Truth about the Mark of Cain [Mark of Protection - Mark of Mercy]

"WHEN the sin which Cain refused to recognize had worked itself out so that even he must recognize it as the terrible thing that it was from the beginning, then not only he, but all others recognized it as the great sin that it was. 

Therefore, Cain not only recognized that…  

Genesis 4 [margin] 13 My iniquity is greater than that it may be forgiven, –but also that… 14 I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that every one that finds me shall slay me. 

But in all this Cain had mistaken the Lord, as in all the other he had mistaken himself. 

There is with the Lord forgiveness of iniquity,

 and transgression, 

and sin. 

The Lord had given the Firstling of his flock, the Lamb of God, a satisfaction and propitiation for the sin of the world and for the sins of men. 

There was for Cain forgiveness full and free at the first, when he refused to recognize that there was in him any sin at all. 

Genesis 4:7 ...sin lies at the door. In the Lord’s sight the sin was no

greater when it had worked itself out than when it lay at the door; no greater when it had made the spring and accomplished its awful stroke than when it lay at the door crouching ready to spring to its awful stroke.

Therefore Cain’s iniquity was not greater than that it might be forgiven; in reality no more so now than at the first. 

And this the Lord now makes manifest to him in such a marvelous manifestation of mercy that even not only Cain, but also all others could know it. 

To Cain’s complaint the Lord answered, Genesis 4:15 Therefore whosoever slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should slay him. 

And what a token of the blind perversity of the natural mind is given in the fact that in this marvelous extension of mercy to Cain there is seen by thousands even of professed Christians only an advertisement and condemnation of Cain and his guilt, and all emblazoned before the universe! 

These refer to “the mark of Cain” as if it were distinguishing bloodred mark of his guilt and condemnation branded upon him by God to enlist all men also in the condemnation; and according to this blind and perverse nation, they promptly enlist in the hue and cry of the condemnation of Cain and other sinners, and condemn themselves in their condemnation of him and others. 

In this blind perversity they overlook the divine and glorious truth that with God there is forgiveness, not condemnation, of sinners; that God gave not His son to condemn the world nor any man, but that the world and all men through him might be saved.

Cain was guilty, that is true, and by his transgression and his guilt he was condemned accordingly; this he showed by his fearful complaint. 

But God did not add to the condemnation; added condemnation never helps. that the guilty one might be encouraged to believe in and receive the merciful forgiveness. And the “mark” which “the Lord set” upon Cain was the full assurance to him and to all men that there was extended to him this merciful consideration and probation; for the word distinctly says that the Lord set this ...mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should slay him. It was thus the divine surety that no one should slay him. 

It was therefore a divine pledge of the divine protection; and in this it was the full assurance of the extension of merciful forgiveness, and of merciful consideration and probation in order that he might avail himself of the forgiveness and salvation of the Lord anybody." 

A.T. Jones

The Question: "Where’d Cain get his wife?”

"One of the most-asked questions about the Bible is “Where’d Cain get his wife?” Skeptics have found that many Christians are easily stumped by this query, but the answer isn’t as hard as you might think.

Many Christians have been taught that Cain went to Nod, found a wife, got married, and had a son. But if Adam and Eve were the only two people that God created, where did the people of Nod come from?

First, let’s read the actual words of Genesis 4:16–17 Then Cain

went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

The Bible does not say that Cain went to Nod and later found a wife there. Rather, the implication in Scripture is that he already had a wife when he went to Nod. The event that took place in Nod was that he “knew” his wife—had sexual relations with her—and she conceived and gave birth to a son.

Genesis 5:4 makes it clear that they had multiple sons and daughters: The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters.
So, since we are “one blood” descended from Adam and Eve, the only person Cain could have married would have been a sister or a niece.

The immediate reaction to Cain marrying his sister or niece is often shock or disgust. Today, marrying close relations is called incest. However, approximately 6,000 years ago, God did not forbid marriage between close relatives. 

