I still think Cain got a raw deal. Sheepherder offers God a lamb. That’s cool. Farmer offers God some of the produce he harvested,, and gets snubbed.
Never have had a preacher, priest or whatever give a satisfactory reason for that. But he still shouldn’t have killed his brother I guess,,,,
Never have had a preacher, priest or whatever give a satisfactory reason for that. But he still shouldn’t have killed his brother I guess,,,,
Your post presumes that God is under an obligation to explain to us everything He does. He's not.
Later in Job, he directs a lot of questions to God. God does not answer one of them. Instead, He then questions Job.
God is the Creator of mankind. We are the creation. Once we understand that relationship we have the right mindset to understand God.
From an earthly perspective, did your parents explain everything they told you to do? Most likely not.
Cain's offering was a result of his own labor - the idea that you can work your way to salvation.
Cain brought “an offering”, Abel brought “the firstings and the fat thereof” i.e. a deliberate selection of the first and the best rather than just some assortment of whatever.
One offering demonstrates an attitude of gratitude and sincerity, the other of compliance for appearances sake. Sort of like democrats that yawp endlessly about the poor but have very low rates of charitable giving.
It’s quite obvious that God doesn’t respect democrats and that democrats will take the first opportunity they get to kill sincere believers in God.
As I understand it, Caine didn’t bring the “Absolute Best” of his harvest.
Here's the way it is reasoned, from the whole context of the Bible:
- After Creation, there was no death before Adam and Eve's fall.
- All land animals, birds, and humans ate adventitious vegetables and fruit for food.
- Flesh meat requires slaughter, and therefore their food was not flesh meat, not even for tyrannosaurus rex.
- Adam and Eve sinned by partaking of forbidden food, and because of it, death entered the Creation.
- Also, nakedness became shameful to them, and they fabricated themselves clothing out of plant leaves.
- This man-made clothing and the covering of their nakedness announced to God that they had disobeyed, and therefore He sentenced them to die.
-Adam and Eve were thus spiritually dead, separated from intimate fellowship with their Creator.
- Their immediate physical death was not a satisfactory end to God, so through love He sacrificed innocent animals immediately to die in their place, thus postponing their physical death.
- From the sacrificed animals, He made coats of skins to cover them, and to hide the reminder of their sin.
- God thus required that to approach Him, their nakedness had to be clothing He provided for them, not clothing produced by their labors without blood and death.
- God then drove them out of their habitat, the Garden of Eden, and barred their way back in.
- From then on, meeting with Him and worshipping Him required not only covering their nakedness, but also a blood sacrifice of a substitutionary animal to remind them of the magnitude of their error.
- The carcass of the animal was burned as a part of the sacrifice.
- Furthermore, part of Adam's sentence was to labor for his food, until his eventual physical death, so he had to be a farmer.
- Part of Eve's sentence was that she was to produce children from her body.
- Also, it became necessary to domesticate a pool of animals, not for food, but for providing clothing and sacrifices to admit them to the presence of God.
- No products of their farming work were acceptable as sacrifices, because no blood was shed in their preparation.
- After their children came, Cain was apparently given the inherited task, first in importance for physical sustenance, of being a farmer, helping his father.
- Subsequently there was a division of labor, and Abel was given the task of maintaining the herd, and slaughtering animals when clothing and/or sacrifice was needed.
- When Cain tried to offer the bloodless products of his labors as a voluntary purchase of God's attention, God rejected both the offering and Cain's attitude of adding to the sacrifice already made for him by Abel.
- Prideful, and angry at the rejection of his offering, Cain basically responded to God, by giving Him another kind of blood offering--his dead brother, the keeper of the sacrifices and priest for the family.
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Cain did not get a raw deal. All God wanted of Cain as a subject, completely pleasing to Him, was to carry on his vocation as a humble servant of God and his family. His brother, keeper/priest had the job of tending, slaughtering, and burning animals, a distasteful occupation.
Feeling disrespected, Cain pridefully eliminated what he saw to be competition for God's (and perhaps Adam and Eve's?) attention, a supposed preference for his only filial companion, dear Abel. Thus Cain instituted the crime of manslaughter.
This is a typical construction seen of the story of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel as given in Genesis chapters 1 to 4.
It has to do with God’s requirement for sacrifice ... eventually pointing the way to Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, as the sacrifice for each person, individually.
When the first judgement came down, in the Garden of Eden, God showed Adam and Eve, that in order for them to continue living (in their sin condition) that something had to DIE (being the sacrifice for them to continue). And that FIRST SACRIFICE EVER in the history of mankind was God killing an animal (or animals) in order to clothe Adam and Eve. You’ll notice that it was God Himself who set the example for that first sacrifice.
It wasn’t fig leaves that God used, but an animal sacrifice for Adam and Eve.
And this SAME EXAMPLE is carried on throughout all of Scripture, until we get to the ONE AND FINAL SACRIFICE, which is Jesus, the Messiah of Israel.
SO ... with that example, Able “did right” and Cain “did wrong”. Cain did NOT OFFER the sacrifice that was the ENTIRE MESSAGE leading to the ultimate sacrifice. Without BLOOD, there is NO SACRIFICE. That’s why God talks about the “blood of Christ”.
Cain DISOBEYED and did not do right. That’s why God said to Cain ...
4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,
5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?
7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Genesis 4:4-7
God said ... to Cain ... “If you do what is RIGHT, will you not be accepted? But if you do NOT DO WHAT IS RIGHT, sin is crouching at your door ... “
AND SO ... “doing right” is doing it God’s way, as He commanded. And, “doing wrong” is doing it “your way” which is something that God did NOT tell you to do.
And in this example, “doing it right” is offering the sacrifice that God commanded, showing that for is to “continue living” in our sin condition requires something else to DIE and give up its “own life” - which is “in the blood”. And then this leads to the fact that the ONLY WAY TO SALVATION -a is GOD’s WAY which is the “blood of Christ” (”his life) and DYING ... in order that YOU CAN LIVE.
The beginning of Genesis leads us to the very end, which is Salvation in Christ through His shed blood!