Review
At the end of the story of the Fall, Death (Thanatos) has entered the world. It is shown in the break-down of God’s intended Garden of Life. The man, Adam, has “called the Name of his wife” Eve – thereby reducing her from her God-created place as his equal to – at least in his eyes – an inferior. Hereafter, he “lords it over her” even though she continues to “yearn” for her husband.
At the same time, God’s intended relationship between humankind and Himself has been broken. God created humans of the earth and of His Spirit to occupy a place between heaven and earth and to mediate the Spirit of God – which is the Spirit of Life – the the earth and, by “husbanding” it, to lift the earth toward its potential: to divinize creation. But rather than exercise God-given dominion over the earth, humans allowed the earth to dominate them, to tell them what is “good” and what is “evil.” By listening to the serpent (not Satan, but the “sliest” of earthly creatures whom God made as companions for humans), the man and woman stopped listening to God – essentially “killing” God. (After all, the promise of the serpent was that humans could know for themselves, thereby no longer needing God. So, God becomes functionally dead if He is no longer paid any attention.)
Natural impulse, the impulse that is in nature and also in our natural bodies becomes our God. We call that “appetite.” And we are dominated by our appetites when we do not let God rule in us. That is what it means to be a “natural man” or “natural woman.” So nature and unbridled, uncontrolled natural impulse is our god – is what we listen to to determine what is good to do.
This means we are in a battle with nature for supremacy. On the one hand, nature dominates us; on the other hand we seek to dominate nature – by extracting a living even to the hurt of the environment. But the point is that the God-intended relationship between humans and nature – in which nature feeds us body and soul, and we nurture nature toward holiness – is broken by human disobedience to God.
Hesed
However, in the midst of this tragedy and human disobedience, and despite human faithlessness toward God, God remains faithful to Himself: He keeps His word regarding the earth and the earth creature. That is hesed: “the love of God that you cannot drive away.”
God’s faithfulness is unchanging. And on one level, the Myths of Origins are stories that portray the faithfulness of God in the midst of human faithlessness. We see how God’s faithfulness and love work out as the source of hope even as the human condition degenerates. And, by the time we finish with them, we will see why God entered into history to make of Abram a people who would be set apart from the world as God’s own people. God’s call to Abram was the beginning of God working in history to redeem His creation, including the human creature. And we Christians say that in Jesus Christ, He completed His saving work; that when we are in Christ we are restored to God as the obedient, eternally Living creatures God intended to occupy the Garden (heaven).
God’s hesed is first demonstrated by His making of clothing for Adam and Eve as He banishes them from the heavenly Garden. Even in banishment, God is signalling that he will cover and protect disobedient humanity. He keeps His promise to us because He cannot break faith with Himself.
Hesed in History
The story of Cain and Abel is, in part, an outworking of human unfaithfulness and God’s abiding faithfulness.
In this story we have the introduction of parallel tracks that will run through the whole of the Bible. On the one hand, we have the story – the history – of humans persisting in our unfaithfulness to God, no matter how many times God restores us and calls us back. And on the other hand, we have the story – the history – of God’s abiding love and faithfulness, of God’s persistently-renewed calling and restorative work.
What is important to understand, in order to undestand correctly, is this: God is not primarily faithful to us. God is primarily faithful to Himself. We are blessed by God’s faithfulness and compassion not because God is bound to us, but because God chooses to remain bound to Himself. The only way God can break His bond to us is by being unfaithful to His promise to Himself – and God is not unfaithful. Therefore He will keep His word to Himself no matter how often we break our word to be God’s creature.
God’s gracefulness is located in God’s faithfulness to His Word. That is why God’s Word can go into the world and have power – it is a creative Word, a restorative Word, a healing Word, and when it takes human form in Jesus, it is a saving Word. When God speaks His Word, it is so. Eternally. It can not be other than what God has spoken.
Evil cannot stand against God because God’s Word cannot be broken. We can turn our backs on God’s Word, but God’s Word will not forsake us and cannot be forever ignored. It will have final authority; all other powers and efforts and authorities will break against it like waves against a stone jetty. And when we face God’s Word, when we allow God’s Word to sweep over us and take us up onto God’s intent, we cannot be broken or destroyed. When we depend on God, when we are in God, we are eternal and ultimately invincible. (That is a key message in Revelation.)
Cain & Abel
When Eve conceives and bears her first son she names his “Cain.” Cain means “acquired,” and she says, I have acquired a man from God.
When she bears her second son she names him “Abel.” Abel means “breath” as in “ephemeral.” Already we have a signal that Abel is not long for the earth.
And later, when Abel is dead and she bears a third son, she calls him “Seth.” Seth means “appointed,” and she says God has appointed this son to replace dead Abel. It is through Seth, the appointed one, that the people of Israel are eventually established. He is the one appointed by God to bear God’s blessing down through the ages. It is Seth, the Scripture says, who “calls on the Name of the Lord;” who is therefore a fitting vessel for the promise, the hesed, of God in his generation.
Cain Kills Abel – Symbolism
Now Cain was a farmer, a man of the earth; and Abel was a shepherd. This should tell us something, too.
Firstly, as a historical note, the Hebrews were initially nomadic. In fact the name “Hebrew” derives from the ancient word ‘apiru (pronounced “ha-pirroo”), which means “bandit” or “highwayman.” It began as an insult, but was adopted by the Israelites as a positive term – much the way North Americans embraced the English slur “yankee.”
