Cain; The Sacrifice; Abel; Seth; Enoch
As Cain represents the course of the “man of the earth” in sin, so Abel represents the course of the righteous, and especially of the Righteous One—Christ. Now both Abel and the sacrifice typify Christ in suffering—not in glory as Adam did—but in the sacrifice He is suffering at the hands of God (i.e., by His ordinance) for sins, whereas in Abel we see Him suffering at the hands of man for righteousness. In Abel's sacrificial action we see Christ “offering Himself” Three aspects are true: He suffered by the “determinate counsel” of God “for sins” of others; He was by “the foreknowledge of God...by wicked hands taken and slain” for His own righteousness and He laid down His life voluntarily offering Himself without spot to God.
There are other aspects of the sufferings and death of our Lord, but these seem the principal ways in which they are presented. It is exceedingly objectionable to make such a theme a subject of cold critical analysis, still we cannot err in following with reverence what is revealed. It has been pointed out how distinct are these presentations, and how invariably that, when the suffering from the hand of God is presented (as in Psa. 22 and 102) it is for sin, and the result at the end of these Psalms and in the following ones is blessing to mankind; but when suffering from man is spoken of (as in Psa. 69) it is for righteousness and the result is judgment. It is in the former aspect the sacrifice is seen; in the latter aspect Abel. The characteristic of this type, then, is a Righteous life opposed in the world, hated and temporarily defeated, apparently crushed, but accepted by God, and in its results ultimately triumphant. Such a life breathes an atmosphere composed of two elements, Faith and Obedience—kindred elements of such mutual regard that one cannot live without the other. Judged outwardly this life seems to be lamentably wasted and resultless: the very name signifies something vain and transient—a breath; but it is a breath of divine inspiration, the effects of which travel over the dismal centuries. Abel “being dead yet speak eth,” and one most definite speech is that there must be a future life in which wrongs are redressed and the perversions of human judgment reversed if there be such a thing as justice in the universe.
We are thus warned from the first against the crude and vulgar error of supposing that virtue is always rewarded and vice always punished in this life: a most mischievous delusion, which the multitude of novelists and dramatists work perpetually to uphold, notwithstanding that the daily experience of every one is otherwise. If we judge the virtue of lives by their outward success and results, then we have to account for the suffering and death of Abel the proto-martyr, and the outward failure and disaster of thousands of lives, like his honorable, and like his apparently condemned and fruitless. The type of all such is Christ: there has been no such (outward) failure as that of the life and death of our Lord in human history. He said “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught;” and, after a dependent, laborious and devoted life, the outward result is a handful of ignorant fishermen as followers, who desert Him at the approach of danger, deny and betray Him; a crown of thorns, a scepter of reed, a cross of wood, and & borrowed grave. If God be just, such a life cannot be allowed to terminate there: time is thus shown to be but a part of eternity; and what is not set right in the present existence will be set right in the future.
Moreover Christ's death in this aspect is full of comfort for many a discouraged and broken life, apparently barren of results. It could not be more so than His; and yet, in outward defeat and disaster, He won far greater victories than when in the olden time, or in a day to come, He hurls the assaulting hosts from the battlements of heaven. The apostle is told that there is indeed One who has by the prowess of His victories acquired a right to unfold God's purposes; and this One is the Lion of Judah. But when John turns to see the Lion, he sees, instead, “a lamb as it had been slain.” It was in this way and character that Christ gained His mightiest triumphs—in misconstruction, hatred, suffering, disastrous defeat and death. And we too—Constantine's motto being better than Constantine—In hoc signo vinces
Seth, appointed or substituted in place of the dead Abel, may represent Christ in resurrection. Then men begin to call upon the name of the Lord. There are two races thenceforward, the natural human line by Cain, citizens and embellishers of the world, and the death-and-resurrection line by Seth, who call upon the Lord. The line of Cain progresses on through a list of names suggesting a development of evil ending in Lamech— “humbled” —a bigamist and murderer, the “seventh from Adam” in natural life. Meanwhile the resurrection line proceeds through a list of names disclosing suffering and victory on to Enoch—a fit expression of the church's last privilege being translated without death before the judgment comes—and Noah—a future dispensation of salvation, but through the midst of the judgment which destroys all Cain's posterity. It is a peculiar fact long ago pointed out by a Hebrew student; that the meanings of the first ten names along Seth's line run respectively thus: 1, Man (that is, as God made him), —2, Substituted—3, Fallen man, subject to all evil—4, One who laments—5, The Illumination of God—6, Shall descend—7, Teaching (or dedicating, i.e., Enoch)—8, His death shall send—9, The humbled—10, Consolation. I am not aware of any evidence of this remarkable sentence being designed; but, remembering how the names were invariably given with appropriate meanings then, it can hardly be doubted that it discloses a notable similarity in the development and progress of the principles that we find in redemption in a far larger scope. I have noticed something of the same kind of development to occur in the sequence of names through the line of Cain; but it is only development of evil: the end of Cain's line is Lamech—made low or humbled; but the end of Seth's line is Lamech—Noah, i.e. [to the] humbled, consolation. What a difference is made in the terminations of the two lines by this one name Noah—and by means of this one man!
Enoch resembles the highest view of the church dispensation—the beau or divin ideal. He is called the seventh from Adam, the ultimate development of the resurrection line: he is without human history or political importance— “unknown and yet well known.” Being “dedicated” to heaven, his home is there, and thither he is translated without seeing death, before the judgment comes on the earth; he leaves behind him a simple record that, walking by faith, he pleased God and he testified of the advent of Christ. I need hardly say that this is not at all true of the historical or professing church.
J. C. B.