What is the significance of God telling Cain, "Sin is crouching at your door" (Genesis 4:7)?

Cain became very angry rather than ashamed as he should have been: his countenance fell, that is, the very look of his face became sour and depressed. God spoke to him directly, questioning him in such a way that it ought to have appealed to his common sense. Why should he be angry? If he had done will, he would have been accepted. All he needed was the proper sacrifice. If he did not well, yet a sin offering was available to him at his very door. He could still bring the proper offering and be accepted, if he would. Thus God pleads graciously with the young man to change his mind.

Cain became very angry rather than ashamed as he should have been: his countenance fell, that is, the very look of his face became sour and depressed. God spoke to him directly, questioning him in such a way that it ought to have appealed to his common sense. Why should he be angry? If he had done well, he would have been accepted. All he needed was the proper sacrifice. If he did not well, yet a sin offering was available to him at his very door. He could still bring the proper offering and be accepted, if he would. Thus God pleads graciously with the young man to change his mind.

But, how graciously did the Lord deal with Cain, when He manifested displeasure at his rejection. Was the Lord unrighteous in His dealings with the two brothers? "If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted?" Or, as the margin reads, "have the excellency." But to do well was to own, like Abel, what one born in sin needed. How little do men understand this! Yet, what higher or truer ground could Abel take, than simply to confess what he was? It was in this Cain had failed. Yet the Lord would not for that finally cast him off, so He added, "If thou doest not well, sin," or, as is by some understood, a sin offering "lies at the door:" and, if offered, his sin would be forgiven, and his position as first-born would still remain to him: "to thee shall be his desire [that is, Abel's] and thou shalt rule over him." Here we have the first mention of an offering for sin. God told him what to do, but he refused to obey, and instead of the sacrifice, as pointed out, he took his brother's life. Was he desirous to secure the rights of the first-born, and so slew his brother, as others afterwards could say, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours?" It may have been so, but scripture is silent about it. One thing, however, is clear, the way of acceptance, even after he had sinned, was pointed out to him, so he was left without excuse, when he turned from the place of sacrifice without having brought the sin-offering. The Lord would not allow him to be ignorant of what he should do, any more than Abel of the results of what he had done. Multitudes have fallen into Cain's mistake, but what the Lord told Cain He tells them. For Cain, and for them a sacrifice must be offered up. But in Cain's case it was the offering up of one from the flock; in the sinner's case now, it is trusting wholly to the sacrifice of God's Lamb on the cross. How clearly then is the whole question of a sinner's acceptance shadowed forth in this brief history! How has this history spoken to the heart of the readers of these lines? If hitherto it has been read simply as the record of a bygone age, with which we are not concerned, now may its voice penetrate to the depths of the heart, and it be found speaking directly to each soul. We read here what Cain and Abel respectively offered: but we read in it also what men are doing in these days, and how each one should act, if desirous to be found on the same side as "righteous Abel."

The Lord points to his responsibility before Him in his condition at that time, which, of course, God knew perfectly; and if we read Genesis 4:7 as some do, He even recalled Cain in grace after his self-will and failure in responsibility to the remedy for him as a sinner. Thus, "if thou doest well, shalt not thou be accepted?" shows that his deeds were in question in God's accepting his person, in other words, that he was addressed on the proper ground of his individual responsibility to God, which was accurately defined; and "if thou doest not well, a sin-offering lieth at the door," points him to the divinely appointed remedy for him in his condition as a sinner, and even if declared to be such by his own acts. But if this latter clause be read as it is given in the ordinary Authorized Version, it simply presses the converse of the truth expressed in the former, and declares Cain answerable for the consequences of his deeds, "if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door."*

[*I would only say further as to this, that if this clause be read as it appears in the Authorized Version, it is difficult to see the connection between the first part of the verse ending with that clause, and the latter part, saying, "and unto thee (or subject unto thee) shall be his (that is, Abel's) desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Whereas, if read in the other form, this latter clause becomes simply the assurance, that even though a sinner, and failing, if he submitted to God's provision of the "sin-offering," he would be maintained in his rightful supremacy as the elder brother. This view is however not without its own difficulties, and it is of course not impossible to read and understand the verse in the other form.]

That sacrifice, on the other hand, was of God's appointment, not of human device, His words to Cain are full proof. — "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, a sin-offering coucheth at the door." So, I am persuaded, this ought to be read. "Sin" and "sin-offering" are the same word whether in Greek or Hebrew; but what would be the force of "if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door"? That the last expression refers to an animal seems plain: some interpreters take it figuratively, as if sin as a wild beast were in the act to spring. Too late, surely, when one has already sinned! Rather would it not be the provision of mercy for one in need of it — an offering not far to seek, but at the very door! and in what follows, the assurance of his retaining still the first-born's place with regard to Abel — "Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him"?