In the struggle between Cain, the settled farmer, and Abel the nomadic shepherd, we see a reflection of the Israelite history as nomadic “outsiders.” When Cain kills Abel, we see a domesticated reflection of the ancient historic fate of the Israelites, who were frequently the victims of more powerful and numerous settled clans: often they were killed and driven away. (Indeed, that story continues to play out in our own modern history and current events, doesn’t it?)
However, we are also being told that the Israelites are “shepherds.” Abel is the first of the biblical shepherds whom God favors. And God’s shepherds are frequently killed by those who are opposed to God. But God favors the nomads, the sojourners, the shepherds over those who have settled in and made the earth their home. God’s people are never fully at home in this world; they are always outcasts and strangers passing through a strange land, looking for a homeland over the next horizon and across the river.
That’s a rich collection of imagery, isn’t it? God “approves” of the shepherd Abel, and the unapproved one kills him. Abram is a shepherd (really a goatherd), whom God calls to “walk before Me.” Jacob is a shepherd for his father-in-law before he receives God’s blessing and becomes Isaac, the father of the 12 Tribes of Israel. David is a shepherd through whom God establishes the kingdom of Israel. And Jesus is called the “shepherd of men” who will not leave even one of his sheep out in the dark though the 99 are safe in his pen.
Also, note that Abel is the younger son, and though the younger is the one God blesses. So we learn that God by-passes the human institution of giving the inheritance to the eldest son. God’s inheritance is given to the younger son Abel, and to the younger son Jacob, and the younger son David. It is also the youngest shepherd son, Joseph, that God uses to grease the skids in Egypt before famine strikes.
So in Abel and both his approval by God and his fate at the hands of man, we see a prototype of the biblical record to come: God continually bypasses those the world says should be blessed, in order to bless those the world considers the least. And the world hates them and God for it, often seeking to do harm to those whom God loves. It is an act of spiritual rebellion against God’s dominion and ordering. It is an effort to kill God by destroying those who embody God’s hesed in history.
Cain Kills Abel – the Story
When Cain offers the first of his crop to God, God does not accept the offering, and Cain’s “countenance fell.” That is, he got angry. Also, he lost “face.” He felt humiliated, and it showed. That’s when he hatched the plot to kill favored Abel. Which bespeaks jealousy, too.
When Cain’s countenance fell, God spoke to him, asking why he was feeling badly. Afterall, God says, “if you do good will you not be approved?” That’s a good question. It’s also a question that begs the question: obviously, if you do good God will approve of you. So the question points to the problem: Cain did not do “good.” There was something about Cain that God already disapproved of, and because of that God did not accept the offering.
The suggestion is that the offering was not sincere. If you are not doing “good” as God defines the word, then you cannot in good conscience give God an offering, as if you were a good, obedient person. If you are in rebellion against God and you make an offering to God – without being truly repentent – you are lying to God, to others, and to yourself.
The offering that God honors is the one given with a pure heart; not the one given with mixed motives or a black heart. So if God does not honor Abel’s offering, it is because God knows Abel does not have a “servant’s heart.” That is why God continues, “if you do not do good, sin crouches at your door and its desire is for you.”
He is warning Cain: you have two choices here. Either do good, or be consumed by evil. If you live in rebellion to God, sin will spring upon you as soon as you give it a chance to enter, and it will eat you up.
Rather than repent, Cain decides to make himself look better by taking down the one who is actually morally better. In this, he confuses appearances and substance. Cain is concerned to “look good,” Abel is concerned to “be good.”
Since Cain chooses not to be good, he decides to eliminate the one who is good. With that one out of the way, he thinks he will look more acceptable to God. It’s foolish reasoning, but rampant in human history and in our own day – isn’t it?
Finally, note that Cain has a clear choice to make – just as his parents had had a clear choice. Adam and Eve were given the instruction to “rule over” the world by remaining obedient to and dependent upon God. Sin entered the world because Adam and Eve chose to let the world rule over them, and became victim to their own appetites.
Now God warns Cain: if you do not do good, sin crouches at the door and its desire is for you. But you should rule over it.
Temptations come; our appetites want to control us. That is sin crouching at the door, hungry for us. But we should rule over it; and if we are obedient to and dependent upon God, we can and will rule over our appetites. We have the power and choice to live in obedience and power, or to succumb to our appetites. Cain chooses to let his appetites rule him – that is what God knew, and why God did not accept his offering.
We come to church and make our offerings of money and prayers to God. But what is in our hearts? Are we in rebellion in the conduct of our daily lives? Or do we “rule over” the sin that lies at the door, yearning for us?
It matters. Though God will not abandon us in our waywardness; God also will not pretend. God’s blessing falls upon those who are living obediently, because Life only exists where God is. If we are not where God is, we are in Death. And we can only be where God is by being obdient to, and dependent upon, God. In God, and only in God, we can defeat Death – sin.
God says we have the power to choose our course. The truth is that we lived mixed lives: we obey and we disobey; we remember to be dependent upon God, and then forget and act as if we were in charge of our own lives; we forgive, and then we refuse to forgive. There are parts of our lives that are under God’s authority, and there are parts of our lives that are in rebellion against God’s authority. And so we are partially alive and partially dead.
Yet, God’s hesed abides. Despite our bouts of unfaithfulness and disobedience, God steadfastly refuses to let us go and will not stop loving us. That is grace.
