God’s interrogation of Cain was as gentle as Adam’s: asking
\nquestions without accusing until the need comes for that. It is the honest
\nseeking of a repentant heart\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven though the black heart before Him would lie
\nand prance around the truth and finally whines upon hearing God’s righteous
\njudgment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Question 1: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where is Abel your brother?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Here is an
\ninvitation to own up to what he did, yet Cain decides to both lie to him and
\nrefuse to let God corner him. He would not own up anything as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dumb\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as Adam’s
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Um\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I noticed that I was naked so I sorta’ hid.\u00e2\u20ac\u009dAnswer 1: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Question 2: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What have you done?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A question that both
\nacknowledges Cain’s guilt and demands an explanation. No answer is recorded and
\nprobably not given.
\nStatement 1: There is no need to answer. Abel’s blood
\nanswered already. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the
\nground.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This is interesting in that it seems to state that God can hear the
\ncries of victims even after they die.<\/p>\n
Judgment 1 ({{Gen 4:11}}): \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You are cursed from the ground which
\nhas opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This is a major hurt
\nespecially in light of the man being a farmer\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6a tiller of the ground. What
\nexactly does it mean to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cursed from the ground\u00e2\u20ac\u0153? It means that when Cain
\ncultivates the ground it will no longer give Cain good results. So although
\nAdam sinned and the ground was cursed making the work hard, Cain’s sin results
\nin making the work weak. His hands buried life, the ground yields weakness.<\/p>\n
Judgment 2 ({{Gen 4:12}}): \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you will be a vagrant and a wanderer
\non the earth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So instead of being a farmer on a patch of land, he now is sent
\nto be a nomad with no land. This judgment proves difficult with Cain later
\nsetting up a city and it may make more textual sense (like some translators
\nstate) that Cain’s son built the city. What is immediately difficult is that
\nCain settled in the Land
\nof Nod and is not a
\nwanderer. Is he disobedient to God’s curse? Does the curse end? Or is this
\nsettling just the setting up of his home before moving on in another day. The
\ntext tells us nothing in that respect and I personally am left with the
\ndifficulty.<\/p>\n
Answer 2: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My punishment is too great to bear\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because:Y<\/p>\n
\tWhat’s interesting about this is that it sounds like Cain is
\nconcerned about his position before God but in actuality he fears his position
\nbefore men. He’s not sorry about his sin or even asking forgiveness\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe fears
\nthat someone will kill him on top of everything God has stated.<\/p>\n
\tGod’s Judgment 3 is merciful yet not lenient. He doesn’t
\nopen it up for men to kill him\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut rather declares a seven-times worst
\ncondemnation on whoever kills Cain and God gave Cain a sign\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhatever that
\nmeans\u00e2\u20ac\u201dso that when found no one would kill him.<\/p>\n
\tSo Cain is judged according to his actions which were based
\non his decisions despite God’s word (which he heard) and despite God’s warning
\n(which he knew). Cain’s condemnation doesn’t include death which is later
\ndemanded by the Law\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich some may think unfair. I would posit that God has
\ngiven men a conscience and is holding them responsible for that whereas after
\nHe gives the Law He will hold men responsible for the keeping of the Law and
\nfor their Conscience.<\/p>\n
Now this isn’t to say that men come to God on different terms in different ages
\nas some misrepresent dispensationalists as saying. Men always stand before God
\nby faith in what He has said\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit has been so since Adam’s day when He ignored
\nGod’s Word and acted accordingly and it is so in our day when people hear God’s
\nWord of salvation and ignore it and act accordingly. And yet, despite that God
\nalways furthers man’s responsibility in Man’s standing before Him in the twofold
\neffort of (1) giving Mankind what he wants and (2) teaching Mankind that they
\nwill fail.<\/p>\n
\tSo when God makes man a steward of a conscience the man is
\nbeing held responsible for knowingly acting on what is right and what is wrong.
\nWhen God later (Genesis 9) makes man a steward of governing men, God is making
\nMankind responsible for judging those who knowingly act on the wrong over the
\nright. In each of these stewardships of responsibility man fails and God judges
\naccordingly.<\/p>\n
\tSince Cain is responsible by means of his conscience he is
\nsingularly held responsible for his actions. Since men have not been made
\nresponsible to judge Cain’s actions, men are not authorized to penalize him via
\ndeath. They might do so of their own accord (Cain understood this since he
\nhimself had done so to Abel) but they would not be responsible as a governing
\nbody to do this.<\/p>\n
\tSeries link<\/a>. Tags: Bible<\/a>, Bible study<\/a>, Simple Bible Study Methods<\/a>, Genesis<\/a>, Creation<\/a>, Evolution<\/a>, Adam<\/a>, Eve<\/a>, Cain<\/a>, Abel<\/a>, Israel<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" God’s interrogation of Cain was as gentle as Adam’s: asking questions without accusing until the need comes for that. It is the honest seeking of a repentant heart\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven though the black heart before Him would lie and prance around the truth and finally whines upon hearing God’s righteous judgment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,30,12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human","category-religion","category-sin","category-study"],"yoast_head":"\n