Confused about Cain and Abel --------------------------------------------------------------------------------I have been baffled about this topic for a long time, since my twenties. Now I present to this forum since my study is not complete regarding this matter. Why did Cain and Abel offerer sacrifices when they were not under the law, as well as others prior to Moses being given the Torah? Second question. Why was Cain's offering rejected and Abel's offering accepted (Ge 4:3-5)? Firstly, I believe Yahweh has given man a progressive revelation that He has unveiled in stages to mankind, but the story itself has been finished from God's prospective. Hence all of our arguements regarding this dispensation and this has been fulfilled are ludacris. Every part is a little glimspe into the entire picture that is not fragmented from God's point of view and vantage point. However, the reveal mankind's salvation to him, God took mankind through stages. Hence when we saw that the law has been fulfilled, we error because we are looking at it from a linear prospective as if God's will was bound and regulated by time. Hence the mystery of why Cain and Abel were offering the sacrifices later instituted through Moses. Why did Cain give a meal offering and Abel give a sin offering (Ex 29:41; Le 6:14; Le 5:6)? Who had taught them to observe these sacrifices? When were they instituted as mandatory to include Noah's, Abraham's, and Israel's practices of these offerings. Why does Paul even say he is being sacrificed as a meal offering for the saints (Php 2:17; 2Ti 4:6)? We do the story of our salvation in justice back fractionalizing as if it is the tale of different stories or it is multiple books involved that make a whole story. It is one story of how we personaly lived, loved, and made it into eternal fellowship with God. Just because we see the picture from a different angle does not change the picture, just our prospective. This tends to influence what we say we see, our descriptions, and how we define things. However, nothing concerning the picture every changed except its position of angle towards us. All of the covenants/promises of commitment God has made with mankind have always been on the same picture, we have just not been able to see them all at the same time. However, we have made the error of thinking and reasoning like a man without aid from the HELPER. He is the only one that unveils the picture to mankind. The picture reveals things that are too high to be understood and explained for our natural and carnal man without revelation from the Spirit.........Second- Cain gave his offering out of order. Abel gave his offering in the proper order. Biblically, God declared that you could not give a sweet offering before atonement was made by the offering of a non-sweet offering called a sin offering (Le 5:1-10). Cain did his own thing his way, and not God's prescribed way, hence it was totally rejected. This should tell us something about how we choose to worship God. If any other can add information and research, please jump in .................... the more the better
Confused about Cain and Abel
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tim_from_pa
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Regarding sacrifices, what I know is what the bible says about them. From day #1 when Adam and Eve sinned, the Lord had to kill an animal to use the skins to cover them. That foreshadowed that a life was given in place of another. As for the Law given to Israel, that is the official proclamation of what already was going on and the way things existed, and we have to realize back in Adam and Eve's time that Abram was not in existence or called yet. Therefore, when he was called, and the family of the Book eventually resulted, these things (in the Law) had to be declared so that they would know right from wrong given they came out of a world of sin that contorted everything. In other words, I am saying God' Law was always in existence, but the giving of it formally was realized in Moses. Even in apocryphal books it states that Heaven kept the feast days before they were revealed here for example.As for Cain's offering vs. Abel's The book of Hebrews says that Abel offered his in faith. It says:By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.In other words, and other commentators will agree here, Abel offered his best to God. Cain probably did what even modern day religious people do: He offered the left-overs or what he thought could be spared so that the offering may have looked good, but there was something inferior to it and the attitude in which he offered it was poor.When one of the first lessons of the bible involves giving, we can see that God places a very high priority on that subject, and one can see the condition of the person's heart by the way they give to God.
(tim_from_pa;52178)
Regarding sacrifices, what I know is what the bible says about them. From day #1 when Adam and Eve sinned, the Lord had to kill an animal to use the skins to cover them. That foreshadowed that a life was given in place of another. As for the Law given to Israel, that is the official proclamation of what already was going on and the way things existed, and we have to realize back in Adam and Eve's time that Abram was not in existence or called yet. Therefore, when he was called, and the family of the Book eventually resulted, these things (in the Law) had to be declared so that they would know right from wrong given they came out of a world of sin that contorted everything. In other words, I am saying God' Law was always in existence, but the giving of it formally was realized in Moses. Even in apocryphal books it states that Heaven kept the feast days before they were revealed here for example.As for Cain's offering vs. Abel's The book of Hebrews says that Abel offered his in faith. It says:By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.In other words, and other commentators will agree here, Abel offered his best to God. Cain probably did what even modern day religious people do: He offered the left-overs or what he thought could be spared so that the offering may have looked good, but there was something inferior to it and the attitude in which he offered it was poor.When one of the first lessons of the bible involves giving, we can see that God places a very high priority on that subject, and one can see the condition of the person's heart by the way they give to God.
Tim_from_pa, The Bible does not provide us with the precise fault God found with Cain's gift. It was not because is was a fruit of the ground. Under the Mosaic Law Covenant God accepted fruits of the ground as sacrifices. We notice that at Gen 4:7, God told Cain, If you turn to doing good, will there not be an exaltation? Evidently God had seen that Cain was manifesting a bad heart condition, even before he offered the sascrifices to God. If a person has a bad attitude would he present the very best of his fruits of the ground?? Probably Cain did not bring to God the BEST of his produce. Able evidenty did bring the very best from the flock. Consider what is said at Heb 11:4. Consider the principle that is recorded at Mal 1:6-8. Able may have had an idea that since they had lost perfection because of the sin of Adam and Eve, it might take the sacrificing of blood to gain that gift of life again. In time, we know that Jesus provided that perfect sacrifice for us.