Q: Why?
A: Adam and Eve were created perfect. It wasn’t until after the fall that suffering and death affected mankind and every other living thing. One aspect of this suffering would have been mutations in the DNA that result in disease. Since Adam and Eve were created genetically perfect, their children would have had few mutations. Mutations in subsequent generations would have continued to increase and accumulate. Eventually, it became too dangerous to marry a close relation because of the increased likelihood of inherited disease.

During the time of Moses, approximately 2,500 years after creation, God forbade marriage between close relatives (Leviticus 18:6–18). It seems that one reason was health." 

AIG

Cain: "Patron Saint "of Ecumenism

"Genesis 4:2b–5a:
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

Later, in Genesis 5:4, we see that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters. Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, right after introducing Cain and Abel, noted that Adam and Eve “had also daughters”.

A footnote to the Whiston translation of Josephus states, “The number of Adam’s children, as says the old tradition, was 33 sons and 23 daughters.”

But for now, the narrative focuses on the first two children ever born. This passage is also the first of a number of Biblical occurrences where God overturns the normal primogeniture, or importance of the firstborn son (Hebrew bəkôr בכור). Here, Abel’s occupation is listed first in the narrative, a hint that God will reverse the usual order.

Cain becomes “a worker of the ground.” There is nothing wrong

with this; he was following in his father’s footsteps. But “Abel was a keeper of sheep”

So the narrative turns to the sacrifices. The phrase “In the course of time” in Hebrew is miqqets yāmîm (מקץ ימים), literally meaning ‘in the end of days.’ Fruchtenbaum says that it means, ‘at a specific appointed time.’ He explains:

So already, this early in human history, there was a fixed time in which the offerings were to be offered. It was clearly a regularly prescribed time. This being so, it means that this was not the first time sacrifices were offered or even the first time that Cain offered a sacrifice. Previously, since Abel was the shepherd and Cain was the farmer, in order to have a blood-sacrifice, Cain would have had to purchase a sheep or goat from his brother. However, this time, he chose not to do it that way, but Cain brought the fruit of the ground, an offering.

Actually, this practice could have been occurring for over a century, as can be inferred from later passages. In 4:25–26, Eve bears Seth and explicitly regards him as a replacement for Abel, and 5:3 reveals that this occurred when Adam and Eve were 130. So Cain and Abel, maybe as elders of the first generation to be born, were both offering the correct animal sacrifices for some time.

But in this passage, 

we see that Cain was the patron saint of liberal religious ecumenism.

This is the belief that all ways lead to God; that man can choose his own path.

No wonder Jude 1:11 denounces practitioners of false religion as having “walked in the way of Cain.”

Hebrews 11 lists Abel as the first in the ‘Faith Hall of Fame’, and affirms that the right kind of sacrifice was the important manifestation of the right heart:
By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. (Hebrews 11:4).

But whichever way God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s, Cain certainly knew it! His resentment led to increasing anger and defiance, then to the world’s first homicide. The New Testament affirms that this premeditated murder was real history, and used it as a warning:
“We should not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds

were evil and his brother’s righteous.” (1 John 3:12)
Jesus Himself affirmed that this was the first martyrdom in history when He pronounced judgment on the unbelievers in His generation:
“And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar” (Matthew 23:35, cf. Luke 11:50–51)." 

CMI

Cain & Lucifer

"In sparing the life of the first murderer, God presented before the whole universe a lesson bearing upon the great controversy. The dark history of Cain and his descendants was an illustration of what would have been the result of permitting the sinner to live on forever, to carry out his rebellion against God. 

The forbearance of God only rendered the wicked more bold and defiant in their iniquity. Fifteen centuries after the sentence pronounced upon Cain, the universe witnessed the fruition of his influence and example, in the crime and pollution that flooded the earth. It was made manifest that the sentence of death pronounced upon the fallen race for the transgression of God's law was both just and merciful. The longer men lived in sin, the more abandoned they became."

