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Why Did God Reject Cain’s Sacrifice?

By Jeremy Myers
17 Comments

Why Did God Reject Cain’s Sacrifice?

Yesterday we discussed why Cain attempted to make an offering to God in the first place. God had not yet commanded sacrifices and offerings, so why did Cain give one to God? In today’s post, we look at the question about why God rejected Cain’s sacrifice but accepted Abel’s.

cain abel sacrifice

Various Explanations for why God Rejected Cain’s Sacrifice

Some argue that the problem was with Cain’s offering itself.

God wants blood, we are told, and Cain brought only fruit. Only death atones for sin. Yet nothing is said anywhere in the text about this being a sin offering. And besides, later in the Pentateuch when Moses gives instructions to the Israelites about the sacrificial system, fruit and grain offerings are said to be acceptable to God.

Others take this a step further and point that Abel brought the firstfruits from his flock (whether we understand this to mean the firstborn lamb or the first batch of milk) whereas Cain brought the last portion of his harvest.

But once again, this is not something which is explicitly stated in the text. Since the flood had not yet occurred, it is unlikely that there were seasons, and so fruit would have been produced all year long.

Finally, some argue that it wasn’t fruit from the last harvest of the year (for there was no such thing), but rather, the fruit of the ground, that is, fruit that had fallen off the tree and was lying on the ground, and therefore, not the best part of the harvest.

But again, this explanation is nowhere in the text, and must be read into what is there.

So why then did God accept Abel’s offering but not Cain’s?

God seems to explain why right in the text.

He tells Cain that if he does well, he will be accepted (Genesis 4:7).

We saw yesterday that Cain was trying to give God’s fruit back to Him. God is telling Cain now that acceptance is not dependent upon giving God His fruit back.

The problem with Cain, it appears, was that he was trying to please and appease God by giving God what he thought God wanted, namely, fruit. Cain was apparently trying to manipulate God by giving God back His fruit so that God would allowing Cain and his family back into the Garden of Eden.

By offering fruit to God, Cain was trying to the savior of his family.

Cain's sacrificeGod gently rebukes Cain and tells him he is already accepted and loved, that nothing is required. All God wants is for Cain to live well, to do what is right. If he doesn’t do what is right, rather than being the savior of his family, Cain will fall into the same trap that his parents had fallen into, and will become prey to sin. In fact, God warns Cain that sin is already crouching at Cain’s door, seeking to devour him.

The problem with Cain’s offering wasn’t with what Cain offered. The problem was with Cain’s heart in the offering.

Why then does God accept Abel’s offering?

The text simply doesn’t say. But it seems likely that if Cain’s offering was not accepted because he was trying to please and appease God through an offering of fruit, then maybe Abel’s offering was accepted because he had no ulterior motive. He was simply following his older brother’s example.

He saw Cain give fruit, and though, “Oh, is this how we thank God for what He has provided? Okay. I will give something too.”

For Abel, the offering of the firstfruits of his flock (which was probably the first batch of milk) was an act of worship to God and a way of saying “Thank you.” He had no desire to control or manipulate God into doing something for him or for his family. This seems to be how his offering differed from Cain’s, and therefore, why his offering was accepted while Cain’s was not (cf. Heb 11:4).

And of course, we all know how the story ends. Cain, the one who wanted to save his family from their sins, ends up taking his family deeper into sin by becoming the first murderer of the human race. Despite God’s warning about sin seeking to rule over Cain, Cain becomes jealous of his brother Abel, and murders him (Genesis 4:8).

The Sacrificial System in the Bible

Genesis 4 nevertheless begins to lay the groundwork for why the sacrificial system developed and what God thought about it.

Nevertheless, when people give gifts, God is pleased to accept them if they are given with the right motive and intention. He does not want humans to give offerings in an attempt to manipulate or control Him into doing what humans want, or as a way of getting back into God’s good graces.

As God told Cain, we are already accepted. We don’t need to do anything, other than live our life the way God desires. This is what God wants.

Of course, if we do end up giving something to God out of love and thanks to God for what He has given us, God is fine with accepting it, not because He needs or wants it, but because He recognizes such offerings as the acts of worship that they are.

God is z Bible & Theology Topics: abel, Bible Study, cain, Genesis 4, sacrifice, When God Pled Guilty

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Why Did Cain Offer a Sacrifice to God in Genesis 4?

