Part 3 of 7 of the theme 'Lessons on the character of God‘ by Gijs van den Brink

Last time we saw that God does not reject Cain, who is angry with Him. God responds differently from people. He stays in conversation with him and says (Gen. 4:6-7):

'Why are you so angry, why do you look so dark? Act well, then you can look everyone straight in the eye, can't you? Act badly, then sin lurks, eager to take hold of you; but you must be stronger than it.'

God asks him, "Why are you so angry? The question is rhetorical (after all, the Lord knows everything) and is meant to bring Cain to repentance. The Lord then explains to him how the spiritual life works (vs.7).

Literally God says to him "If you do good there is exaltation. 'Exaltation' can mean two things. It can mean cheerfulness, as opposed to a long face, an involved countenance (vs. 6) and it can mean victory and blessing, as opposed to the grip of sin (vs. 7b) or a combination of both.

The good thing Cain did not do was sacrifice to the Lord from his heart, with his whole heart. What Cain did was outwardly the same as what his brother Abel did. But both he and the Lord knew that Cain was not sacrificing with the right attitude.

And then God says "if you don't do good, sin is like a predator ready to grab you. And the first thing sin worked on Cain was that he became angry with God! With the words in verse 7, the Lord makes this clear to him. It is a first stern warning to him. Cain, you have given in to sin when you should have ruled over it! Will you be able to control sin, now that you have fallen into this error?

This is the unconditional love of God, that having been rejected by Cain, He does not in turn now reject Cain as a person. [to be continued]

Next time:
Part 4 of the series 'Lessons on the character of God (from Genesis 4)' is entitled 'God gives even a murderer a second chance' 

See also:
Part 2 of the series 'Lessons about the character of God (from Genesis 4) God sees what is in the heart 

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Author: Gijs van den Brink
From: Study Bible Magazine

This is part 3 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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