E.G.W. 

 

After the Flood, God put in place the death penalty for murder, saying:

And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.” Gen. 9:4-6

The question that comes to my mind is: why didn’t God institute the death penalty immediately, executing it on Cain, the first murderer?  

 

The answer seems to be that God wants us—to see what happens when crime goes unpunished. God wants us to see what results when Satan’s kingdom goes unchecked.  There are those who argue that God should have put an end to sin immediately, as soon as sin was manifested in the life of Lucifer.  

 

But God has taken “the long view,” knowing that if He had snuffed out Lucifer immediately, sin would crop up again in the creatures He had created with free will.  This would likely happen over and over unless the fruits of Satan’s rebellion were allowed to ripen over centuries and  millennia.  So God allowed Cain’s life to continue so that all could see where unpunished crime leads."

David Read / F7

JUSTIFICATION + SANCTIFICATION = TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous...  

Hebrews 11:4

 

Q: How was the result of Abel being Righteous made known?

A: By evidence of his Sanctification via OBEDIENCE.

That Venomous Beast

"To Cain God said, "If thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door;
and unto thee is its desire, but thou shouldest rule over it." Gen. 4:7, R.V., margin. 

Sin is a venomous beast, lurking in secret, watching every opportunity to spring upon and overcome the unwary. 

Its desire is to us, but power has been given us to rule over it." E.J. Waggoner

Lesson of Cain's Lineage

"Cain was the first human born on this planet. 

He was also the first human to only know a fallen world. 

Eve seemed very hopeful when she named him, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Genesis 4:1). She may have been looking forward to the fulfillment of God’s promise that one of her offspring would defeat the serpent (Genesis 3:14–15).

Because he was the first child, and because he conversed directly with God, Cain had privileges that few other people in history have had. 

While Abel gained a lasting reputation in Scripture as a righteous man and the first martyr of history, Cain is the archetypal murderer. 

Yet there were bright spots even in Cain’s lineage. Music, metallurgy, and nomadic herding were innovations of Cain’s line, showing that a man’s descendants aren’t doomed to fruitlessness because of the sins of their forefather.

This can serve as a good lesson for us today. 

Our ancestors, all the way back to Adam, were sinful people. ...We ourselves are sinful people ....We all deserve death. But Jesus died in our stead. Since we have been freed from the curse of death, we are now free to live as redeemed, transformed people in Christ." CMI

Modern Application of Cain/Abel Episode

"....though Cain brought an offering that was valuable, God did not have respect to his offering. It was easy for Abel to bring a lamb for his offering because he was a shepherd. His business was keeping

sheep.
But Cain was a tiller of the soil and he brought produce from his business.

The problem here was that Abel’s offering showed that he believed not only that he was a sinner, but that he needed a sacrifice, a blood atonement, to pay the price of his sin. The animal sacrifices all were a figure or type of the coming Savior.

Cain determined to worship God in his own way, demonstrating his self-sufficiency.
Throughout history, and even today, there are many people just like Cain who look and depend on their own achievements for salvation. The Bible teaches that we are helpless to do anything to save ourselves. Jesus said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Our eternal salvation depends on a sacrifice.
--Before Christ died, the people looked forward to the Savior to come, Jesus, the true sacrifice.
--Today, we look back dependent on Jesus, the sacrifice that has been made."
StepsToLife

Lesson of Faith via Abel

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,...
Hebrews 11:4

"Faith is that which takes hold of present truth and acts upon it. There is much that people call faith that is not faith at all.

To believe what God has not said is not faith at all.

I may believe it but not by faith, because faith must have God's word to rest upon. Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Cain's was rejected because he did not offer that which expressed a faith in the Christ. Abel brought a lamb, the blood of which was offered in expression of his faith in the blood of Christ."
A.T.Jones