Who was Cain in the Bible?

The first son of Adam and Eve. Ignoring the fall, he approached God in his own person, and with the fruit of his own toil from the ground that had been cursed. God could accept neither him nor his offerings: life had been forfeited, and man must approach God through the death and excellency of a victim which God could accept. Cain's anger was kindled because of the acceptance of Abel and his offering, and he slew his brother, notwithstanding that God had reasoned with him respecting his anger. God cursed him from the earth, and set a mark upon him that no avenger of blood should slay him. Cain went out from the presence of God — significant sentence — and in the land of Nod built a city and named it after his son Enoch. Gen. 4. He is held up in the N.T. as an example of wickedness and self-will. 1 John 3:12; Jude 11. Cain's act of worship is a notable type of mere human religion — presuming to approach God as if there had been no fall and no sin. See ABEL.

Every young man in this meeting is following either one or other of the two young men that the 4th of Genesis brings before us. You have — so have I — gone in the way of Cain, and are in that way still, or you have followed Abel. They are the two leaders, I am bold to say, of the whole race of man; and every man in this audience, every man on the face of the earth at this moment, is either walking in "the way of Cain," or has followed the footsteps of Abel. But, to tell the truth, that cannot be a good way of which we are told, "Woe to them! for they have gone in the way of Cain" (Jude 11). Are you yet in "the way of Cain," or have you found your path in the footsteps of Abel? What is the difference between these two men? One of them did not know the way to approach God, and the other did. Cain did not know the divinely appointed way into God's presence. Abel did know that way, and took it. God gives us, I doubt not, in the opening chapters of man's history upon earth a picture of what would mark him all along the line.

Cain was the eldest son of Adam, and Abel was the second. It has been thought that they were twin brothers, but whether that is so or not they came one close upon the heels of the other. They lived together, were brought up together, and had the same opportunities of learning God's thoughts — just as there may be in this audience tonight two brothers who have had the same privileges of knowing the Gospel, but one through the grace of God is God-fearing, and the other is not. Well, happy is the man who is God-fearing. Blessed is the man that is in the way of Abel. "Woe to them! for they have gone in the way of Cain," says Scripture. And what was Cain's way? It was the way of nature, mere natural religion apart from faith in the revelation God had given.

From Adam there has sprung a race of men, connected with him in the conditions brought about by his fall; all are sinners by nature and practice. Cain. Adam's firstborn, manifested the awful wickedness that lay in the fallen nature of man, when he slew his brother, and spoke offensively to God when faced with his crime. The disobedience, first found in Adam and, Eve, the hatred, insolence and violence displayed by Cain. integrated with the corruption produced by man's ruined nature, soon made the world so vile and wicked that God had to cleanse it with an overwhelming flood.

The breach now shows itself as division among men. There is at the very beginning of the world what answers to the seed of the serpent among men; and there is (but only through grace) the seed of the woman also. The natural outcome of fallen man we see in Cain, — man, as sin and the devil have made him. Cain is therefore the elder; for "first" we have "that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." But the natural has first possession of the earth, and throughout man's day keeps it. "Cain" is therefore "acquisition," a name expressive, in the first place, of his mother's natural joy, but which stamps his and the natural man's character. Gain is what he seeks, and seeks to hold; and though in the land of vagabondage, builds a city, and adorns and furnishes it. His descendants are for that period the world's great men. Morally, lust and violence mark them as out of the presence of God, although, after their own sort, religious too. The name of God — El — in the names of his descendants testify for this.

1) Cain's way (Gen. 4:1-16) was to be an unbelieving and carnal worshipper. He was also the first murderer, who went out from the presence of God. As Cain cared nothing for his brother, so these cared nothing for their brethren and perhaps even envied them. in Hebrews 11:4 Cain is represented as the very opposite of a believing man. He was the prototype of the kind of people Jude's readers would encounter.

Cain, who hated his brother Abel, foreshadows the Jew, who rejected Christ and delivered Him into the hands of the Gentiles and shed innocent blood. As Cain had blood-guiltiness upon himself, the blood of his brother Abel, so there is blood-guiltiness upon the Jewish race. "His blood be upon us and our children," was their demand. Cain's judgment is typical of the punishment which came upon the Jewish people. Like Cain, they were driven from Him; became wanderers over the face of the earth; bearing a mark, everybody is against them. Cain went with his wife (one of his sisters) to the land of Nod. He built a city. His hope was in earthly things. The progress of the Cainites is given. Polygamy began with Lamech. Jubal became inventor of harp and pipe. Tubal-Cain was the worker in brass and iron. Then there is a song of defiance celebrating murder. The age advanced in civilization, inventions, making the earth under the curse attractive; on the other hand, lust, violence, vice, and crime increased. But Cain's seed was also religious following Cain's worship. The name of El (God) appears in some of Cain's offspring.

He vividly sets forth the development of the evil by the use of three more illustrations drawn from the Old Testament. Recalling the history of Cain he exclaims of the corrupters of Christendom, "Woe to them! for they have gone in THE WAY OF CAIN." The way of Cain was the way of natural religion. Cain was a religious man, but his religion was according to the thoughts of fallen man and not according to the revelation of God. His natural religion led him to belittle sin, to despise God's provision to meet sin, to attempt to draw nigh to God on the ground of his own works, and to persecute the true child of God. Alas! through the corruption of ungodly men, the large mass of professing Christians have gone in the way of Cain. The popular religion of the day ignores the revelation of God, and takes no account of sin in the sight of God. It treats the fall as a mere myth and hence, denying that man is fallen, has no use for the atonement. Rejecting the propitiatory work of Christ, it naturally falls back on the works of men for the ground of acceptance with God. Moreover, it holds in great contempt, and special hatred, all those who, cleaving to the revelation of God, trust in the atoning blood as their only plea, and love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth. Upon all those who follow in the way of Cain God pronounces "Woe."

And, now, let us enquire what the offerings were. "And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to Jehovah. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fruit thereof. And the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offering; but to Cain and to his offering, he had not respect." (Gen. 4:3-5) This sets the difference clearly before us: Cain offered Jehovah the fruit of a cursed earth, and that, moreover, without any blood to remove the curse. He presented "An unbloody sacrifice," simply because he had no faith. Had he possessed that divine principle, it would have taught him, even at this early moment, that "Without shedding of blood, there is no remission." (Heb 9) This is a great cardinal truth. The penalty of sin is death. Cain was a sinner, and, as such, death stood between him and Jehovah. But, in his offering, there was no recognition whatever of this fact. There was no presentation of a sacrificed life, to meet the claims of divine holiness, or to answer to his own true condition as a sinner. He treated Jehovah as though He were, altogether, such an one as himself, who could accept the sin-stained fruit of a cursed earth.

In the first earthly family we find the two generations illustrated. Cain’s works were wicked, and because of this he hated his brother, and slew him. He was of that wicked one, and the moral features of the devil were stamped upon him. He was characterized by sin, hatred, and murder; and what provoked him, and set all his evil nature in motion was what was of God in Abel: “Wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and has brother’s righteous.” Therefore saints are not to marvel if the world hate them. It is only natural to it to do so. It did not know Christ, and it does not know the children of God; it hated Him, and it hates them. The word of God in the heart is the secret of righteousness in the saints, and it is also the secret of the world’s hatred of them—“I have given them Thy word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). The word of God received into the heart, and kept there, brings one out in the moral characteristics of God, and this arouses all the evil and hatred of the depraved fallen nature, and murder takes possession of the inflamed and devil-possessed mind. It was so in the case of Cain, and it is so of the world today; and while it should cause us to be watchful and maintain a separate path, it should cause us no surprise.

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!