Right from the start the Bible makes it clear that there is a faith that God accepts and there is faith that he rejects.
The first two people ever to be born illustrate this. Cain and Abel grew up under the shadow of great loss. Before they were born their parents rebelled against God and were thrown out of Eden. The earth came under God’s curse. It was a struggle for survival. Relationships had become strained and at times dysfunctional. But worse, death had been introduced, their bodies were decaying.
The different ways Cain and Abel relate to God powerfully show how true faith is different from false fait, in three ways.
Costly not convenient
‘By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did’ (Hebrews 11.4). In what way was it better? Genesis 4.3-5 tells us: ‘Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour’. While Cain brought some of his livelihood, Abel brought the best of his livelihood. These different gifts said something about how much they valued God and the part that he played in their lives.
We had a wedding invitation recently. On the invite there were the usual details about how to order wedding presents online. I think we ticked off a set of towels. But imagine if, rather than order them new online, we took a handful of respectable but well used towels from our airing cupboard and put them in the post. It would be an insult to the bride and groom. Our gift would say something about how little we valued them.
Cain’s offering was like that, it cost him little. On the outside he looked a moral, upright, religious person. He was, in fact, just fobbing God off. His faith was just convenient. God slotted in to his agenda. Whereas Abel’s gift cost him dearly, he gave his best to God!
Cain and Abel’s faith begs a question. Is our faith costly — or convenient? Is your giving of your time, energy, money and resources to God something you do when it’s convenient? If that is your worship, God hates it. It insults him.
Relationship not religion
‘By faith he was commended as a righteous man’ (Hebrews 11.4). Cain’s offering was measly and narrow hearted, because he didn’t particularly love God. And yet Cain was very religious. To the casual observer Cain and Abel were religious brothers, worshipping the LORD side by side. But Cain’s religious devotions didn’t change his heart. Cain’s murder of his brother showed that in his heart he had little respect for either God, or people made in God’s image.
Here is why religious rituals can actually add to our problem. They make us feel and look better. But it’s like sticking plasters on chickenpox spots. They cover over the blemishes, but don’t actually deal with the problem. Religion doesn’t deal with our greatest problem. It doesn’t make us right with God or change our hearts.
Shockingly, mere church attendance can be a respectable way to reject God. Rituals of communion, singing and prayer may make us feel like we are doing something but they don’t in themselves make us right with God. Getting right with God is not about what we do. It is about trusting in what he has done to save us and receiving it so that God counts us righteous people. That is how we enter a real personal relationship with him, like Abel.
God not me
‘God spoke well of Abel’s offerings’ (Hebrews 11.4). ‘The LORD looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast’ (Genesis 4.4-5). This was more than a grumpy teenage moment. Why was Cain so angry?
Was Cain the animal rights activist, outraged at the barbaric nature of animal sacrifice? Such 21st-century sensitivities were not around back then. The Bible tells us why he was angry. He was angry at God. It was because God didn’t look with favour on his sacrifice.
Until now Cain had God in a convenient box. His worship was outwardly respectable, but it cost him little. But at least he was worshipping; how dare God have the audacity to not accept his offering! For the first time Cain came face to face with the living God — a God who says there is a faith that he accepts and a faith that he rejects.
The living God is incredibly politically incorrect. That’s why Cain, and humanity ever since, got so mad at him. Deep in our hearts we hate the idea that God is free and that he chooses what is the appropriate way we should relate to him. He has no need to consult us.
Cain should have responded with humility and submission to God’s ways and changed his attitude. He didn’t. He remained angry because his faith was ultimately about himself not God. It was his self-centred anger towards God that ultimately led to his murder of Abel. Abel’s true faith exposed Cain as a fraud, so he got rid of him.
A good test of whether your faith is me-centred or God-centred is: how do you respond when God blesses others? Hopefully not with murder! But how often do you respond with jealousy, or by feeling threatened and insecure, competitive or allowing disappointment to turn to despair? It was Schaeffer who said: ‘A little bit of me dies when I see someone else’s success’. Most of us can relate to that.
Sadly, life being about me not God is our default. What is the solution? God is always the solution.
God’s invitation and warning
God was so kind to Cain. He doesn’t write him off. ‘Then the LORD said to Cain, \"Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it\"’ (Genesis 4.6-7).
God calls Cain from a self-centred life into a personal relationship with himself. God is saying to him, God says to us: ‘I am God, you are human. It’s about me, not you. It’s about me calling you into a relationship with myself that is life changing and transforming’.
Sadly, Cain rejected God’s invitation. He stands as a serious warning of refusing God’s invitation into relationship with himself.
How is that possible, a personal relationship with God?
As well as living in the shadow of great loss, these boys grew up knowing about a great hope. God had promised that one day he would send a rescuer, a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Abel points us to Jesus.
‘And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead’ (Hebrews 11.4). Jesus says in Matthew 23.34-35 that Abel was the first person to die for his faith, his love and devotion to God. Abel inspires us. Jesus does more. Through his resurrection, Jesus gives us eternal life beyond death.
In Hebrews 12.24, we read that Jesus’s blood spilt at the cross speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
As Abel lay in a pool of blood after Cain killed him, God said to Cain in Genesis 4.10-11: ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand’. Cain’s blood cried out from the ground for punishment. Justice must be done. And so Cain was cursed.
But Jesus’s blood cries out a better word from the cross. It cries out forgiveness for us. At the cross justice was being done. Jesus died so that we might be forgiven. Here we find the foundation for a faith that God accepts.
Pete Hitchcock is pastor of Binscombe Church, Godalming, Surrey.
