Who was Cain? Man or myth

For many people today, the story of mankind’s first murderer is no more than a fable or a myth, and its inclusion in the scriptures was as an analogy to teach some moral lesson.

While there is nothing in Genesis 4 that even remotely suggests an analogy, if this is true it certainly is not what the writers of the New Testament believed. The Apostle Paul, writer of the book of Hebrews, for example, believed him to be a real person. Paul, the most highly educated of the apostles — who had even been taught by the greatest Hebrew scholar of his day, Gamaliel — said of Cain in chapter 11, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain …” For those familiar with this text, Paul documents the faith of 16 literal Old Testament personages by name, so he certainly believed that Cain was more than just a figment of some scribe’s imagination.

Also, in the first epistle of John, the Beloved Apostle clearly portrays Cain as a real, literal person. In chapter 3 John writes, “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” No analogy, fable or legend here, just a clear, unadulterated belief that Genesis chapter 4 was talking about a real person.

The truth is that the Bible says very little about Cain, and outside of Genesis 4 and these two references here, the only other time he is even mentioned is in the tiny epistle of Jude, brother of James. Jude writes in verse 11, “Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain …”

Yet even here, in this tiny little book, we find that the early church clearly believed that not only was Cain a literal, historical figure, but their attitude toward him was that he was nothing more than a bad example to the rest of humanity.

Now, while the Bible has comparatively little to say of him, what it does say has huge implications for us today. For instance, did you know that Cain was the first person who tried to earn his salvation? He surely was. Genesis 4 says, “… but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lords.”

For those of you familiar with the Bible, you well know that God instituted the sacrificial system in chapter 3 in response to Adam and Eve’s first sin. While these sacrifices were never intended to take away sin, those who trusted in God for their salvation offered them in demonstration of their faith that one day God would send the Redeemer, who would be their perfect sacrifice.

But Cain was not satisfied with God’s narrow-mindedness, and like many people today he felt God should allow him to chose an alternate means of salvation. Nearly 6,000 years later, and from the pit of hell, what Cain wants you and I to know is that God still has not changed his mind.

We also know that Cain was the first man who rejected the blood atonement. Again in Genesis 4 we read, “And the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had no respect.”

In the book of Hebrews we are told, “without shedding of blood is no remission.” In instituting a blood sacrifice, God instituted the concept of a substitutionary sacrifice. The significance is that God, as a just and righteous God, must require payment for sin. The beauty of it is that instead of every man, woman, boy or girl paying for their own, their sin could be paid for by another. Blood for blood; either yours or the blood of Jesus Christ.

Sadly, Cain was his own man and chose to reject the blood of an innocent as payment for his sins. And like Cain, many reject the blood of Jesus Christ as payment for their sins, and one day will lift up their eyes in hell, as the certain rich man of Luke 16, and be in torment.

In closing, for certainly we could mention much more, we see that Cain was a man whose punishment was more than he could bear. These are his own words in verse 13.

Tell me, what is the greatest damage in believing that Cain is just a myth? Is it not that the lessons from the life of this real man will be dismissed, and so go in the way of Cain, just like Jude said?

Ron Hamman is pastor of Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla; contact him at 357-4229 or rghamman@mtaonline.net.