Cm – The Faith of Abel 11: 4

The Faith of Abel
11: 4

The faith of Abel DIG: Why did God regard Abel’s sacrifice as being better than Cain’s (see the commentary on Genesis, to see link click Bj – Your Brother’s Blood Cries Out to Me from the Ground)? Why is it significant that God made cloaks of animal skins for Adam and Eve? How did Abel’s sacrifice point to Christ’s ultimate sacrifice in a way that Cain’s did not? In what way was Cain the father of all false religion? What is the basis of our faith? What did God do for Abel, after accepting his sacrifice? What was Cain’s reaction when his sacrifice failed to receive God’s approval?

REFLECT: Cain’s problems began when he offered God unacceptable worship. When you go the your messianic synagogue or church, is the worship you offer to God acceptable? Ask yourself: Am I sincere? Is my attention focused on ADONAI? Am I coming to worship YHVH, knowing His acceptance of me is based solely on what Messiah has done for me at the cross? Am I coming with a pure heart, having dealt with any sin in my life? Am I coming to be a spectator or a participant?²⁹⁵

James Moffatt wrote, “Death is never the final word in the life of a righteous man. When a man leaves this world, be he righteous or unrighteous, he leaves something in the world. He may leave something that will grow and spread like a cancer or a poison, or he may leave something like the fragrance of perfume or a blossom of beauty that permeates the atmosphere with blessing.” Man leaves this world either a Rabbi Sha’ul or a Nero.

It is significant that the writer chooses Abel as the first example of what faith can do for the one who exercises it. But those who are righteous will live their lives by faith (Hebrews 10:38 CJB quoting Habakkuk 2:4 CJB). In the case of Abel, it was his personal salvation that is in view, as was also the case with the unbelieving Jews in the midst of the Messianic congregation to which the letter to the Hebrews was written (see Ag – The Audience of the book of Hebrews). If Abel’s salvation was by means of faith, it had to be shown to those unbelieving Jews that from the very beginning, faith was the only way they could be counted as righteous. Not through the Temple sacrifices.²⁹⁶

Dead men do tell tales. They are not silent, but still speak to those who will listen. From many thousand years ago, Abel speaks to us in the twenty-first century. He lived when the earth was new and he has something to teach modern, sophisticated, technological mankind. He lived in a far distant age, in a far different culture, with far less light from YHVH than we have. But what he has to tell us is more relevant than anything we are likely to read today.²⁹⁷

Adam and Even could not have been people of faith in the same way as their descendants. They had seen Ha’Shem face-to-face, fellowshipped with Him, talked with Him, and had lived in the garden of Paradise. Until they sinned, they had no need of faith because they lived in God’s very presence. Even after they sinned, they had the memory and knowledge of this unique and beautiful relationship they had with their Creator. Their children were the first to have need of faith in its fullest sense. Abel was the first man of faith, and it is important to understand what his faith had to do with his personal salvation. Abel’s faith led to three successive things: true sacrifice, true righteousness, and true witness.

Abel made a true sacrifice: By faith Abel brought God a better sacrifice than Cain did (11:4a). This verse takes us back to Genesis, where we read about Abel’s sacrifice. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to ADONAI. And Abel also brought an offering – fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favor (Genesis 4:3-5a). Cain and Abel must have been taught well by their parents Adam and Even because they knew specifically of a time to worship, a place to worship, and most importantly, a way to worship.

A place to worship: Because they brought offerings, some sort of altar must have been used on which to make the sacrifice. There is no mention of their building an altar at this time, and it may be that an altar already existed near the east side of the garden of Eden, where ADONAI had placed the cherubim with the flaming sword to prevent people from entering. It seems perfectly reasonable with God’s grace that, from the beginning, He would have provided for some means of worship. Perhaps the altar here was a forerunner of the mercy seat, a place where mankind could come for forgiveness and atonement. Very early in mankind’s history, God promised a future Deliverer, and very early He provide a temporary means of worship and sacrifice.

A time to worship: There seems also to have been a time for worship. In the course of time, means literally, at the end of days, that is, at the end of a certain period of time. It may be, therefore, that ADONAI had designated a special time for sacrificing. God is a God of honor, and we know that in later centuries He did specify definite times and ways of worshiping (see the commentary on Exodus Fb – The Five Offerings of the Tabernacle: Christ, Our Sacrificial Offering). The fact that Cain and Abel came to sacrifice at the same time also suggests that Ha’Shem had specified a particular time.

A way to worship: Cain and Abel would know nothing about the need, place or time for a sacrifice, much less the way, had they not been told by God through their parents. It is especially significant that the first recorded act of worship was sacrifice, a sin offering, and the supreme act of worship in all of God’s covenants with His people. Abraham sacrificed to YHVH, and Moshe revealed the Levitical sacrifices in the Torah. The heart of the B’rit Chadashah is Yeshua’s perfect, once-for-all sacrifice on the cross. Ha’Shem accepted only the one kind of sacrifice, a blood sacrifice, and established it as a pattern for worship.

The life of faith begins with a sacrifice for sin (see the commentary on Exodus Fc – The Sin Offering). It begins with believing YHVH that we are sinners and that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23a), that we need forgiveness, and that the only acceptable sacrifice was one whose blood was shed. It was in such faith that Abel offered his sacrifice to God. And it was because of such faith that ADONAI accepted his sacrifice.

