What does it mean to live "east of Eden"?

The next thing we read of Cain is that he "went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod." Do you know what "Nod" means? It means "wandering." The land was named Nod, and men have since then been wandering truly. And Cain "builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch." He builds a city. He as it were says, I have gone out from the presence of God, but I will try to make myself as happy and as comfortable as possible; I will build a city, and will forget that I am a vagabond, and I will forget that I am a sinner. Thus Cain started what you and I now call the world.

The incorrigible nature of the flesh is here seen; Cain goes out from the presence of the Lord professing that the burden of punishment is greater than he can bear, yet builds himself a city, makes himself a name, and establishes the whole order of civilization which has gone on ever since. This is the "way of Cain," the way of the flesh. It begins with the denial of sin, a refusal of the sacrifice, and goes on to stain the earth with innocent blood, and to surround itself with comfort and pleasure away from God.

Cain went out from the presence of God, and what does he then? He builds a city: and what next? You cannot have a city without having something to amuse. Then comes Tubal-Cain with the arts and sciences, and Jubal with pleasant sounds - "he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." There was no harm in the music, etc., itself; but why did they want it? What was the source of it? What use did they make of it? It was to make them content in being away from God. Is not this "harm" enough? Adam, after he sinned and heard God's voice, hid himself among the trees in the garden: there was no harm in the trees, but there was harm in his hiding himself. There is harm in man's trying to make himself comfortable away from God. The prodigal went and joined himself to the citizens of the far country: but when he was in want, no man gave to him. There is none to give him where the devil reigns. Man never can satisfy himself in that country. Bring God in; and what is the result? It gives the consciousness of the truth. It makes him feel and say, "I am perishing with hunger." This is the first effect of faith coming in. Mark, too, the next consequence. How thoroughly he would hate all those things which governed and attracted his heart before! There is nothing a soul will detest so much as the very things he loved most before. When a soul comes to God, he finds out what it is to have left God - that he might do according to a will that is utterly corrupt - his own will. This is the effect of such a discovery. He thinks of the contrast and of his father's house: "How many hired servants of my father's," etc. The sense of the contrast comes in when God is made known. Then comes the sense of sin - I am this wicked person. There is not only wickedness, but it is I that am this wicked thing; and then the discovery of ourselves, just as we are, would be more than we could bear; we need the revelation of God's grace. We could not bear to see all otherwise. There was One and only One who could. The conviction of sin comes into the soul in the sight of the blessedness of Him who is without sin.

Man, as to his actual condition, is a sinner cast out of Paradise [Eden], already out of the presence of God; and he ought to have the consciousness of being out, and that the only way of getting back to God is through His Son.

A few examples will provide ample confirmation. In the beginning, God places man in the garden of Eden (‘delight'). But man sinned and, instinctively, felt the need to hide from God, so that God had to ask, ‘Where art thou?' and man was barred from Eden . A little later the first murder occurs and Cain, in an attitude of rebellion against God, goes ‘out from the presence of Jehovah' to dwell in the land of Nod (‘vagrancy'). Once away from God, he builds a city (to be as comfortable as possible despite the curse and being without God) and calls it Enoch after the name of his own son: a memorial to self at a distance from God.

80 Besides this and more, another important principle comes out - the practically self-righteous man rejecting Christ is then turned out; he leaves the presence of the Lord, and dwells in the land of Nod (that is, "vagabond") where his son is called Enoch, and he builds a city, calling it Enoch too, after his son. Thus he stretches himself in the world, and gives a family name to the town, and the history shews us artisans, and arts, and sciences, all in the train. He goes out from God, and settles himself in the place of judgment, to do his best with it, in open defiance of God. God neglects nothing, and Cain cannot get out of the reach of His hand, of course; but in his own will he was entirely outside. Cain sets to work to make the earth as comfortable as he can without God; Adam did not want all that in paradise.

We have the true history of the world and its practical principles in Cain. He had slain his brother, and was cast out of the presence of God, despairing of grace and refusing to humble himself. By the judgment of God, he was made a vagabond on the earth; but such a condition did not suit him. He settled down where God had made him a vagabond, and he called the city after the name of his son to perpetuate the greatness of his family.

In the last verse of Genesis 3, Adam was driven out of the Garden; in verse 16 of our chapter Cain "went out from the presence of the Lord." The one was a compulsory judgment; the other a deliberate forsaking. To an unrepentant murderer the presence of God was abhorrent. We read in Romans 1 of the barbarians that, "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," and this was exactly the case with Cain. He departed to the land of "Nod," or "Wandering," carrying with him a wife and a son, and there he built a "city," some primitive kind of stronghold. As far as he could, he defied God's sentence upon him, and showed that he distrusted what God had done that he might not be slain. If the earth was not going to yield its produce for him, then let others have the trouble of cultivating it! Rather than wander he would settle down and protect himself!

God had not said to him to leave His presence. Cain does and goes out from His presence himself, to dwell where judgment had made him a vagabond, and then comes the world - the world as God sees it in its true place before Him.

There had been ample space before the deluge for the development of many languages. Soon after the murder of Abel had furious Cain gone forth, an unrepentant despairing man, who failed to profit by Jehovah's patience, and dwelt in the land of Nod, away from the scene which even he could not face at ease or unabashed. There is no real ground to accept either von Bohlen's identification with India, or Knobel's with China. Enough for us to know that the land of his "Wandering," as it means, was toward or in front of the east of Eden. Still less can we identify the city Cain built and called "Enoch" after the name of his son. But the Holy Spirit plainly intimates the rise in his line (not of a rudiment of a different tongue nor of a distinct nationality which we in our ignorance might have thought only natural, but) of science and art, and even the fine arts. The holy wisdom of God took care to apprise His people of the true origin of civic life as well as of nomad, the latter not previous but posterior, of music and its practice in stringed and wind instruments, of the working in copper and iron, of polygamy, and self-occupied verse, the first recorded song of man. It is a picture of man's skill and energy, civilisation, letters, and luxury. The Pagans long after attributed these to their spurious gods but real demons. Here we have them shown to be the inventions of men far from God, vainly striving to make the earth of their exile a paradise of their own.