Regarding sacrifices, what I know is what the bible says about them. From day #1 when Adam and Eve sinned, the Lord had to kill an animal to use the skins to cover them. That foreshadowed that a life was given in place of another. As for the Law given to Israel, that is the official proclamation of what already was going on and the way things existed, and we have to realize back in Adam and Eve's time that Abram was not in existence or called yet. Therefore, when he was called, and the family of the Book eventually resulted, these things (in the Law) had to be declared so that they would know right from wrong given they came out of a world of sin that contorted everything. In other words, I am saying God' Law was always in existence, but the giving of it formally was realized in Moses. Even in apocryphal books it states that Heaven kept the feast days before they were revealed here for example.As for Cain's offering vs. Abel's The book of Hebrews says that Abel offered his in faith. It says:By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.In other words, and other commentators will agree here, Abel offered his best to God. Cain probably did what even modern day religious people do: He offered the left-overs or what he thought could be spared so that the offering may have looked good, but there was something inferior to it and the attitude in which he offered it was poor.When one of the first lessons of the bible involves giving, we can see that God places a very high priority on that subject, and one can see the condition of the person's heart by the way they give to God.
Tim_from_pa, The Bible does not provide us with the precise fault God found with Cain's gift. It was not because is was a fruit of the ground. Under the Mosaic Law Covenant God accepted fruits of the ground as sacrifices. We notice that at Gen 4:7, God told Cain, If you turn to doing good, will there not be an exaltation? Evidently God had seen that Cain was manifesting a bad heart condition, even before he offered the sascrifices to God. If a person has a bad attitude would he present the very best of his fruits of the ground?? Probably Cain did not bring to God the BEST of his produce. Able evidenty did bring the very best from the flock. Consider what is said at Heb 11:4. Consider the principle that is recorded at Mal 1:6-8. Able may have had an idea that since they had lost perfection because of the sin of Adam and Eve, it might take the sacrificing of blood to gain that gift of life again. In time, we know that Jesus provided that perfect sacrifice for us.
tim_from_pa
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(jtartar;52300)
Tim_from_pa, The Bible does not provide us with the precise fault God found with Cain's gift. It was not because is was a fruit of the ground. Under the Mosaic Law Covenant God accepted fruits of the ground as sacrifices. We notice that at Gen 4:7, God told Cain, If you turn to doing good, will there not be an exaltation? Evidently God had seen that Cain was manifesting a bad heart condition, even before he offered the sascrifices to God. If a person has a bad attitude would he present the very best of his fruits of the ground?? Probably Cain did not bring to God the BEST of his produce. Able evidenty did bring the very best from the flock. Consider what is said at Heb 11:4. Consider the principle that is recorded at Mal 1:6-8. Able may have had an idea that since they had lost perfection because of the sin of Adam and Eve, it might take the sacrificing of blood to gain that gift of life again. In time, we know that Jesus provided that perfect sacrifice for us.
You just paraphrased what I already said, i.e. there was something inferior in his offering and a problem with his attitude. I think the bible gives us enough of a clue when it stated,"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain...."By "more excellent", the implication is very strong that Cain's was inferior.And as you already pointed out, Genesis 4:7 pointed to his attitude as well. So it matters not the specifics of the offering. Rather, it was the type (a bad one such as a left-over) and the heart condition of Cain.I knew about this for some time, but here's some more interesting records regarding this incident. It comes from the book of Jashar (the upright record). It says:And it was at the expiration of a few years, that they brought an approximating offering to the Lord, and Cain brought from the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought from the firstlings of his flock from the fat thereof, and God turned and inclined to Abel and his offering, and a fire came down from the Lord from heaven and consumed it. And unto Cain and his offering the Lord did not turn, and he did not incline to it, for he had brought from the inferior fruit of the ground before the Lord, and Cain was jealous against his brother Abel on account of this, and he sought a pretext to slay him. Jashar 1:15-16Like I said, the same way some people give the left-overs to God in the offering plate. Serious business.
Tim_from_pa, The Bible does not provide us with the precise fault God found with Cain's gift. It was not because is was a fruit of the ground. Under the Mosaic Law Covenant God accepted fruits of the ground as sacrifices. We notice that at Gen 4:7, God told Cain, If you turn to doing good, will there not be an exaltation? Evidently God had seen that Cain was manifesting a bad heart condition, even before he offered the sascrifices to God. If a person has a bad attitude would he present the very best of his fruits of the ground?? Probably Cain did not bring to God the BEST of his produce. Able evidenty did bring the very best from the flock. Consider what is said at Heb 11:4. Consider the principle that is recorded at Mal 1:6-8. Able may have had an idea that since they had lost perfection because of the sin of Adam and Eve, it might take the sacrificing of blood to gain that gift of life again. In time, we know that Jesus provided that perfect sacrifice for us.
You just paraphrased what I already said, i.e. there was something inferior in his offering and a problem with his attitude. I think the bible gives us enough of a clue when it stated,"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain...."By "more excellent", the implication is very strong that Cain's was inferior.And as you already pointed out, Genesis 4:7 pointed to his attitude as well. So it matters not the specifics of the offering. Rather, it was the type (a bad one such as a left-over) and the heart condition of Cain.I knew about this for some time, but here's some more interesting records regarding this incident. It comes from the book of Jashar (the upright record). It says:And it was at the expiration of a few years, that they brought an approximating offering to the Lord, and Cain brought from the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought from the firstlings of his flock from the fat thereof, and God turned and inclined to Abel and his offering, and a fire came down from the Lord from heaven and consumed it. And unto Cain and his offering the Lord did not turn, and he did not incline to it, for he had brought from the inferior fruit of the ground before the Lord, and Cain was jealous against his brother Abel on account of this, and he sought a pretext to slay him. Jashar 1:15-16Like I said, the same way some people give the left-overs to God in the offering plate. Serious business.
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