Last week we began to look at this great Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. Our author starts with Abel and writes:
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. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
We noticed first of all that what God is looking for is obedient faith. Faith in Him, yes, but faith in Him will always be put into action. What that obedience looks like will depend upon the person and their situation (as we will see as we go through Hebrews 11), but faith is always obedient.
And we noted that genuine faith responds to God’s revelation. That response is, again, first to believe His promises, but then to obey His commands. In the case of Abel, God’s revelation was first to Adam and Eve when he replaced their fig leaves with animal skins. It is likely, then, that from birth they had not only been exposed to the example of Adam and Eve offering animal sacrifices to cover their sins, but had taught their sons why they did so.
Did God directly instruct Cain and Abel in making appropriate sacrifices? It is possible. We see in the aftermath of Cain killing Abel that God speaks directly to Cain, asking, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (Gen. 4:7). Cain must have known what “doing well” meant, since God doesn’t spell it out here.
So obedient faith responds to God’s revelation. Second, obedient faith, therefore, receives God’s commendation. In Hebrews 11:4 we read, “though which [his offering by faith] he was commended as righteous.” This would be akin to what God says about Abraham having righteousness credited to his account in Genesis 15:6.
How was Abel commended? “When God spoke well of his offering.”
Genesis 4:4b-5 says,
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.
You know there is nothing at all in the text to indicate that Abel was any better than Cain. They were both sinners. The only thing that commended Abel as righteous was that he did what God had revealed to him, whereas Cain did not. That’s the only difference. Abel believed God’s Word and therefore did what God said.
And that’s the only difference. That’s the only thing that changes any man or woman’s relationship with God. It’s not how good you are, it’s not if you are better than someone else, it’s only that you came to God on God’s terms that God revealed. That’s all He asks.
But God “commanded [Abel] as a righteous man.” He credited righteousness to his account.
And this is so very foundational in the gospel because it is when we come to Christ who is our sacrifice, when we recognize that we are sinners and that Jesus paid in full the penalty for our sin and we embrace that by faith, we believe that and we act on that, and, as it were, we come to the altar and embrace the sacrifice of Christ as our own sacrifice, being offered to God. And it is in that act and at that moment that God gives testimony that we have been declared righteous. And that is exactly what happened with Abel.
God did not respect Abel for what was in Abel. God did not respect Abel because there was something attractive or good about him. God respected Abel because of his offering, because he believed God’s revelation that a blood sacrifice was necessary and therefore that is what he offered. Abel was as much a sinner as Cain. He was just as liable to eternal judgment as Cain. But he believed God. He trusted in God’s revelation and acted upon it and that obedient faith was counted to him for righteousness.
So here we have for the first time in Scripture a record of righteousness being credited to the account of a sinner who has trusted and obeyed. This is such a momentous thing. Righteousness is credited to the account of a sinner! God gives testimony that this man, Abel, has attained righteousness. His act, an act of faith, was an act which brought a very righteousness of God to cover his sin. It is the stunning foundation, isn’t it, of understanding the doctrine of justification.
Abel honored God…brought him the right sacrifice. God thus honored Abel…imputing righteousness to him. Imagine having God give you that testimony that you are righteous in His eyes! That is what God did for Abel. That is what God does for everyone who puts his or her trust in Jesus Christ, the ultimate blood sacrifice.
Abel was not made righteous by his sacrifice (Heb. 10:1-4). Neither was he made righteous by his faith. He was made righteous in exactly the same way we are, by the righteousness of Christ, which was imputed him on the basis of grace. Faith was the instrumental cause, but it was God’s grace that made it possible for Abel to be declared righteous on the basis of faith.
That God approved Abel’s sacrifice and did not approve of Cain’s was painfully obvious to Cain. He knew that God had favored Abel’s sacrifice and not his own.
So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. (Gen. 4:5)
He was furious, I mean his blood was boiling, his face was beet red, smoke was pouring out his nostrils. His pride was shattered.
It just reveals to us that what delights God (obedient faith) enrages the heart of ungodly people.
Notice the incredible act of condescension on God’s part—coming to Cain, pleading with Cain to repent.
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 for you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4:6-7)
He encourages Cain to “do well,” or “do what is right.” He encouraged Cain to act in obedient faith as well, so that he, too, could be accepted. God is saying, “Look, Cain, this isn’t the end. You haven’t ultimately failed. Sure, you messed up, but you can make it right. You can turn around now and do the right thing.” The offer was still valid; the altar was still open.
