Scripture
8 Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” While they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.
Audio Commentary
Abstract
The murder of Abel is examined from two angles at once: as Cain’s sin and as Abel’s suffering. The commentary resists the instinct to distance the reader from Cain — anyone who has sinned has drunk from the same well, and Christ’s teaching that hatred and rash anger are murder in the heart closes the gap entirely. Cain’s crime is aggravated on several counts (Abel was his brother; God had warned him plainly), and its root is that Cain was a child of the devil, at enmity with righteousness itself, who hated Abel precisely because God loved him. Turned toward Abel, the same event reads as suffering met by grace: the first man to die was righteous and the first to go to heaven, the first martyrdom, crowned with the crown of life — proof that God had already conquered death and remains in control.
Brief Observations
- Sin and suffering, both — The commentary reads the murder from two perspectives — Cain’s sin and Abel’s suffering — and refuses to let the reader stand at a safe distance from Cain, since anyone who has sinned has drunk from the same well that corrupted him, sin testifying to a darkness already within.
- The serpent’s enmity — Adam and Eve are not wholly innocent of Abel’s death; though they did not conspire, their original sin introduced the corruption of the human heart, and Cain’s act is the fruit of the serpent’s enmity against the seed of the woman, the two brothers standing as archetypes for all humanity.
- Murder in the heart — Christ’s teaching collapses the distance further: hatred joined to rash anger is functionally murderous intent, so that to feel this way toward another is already to have murdered them in the heart.
- A child of the devil — The crime is aggravated by several factors — Abel was Cain’s brother, God had given ample warning, and Cain likely used subterfuge to set the scene — but its deepest root is that Cain was a child of the devil, at enmity with God and righteousness itself, hating Abel because God loved him.
- Precious in God’s sight — Scripture’s word that the death of God’s godly ones is precious in His sight reframes the murder from Abel’s side, and the commentary holds it within biblical bounds to read the event as an expression of Abel’s suffering.
- The first martyr, first to heaven — The first person to die also went to heaven: righteous Abel was the firstborn of the dead, secured to God, his death the first martyrdom, met with the crown of life.
- God still in control — The commentary ends on the assurance that God has conquered death and the grave and remains as fully in control today as He was when Cain murdered Abel.
Full Commentary
There are two perspectives by which we may examine the murder of Abel. We can see it as Cain’s sin and we can also see it as Abel’s suffering. First we’ll look at it from Cain’s spiritual perspective. We mentioned in our earlier studies how Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit was a heinous sin because it was the original sin which propagated epochs of suffering and curse. Cain’s sin shares a similar dimension of depravity because it was the original murder. Ever since this first murder, human beings have been using homicide in their efforts to become their own gods. Every murder extends from our heart’s desire to claim the divine right over what’s around us. Human beings are designed by God and their existence is foreordained from eternity by God Himself. So when we reach out and slay another person, we make a direct affront against God Himself.
When we read about Cain’s homicide it’s easy for us to put distance between ourselves and him. He’s the evil villain. We could never do what he did. It’s normal to think this way if you haven’t seared your own conscience, but I would urge caution. I do think our own sins rest on a common substrate with more shocking sins like murder. Every sin is a violation of God’s commandments and is therefore an encroachment on His authority. While we never actually steal authority from God, we certainly try to and we make this effort every time we sin. So it’s not a good idea to view yourself as fundamentally different from Cain.
If you’ve sinned, you’ve drank from the same poisonous well which corrupted Cain to murder. Perhaps a more precise way of putting it is to say your sin testifies of the darkness which already exists within you. Scripture says without God humanity is totally depraved. When you read accounts from atrocity like Cain’s murder or even the Holocaust, you should not read the accounts as if you would be the victim. You should read the accounts as if you would be the villain. Fostering this kind of self-awareness keeps you humble and reminds you of your dependence on the righteousness of Christ.
Adam and Eve were not innocent in connection with Abel’s murder. Certainly they didn’t conspire with Cain, but their original sin introduced the tragic consequences of corruption on the human heart. Eve never imagined eating the forbidden fruit would lead to second-order sins like Abel’s murder which undoubtedly buckled her under the burden of grief. I don’t believe that all sins are equal in offense. This is a misapprehension from scriptures like 1 John 3:4, 1 John 5:17, James 2:10, and Romans 3:23 (just to name a few). These scriptures are pointing to the truth that all sins share a common spiritual substrate. They are not suggesting all sins are equal in depravity. In spite of the disparity between sins, lesser sins commonly open the door for greater sins. Such was the case with Adam and Eve opening the door for Cain’s homicide.
Cain’s murder of Abel was also the fruit of the enmity which is in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman. We’ve talked about how the lives of Cain and Abel are archetypal and all of humanity categorically fits under one archetype or the other. Another reason for this is because Cain is the original persecutor and Abel is the original martyr. Righteous Abel leads the caravan of noble martyrs. Cain establishes himself as the primary example of persecuting the righteous so much so that Jude refers to unrepentant sinners as following the way of Cain.
Scripture describes a principle wherein the sons of a bondwoman persecute the sons of a free woman. This is an allegory provided by Paul in Galatians 4:21-31 so he could remind his Christian brethren that they were children of promise. Just as Abel was a child of promise and was slain by Cain who was a child of the flesh, so too can liberated Christians expect to be persecuted by those still enslaved to sin. This kind of persecution and conflict is a reality we must deal with in perpetuity until the spiritual war ends with the eternal salvation of the saints and the eternal condemnation of those who hate them.
