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