.

• What is the historical context of this passage? Adam and Eve have sinned against God and have been expelled from the garden of Eden.
• Which son was born first? Cain was born before Abel.
• What were the occupations of the two sons? Abel was a shepherd, and Cain was a farmer.
• What did Cain bring as an offering to the Lord? An offering of the fruit of the ground.
• What did Abel bring as an offering to the Lord? The firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.
• How did God respond to the two offerings? The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering.
• How did Cain respond to God’s disfavor? He was angry, and his face fell.
• What caution did God give to Cain? God cautioned him to do the right thing and to ensure that sin did not rule over him.
• How did Cain respond to God’s warning? He ignored God’s warning and chose to sin and murder his brother.
• How did Cain respond to God’s question about Abel’s location? He lied to God and said he did not know and turned the questioning back to God.
• How did God respond to Cain’s sin? God cursed the ground so that it would not yield for Cain since he was a farmer. God also condemned Cain to be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.
• Cain responded by telling God that his punishment was too great—a form of asking for mercy. What did Cain fear would happen to him? That anyone who found him would kill him.
• How did God demonstrate mercy to Cain? He set a mark on him and promised to avenge sevenfold anyone who would take his life in revenge.
• Was God still communicating to humans after the fall? Yes, and this is a prime example. Many people assert that God completely broke fellowship with man after the fall. This direct intervention on behalf of Cain shows God was still intimately involved with his creation despite their sin.
• What parallels do you see in this account and the account of the fall in Genesis 3? God warned both Adam and Cain; Adam and Cain both willfully rebelled against God; God asked Adam and Cain about what they had done; Adam and Cain rejected their own responsibility; God cursed Adam and Cain but did not carry out their punishment immediately.
• What was Cain’s motive for killing his brother? Jealousy seems to be the best explanation based on the text—God had regard for Abel’s offering and not Cain’s, and Cain became jealous and angry.
• How would you summarize the main point of the passage? Despite God’s warning, Cain rebelled against God by killing his brother—but God was merciful to Cain, allowing him to live and protecting him from vengeance.

Discover the Truth

Although we do not have specific details about how Cain and Abel knew that they were to offer sacrifices to God, or what that process looked like, still they knew it was expected. As the brothers brought their offerings, presumably to the same altar at the same time, Cain’s sacrifice was rejected by God, and he likely became jealous of Abel’s acceptance. As a result, Cain killed his brother and faced God’s curse.

But God was merciful to Cain by not taking his life as he rightly deserved, and by placing a mark on him so that others would be afraid to take vengeance for Abel’s murder. Cain was openly disobedient, and God judged his disobedience mercifully. This is another example of the intersection of God’s justice and mercy that reminds us of the gospel.

Even though our sin deserves to be punished, Jesus Christ willingly offered himself as the sacrifice to pay for our sin.

An Acceptable Sacrifice Activity

Pass out the An Acceptable Sacrifice Activity (PDF) worksheets.

As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we don’t have any information from the text on what was required for the sacrifices that were offered by Cain and Abel and others alive at the time. We do have a lot of information that can be used to infer what God may have required from those first sacrifices. As God describes the sacrificial system in Leviticus, we see that the requirements for various sacrifices were given thousands of years later. As you look over these questions, try to understand why it was that Cain was rejected by God and Abel was accepted.

Connect to the Truth

Discuss the following points after the students have had time to answer them.

• What are the differences between the two offerings described in Genesis 4:1–5? Cain offered a grain (fruit of the ground) offering, and Abel offered the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.
• Read Leviticus 2:1–2, 2:14, and 4:27–31. How do these offerings compare to Cain’s and Abel’s offerings? Cain’s is similar to the grain offering, and Abel’s sounds much like the sin offering of the animal and its fat. Leviticus 2:14 also calls for the offering of the firstfruits of the harvest.
• What information does Hebrews 11:4 give about the two brothers and their offerings? Abel offered his sacrifice in faith, testifying of his righteousness before God.
• How is Cain described in 1 John 3:10–12? Cain was “of the evil one”—a child of the devil, and his deeds were evil.
• What do the following passages tell you about God’s attitude toward sacrifices: 1 Samuel 15:22; Hosea 6:6; Proverbs 15:8, 21:3? All of these point to God’s desire for a pure heart rather than sacrifices. While God is pleased with sacrifices offered rightly, if they are done with the wrong motives, they are rejected.
• In summary, describe why God accepted Abel and his sacrifice and not Cain’s. Although many people think that God did not accept Cain’s sacrifice because it was not a blood sacrifice, the Bible does not clearly teach that. From the text of Genesis 4 and the other verses we have looked at, it seems that Cain’s attitude toward the sacrifice was the reason it was rejected. God commands the offering of grain and drink offerings later, so these offerings are not inherently wrong. It is important to note that Abel’s offering is described as coming from the firstborn while Cain’s is not described as the firstfruits. This could be a clue to the acceptance and the attitude—Cain brought just some fruit while Abel brought the first and the best of his flock. God also told Cain that he would be accepted if he did well (4:7), so his attitude, not his offering, seems to be the emphasis. Ultimately, it is the heart attitude that God looks at, not the offering itself. Just as the wrong offering with the right attitude is unacceptable, the right offering with the wrong attitude is also unacceptable.

Where Did Cain Find a Wife?

Another common challenge to the biblical history of man has to do with Cain and what we read in Genesis 4:16–17. People often ask where Cain got his wife if Adam and Eve were the original parents of all of humanity.

Let’s read Genesis 4:16–17 together and try to answer that question. Have someone read the passage aloud.