But Cain didn’t want to. It’s not that Cain didn’t know what to do. It’s not that Cain couldn’t see the benefits of obedient faith. But Cain didn’t want to do it. Ignorance is very rarely the problem; willfulness is. Stubbornness is.
And look as God personifies sin as a kind of monster, like a lion or dragon, “crouching at the door” and “its desire is for you”…do you sense the danger Cain is in? Do you feel the seriousness of the situation?
How was it that God showed his acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice? Our text doesn’t say. However, there are six other occasions in Scripture where God displays his approval through fire from heaven which devours the sacrifice (Lev. 9:24; Judges 6:21; 13:19, 20; 1 Chron. 21:26; 2 Chron. 3:1; 7:1; 1 Kings 18:24, 38). So it is quite possible that fire fell from heaven and consumed Abel’s offering, while Cain’s just sat there. Or, in another example of self-reliance, Cain built the fire himself. In some way it was glaringly obvious whom God approved.
Psalm 19:11 tells us that when it comes to God’s commands, “in keeping them there is great reward.”
Cain, on the other hand, is the person who comes to God on his own terms. This person might come whenever he wants, however he wants. His worship is determined by himself. He determines how much and what He will give.
He did not want to use a bloody, substitutionary victim. Cain, is a progenitor of those who say, “We do not need the blood of Jesus Christ to attain to eternal life. Our religion is just as good as the religion of the Bible. All roads lead to heaven. I could never believe in a God that would be so angry as to require that someone die for someone else’s sins.” Cain, said, long before Frank Sintra crooned, “I did it my way.”
That’s the middle letter in the word SIN, I. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way.” “Just follow your heart” is not very good advice. In fact, it is terrible advice, for Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Now as we shall see further Cain failed to acknowledge the fact of his sinfulness first of all and secondly he failed to obey God in that he failed to bring what God had prescribed to pay for his sins and believed that God, through his own merits and hard work, would respect his sacrifice. But God rejected Cain’s sacrifice and confronted his self-reliant, self-righteous attitude.
Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. (Genesis 4:16)
And Cain continued to rebel. He had some children, and he built a city. It was the first city men had ever built, and you know what it was? It was the birth of the system, it was the birth of the world’s system which fell into the control of Satan immediately. He chose to go his own way; he walked out of the presence of God (v. 16).
Don’t feel sorry for Cain, that God didn’t choose his sacrifice. The Bible reveals that he knew exactly what he was doing and intentionally turned away from God, first with his heart and then with his body.
We cannot come to God on our own terms. We are the creature; He is the Creator. We draw near to Him through the means HE has identified—through the blood of Jesus Christ alone. The faith God commends here is not faith of our own making, but the father that responds to God’s revealed Word and trusts in the sacrificial substitute—Jesus Christ.
Have you come to God through the only means He has provided—His Son Jesus Christ?
He is the only one who can wash away your sins and bring you to God!
In Acts 4:12 Peter says, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
It is a name that saves, not your own efforts. And there is only one name through “by which we must be saved.” It is not just any name; there is salvation “in no one else” but Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” I’ve heard someone say (I cannot remember who) that even if there were many ways to God, there is only one way to the Father, and that is “through” Jesus Christ.
Now, notice how Cain responded (Genesis 4:8). He responded the same way all unsaved mankind responds to righteousness. He hated it. He invited his brother out into the field. (His invitation drips with deception.) There he “rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.”
By the way, how did Cain know how to kill his brother?
Think about it.
The only precedent Cain had for killing was the animal sacrifices that he had seen killed for sin offerings! Isn’t that ironic…and tragic? What was tragic is that Cain was in league with Satan, for in John 8:44 we read that Satan was a murderer from the beginning and acted through Cain to kill Abel.
Now why is this so profound for these Hebrew Christians? Why does the writer of Hebrews begin with this tragic story of the killing of Abel? Because their allegiance to Jesus Christ was about to bring about intense persecution and possibly their own martyrdom.
We today may not face quite the same degree of danger, yet the point is still whether we will choose to remain faithfully obedient to the Word of God when it might cost us something very dear to us, even our own lives.
The fact is, Jesus told us the world would hate us. In 1 John 3:12-13 the apostle John shows the comparison of this ancient story of Cain and Abel to their present persecution at the hands of the world they lived in.