By Jeremy Myers
22 Comments

Why Did Cain Offer a Sacrifice to God in Genesis 4?

offering of cain and abelThough some believe the first sacrifice in the Bible is found in Genesis 3:21, others say the first sacrifice in Scripture is one chapter later in Genesis 4 when Cain brings an offering of fruit and Abel brings the firstborn from his flock.

But just as people who view Genesis 3:21 as the first sacrifice read a lot of their theology into that verse, we also tend to read a lot of sacrificial and atonement theology into Genesis 4 which is not there. In so doing, we often miss what actually seems to be present in the text itself.

Why Did Cain Make an Offering to God?

Note first of all that nowhere in the text does God command or instruct people to bring sacrifices and offerings to Him. This practice seems to be Cain’s idea.

Why would Cain do this?

Cain, we must remember, was raised with his parents telling him the story about how they disobeyed God and were barred from the Garden of Eden.

Cain knew that the reason his parents were disciplined by God was that they had eaten forbidden fruit. He also knew that when God had explained to Adam and Eve the consequences of their sin, God had told them that the Seed of the woman would set things right (Genesis 3:15). When Eve bore her firstborn son, she named Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord” (Genesis 4:1).

From this it appears that Adam and Eve thought that Cain would be the one who would set things right and allow them to return to the Garden of Eden.

This is the story that Cain grew up with. This is the narrative that guided Cain’s life.

So it is not surprising that as he grew older, Cain looked for ways to get his family back into the Garden. Genesis 4 says that he became a tiller of the ground (Genesis 4:2), and he brought an offering of fruit to the Lord (Genesis 4:3).

Why fruit? Not because God had asked for it. God hadn’t asked for anything. Cain brought fruit because this is what his parents had taken from God.

In effect, Cain was trying to give God back His fruit.

Cain was trying to please and appease God, and hopefully, gain a way for himself and his family to reenter the Garden of Eden. He was trying to fulfill the expectations of his parents.

What about the Offering of Abel?

sacrifice of cain abel

The text goes on to say that Abel brought an offering also, but since he was a keeper of sheep, he brought “the firstborn of his flock and of their fat” (Genesis 4:4).

We must be careful to not read sacrifice into this. The text does not say that Abel killed the firstborn of his flock. The text calls it an “offering,” which does not necessarily imply a blood sacrifice.

People get the idea of sacrifice from the text because it says that Abel also offered the fat of his flock. How could he have done this if the animal had not been killed?

Some early Jewish and Christian scholars noted that the consonants of the Hebrew word for “fat” are the same as the Hebrew word for milk and curds (Heb., ch-l-v), and so they understood this text to be saying that Abel offered milk products up to the Lord. The Jewish historian Josephus is one such source, who wrote that “Cain brought the fruits of the earth, and of his husbandry; but Abel brought milk and the first-fruits of his flocks” (Antiquities 1.2.1).

Some have also noted that the Hebrew word translated “and” could also be translated as “that is.” When this is taken into consideration as well, Genesis 4:4 could be translated this way: “Abel also brought the firstborn of his flock, that is, of their milk.”

Though some might consider such an interpretation to be far-fetched, we must ask ourselves why the text would refer to the “fat” of the flock if what God really wanted was blood. If it truly is blood sacrifice that God desires, and this is why God accepted Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s, then wouldn’t the text have been clearer if it has emphasized the blood of the flock instead of the fat?

Furthermore, since everybody at this time were vegetarians (cf. Genesis 9:1-4), it would make no sense for Abel to think of offering a dead animal to God. What reason could there be for God to want a dead animal?

Nevertheless, no matter how we understand the offering of Abel, the real question from Genesis 4 is why God accepted Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s. We will look at this question tomorrow.

What do you think? Do you think Abel killed an animal and gave it to God? Other than tradition, why do you think so?

God is z Bible & Theology Topics: abel, Bible Study, cain, Genesis 4, offering, sacrifice, When God Pled Guilty

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Did God Perform the First Sacrifice in Genesis 3:21?

By Jeremy Myers
134 Comments

Did God Perform the First Sacrifice in Genesis 3:21?

first sacrifice Genesis 3 21

Many believe that the first sacrifice was carried out by God Himself in Genesis 3:21 which says that God made tunics of skin for Adam and Eve so that they could be clothed.

Did God Sacrifice an Animal in Genesis 3:21?

Although the text says nothing about a sacrifice, many believe that a sacrifice is implied.

It is often taught that after the first sin was committed, God wanted to show Adam and Eve that sin has consequences, and so He slew an animal in front of them, and made clothes for them from the hide of the dead animal.

Some have even speculated that the animal was a lamb, thereby presenting a prophetical picture of Jesus, the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 5:6; 13:8).

