Origins | Cain & Abel

Genesis is often viewed as just a historic book that tells us about how the world got started and a bunch of stories that aren’t really relevant to today.   This is why Genesis is one of the most misunderstood books of the Bible.  Genesis is our origins story.  Many of the questions we ask today and answers we are looking for can be found in Genesis.  Scripture can be broken into four major plots: Creation (Genesis 1/2), Fall (Genesis 3), Redemption (Genesis 4 and beyond), and Restoration (New Creation – thread of the story of the Bible).  
 
Many of us know the story of Creation.  God created the heavens and the Earth for his Glory.  He threw the stars into the sky to reflect His goodness.  He shaped the mountains to reveal his majesty.  He breathed life into Adam and Eve to walk and worship with him in the Garden.  But then they chose to listen to the enemy and cross that boundary that God had established.  In that act of disobedience – sin and shame entered the garden. Our holy God could not be in the presence of sin therefore causing the fall and the exile of Adam and Eve.  
 
Genesis 4:1-7 | Adam and Eve are obedient and multiply as they begin a family.  Cain and Abel are born.  With this family God is faithful and still desires a relationship.  Cain and Abel brings offerings, but Cain’s is rejected.  We don’t know why, but God sees past the offering and into Cain’s heart.  He sees that “sin is crouching at the door.”  Cain has a choice, deal with the sin or ignore.  God warns from that sin, much pain will come.  Cain chooses rebellion over repentance in the murder of Abel.  His response to God’s warning was to ignore, justify, and blame others instead of choosing repentance for his sin.  His actions aren’t that different than ours.  We, too, often choose the way of Cain over the way of Abel.  
The way of Abel is one of humility, compassion and sacrifice.  The way of Cain is a path of pride, rebellion and self preservation.  Throughout scripture we see many point back to these two brothers and their actions (Jude 11, Matthew 23, Luke 11, 1 John 3).  The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 12:24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.  The innocent blood of Abel is a foreshadowing of the blood of Christ.  The plan of Jesus wasn’t something that come thousands of years later, but one that is starting in the first generation of mankind.  The blood of the innocent will cry out for justice, but there will only be one who will be able to satisfy that desire for Justice, Jesus.
 
Genesis 4:25-26 | It could seem hopeless to Adam and Eve who had been told that through their seed a son would come to crush the enemy and bring redemption.  But their oldest son has murdered their youngest son.  God is faithful and gives them another son, Seth.  Seth is said to be a substitute for Abel.  He represents New Life and from Seth we see him raise a family that brings man back to “call upon the name of the Lord.”  From the innocent blood, new life comes.  This is the picture of the Gospel.  Through the death of Christ, we have new life.  We call upon the Lord as adopted sons and daughters.  

Big idea: The story of Cain and Abel isn’t a sibling rivalry but the beginning story of redemption through the shedding of innocent blood in the clash of kingdoms of light and dark.