Previous Lesson -- Next Lesson
DISCOVER GENESIS
An exploratory Bible course for disciples of Christ
PART 2 -- The Torah of ADAM (Genesis 2:4 to 5:32)
GENESIS 4
The need for faith and sincerity of heart -- (DATE: Years after Adam’s creation)
OUTLINE of Genesis 4:
14. Adam and Eve had two sons: Cain and Abel. (4:1+2)
15. Cain and Abel offered unequal sacrifices to the LORD. (4:3+4)
16. Why Cain was angry and how the LORD admonished him. (4:5-7)
17. Cain killed his brother Abel. (4:8)
18. How the LORD uncovered Cain’s guilt about his brother. (4:9+10)
19. The LORD condemned Cain and limited his punishment. (4:11-16)
20. Cain’s descendants. (4:17-24)
21. Adam and Eve had another son: Seth, who fathered Enosh (4:25+26)
DISCOVER Genesis 4: After having become mortal and driven from their former home, Adam went in to his wife Eve and she conceived a son, whom she named Cain. Not long after, she bore Adam her second son, Abel. Cain did well with the land and cultivated its fruit, while his brother Abel took to animals and kept livestock. -- As time went on, both of them offered sacrifices to the LORD: Cain of the fruits he grew in the field and Abel of the firstborn from his flock, together with their fatty portions. -- Seeing these, God held Abel’s offering in higher regard than his older brother’s, which made Cain angry. When the LORD noticed his anger and fallen face, he asked what the matter was. Even without Cain’s answer he knew what was eating at him and the LORD told him not to be angry. If he would do well, he would find acceptance before Him. However, if he didn’t do well, like right now, sin would encroach upon him. And its desire was contrary to Cain’s own, so he would need to stand up to and rule over it. -- However, these words fell upon deaf ears, for Cain sought out his brother and as they argued, Cain rose up against him and killed his brother Abel. -- Not long after this the LORD came and asked Cain where he thought his brother was. Cain, in an effort to mask his deed, answered that he had no idea, for he wasn’t his brother’s keeper. The LORD however already knew the truth and told him, that Abel’s blood, which he had spilled onto the ground, was crying out to him. And that the ground itself was cursing Cain for his deed. -- Therefore the land would no longer yield its strength and fertility to him. And for his crime, the LORD judged that Cain would henceforth be a fugitive and wander the land. Hearing this, Cain lost all hope and he pleaded to the LORD that this judgment was too heavy for him, for now that God had driven him from his face and made him a fugitive, the first person to cross his path would surely kill him. The LORD God, however, told him that it would not come to this, for vengeance would be delivered sevenfold on whoever would seek to kill Cain. To enforce this promise, God placed a mark upon him, so that no one, who came across him, would attack him. -- So Cain went east from Eden and from the presence of the LORD, to finally settle in the land of Nod, where he took a wife and fathered Enoch. Enoch fathered Irad, and Irad Mehujael, who fathered Methushael, who fathered Lamech. Lamech took two wives, Adah and Zillah. Adah bore him two brothers: Jabal, who was the father of those who dwell in tents and keep livestock, and Jubal, who was the father of those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah bore Lamech Tuabl-Cain, the father of all who would make untensils and instruments of bronze and iron, and she also bore his sister Naamah. One day, Lamech called his wives and told them that today he had killed a young man for striking and wounding him, proclaiming that if the retribution for Cain had been sevenfold, his own would be seventy-sevenfold. -- At that time Adam went in on his wife Eve once more, who then bore him a third son, Seth. And Seth would go on to father Enosh. In those days the people began to call upon the name of the LORD.
PRAYER: Our just and almighty God, we bow down in shame before you, when we learn how the sin of our forefathers Adam and Eve led to a shocking escalation of sin among their sons, so that the elder murdered his younger brother. We are no better. We also deserve your judgment, because hatred often eats its way into our hearts. Forgive us and cleanse us from our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ your son, who bore our punishment by dying for us on the cross, and overcome our hatred with your holy love, which you poured into our hearts through your Holy Spirit. Amen.
QUESTION 4: Why did Cain kill his younger brother Abel?
QUOTES: Again there are no direct quotes from Genesis 4 in the New Testament. -- However there are 12 allusions in the New Testament to verses from this dramatic chapter:
Genesis 4:4 is ALLUDED to in
Hebrews 11:4 (‘By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. ...’ This verse interprets the event in Genesis as being done by faith and proving the righteousness of Abel.) --
Genesis 4:7 is ALLUDED to in
John 8:34 (God said to Cain that he must rule over sin, but he failed. This is alluded to when ‘Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.’ When Cain killed his brother Abel, sin ruled over him and he became a slave of sin.) --
Genesis 4:8 (describing how Cain killed his younger brother Abel) is ALLUDED to in
Matthew 23:35 (Jesus included the murder of Abel in a long list of killings of righteous people: ‘all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah’ will come upon the head of those responsible for these murders.) and
Luke 11:51 (similar to Matthew 23:35) and
1 John 3:12 (The apostle John wrote: ‘We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.’) and
Jude 11 (Speaking of ungodly people in the church, Jude wrote: ‘Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain ...’) --
Genesis 4:10 (God said to Cain that the voice of his brother’s blood is crying to Him from the ground, meaning that it was the blood of a righteous man) is ALLUDED to in
Matthew 23:35 (Jesus included Abel in a list of righteous men murdered) and in
Luke 11:51 (same as Matthew 23:35) and in
Hebrews 11:4 (Alluding to the blood of Abel crying from the ground to God, Hebrews says about Abel: ‘... And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.’) and in
Hebrews 12:24 (Indirectly alluding to the blood of Abel crying from the ground, we read in Hebrews that as Christians we have come ‘to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.’) --
Genesis 4:24 is ALLUDED to in
Matthew 18:22 (see details below) -- and finally
Genesis 4:25+26 is ALLUDED to in
Luke 3:38 (Because the righteous Abel was killed and because Cain was cast out by God, the Lord Jesus is referred to by Luke as being ‘the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.’ This means: Christ was not the son of Adam through Abel or Cain, but He was Adam’s descendant through Seth, Adam’s third son).
Detailed quote: One of the descendants of Cain was Lamech, about whom we read, “23 Lamech said to his wives: ‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. 24 If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.’” (Genesis 4:23-24) -- The Lord Jesus revealed the remedy against Lamech’s excessive revenge when answering a question of his disciple Peter: Matthew 18:21-22 -- “21 Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ 22 Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven’.” So the Gospel of Jesus Christ inverts Lamech’s seventy-seven-fold revenge into the spiritual power for forgiving seventy-seven times. Open up to the love of Christ for his enemies, then you also will be able to forgive those who do evil to you!