Furthermore, some have argued that in this death of the animal, God was teaching Adam and Eve the theological principle of substitutionary atonement. He had told Adam that if they ate of the fruit they would surely die, and so after they ate of the fruit, God should have killed them, but instead He killed an animal in their place.

But Did God Really Perform the First Sacrifice?

But is any of this really true? Did God really practice the first animal sacrifice? Was it truly a lamb? Did God intend for Adam and Eve to learn about substitutionary atonement?

sacrifice genesis 3 21Frankly, this seems to be an awful lot to read into one single verse which says nothing other than that “God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.”

The death of an animal is never mentioned.

A lamb is never mentioned.

Substitutionary atonement isn’t even inferred.

So where did God get the skin in which he clothed Adam and Eve?

The text simply doesn’t say.

Maybe he made it.

The word for “skin” that is used can refer to either human or animal skin.

There have been some streams of Judaism and Christianity which believed that prior to the event described in Genesis 3:21, humans did not have “skin” the way we see it today, but existed in some other form. They believed that we were “clothed in light” like God (Psalm 104:2) and that when Adam and Eve sinned, the light left them and they tried to replace the light with leaves (Genesis 3:7), which was an insufficient covering, and so God gave them skin instead.

This view is a little too mystical (or maybe even Gnostic) for most Christians, and yet it cannot be proven or disproven from the text any more than the traditional view that God killed an animal to make clothes for Adam and Eve.

Maybe it was snake skin.

snake skinIt is interesting to note, however, that one of the more common Jewish explanations of this text is that the skin which Adam and Eve were clothed with was snake skin. The Jewish Targum Pseudo-Jonathan says that the Lord made garments for Adam and Eve from the skin which the serpent in the garden had cast off. This seems pretty far-fetched if you have ever seen the papery skin shed by serpents.

A related view is that since God had said to the serpent, “he will crush your head and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15 NIV), that Adam had taken it upon himself to kill the serpent by crushing its head with his heel, and from the skin of the dead serpent God made clothes for Adam and Eve.

This sounds far-fetched, but it is just as speculative as every other view.

We simply don’t know where the skin came from, or what kind of skin it was.

The simple fact of the matter is that the text simply doesn’t say how God made clothes for Adam and Eve. Therefore, we tread on dangerous ground if we claim that Genesis 3:21 contains the first sacrifice in Scripture, for it says nothing of the sort. All it says is that God gave them skin to wear.

We read substitutionary atonement and the sacrificial system into Genesis 3:21 at our own theological peril.

God is z Bible & Theology Topics: Bible and Theology Questions, Bible Study, Genesis 3:21, sacrfiice, substitutionary atonement, When God Pled Guilty

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Jesus as the Hermeneutical Trump Card in Scripture

By Jeremy Myers
16 Comments

Jesus as the Hermeneutical Trump Card in Scripture

hermeneuticsWhen people seek to defend the idea that God is violent “because the Bible says so,” what they are really doing is allowing the violent portrayals of God in the Bible to override and trump the loving and merciful portrayals of God elsewhere in Scripture, even when both portrayals are talking about the same historical event.

Though both depictions of God are equally inspired, many biblical interpreters choose to let the violent depiction of God override and trump the loving depiction. In this way, it is not a matter of just believing the Bible; it is a matter of choosing which passages take precedence.

This practice is especially shocking when it comes to the revelation in Jesus Christ. Although Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God—the Word of God incarnate—many Bible teachers and writers allow the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament to override and trump the completely non-violent revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

When people want to defend a violent and vengeful God, they typically jump right over Jesus and go straight to Old Testament texts.

But isn’t this backwards?

Jesus hermeneuticsIf a basic rule of hermeneutics is that the simpler and clearer texts should override the more difficult and troubling texts, and if Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God so that He can say “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father,” why do we choose to let the more troubling, difficult, and violent texts override and trump the loving, merciful, and Christlike texts?

It is not a matter of one approach considering the whole counsel of God while the other approach neglects certain portions. No, both approaches consider the whole counsel of God. It’s a matter of choosing which parts of Scripture trump, interact with, and explain the other parts of Scripture.

As I continue to seek to understand the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament, my approach has been to see Jesus Christ as the interpretive principle, the guiding ethic, the hermeneutical trump card of all of the Word of God.

Why?

Because Jesus is the Word of God.

No matter which text we consider, the basic questions are these: Does it look like Jesus? If not, how can we understand this text in light of Jesus? Or, how can we explain and apply this text in a way that looks more like Jesus? And ultimately, how can we apply this text so that it inspires us to love and live like Jesus?

