(Continued from p. 355)

III.-ABEL’S SACRIFICE

Some years have passed since the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Except for the notice of birth, the scene which opens before us in Gen. 4 presents Cain and Abel as full-grown men, each in their particular occupation-the elder an agriculturist, the younger a shepherd.

By comparison with chapter 3 we may observe a difference. It is not now God coming to the creature, but the creature approaching God. Thus the lesson has to do with the bearing of the actions of these two men in reference to acceptance with and favor from God, and in particular the development and consequences of a course growing out of the disposition indicated in such an offering as that of Cain.

God has been before us as the Creator, bringing all into being by the Word of His power; as the Revealer, disclosing His purpose as light which pierces the moral darkness in which His creature has become involved through lawlessness; as the merciful Provider of what as being suited to Himself also perfectly meets the need of the guilty. In all of this God has drawn near to the creature. Now it is the creature drawing near to Him and His answer to this approach-a lesson in its place as important as any.

Because of this, as we may gather from the New Testament comment on this scene, it is the great moral principle, faith (basic as it is to all blessing from God), which is the secret that explains the different issues here set before us.

Faith involves at once the fact of revelation to man, and its acceptance or rejection as the spring of action, not mere human intuition. It is not that Abel by some inherent human difference reached up to a higher plane, as a result of which he knew better than his brother what would suit God, but rather that already in the course of their experience they both had before them God's witness-His testimony to them in their days-and Abel in reality of heart had accepted it, Cain refused it. John in his reference to the latter indicates an already existing course of evil which culminated in murder. His "works" were wicked, and his brother's righteous. It is not simply that his offering was of that character, but there was a wicked course of which such an offering was the natural outcome. Thus the fundamental difference in the manner of approach to God seen in the offerings of these two men teaches us of an internal moral distinction. The action resulting from this leads to the important manifestation of God by which we learn what becomes Him, that acceptance may be accorded those who approach Him.

This consideration raises the question of what constituted the revelation which Abel received in faith. There would be the ever-present witness of creation -"From the world's creation the invisible things of Him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both His eternal power and divinity"-and there would be the knowledge of what transpired in the Garden as recorded for us in the previous chapter, the solemn proof of lawlessness and its consequences, the divine word of promise and the divine act of provision. But may not the difference in the offerings inform us still further as to the knowledge possessed of what suited God, and which has the seal of His approval in His acceptance of the action promoted by that knowledge? And does not that approval and acceptance witness that such knowledge must have been of divine origin, for it could not have its birthplace in the human heart and mind? What then is the knowledge of faith here intimated?

Cain's offering does not involve the giving up of life. On the face of it, Abel's sacrifice of life makes his offering "more excellent." What are the elements of knowledge that led him to take such action? Has he not learned from God that sin brings forfeiture of life? Has not the lesson, in some sense, of life lost been before him as outside of the Garden he looked upon it and faced the impassable cherubim with the naming sword? Would not this bring to his soul conviction of the heinousness of sin, the immutability of God's word? Would he not find reason for hope in God's promise? And then must it not be that the consequences of sin are alone met by death in which the guiltless suffers for the guilty? Was not God in this preaching by His own act that only thus could sin be covered, so that the creature at first driven into the shadow of doom by sin is brought again in some sense to be accepted by God?

But there are still further intimations of the intelligence of Abel's faith which emphasize its divine source and character. He brought of his flock. He did not bring an animal secured by hunting, captured by some show of human prowess or cunning, violently killed, which in itself bespeaks the fruit and work of sin. He takes and brings what would not resist him as a shepherd, yea, what had been the object of his solicitude, and to which he would have an affectionate attachment-the firstlings of his flock. We, at least, must see in this the foreshadow of Him who "was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers" -the Lamb of God who gave Himself up in perfect submission to the will of God to accomplish by His death that which would make possible the acceptance of the ungodly who believe, justifying them from all things. If this was not the substance which God saw shadowed in Abel's sacrifice, he could not by it have "obtained testimony of being righteous." Only on the ground of the obedience of that One could God constitute a single soul righteous. From the beginning God had that Person and His work before Him; thus He could pass by the sins of those who were of faith before the actual accomplishment of eternal redemption by the one offering of Christ as a sacrifice for sin.

Yet again it was the firstlings that Abel brought. By faith he did it. Was not this the confession that life alone belongs to God? Sinful man has no right to it. Cain's offering lacks this element along with other evidence of inferiority. He does not even bring first-fruits. In later revelation of fuller typical instruction the importance of this feature is evident. God claims the firstborn for Himself, and the first-fruits also. In rendering them to Him faith owns .that to God alone belongs the excellency of might, strength, dignity and power for which the firstborn stands, and in doing this virtually denies man's right or title to anything. Has not all now reverted to God before whom man stands in the nakedness and poverty of sin, utterly dependent upon His mercy? Surely, as we consider it, there is here the shadow of Him who is truly God's Firstborn, yet made the sacrifice for sin that those who are of faith might stand in righteousness before Him forever. And, though it may seem like the faintest outline, can we not in this discern that One who through that sacrifice becomes "the Firstborn among many brethren"-the many constituted righteous through His one obedience? Here then is another of the first glimmerings of the dawning light which reaches its noonday glory when the Son Himself has come, and as the Lamb of God has offered Himself without spot to God, He who was the appointed Heir of all things, the One to whom all the rights of the firstborn belong.

Let us not pass over one more feature. Abel brought "of their fat." The fat of the animal suggests its goodly character, its strength and energy, that which indeed rightly belongs to God. From the very beginning man's sin is seen in the use of this for self, denying God His place and right. The sin of this Abel virtually confesses in what he does. He does not reserve the fat for himself; he brings it an offering to God. In the Levitical order of sacrifice we know how God claimed the fat of the offerings as His portion. But in this who cannot see Him of whom it is perfectly, absolutely true that He rendered all without reserve to God, who, being eternally glorified in this, can look in favor upon the one who approaches Him with such a sacrifice? Let those who are thus accepted ever remember that it means that they too are now to render up without reserve all they have and are to Him who claims for Himself the fat of every offering. We are sanctified "unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

"And Jehovah looked upon Abel, and his offering." We know that this involved God's testimony to his gifts, and to him being righteous. We may be sure that this was by some manifest token of approval, as well as an inward sense of acceptance, for it must have been because of the observation of such a token that Cain was made angry, there being nothing like it in his case. It may have been by fire consuming the sacrifice, as we see in Lev. 11:24 and Judges 6:21. God delights to look when Christ and His work are presented. All not associated with Him must perish out of His sight. There is no acceptance except in Christ, through His work.

Plainly, in the approval and acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, God declares that man's approach to Him must be in that way alone. In its features we have the outward expression of the knowledge in which his faith was rooted -knowledge by revelation. In the seal of acceptance put upon his gifts we have God's witness to the genuineness of Abel's faith, and so the lesson of what really constitutes having faith according to God.

In the great symphony of redemption which flows in glorious harmony through all of God's revelation, these first chords are used again and again, each taken up and put in different settings, so that now this note, and then that, is given more harmonious emphasis as the vastness of the theme unfolds, until in the blessed liberty of the eternal day the whole redeemed creation will join in one mighty diapason of song, giving glory to God and the Lamb to the ages of ages. J. Bloore

(To be continued. D. V.)