Hebrews 11:4a
"By faith…"
Now here’s the great faith chapter which explains how trust works. Hebrews chapter 11. "By faith." By simply taking God at His Word by trusting Him. Paul here strengthens his stand on the fact (chapters 8-10) that all of the old Jewish custom, rituals, ceremonies and traditions of man are now defunct because the death and blood of Christ as sin's forever offering of Himself is far superior to that of animals blood as it had NO effect on the internal condition of man. All the animal blood did or could do was administer to the flesh or outward condition, it was powerless. It could not clear ones conscience as Christ's blood can and in deed does, it even opened the door to the presence of God Himself for all mankind. Not just some limited few of a so called predestination.
Hebrews 11:4b
"…Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. …"
By trusting God's faithfulness has always prompted God to declare that believer righteous. That’s been the case ever since Adam and Eve back in Genesis chapter 3; and so Abel’s trust prompted God to restore Abel into fellowship and He declared him now, a righteous individual. When or how was Abel's trust in a crisis, when Cain first showed signs of resenting him because he was a herdsman and not a dirt farmer. For they both know the secret of sacrifice because they were taught it by their mother, so they both knew God. See how that’s Paul’s primary example of Abraham. That when he became a man of faith, God declared him what? Righteous!
In Hebrews chapter 11, and verse 4. All the examples are of people of trust which have gone through a crisis onto faith so its known as the faith chapter; and remember from Adam until the end of the human experience, faith is always the number one criteria for a right relationship with God, as we’re going to see in this lesson. When we've put our trust in God as limited as our knowledge of Him is at that time He begins the working of our salvation which demands a crisis of some kind as a trial of our trust. With the idea that that crisis will be credited to us as His Faith then from that point on we depend upon God through that faith to be our sufficiency in all things. This is the spiritual Life or the resurrection Life which moves us into the Endless Life unknown to us before.
Hebrews 11:4a
"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,…"
We have to go back to Genesis chapter 4 for that account. I’m not going to do it with all of these faith people in Hebrews but only for some. But let’s come all the way back to Genesis chapter 4 where we have the account of this first bringing of an offering by these two brothers Cain and Abel. Now we don’t know how old they were but they were old enough to have already established their own lifestyle and remember that they've each been trained by their mother and father to know the God of Creation. This is what the Bible doesn't say in so many words, all the way through it, that there is a thin line of people who are taught to know the God of Creation. For before any one can trust some one they have to know them then they will believe them/him. Then they will receive form them/him, when receptivity is birthed in us we're moved to faith. The faith of Abraham or children like of Israel so called because Jacob wrestled with God (the crisis), but all requires a crisis in each step of development. A secret now revealed to us that was meant for our learning of Him. (Matthew 11:29) Christ is and was our prototypical example.
We know that one was a sheepherder and the other was a farmer. And, that’s about as far as we can go with their occupation. But, the clue to all of this is verse 3.
Genesis 4:3a
"And in the process of time…"
That is more or less implied, I think, from the Hebrew that it was a time of instruction it may have been 20 or 40 years we just don't have enough information that tells us. Now remember, God is never unfair. God would not expect these young men, Cain and Abel, to do something that He had never told them to do. If that was the case then it wouldn’t be faith. But He had instructed them and no doubt knowing the God of this Book, He instructed them explicitly on how to approach Him with the blood of sacrifice, that which He did with their parents after they chose to fall from Grace into sin and death. Which is already set as an example in Genesis 3, with Adam and Eve.
In that chapter, God killed the animal and so He no doubt instructed them on exactly how to kill the animal, and how to present or sprinkle the blood. It wasn’t haphazard. It was intrinsically instructed. Now we know this because from here now it says that they left the presence of God which means there was a crisis of some kind. All right, so both young men have the same Word from God on how to approach Him. If you’ll notice in Scriptures, we have the natural man first. So we deal with Cain first, the natural. And so, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, whatever it was. To begin with, there are two major points here.
Number one, it was a bloodless offering. Number two, he was bringing that from the ground that from which one day Abel’s blood would be spilled and it was cursed. Now it hadn’t happened yet, but it will and so Cain now is stepping off on the wrong foot by bringing a bloodless offering. In an act of defiance to that which he already knew was required and defiance is what lawlessness. It is this same defiance which Israel the nation will one day find themselves in again. Through its instituting of animal sacrifice and temple worship.
I have to emphasize that because, that is the reason Cain wasn’t accepted. It was because he didn’t bring a blood offering, it wasn’t Cain’s attitude, although that was certainly involved in the fact that he had no trust or faith! He didn’t take anything that God said into account. And so he rationalized and he said, "Well surely, if God knows how much sweat I have already dropped on all this, He’ll accept it. I don’t have to go over and barter with my brother to get a lamb." And so Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, whatever it was. It was bloodless. Remember one of the absolutes in Scripture that we learned in Hebrews 9:22?
Hebrews 9:22b
"…and without the shedding of blood is no remission."
And so "God had no respect unto Cain’s offering." So by trust which becomes faith through crisis of sacrifice and the working of obedience to that which is known, as Hebrews chapter 11 reminds us:
Genesis 4:4a
"And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock…"
Well now you don’t have vegetables called flocks, so what’s implied? Sheep or goats. More than likely a sheep. And God had instructed them on how to present that animal sacrifice. And so Abel, because he believed what God said, did it as God instructed and he was accepted, and for that act of faith, will have eternal life.
Now whenever we were in Genesis, I made this statement. Cain may have been a nicer guy than Abel. Cain may have been an easier guy to get along with in everyday things than Abel, we don’t know. But that wasn’t what counted. What counted was that Abel did what God said to do and he was accepted. Cain went his own way and he was rejected, see? All right, so read verse 4 again.
Genesis 4:4a
"And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:"
No comments:
Post a Comment