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

God is z Bible & Theology Topics: Bible Study, hermeneutics, Theology of God, violence of God, When God Pled Guilty

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Interpreting the General Letters: Great Book; Boring Title

By Jeremy Myers
8 Comments

Interpreting the General Letters: Great Book; Boring Title

Interpreting the General EpistlesIt is usually quite rare to get excited about a book called Interpreting the General Letters, but either I am super geeky, or this book is simply excellent.

It’s probably a bit of both.

I initially thought this book by Herbert W. Bateman IV was going to be just another introduction to the General Letters (Hebrews, James, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude), and while it is that, it was so much more. It contained cutting edge research on how the letters were composed, the theology they contain, and how we can understand and teach about these letters today.

Does it still sound boring? Well check this out…

The first chapter is about how the letters were composed. Yeah, I was ready to yawn also. But Bateman shows quite persuasively that the General Letters (and probably the letters of Paul as well?) followed clear letter-writing patterns that were common and well-known in the first century AD. The authors of these letters didn’t just sit down and scribble out a letter. Instead, it appears that they used the guidelines found in professional letter writing manuals that were popular at that time. Yes, that’s right. There were books in use at the time which instructed letter writers in the art of writing letters, even down to suggestions for which words to use in your letter. The letters of 3 John, Jude, and 2 Peter clearly exhibit many of these instructions from these professional letter writing guides, even down to the very words that are used!

Who cares?

Well, if Bateman is right, then what does this say about the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Does it make you rethink the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture a bit if, instead of Peter sitting down and just writing a letter because the Holy Spirit inspired certain words for Peter to write, Peter instead got many of these words and ideas from a letter-writing manual?

But it gets worse.

Bateman goes on to show that it is probably unrealistic to think that John, Peter, James, and Jude had special training in the art and skills of rhetorical professional letter writing. And yet since their letters show clear indications that professional letter-writing skills were used, the true historical situation was probably that John, Peter, James, and Jude hired professional letter writers to write the letters for them. And in fact, Bateman goes on to show how there is clear evidence in the General Letters that this is exactly what happened (p. 49ff).

Uh-oh.

Now what just happened to our doctrine of the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture? It seems that maybe what John, Peter, James, and Jude did was go to a professionally trained letter writer and provided them with the basic ideas, arguments, and points they wanted to make in their letter, and then let the professional letter writer compose the letter according to the letter writing standards of that day. Now certainly, John, Peter, and Jude would have read the letter before it was sent out, and maybe asked for some word revisions or changes in terminology, but still, if Bateman is right about this, what does this mean for the traditional, evangelical doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture.

Now it is no longer “men of God writing Scripture as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” but rather, something like this: “Men of God having inspired ideas which they provided to a professionally-trained letter writer, who then composed the letter according to standards and guidelines found in a letter-writing manual before getting the approval of the man of God to send the letter out to its intended recipients.”

Yeah, not quite the same thing we hear from our pulpits… but I think Bateman is absolutely right to point some of this things out. It is past time we develop a more robust theology of the inspiration of Scripture. 

studying the Bible

The rest of the book follows this sort of revolutionary, thought-provoking, theology-shattering approach. The second chapter provides excellent historical and cultural background material to the General Epistles, without which you can never hope to understand the message and meaning of these letters. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the theology of the General letters, and specifically how they fit within the overall goal of God’s plan to reestablish His kingdom rule on earth and redeem a people for Himself to inhabit this kingdom. Again, without this big picture theological perspective, we cannot hope to understand the theology of the General epistles.

The remainder of the book (chapters 4–7) provide a detailed explanation of how to study and teach the texts of the General Epistles, beginning with interpreting them from the Greek and moving on into exegetical outlines and homiletical exposition. This highly scientific approach to the Scripture is the method they teach at Dallas Theological Seminary, and is roughly the same approach I follow in my own research and writing, though in a much abbreviated form. While I appreciate the approach that DTS teaches, it can really only be followed by expert scholars and theologians, and is not feasible for the average student of Scripture, which indicates to me that it is not the only oven the best way of reading and interpreting the biblical text.

Interpreting the General Letters by Bateman is a great introduction to the general letters. Even though the final four chapters will be overwhelming for most readers, the first three chapters contain great help and insight for situating the student of Scripture within the world and mindset of the first century authors and audience.

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Bible Study, Books I'm Reading, Hebrews, James, John, Jude, Peter

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