The Characters of the Old Testament

by Isaac Williams

Late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford

Published 1873

Cain & Abel

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—HEBREWS 11:4.

The fall of our first parents is soon followed by a consummating act of wickedness, such as it will continue to be to the end of time, the very type and sign of the world that slew Christ, even a brother’s murder. But though crime has again thus speedily appeared in a form so intense, yet in one respect it has assumed a more consoling character, for there is now a bright and a dark side; together with Cain there is Abel with the praise of God and the crown of goodness: from the same fountain-head there are now two streams parting asunder, which from henceforth flow on to the end of the world, deepening and enlarging as they go. So soon were they to know both good and evil, the result of that first sin. Between those born of the same womb and nurtured at the same breast, a separation is made.

It is to be observed that Holy Scripture keeps this act in continual remembrance, as containing in itself all that character of evil which still survives and goes on. Our Lord speaks of Abel, saying to the Jews, that his blood should be required of that generation[1]; when God visits it will be again brought to mind. St. Paul, mentioning Abel as the first in the catalogue of saints, uses the memorable words that “being dead, he yet speaketh;” which seems to attach an emphatic teaching to his death; and afterwards, when speaking of the Blood of Christ, he adds, “which speaketh better things than that of Abel.” Whereby he implies that the death of Abel does still speak, as does that of Christ, although it speaks of judgment. Thus he comes down to us with a voice which is heard from the ground. And with him necessarily Cain also. St. John brings the first murderer into especial remembrance, when speaking of one that loves not his brother, “Not as Cain,” he says, “who was of that wicked one.” Our Lord seems to allude to him in that warning to the Jews, “Ye are of your father the devil: he was a murderer from the beginning.” And St. Jude as crowning the corruption of the last days, “They have gone in the way of Cain.” Thus did the dimensions of this crime at once fill as it were the earth and all time; like some fiery rocket, which, culminating in an instant, has risen to the sky, and falls again in a thousand fragments to the earth, holding in itself and scattering abroad all lesser crimes of ill will.

Moreover, great as is this crowning deed of wickedness, yet herein is given “the valley of Achor for a door of hope,”[2] while we behold in Abel the very type of all acceptableness, and in contrast with his brother Cain, in the strongest manner, are good and evil set before us; that in the black cloud which then came on the morning of the world, we may see the bow of promise, the power of God’s grace, and by cleaving to Him suck out the riches of His goodness. The testimony of Holy Scripture to the character of Abel is very clear and decisive. Our Lord Himself calls Abel “the righteous Abel;” St. John says that Cain slew him because “his works were righteous;” and St. Paul, that “by faith he offered a more excellent,” or as it is in the original, “a more abundant sacrifice,” and “obtained the testimony of God that he was righteous.” Thus goodness and faith are in him combined; and the same appears in the account in Genesis, for God says to Cain, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” from which it is clear that the acceptance of Abel was because he did well. And the very nature of his offering expressed an acceptable faith; it was “the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereoff,” of the first and the best he offered to God, the crown and flower of his substance; “the firstfruits” and “the fat,” both of which God Himself afterwards prescribed in the Law, taking this act of Abel as the pattern of after piety. Moreover it was the Lamb of the flock by whose skins they were covered from the shame of sin by God Himself. Such an offering by one of a meek and blameless life expressed both thanksgiving to God: and by sacrifice an acknowledgment of death, and of himself worthy to die: it was a call for mercy, a pleading with God for pardon. And He who reads the heart and called him by His grace knew it to be expressive of Christ. The act of itself speaks and must speak; and this he had to perfect by a yet higher sacrifice, that of himself; for, on account of his acting in this manner towards God he suffered even unto death, the first of martyrs.

