Cain Murdered Abel: Genesis 4:1-16

“If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7, NASB).

I cannot count the number of times that I have heard news reporters ask this question: “What can we do to make sure that this never happens again?” There is almost never a problem in healthcare, social problems, political debates, and issues with criminal justice that the experts do not start quoting the statistical data. For example, Black men are disproportionately more likely to have diabetes, be shot and killed by police officers, and given longer prison sentences than white men. Many of these disparities are being blamed on racism, discrimination, white supremacy, systemic injustices, and a world in which patriarchy is the norm for life. In this article I want to establish that while we may not be able to prove the statistical data wrong, I do not believe that the statistics can provide an answer that I first mentioned above. This is because statistics tell us the effects, but statistics do not tell us the cause. I will use the story of Cain and Abel two brothers, recorded in the bible to show us that we are asking questions that require us to know causes so that we can understand effects.

Before I get into the biblical story, I want to take a slight deviation to tell us about an important truth that I learned in my studies for a degree in nursing. I want to compare the courses in Anatomy and Physiology with that of Microbiology. In Anatomy and Physiology we learn about all the body parts and systems. We learned that disease is the result of a virulent pathogen, invading a susceptible host that provides a suitable environment for the pathogen to grow and have its effects on the host. In Microbiology we learned that certain pathogens affected not the body parts; rather they affected the cells in the body in very specific ways to cause disease. We learned that there is a difference between treating the cause as opposed to treating the effects. The statistics that are quoted to us tell us the effects, but they do not tell us the cause. The story of Cain and Abel will help us to know the cause of our problems. Let us look at the text.

In the story Eve gave birth to two sons. The older son killed (murdered) his younger brother Cain. Cain and Abel brought an offering to the Lord. The Lord accepted Abel and his offering, but the Lord rejected Cain and his offering. The Lord told Cain that the problem was that sin was crouching at his door. He must master the sin. Let us stop here and think because the Lord says to Cain that the problem is in you, and you must control the sin impulse. Instead of Cain dealing with his sin problem, he allows his anger to get the best of Him. Cain murdered his brother. Abel did nothing wrong to Cain, but Cain took out his anger at God on his innocent and unsuspecting brother. So, what does this story have to do with our many problems? What does this story tell us about many of our presuppositions that we bring to address our problems?

The killing of George Floyd by a police officer is blamed on racism, white supremacy, systemic racism, and systemic discrimination. These things do not tell us the cause of the problem. They only tell us about the effects of the problem. After studying Microbiology I learned that as nurses we are often treating symptoms of a disease, but often the medicine that we use does not affect the cause of the disease. For example a patient with Tuberculosis (TB) has a fever of 105 degrees. Tylenol will reduce the fever for about four hours, but Tylenol has absolutely no effect on the bacterium that causes the disease. In the same way, we are coming up with solutions that address the symptoms, but these solutions have absolutely no effect of the real causes of our problems.

Let us look at the social aspects of the problem between Cain and his brother able. Cain and Abel have the same mother and father. They are raised in the same home; and environment. They have the same skin color; and there is no racism. The story presents no evidence that the parents showed any favoritism for either of their sons. Both of them are allowed to pursue their own choices. There is no system in the home that lends itself to the way that the brothers live. Again, they are brothers with the same parents. Can you get supremacy from this? Since we cannot attribute Cain’s attitude and actions toward his brother to any of the things that we attribute hate and murder to, we must stop the treatment of the symptoms and start looking for treatments and cures from the invading deadly virulent pathogens.

The Lord rejected Cain and his offering, but He accepted Abel and his offering. Now, for sure we can argue that Cain brought to the Lord an offering that the Lord required of him. However, the Lord tells Cain that the problem lies with him. He does not do the right thing and he is angry with his brother because sin is crouching at the door. The solution is that Cain must rule over the sin that is lying at his door. In order to do what is right Cain must not allow sin to enter into his heart and mind. So, what is sin and where does sin come from?

In order to understand sin we must know and understand creation. In Genesis chapters one and two the writer (Moses) tells us that God created the world and God determined that the world was good. This means that everything that God spoke into existence turned out to be exactly the way God wanted it to be. God created humanity, male and female, in His image and likeness to rule over the animals in the earth (Gen. 1:26-28). Everything was going along as planned until the serpent deceived the woman to do things her own way for her own benefit and advantage. The woman ate the fruit and convinced her husband to eat the fruit also. We can get off the arguments about whether it was the woman’s fault or the man’s fault. It does not matter. What matters is that both of them disobey the Lord’s commandments, and because sin is the transgression of the law both immediately sin and now have the sin nature in them. Their sins also have the sin nature in them. Cain decided to do things his own way, but Abel decided that he would not do things his own way. Instead, he would do things the Lord’s way.

Racism, sexism, systemic racism, systemic discrimination, white supremacy is not the invading virulent pathogens that cause our problems. Instead they are symptoms of the problems. As stated above in the Tylenol example, treating symptoms have no effect on the virulent pathogen. The virulent pathogen must be made ineffective and eradicated. This is what the Lord told Cain to do. You must take control of the sin that is causing your symptoms. Sin is the cause of your anger, your displeasure, jealousy, envy, greed and other emotions, attitudes, and behaviors that violate the commandments of the Lord. What did Cain do? He did not deal with his own sin problem. Instead of taking control over the sin impulse Cain allowed the sin impulse to control him. As long as sin controls our emotions, attitudes and behaviors we will continue to have the problems that exist in our world today.

What can we do to make sure that this never happens again? The answer is in one word, nothing. There is nothing that we can do to rid ourselves of the sin nature that is in all of us. Cain shows us that we do not have the ability to control the sin nature that is in us. God alone can help us with our sin nature. This was proven in that the descendants of Cain were separated from the descendants of Seth (Gen. 4:16-5:32). However, eventually the two groups begin to have relationships with each other with the result of universal sin (Gen. 6:1-3). However, God had a plan to help humanity with their sin nature. God would send His Son into the world to make the will of God known to all people. His Son would die in our stead so that we could be forgiven of sin and the right to be reconciled to God.

The story of Cain and Abel shows us that our problems are not all the labels that we place on certain attitudes and behavior. Our true problem is sin. We refuse to confess our sins, turn to God who is able to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteous. The solutions are not in laws, policies, right to vote or any other man designed remedies. The first commandment says “Thou shall have no other God before (beside) me (Exod. 20:3). The reality is this. We refuse to do things God’s way. Like Eve, Adam, and Cain, we want to do things our own ways. We will continue to have problems that we cannot make sure that they will not happen again, because the cause of the problems is the sin nature that is in all of us.