God’s Displeasure with Cain

Many of us know the Genesis 4 story of Cain and Abel from Sunday school.  The two sons of Adam and Eve bring forth offerings for the Lord.  Cain, the elder, is a farmer.  He brings the first fruits of his harvest.  Abel is a shepherd.  He brings the first of his flock.

And we know how the story goes from there.  God is displeased with Cain’s offering, but accepts the sacrifice of Abel.  Cain, jealous of his brother, kills him and becomes the first murderer.

It’s a simple and tragic story.  But there’s something going on beneath the surface.  Something that we likely did not get in Sunday school, at least in relation to this story.

For the question remains: why did God not accept the offering of Cain?  When Cain is jealous, what does God mean when he admonishes him with the words: “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” So what was the problem?  What did Cain do that was not “well”?  We aren’t even really told how God indicated that he accepted one offering and not the other.

At least when I was a child, we were told that Cain’s heart was not right when he made his sacrifice, and so God was not pleased.  And this is certainly the case.  God makes clear in many places that he desires the obedience of the heart, and not only outward sacrifice.

However, there is something more fundamentally wrong with Cain: while Abel brought blood atonement, Cain brought a grain offering.  He should have known that blood was required to atone for sin before harvest could be brought in thanksgiving.  Hebrews 9:22 tells us that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

But this is before the law, is it not?  That is, the Mosaic Torah, with it’s Levitical system.  So it is.  But God sets the example of sacrifice for Adam and Eve from the beginning with he sheds the blood of animals to clothe them.  All are in sin.  All require the shedding of blood.  Whether God then gave them specifics of what and how to sacrifice, we aren’t told.

He didn’t have to.  The pattern was set.  Abel understood this, and so brought a spotless lamb as sacrifice, prefiguring Christ.  Cain also should have known.  He did know, and so God exhorted him to “do well.”  But Cain’s rebellious pride was too great.  And so the blood he shed, instead of atoning for sin, cried out from the ground to accuse him.

And so we must find ourselves in Christ, covered by His blood, if we hope for the atonement of our sin.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Hebrews 12:22-24

For if we are found in the blood of the Lamb as Abel was, then the blood that covers us atones for our sin, and does not cry out from the ground to accuse us, as it did for Cain.