• When do these events take place? Just after God has cursed and marked Cain, Cain leaves the area.
• Where does Cain settle? He settles in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
• According to the text, where did Cain marry his wife? The text doesn’t say where they were married, but many people assume that Cain went to Nod and found a wife in Nod.
• What two things did Cain do in Nod? He had a son and built a city.
• Are there any people in the land of Nod? There is nothing in the text that would suggest that there were people in Nod.
• To this point in the Bible, how many people have been identified? Four: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel.
• If Adam and Eve are the parents of every human, how was Cain related to his wife? She must have been his sister (or possibly a niece). Could Cain have married a cousin? No, since his parents did not have any brothers or sisters.

• Slide #14
  How does Genesis 3:20 confirm this? Eve is called the mother of all living, so every person is descended from her.

• Slide #15
  How does Genesis 5:4 give us more insight into this topic? It tells us that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters, so Cain, Abel, and Seth were not the only children of Adam and Eve. If Adam and Eve did not have any daughters, humanity would not have continued.

Discover the Truth

Cain is described as the first son of Adam and Eve, but Genesis 5:4 tells us that there were also other children. We are not told the order or names of any of those children except for Seth, but we know they must have been born. It may sound a little funny to our modern ears, but Cain married either a sister or a niece (or some other very close relative).

Rather than going to Nod and finding a wife there, he likely already had a wife and took her with him to Nod. And this is consistent with what the text actually says.

• What are the immediate objections to this idea that come to your mind? Some may suggest it is “gross” or wrong, but some may point to the prohibition against marrying close relations in Leviticus 18:6. Point out that this prohibition came 2,500 years after creation, and that Abraham married his half-sister and Isaac married a close cousin.
• Why might it have been acceptable for close relatives to marry in the beginning? (Hint: think of the condition of the original creation compared to now.) One of the dangers today comes from genetic disorders that can result from close marriages. This would not have been a concern close to the originally perfect creation. Adam and Eve were perfect and, thus, did not have any genetic mutations. As the years went by, mutations increased, until the “genetic load” was so great that God commanded that close relatives not marry. Also, since God chose to start with two people, the only option would be to have brothers marry sisters.

  Many Christians suggest that there were other people groups already in Nod, groups that God either had created or had allowed to evolve, and that Cain went there and took a wife from among them. Looking at Genesis 4:14, we read that Cain was afraid that “anyone” would kill him if they found him. So, it must have been his family that Cain was afraid of, not some other tribe of people who lived in another area. Why would another group want to kill Cain for killing someone they didn’t even know? It just doesn’t make sense with the text.

Application

It’s sad to think that within the first generation from Adam and Eve, someone was murdered. Sin’s impact was so devastating that Cain was willing to kill his own brother out of jealousy over an act of worshipping God.

Both brothers had brought offerings, but Cain’s heart was not right in his offering. Despite God’s direct appeal to not allow sin to overtake him, Cain killed his brother and then tried to deny that he knew what had happened. Not unlike his parents, sin caused him to attempt to shift God’s attention away from his own sin.

But God, who is rich in mercy, did not punish Cain with death, but allowed him to live and even have a family. Like Cain, we can expect consequences for our sin, but because of what Christ has done on the cross, we don’t have to fear the ultimate punishment of an eternity in hell. When we repent and place our trust in Christ, we have a sacrifice that is completely accepted by the Father. It is no longer our sin and wickedness that God sees when he looks at us, but the perfect merit of Jesus. We are free to serve him knowing that he has given us a new heart.

We have taken a look at how sin showed itself in Cain’s life, but we need to remember that the same sinful nature is in every person. We need to make sure that we turn some of our attention to how we live in light of what we have just read from God’s Word. If we merely observe and interpret God’s Word without doing what we hear, we are foolish and deceiving ourselves into thinking we are righteous when we are not (James 1:21–27).

• How do the things that we do to please God (our offerings) relate to the offerings Cain and Abel presented? Though we do not offer items on an altar, the attitude we have when we do those things that God has commanded us is important. If we perform our deeds to receive the praise of men, a motive for which Jesus condemned the Pharisees, our works are worthless (1 Corinthians 3:11–15). We should seek to serve God with a pure heart, with righteous obedience, for which Abel was commended, rather than following Cain’s example.
• Hebrews 13:15–16 calls us to “offer up a sacrifice of praise to God” not neglecting “to do good and to share” as God is pleased with such sacrifices. How is this apparent in the account of Cain and Abel and in your life? According to Hebrews 11:4, Abel’s sacrifice was offered in faith, but Cain’s was not. Just like Abel, we should not trust that our own works will earn us righteousness, but that our righteousness will come through our faith in Christ.
• How does sin’s pattern found in James 1:13–15 compare to what we see in the account of Cain, and how can that help us understand why we sin and how to avoid it? Cain’s jealousy of his brother’s acceptance (a sinful desire) led him to kill his brother despite a warning directly from God to master it. We should recognize our sinful desires and put them to death before they are fully grown and lead us to sin against God.
• Abel offered the firstborn of his flock, and elsewhere we see the idea of God’s honoring the firstfruits offered to him. How can we apply this idea to our offerings to God today? Whether it is our time, money, or talents, we should give God the first and best of what he has first given to us. Proverbs 3:9 tells us to “honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce.”
• How does the mercy shown to Cain relate to the mercy shown to you through Christ? Even though Cain deserved to die for killing his brother, God was merciful to him. Each of us has sinned against God and deserves to die for that rebellion against a perfect and holy God, but God has shown mercy to us in sending Christ to die in our place.

Group Prayer

Be sure to pray with your class and take requests if time allows.

• Praise God for his patience in withholding judgment and for calling sinners to repentance.
• Ask God that each person would offer his first and best to him each day and in the strength of the Holy Spirit.
• Thank God for providing a substitute for sinners.