And all this appears the more from the contrast with Cain; he also brings an offering, though it be not the earliest or the choicest, it is of the fruits of the ground which he tilled; here also is worship, and it might have been acceptable; the Law also has its offering of the fruits of the ground: but so it is, it has not the savour of Christ, the Lamb, and the Blood; it has not that which should go with a sacrifice, penitence; nor that which can alone give value to a gift, the heart of the worshipper. “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift.” It pleaded not for mercy; and it gave not mercy, which is the better part of sacrifice. In the words of the Law it has not the salt, nor the oil, nor the incense, was without goodness, without grace, without prayer. He is wroth, and his “countenance is fallen,” turning to the ground on which the curse of sin was; whereas, Abel was all love, and his countenance was lifted up on high, as looking for and expecting what God would do. Nor is Cain without warning, for God Himself expostulates with him, and shows him the better part. He is not, he says, his brother’s keeper; be it so; such is even now the language of the world; but Christ and they that are in Him are of another mind; His attribute is the good Shepherd that layeth down His life for the sheep; He is the keeper of His brethren, even at the cost of His own life. And Abel is His prototype and martyr, and in some sense His representative, offering up a sacrifice as the High Priest of God in a fallen world. It matters not whether any thing was then explicitly revealed respecting Him Who should bruise the serpent’s head; the Covenant of God sometimes influences the heart in a way which passeth understanding. And of the highest saving faith, our Lord says, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.” The Father draws unto the Son, and the Son brings unto the Father, in mysterious ways, without express knowledge. It is not knowledge that characterizes faith, but trust in God, which receives though it knows not, but in receiving knows with a better knowledge, that God is love. And this may have been Abel’s faith. An ancient bishop says of his sacrifice, “Isaiah preached of the Lamb dumb before His shearers: John the Baptist pointed out the Lamb of God: Abel by offering up the Lamb in significancy set forth the same.”[3]

Whatever his knowledge might have been, it is enough that his offering was for Christ’s sake accepted, and that offering is the Lamb which must needs speak of that Lamb which was slain from the foundation of the world: for all was ordered of God in him who was first predestined, and called by His grace, and by His grace sanctified, and perfected by His grace, and accepted.

And here observe from the very beginning the mark of the elect and of the reprobate: the love of God is the sign of the elect: and cupidity or self-love of the evil. Cain kept to himself the first and the best; Abel offered the first and best to God. Nor was this all, it was in faith, and it was the offering of one who did well, and was in life acceptable with God: it was himself that he had first given to God, and of this that sacrifice was the sign; and he was allowed to prove this by having his own life also made to be a yet more acceptable sacrifice and more lively token of the death of Christ: as the Christian martyrs who gave first their goods, and then themselves also to die.

The crime of Cain was precisely that of the Jews, envy; “the chief priests had delivered Him from envy;” and perhaps more than any other it partakes of the likeness of Satan, who was bent on the destruction of mankind, not from anger, lust, or covetousness, but from envy and hate of goodness. Cain was the first Antichrist, and an image of the last. He already sets forth “the synagogue of Satan” and the Jew, which preserves his likeness unto the end. “And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is thy brother? And he said, I know not.” Thus like him who was “a liar and a murderer from the beginning,” he would deny what he had done, if he could; but so is it with the Jew unto this day, he has slain his brother, even Him who was, like himself, of the seed of Abraham; and he is asked, Where is He? even by the voice of God, speaking through the Scriptures unto this day. And he answers, “I know not.” Yet it is he who might and should have been his brother’s keeper. Law and Prophets had consigned Him to his keeping; but cast out from the presence of God he wanders forth unto the end of the world, bearing witness to what he hath done,—the second Cain who hath slain the great Shepherd of the sheep. And God hath set His mark upon him that he dies not. Other nations and other religions melt into each other, and are lost and changed, but the Jewish people are preserved, and change not, for they have on them the mark of God. They wander through the earth, and find no rest, for “they understand not the Sabbath of the heart,”[4] which is Christ. “I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond,” says Cain, and it is the sentence of God that he shall be so: “the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”[5] Already, like Judas, he hath found the weight of his sin: “My punishment is greater than I can bear;” and hath the fear of death, for “every one,” he says, “that findeth me shall slay me;” as a sign of what shall be hereafter, fearing death, he shall not be able to die.

True it is that there is another character and appearance in the eyes of the world, for with them “these are the ungodly, these prosper in the world.”[6] The greatest of all cities, even that city of Rome which put to death Christ and His martyrs, is said to have been founded by one who slew his brother. So it is with Cain. It is added, and “he builded a city, and called it after his son’s name.” He continues to live on to old age, he begets children, and sees his children’s children; the founders of mighty cities, wherein the harp and the organ are heard, and their cattle range on a thousand hills, inventors in brass and iron are there, of works of art, of music, and poetry; “they planted and builded, they married and gave in marriage;” but Abel is cut off childless in the morning of his days. So is it as the world judges; but oh, how far otherwise in truth! for he is with God, he lives to God and with God. While they, filling up the measure of their sin, are heaping up unto themselves wrath “against the revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” till the windows of Heaven shall be opened, and the great deep rise from below, and wash them all away. It is an awful sign to live on adding sin to sin. It was as the voice of God already going forth upon earth, to teach mankind that there was a better life hid with God, that life upon earth was not life without Him, but death. If the sinner continued to live on, it was but as a sign of the long-suffering of God that He was not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Thus early was there given to the world, as it were, an expressive image of Christ’s death, whereby He should bruise the serpent’s head, while he attacked His heel—a more worthy representation than that of slain beasts. Cain, the firstborn, is of the earth, earthy; Abel, the sign of the heavenly, speaks of the Lord from Heaven. As Isaac, the child of promise, was born after the son of the bondwoman; as Jacob was after Esau; as the Jew was the elder brother, and the believing Gentile the younger; as the first Adam was of the earth, and the second Adam of Heaven, so was it now foreshown in Cain and Abel. And “cut off from the land of the living” he bears witness that the inheritance is not of earth, but with God; that in death and after death is his victory. And while thus in mystery he speaks of Christ’s death, Seth is given to mankind on earth, whose children are called “the sons of God.” Thus it may be said, “he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days.”[7] And yet further, for while Seth is made to be a pledge of Christ’s resurrection, His ascension is set forth in Enoch, who walked with God and was translated, having first borne witness that “the Lord cometh, with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgments.”[8]