Earlier I mentioned how we shouldn’t distance ourselves too much from Cain and what he was capable of. I said if you’ve sinned, you’ve drank from the same well which corrupted Cain to murder. Cain didn’t start out with murderous intent for his brother. The homicide emerged from more common feelings of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. These are emotions and motivations which all of us have felt at one time or another. The difference between yourself and Cain, if there is a difference, is that Cain indulged these emotions and ruminated on them until he became homicidal. In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus said,
Matthew 5:21-22 21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
Hatred combined with rash anger is functionally equivalent to murderous intent. Christ says if you feel this way towards another person then you’ve already murdered them in your heart. You’ve been proven a murderer in the sight of God, and if your circumstances would allow the opportunity, you have what it takes to be proven a murderer before the world. This is why I think it’s extremely important for us to continually evaluate the condition of our hearts and ask God to clarify our motivations. We don’t want to end up in a situation where our only reservation against heinous sin is our own cowardice and fear of being caught. To live that way means to have your moral structure tossed to and fro on the chaotic waves of culture. You’ll be ready to participate in whatever the culture deems good and necessary, regardless of what you know is true from God.
Murder is evil on its own, but in Cain’s case this evil was aggravated by several factors. First is that Abel was his brother. Abel was his own mother’s son. By rights Cain should have loved his brother. His assault is made all the more tragic considering Abel was the younger of the two. When God asks Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” Cain responds with, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And the answer to that question is yes. Absolutely yes he should have been. Furthermore we have no evidence to suggest Abel was anything less than a good brother to Cain. Nothing in scripture implies Abel provoked Cain or had been disrespectful towards him. In fact I would argue the opposite. Scripture calls Abel righteous, and if Abel was righteous then he would have held a deep respect for Cain as his older sibling.
We also know that God Himself had given Cain ample warning his resentment would evolve into barbarism if he failed to resist it. It’s very likely Cain used subterfuge to set Abel into a circumstance where he could murder him easily. We see this happen with Joab, the commander of King David’s army, when he murders Amasa. Amasa was the commander of Absalom’s rebel army, and Joab went to greet him with a kiss. Amasa was not on guard and he didn’t see the sword in Joab’s other hand, and Joab struck Amasa in the stomach, killing him. Absalom himself gave a similar show of friendship to Amnon when he courted him with a wine-filled feast, and then commanded his servants to execute him once he was drunk. The point is that evil-spirited murder rarely comes in the form of a noble challenge. Cain was not going to give Abel a fair fight. Scripture tells us Cain’s motive for murdering his brother was that his own actions were evil while Abel’s actions were righteous. Hear the explanation articulated in 1 John 3:10-12
1 John 3:10-12 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; 12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
What’s important to understand about Cain is that he was a child of the devil. His animosity was with God Himself, with righteousness itself. His murder of Abel was simply his way of attacking the ideal of righteousness. God was visible in the person of Abel insofar as Abel was righteous. That’s why Cain killed him. If Cain could have murdered God Himself he would have. Scripture says the thief has come to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10) and the thief in this context is Satan. Satan hates God, and he hates all who are Christlike. This is also true of those who are children of Satan, those who are possessed by a spirit of evil. They are not the kind of people you can reason with, because their worldview was never built on reason at all. They view the free expression of honest truth as nothing more than a bastion of God’s oppression against them.
Cain hated Abel because God loved Abel. Scripture says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His godly ones.” Anytime a faithful Christian dies, this death matters to God. It was especially so when Cain murdered Abel because at this moment there were so few people on earth. It’s not as if there was a great population of righteous people to take his place. Abel was not expendable by any measurement.
So we know Abel’s death has a story to tell about Cain’s wickedness, but we can also analyze the murder from the perspective of Abel himself. We remain within the boundaries of biblical perspicuity to view this murder as an expression of Abel’s suffering. Death reigned over God’s creation from the moment Adam and Eve consumed the forbidden fruit. Abel’s murder became the first instance of a person being taken captive by death. It’s not by accident that the first person who should die in a cursed creation was a saint. It’s not by accident that this saint was killed because of his own righteousness. The protoevangelium given by God in Genesis 3:15 reminds us our Savior will reign victorious over Satan and over death itself, but until then we all live in a space where there are forces diametrically opposed to God Himself. This means that the world will hate us because it hated Christ first.
It’s worth noting the first person who died also went to heaven. Righteous Abel was the first-born of the dead and God secured him to Himself. As terrifying and heartbreaking as death is, I do think it helps to maintain a proper perspective of it. I believe in the comprehensive sovereignty of God. This means I believe God’s hand is on every single living thing as it dies and leaves this world. Some Christians argue whether this means God Himself is instrumental in tragedies like Cain killing Abel. I would maintain at the very least that Cain was not beyond God’s sovereign control. I actually think this view, when held properly, provides a peace which goes beyond comprehension more than it does a fatalism which leads to despair. I think it’s more biblically accurate to remember God is still present when the worst evils are taking place.
Abel’s death was the first martyrdom. Since he died on account of his righteousness, we know that he met God in heaven with the glorious crown of life. Abel’s suffering was real insofar as he really was murdered. His life really ended in this world. But there was no curse in Abel’s death. His death should not be taken with offense because we know God viewed it as precious and honorable. The murder of Abel, while a great testament to Cain’s evil, is an even greater testament to God’s power to redeem. God is able to redeem Cain’s murder and present it as what it really is: Abel’s glorious martyrdom. So as Christians we should never be afraid of evil men who seek to do our bodies harm. We should fear only God, who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell. We should trust God that by His power our own deaths will be used to glorify Him, especially if we die at the hands of those who are enemies of God. As a Christian, your death is precious in the sight of God and He will not waste it anymore than He will waste your life. Listen to what Jesus says to His followers at the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2:
Revelation 2:8-11 8 “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: 9 ‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 ‘Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.’
God has conquered death and the grave. God is in control just as much today as He was when Cain murdered Abel. And we can take comfort in that.