"And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell." And Jehovah speaks to him thus — "Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" The principles of God's nature are immutable. Whether people are believers or not, whether they receive the truth or not, God holds to that which belongs to His own moral being. That any one is capable of meeting the character of God in an unfallen state is another matter. It is the same principle in Genesis 4, which we find more explicitly stated in Romans 2, where God shows His sure judgment of evil on the one hand, and His approval of that which is good, holy, and true on the other. So with Cain here — "and if thou doest not well;" and such was the fact. His condition was that of a sinner, and he looked not out of himself to God. But what characterises this scene is not the state in which man as such was — this we had in Genesis 3 — but what man did in that fallen state, and more especially what he did in presence of God and faith. Certainly he did not well. "And if thou doest not well," it is said, "sin lies at the door." Evil conduct is that which makes manifest an evil state, and flows from it.

I do not think that the expression means a sin-offering, as is sometimes supposed; for it does not appear that there is ground for inferring that the truth of a sin-offering was understood in the slightest degree till long afterwards. "By the law is the knowledge of sin," and until the law was brought in there was, as far as scripture tells us, no such discrimination, if any, between the offerings. They were all merged in one; and hence it is that we find that Job's friends, though guilty in the Lord's sight, yet alike with him offer burnt-offerings. When Noah brings his sacrifice, it is evidently of that nature also. Would there not have been a sin-offering on these occasions had the law been then in force? Most wisely all such details awaited the unfolding of another day. I merely use these scriptural facts to shew what seems to me the truth that "sin" here does not refer to the specific offering for it, but rather to that which was proved by evil conduct.

"A sin-offering coucheth at the door." (Gen. 4:7.)

The common translation is "Sin lieth at the door;" but it is allowed on all sides that the word means just as well "sin-offering." The question between these must be decided on other grounds than that of the dictionary.

Now the idea in "sin lieth at the door" is not, as the common one is, that sin lies against the person. Sin must really be represented as a couching animal; for this is how the word "lieth" really reads. The thought is, then, "If thou doest not well, sin couches like a wild beast at the door," — why "at the door"? and would it not be, in the case supposed, that sin had prevailed over, rather than that it was merely watching and ready to attack?

But on the other hand, that "if thou sinnest, a sin-offering lies [or couches] at the door," is clear, beautiful gospel-truth for Cain. And not for Cain only, but for all his age and generation. It is "at the door," not to seek or hunt after, but a victim ready to render its meek life up for the sacrifice. Thus God openly announces the way of approach to Him at the beginning, — His way, in fact, all through.

I should not answer very dogmatically as to Genesis 4:7. Those who take the sense of sin-offering argue on that on account of which you argue against it, the word being applied to the lying down of an animal, the victim is there before you at your door. "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? - and unto thee shall be his (Abel's) desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Then there is the parenthesis, "If thou doest not well, sin lies at the door." Now I do not doubt that this speaks of the culpability of Cain; the only question is, if it does not present this culpability, as God has presented it to us, that is in Christ as the sin-offering. Other translations take the whole thing in another sense; I apprehend that the primary sense is, sin is there before you; you meet it in going forth; it lies at your door. He could not escape finding it attached to him: only God has laid it before us in the sin-offering in Christ. I do not doubt the English is right, and in general the other translations wrong. I believe these were all the passages you asked me about, so I close, dear -

But the true nature of religious man becomes but too evident in the sequel. Cain will not listen to the voice of God. I suppose that there can be no real doubt as to the force of "sin lieth at the door." It means that a sin offering was lying (literally crouching) at the door.

It was an evil thing to endeavour to come before God ignoring that he was a sinner, imagining that a sinner could be accepted on any other ground than that of death. Death, the wages of sin, rested upon the human race, and this could not be ignored with impunity. The anger of Cain, and the falling of his countenance, because of the refusal of his offering, manifested only too plainly the sinful nature of man, and the need of his acknowledging his true state as a sinner before God.

The long-suffering of God is evinced in His approach to Cain, with the words, “why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen: if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lies at the door…” Hebrew scholars tell us that the word used for sin is the same as that for sin offering. This being so, it would appear that God is offering to accept Cain, in spite of his self-will, if he will confess his sin by bringing a suitable offering to Him. This is still God’s attitude to men! Spite of all man’s evil, God waits in patience upon him, presenting His sin offering for his acceptance.