Abel brought God a better sacrifice than Cain did because it was a blood sacrifice. He obeyed Ha’Shem, as if saying: Not what I will, but what You will (Matthew 26:39c; Mark 14:36b; Luke 22:42b). Cain believed in God or he wouldn’t have brought Him a sacrifice. But Cain is an example of one who thinks he can choose his own way to God. Abel gave what God wanted, while Cain gave what he wanted. Able was obedient, but Cain was disobedient. Able acknowledged his sin. Cain did not. He didn’t mind worshiping ADONAI as long as it was on his own terms.

Cain’s disobedience and setting up his own standards of living were the beginning of the Adversary’s world system (see the commentary on Genesis Dl – The Tower of Babel), and culminating in MYSTERY BABYLON (see the commentary on Revelation Dd – I Saw a Woman Holding a Golden Cup, Filled with the Filth of Her Adulteries). Cain went out from the presence of ADONAI (Genesis 4:16), into a life of continuous self-will, which is the heart of worldliness and unbelief. By his own decision he turned away from God’s way to his own way. The vast majority of the world does the same thing today. Jude says: Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain (see the commentary on Jude Aq – They Have Taken the Way of Cain, Rushed into Balaam’s Error). Cain is an example of the religious natural man who believes in God and in religion; but only religion that follows his own will and he also rejects redemption by blood. Rabbi Sha’ul says of such people that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they do not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit themselves to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:2-3).

Ha’Shem is not unreasonable, or fanciful, or unpredictable. He was not playing a game with Cain and Abel. He did not hold them accountable for what they could not have known or could not have done. Abel’s sacrifice was accepted because he knew what God wanted and he obeyed. Cain’s was rejected because he knew what God wanted, yet he disobeyed. To obey is righteous; to disobey is evil. Abel was of ADONAI; Cain was of the Adversary (First John 3:12). Abel brought God a better sacrifice because it represented the obedience of faith. Therefore, Abel’s sacrifice foreshadowed the way of the cross.²⁹⁸

Abel obtained true righteousness: Abel’s offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed His approval of his blood sacrifice (11:4b NLT). The blood of Abel’s offering spoke symbolically of the Sacrifice for sin that Yeshua made on the cross. But it was not the blood sacrifice that made Abel righteous. What made Abel righteous was his faith, and the evidence of his faith was that he of offered the type of sacrifice that YHVH required – Blood.²⁹⁹

Abel was just as sinful as Cain was. But it is quite possible that Abel was a better person than Cain. He was probably more moral, more dependable, more honest, and even more likeable than Cain. But those qualities didn’t make Abel’s sacrifice acceptable, or lack of those qualities that made Cain’s offering unacceptable. The difference was how they approached God; one in obedient faith; the other in disobedient unbelief.

It is also likely that ADONAI showed His approval of Abel’s sacrifice by causing it to be consumed. On at least five other occasions recorded in the Bible, Ha’Shem showed His approval of a sacrifice by sending fire to consume it.

First, when Aaron and his sons began their priestly ministry, the LORD appeared, the Sh’khinah glory appeared to all the people. After Moshe and Aaron came out of the Tabernacle, fire came out from the presence of ADONAI and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the bronze altar (Leviticus 9:24).

Second, when Gideon requested a sign to confirm God’s promise to save Isra’el from the Midianites, the Angel of the LORD, the preincarnate Messiah, touched the meat and unleavened bread that Gideon had placed upon on a rock, and fire consumed the meat and bread, thus providing the sign Gideon had requested (Judges 6:21).

Third, when Elijah entered a contest of calling down fire on an offering with the prophets of Ba’al to end a three-and-a-half year drought, Ba’al did not answer. But when Elijah prayed that ADONAI would answer him to prove that He is God, the fire of Ha’Shem fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil (First Kings 18:38).

Fourth, when David sinned and took a census against the wishes of ADONAI, the judgment of the Angel of the LORD stopped at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. There, David built an altar to ADONAI there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on Mount Moriah. (It was the place where the Temple would be built.) David called on the LORD, and God answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of the burnt offerings and it was consumed (First Chronicles 21:26).

And fifth, before King David died he had made all the preparations for his son Solomon to build God’s Temple. When all the work Solomon had done was finished, he dedicated the Temple. And when he finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the Sh’khinah glory of ADONAI filled the Tempe (Second Chronicles 7:1).

Abel is a true witness: And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead (11:4c). When ADONAI confronted Cain after Abel’s murder, God said: What have you done? Your Brother’s Blood Cries Out to Me from the ground (Genesis 4:10). So the first time Abel spoke after his death was to ask Ha’Shem that his murder be avenged. Like the souls under the altar who had been slain because of the Word of God, Abel cried out: How long, ADONAI, holy and true, until You avenge my blood (Revelation 6:9-10)?

God also spoke to Cain, “Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:11-12). Every time Cain’s feet touched the ground, he would be reminded of his evil deed. The earth, in effect, rejected Cain as he had rejected YHVH and his brother. Although dead, Abel continued to speak to his brother.

The primary meaning of Hebrews 11:4, however, has to do with Abel’s speaking to later generations of believers and potential believers. He still speaks and has three things to say to us. First, we come to God by faith, not by works. You don’t get to heaven by what you do; you get to heaven by what you believe. Second, We must accept and obey God’s Word above our own reason and self-will. And third, wickedness is punished severely. This is Abel’s timeless three-point sermon to the world, which he has been preaching for thousands of years to those who will hear: The righteous will live by faith.³⁰⁰