Part 7 of 7 of the theme 'Lessons on the character of God‘ by Gijs van den Brink
Previous times we have continually become more puzzled by God's attitude toward Cain. Why is God so uncharacteristically merciful and patient with the murderer Cain.
I want to try to tentatively answer from the context of God's revelation as we know it from the Bible.
Time and again we see the Lord trying to bring Cain to repentance. For Cain is a creature of His that He loves. He wants Cain to repent and stay with Him. And as long as Cain lives, repentance is still possible.
We also see this again and again in the history of the people of Israel.
The power of sin has come into the world, but God tries to contain the spiral of violence and protects the sinner in the hope of repentance and change. That is why He gives punishment, but not death.
In this, too, we see the character of Jesus Christ, who loved his enemies and said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luk. 23:34).
Jesus also falls back in his Scripture interpretation to the Creator's will in the beginning, not to God's adjustments in the law at the time of Moses (cf. Mat. 19:4-6).
We see in this story of Cain how far and deep the power of sin reaches in the world. Everyone will reject manslaughter as sin. But only God sees the whole spectrum of manifestations of sin. He knows how it began with Cain.
In the first beginning lies the source of evil, which ultimately led to Cain becoming a murderer. Cain offered fruit to God, but not with the right attitude. He did not give the Lord the first place that is His due. That was a big slap in the face to the Creator. That was sin and God wanted to protect Cain from falling further into the power of sin and straying from Him. But who among us always and everywhere gives our best to the Lord God from our hearts! No one.
The Bible says: 'All have gone astray, all have degenerated. There is no man who does good, not even one.' (Rom.3:12; Ps.14:3).
But we have a God who is Creator and Father. He loves all His creatures. And as He dealt with Cain is a model of how He also deals with us. The great love of God for all people is shown by the fact that Jesus Christ came to the world to show people His love and offer salvation.
Next time:
Part 1 of the series 'Lessons from Nehemiah' is entitled 'It's not about the leaders, it's about the people'‘
See also:
Part 6 of the series 'Lessons about the character of God (from Genesis 4) 'Cain argues with God about his punishment'
Author: Gijs van den Brink
From: Study Bible Magazine
This is part 7 of 7 of the series "Lessons on the character of God” Some of which we will be posting online in the near future. We hope this will help you understand the Bible better!
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