You have sent several proofs to my last question, both as concerning Cain and Abel’s conduct in God’s sight, and also as to the truths in the New Testament, which answer to their different ways of approaching God. The first list of texts is as follows: Matt. 23:3535That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. (Matthew 23:35), Luke 11:5151From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. (Luke 11:51), John 8:4444Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44), Heb. 11:4; 12:244By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. (Hebrews 11:4)
24And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:24), 1 John 3:12; 4:2012Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. (1 John 3:12)
20If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? (1 John 4:20), Jude 1111Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. (Jude 11). The second is Rom. 3:20, 24; 4:520Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)
24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (Romans 3:24)
5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5), Gal. 3:55He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Galatians 3:5), Heb. 9:2222And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22). This third chapter of Romans gives us the rejection of all who approach. God as Cain did, in verse 20, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight,” and in the 24th verse the acceptance of every guilty sinner, who by faith comes to God as Abel came, “Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
After Abel’s death, there was only the seed of Cain, the murderer, on the earth. We read how they multiplied, of their greatness on the earth, of the cities which they built, and of their inventions in arts and industries to make themselves happy in the world without God. But notwithstanding the prosperity of Cain’s race, they, and their cities, with all their varied skill, perished in the flood.
The learned, the accomplished, the mighty and great will leave all that has distinguished them among men in the grave, and each will be judged for the deeds done in the body; and as all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, only those whom God justifies freely by His grace, through the death and blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus, will be saved.
But God must have a people on the earth, and so He raises up Seth, from whose family come all the ransomed, who shall sing their Redeemer’s praises for evermore, so the fifth chapter of Genesis is concerning Seth and his descendants down to Noah. Nothing is recorded of their cities or their history in the world, but here we, for the first time, find death. All that is told us of Seth and his family is how long they lived, the name of one son, from whom Christ came, and then of all but Enoch and Noah that solemn word is written, “and he died.” Death reigns in God’s family on earth, but after these patriarchs had seen the death of their first parent, Adam, who had brought sin and death into the world, Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and thus God opened heaven as the home of His redeemed, they had before to taste death themselves.
Enoch was sixty-five years old before Methuselah was born, and then, for three hundred years, he walked with God. What a contrast to Cain, with his cities and his music, and his workers in brass and iron, away from God.
Boys and girls build many a castle in the air about their future, as to what they hope to do and be, when they are grown up. Perhaps my young reader has almost settled in his mind what he is to be and do, regardless that his life is as a vapor, which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away. However, suppose God should permit you to live and see all your future hopes fulfilled. What is to be after all these hopes have been granted? You know that, sooner or later, your life will vanish away, and the place that has known you, will know you no more. What, then, will it profit you, should all your earthly wishes be gratified, in the day in which, as Scripture says, all your thoughts shall perish? Do you think this is a sad chapter ending in death so repeatedly? Remember it is the first time, after man’s fall from God, that heaven is opened as the home of sinners saved by grace. Enoch bade farewell to a cursed earth, and a lost paradise, and a dying world, to live in heaven with God, with whom he had walked three hundred years. His heart had dwelt in God’s home and presence, and he is missed on earth. “He was not, for God took him.” This is the blessed story of the second life of Genesis.
Abel teaches us how a sinner can meet God and be counted righteous with Him. Enoch teaches us that the end of knowing God and walking with Him is to live with Him forever. God’s love shines out brightly in these facts. By grace He justifies the believing sinner, and by the same grace, He gathers His redeemed into His eternal home. What a hope is the believer’s, to live with God in His own presence above, where sin and death are unknown.
God thought, too, of all His own left behind in a world ripening for judgment, when He took Enoch to Himself. He was about to pour the flood of waters on the world of the ungodly, and His people knew this both from Enoch’s prophecy of the judgment of the world, Jude 1414And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, (Jude 14), and by Noah’s preachings, but no drop of wrath fell upon them. God housed all His elect, and bade Noah prepare an ark to the saving of himself and his family before the flood came. If you look carefully at the ages of these patriarchs, and the date of the flood, you will see that God called them all home to Himself after Enoch’s translation, before the flood came. Methuselah, who lived the longest of all, and whose father went to heaven without dying, entered the company of the spirits of the just made perfect the year of the flood.
And now, dear children, there is a countless multitude of ransomed spirits waiting, in paradise, the blissful moment when God will bring them, with Jesus, and then all who are waiting for that blessed hope on this earth, shall be caught up with them to meet the Lord in the air; and this will be before the day of wrath breaks upon this sinful world.
If the Saviour should come as you read these lines, dear young reader, would you perish like Cain and his race, or would you be caught up as Enoch was, to be with Christ for evermore?
Your affectionate friend,
UNCLE R.