Nor is it only in sign and figure that Christ’s death is set forth in Abel the first of martyrs, but he is also given to be the example of all acceptable faithfulness. In him have we the firstfruits of the City of God; the fulness of the last and crowning beatitude; “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” “For not only,” says St. Augustine, “from the bodily presence of Christ and His Apostles, but from righteous Abel unto the end of time, amidst the persecutions of the world, and the consolations of God, the Church advances onward in her pilgrimage;”[9] “Always enduring earth and hoping for Heaven.”[10]

“Thy brother’s blood,” said God to Cain, “crieth unto Me from the ground;” and so it continues to do until the end; the blood of righteous Abel, says our Lord, shall be required when God visits: the blood of Abel, says St. Paul, is still speaking; with the souls of those that are under the altar it cries with a voice ever louder and more loud, “How long, O Lord, Holy and True, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”[11] The blood of Abel thus cries from the ground, “and the Heavens above,” says St. Ambrose, “and all things that are in Heaven, Sun, Moon, and Stars, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, and Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim”[12] take up the cry, and absolve not the guilt. But although the blood of Abel thus cries from the ground, yet it is not Abel himself that thus speaks. It signifies rather that the wrongs of Abel and of all the meek upon earth are thus remembered of God. He puts their tears into His bottle, and these things are noted in His book; their sufferings and woes for His sake are numbered by Him, and not forgotten. “Here is the patience of the saints.”[13] All things are with God which have been done to them “whose names are written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”[14] “Right dear in His sight is their death:” and He whom Saul persecuted is slain in Abel.

The very silence of Abel is expressive; it seems to speak of Him who as a sheep before his shearers was dumb, and as a lamb brought unto the slaughter, opened not His mouth. His blood calls from the ground, but he himself is silent; he appeals not for vengeance even in death, as if saying, “My cause is in Thy hands; Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God.” He “committed himself unto Him that judgeth righteously.” All that is said of Abel , and all that is left unsaid by him would indicate that he in character laboured to be like that meek and innocent victim which he offered up in sacrifice to God. And such Abel seems to represent in all times and countries unto the end; them to whom the Father, it may be in some hidden manner unknown of man, reveals His Son, and by some secret bond in the mystery of godliness, knits them unto Him. They are not their own; they are of Him, and in Him, and depart to be more intimately with Him. The world knoweth them not as it knew Him not—it knoweth not from whence they come nor whither they go. These are strangers upon earth; the world hateth them because they are of God. Their treasure and their heart are with Him; their treasure, because they give Him the first and best; and their heart, because their affections must needs follow their actions. They devote to Him the first and the best of all; the first and best of their substance, the first and best of their time, the first and best of their affections.

Thus in every age and nation Abel yet speaketh; each carries on his example, confirms it by others of like character and circumstance, and leaves it yet to speak as it will unto the end; every place has those that “have gone in the way of Cain,” and also those that patiently suffer; even among children there is often, alas! a Cain and Abel—in families, in every village and neighbourhood—among nations, and in the wars of nations. It goes on like one continued chain, still adding link to link; when the last is added it reverberates unto the first; evil as well as good are as parts of one body; and each may find in himself whether he has mostly the marks of Cain or of Abel.

When St. John states that, “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,” and connects this with Cain[15], he seems to refer to our Lord’s own declaration, that though in the Law of Moses it is written, “Thou shalt do no murder,” yet in the eyes of the all-seeing Judge, “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause,”[16] shall come under the like condemnation. It is this which adds such force to that early deed, that there is a lesson connected with it which comes to us, not on tables of stone, but by the finger and Holy Spirit of God, inscribed on the fleshly tables of the heart, containing in itself the new and better law of love—a law written in the blood , not of Abel, but of Christ.