12 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. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
Jesus did not teach his disciples that they would always have a life of ease, of health and wealth and their “best life now.” Instead, he warned them: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” It is par for the course. It is natural for the child of God to be hated by the world, because the world hates anything that reminds them that they are beholden to Someone outside themselves, namely God.
Paul told Timothy, “Indeed [in truth, in fact], all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,”
At the very outset of the human race, sin violently reacted to snuff out righteousness. It is no different today.
Getting back to Cain, maybe he thought that he was once and for all rid of this nagging display of righteousness and the voice of his own conscience. But he was about to face a disturbing reality. Dead men do tell tales.
Moffatt has said, “Death is never the last word in the life of a righteous man.” And truly, the life and example of Abel still preaches.
It just reminds us that when a man leaves this world, be he righteous or unrighteous, he leaves something of himself in the world—the testimony of his example. And that leads us to our third point.
Obedient faith possesses a perpetual influence.
For good or bad, you will leave your mark on people’s lives. Positive or negative, our testimony outlives us. Just think of Hitler, Nero and Stalin; or Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, or my dad Calvin Austin. (It’s interesting, isn’t it, that you only have to give part of the name of the really infamous characters in history?)
Hebrews 11:4 ends by saying, “And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”
Among William Blake’s most famous paintings is one depicting the murder of Abel. In the background lies Abel’s muscular body, pale-grey in death. In the foreground flees Cain. His body is facing away as he flees but his torso is twisted back so that his face still views the body. His eyes are wide in terror, his mouth wrenching in agony and his hands are stopping up his ears in an attempt to shut out the wailing of his brother’s blood screaming from the ground.
Genesis reminds us that Abel’s blood cries out for vengeance. 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.”
Every time Cain put his foot back down on terra firma, it shouted to him, “You killed your brother!” This will be mentioned again in Hebrews 12 and the concept shows up once more in Revelation 6:9-10 where we read of the martyrs who were crying out to Jesus Christ to right the wrongs that had been committed against them.
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
However, the writer of Hebrews is not so much emphasizing Abel’s cry for vengeance as his cry to us to live an obedient and enduring faith in God’s Word even at personal expense. Abel has been speaking to us two things: (1) no man comes to God through their own efforts, but through faith. And (2) you cannot ignore and disobey God’s revelation, like Cain did.
Cain’s response to all this was merely to start pouting and whining (Genesis 4:13-14). There’s no remorse in his heart, no penitence, no sorrow for his sin, no pleading for grace, there’s no “right God, I’ll give the right sacrifice now. I’ve learned my lesson.” No, it’s just “God, this is too tough, it’s not fair.” He pitied himself. And his guilt would bite at him for the rest of his life, for God wouldn’t allow anyone to exact vengeance against Cain (Genesis 4:15). But, that fact also reveals God’s patience, and the ray of hope that somewhere, sometime, Cain would repent.
Here in Genesis 4 we have one of the most profound illustrations in all the Word of God about what it means to exercise biblical, enduring faith—a man who so took God at His Word that it cost him his life.
“The declaration that ‘Abel being dead still speaks’ means that he, who when he was actually alive could not teach his only brother by his faith and example, now that he is dead teaches the whole world” (Martin Luther)
What a lesson for these Hebrews in this congregation to reflect upon if they were indeed struggling with his faith. This verse very powerfully tells us that our faith, and only by our faith, do we come into a right relationship with God.
And if you’re struggling with whether it is worth it to stay faithful to Jesus Christ, God shows us here that enduring faith, even if it results in our death, receives commendation from God that we are right with Him.
Abel anticipates the very Son of God, who always responded with obedient faith to His Father’s Word. He says in John 4:34, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
His obedient faith, though His human will struggled with it in the Garden of Gethsemane, merited God’s commendation, for following this highest act of obedience, after three days in the tomb the Father shows His commendation by raising Him from the dead, “and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4).
And His obedient faith to give up His life on the cross continues to possess a perpetual influence. Of course, it provides a model for obedient living, but more than that it has the power to declare righteous those who trust in it.
We are to listen and learn from the message of Job’s faith, but we are to fix our eyes on Job’s Savior, Jesus Christ. That is who Abel points to.
And this is what Christian faith is. It is a reliance upon Jesus with the result that we will have enduring obedience to His will, even in the face of severest opposition.
Grace Still Amazes 