Common Grace to Cain

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 14, 1993.

Sermon transcript

We read tonight from Genesis 4, verse 8. Listen to the word of God. And Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What have you done?

The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” And Cain said to the Lord, “‘My punishment is too great to dare. Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from thy face I shall be hidden.

And I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and it shall come about that whoever finds me will kill me.’ So the Lord said to him, Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. He built a city and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. Now to Enoch was born Ired, and Ired became the father of Mehugiel, and Mehugiel became the father of Methuselah, and Methuselah became the father of Lamech. And Lamech took to himself two wives. The name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Zillah. And Ada gave birth to Jabal.

He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of those who play the lyre and pipe. As for Zilla, she also gave birth to Tubal-Cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron, and the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naama. And Lamech said to his wives, “‘Ada and Zilla, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech. Give heed to my speech. for I have killed a man for wielding me, and a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged seventy-sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

Our God, it may appear to us that your word would slip away from your church in our time. Only because of your grace, your word continues to abide with us. Lord, may we respect your word. May we honor you in the respect that we show to that word. Your word is infallible. It is inerrant.

Lord, we ask that we might not give ground with respect to these points that we have embraced these points that then describe our convictions concerning your word. For our Father, we are asking that our respect for your word would not merely be by our words, as if unaccompanied by a life in keeping with the words we speak. Therefore, Father, we are asking that we might be obedient from the heart, truly what we find. We ask, Lord, that we would see that we would find Christ in your Word, that our obedience might be the very obedience of Christ coming to expression in us. We pray this in his name. Amen.

I like old movies. I don’t much like new movies. One of my favorite old movies is Charles Lawton’s version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Black and white vintage. There is a scene in that film that is quite memorable. Quasimodo swings from the cathedral to the pillory on a rope suspended from construction scaffolding. He does this in order to rescue the wrongfully accused gypsy girl, Ismerelda. He returns with her in his arms by way of that rope, shouting as he goes, The Quasimodo is appealing to the medieval custom that offered temporary immunity to those who fled to the Church for protection from civil authority.

The Church was the symbol of refuge and safety. Now, this medieval practice caught in this film was built on ancient custom. In fact, many early civilizations practiced variations on the theme of the rite of sanctuary. Temples and religious shrines were places of asylum for many cultures, according to many religions. This custom was even known within Israel, and we have it reflected upon on occasion in Scripture.

Do you remember Adonijah? Adonijah was David’s son and Solomon’s rival to David’s throne. that upon learning that David had declared Solomon king and that his own ambitions had been thwarted, Adonijah fled to the tabernacle and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar on the assumption that Solomon would not pursue him there and that he would not execute him there. Now, things turned out fine for Adonijah. Extracted from him was an oath that he would at least acknowledge his place in light of Solomon’s ascendancy.

Things, however, did not turn out as well for Joab a mere chapter later in 1 Kings. This all taking place at the opening of the book of 1 Kings. Although he had resorted to the altar, although he had followed Adonijah’s example, was struck down there, executed nonetheless.

There is, then, that refuge, that safety, which the Church even symbolizes for her people church in this world symbolizes for her people. But even beyond the church and the benefits attended to it in this creation, there is that true and heavenly sanctuary above, which remains the place of pure refuge and absolute safety for all those chosen of God’s grace. In fact, the very powers of death, the gates of hell, to use Jesus’ language, will not destroy the Church and certainly will not destroy that true and heavenly sanctuary. granted to God’s elect. Prior to the uncovering of Abel’s murder, Cain knew the protective care of God’s sanctuary. He knew the refuge character of the Church, even though Man had fallen by way of his parents’ sin. The church had survived, and Cain was a member of it.

Genesis 4, in the opening sections of this chapter, is a look at the church in its primitive form. We see in these opening verses to Genesis 4 something of the early Church’s worship, ministry, and discipline. We note that the Church at this time is synonymous with humanity. All of Adam’s family, and therefore all of humanity, that’s all that there was then, All of Adam’s family was in the church, and this church, the fall of man notwithstanding, enjoyed the special fellowship with God, and was blessed by his protective care.

So, we see then, even Cain knew the protective care of the Lord, and the Lord’s sanctuary. He knew the protective care of the church. He knew that despite the fact that he would prove to be the serpent’s seed, not the woman’s seed. As time played itself out with respect to his life, His condition of heart is exposed by his offering, that is, by his worship, by his fallen countenance, that is, by his disposition, by his premeditation, by the murder, that is, his action, And by his brutalization of God, through his wicked sarcasm, which he throws in God’s face, am I my brother’s keeper? Am I the shepherd’s shepherd?

Cain, then, is one who presumes upon that condition which prevails because of God’s protective care. Cain is presumptuous, possibly concluding that since his parents’ sin did not eradicate that care, neither would his sin, regardless of how heinous. In fact, we perceive that Cain, in his sin, has acted in the interests of the dominion which he claims over both the church and the earth.

As if God would then be powerless against the permanent conditions that seem to presently exist. No action by Cain, not even murder, could or would alter this arrangement. In fact, his actions, that is Keynes, would ensure that arrangement. Is Abel then rival to Keynes’ claim? than remove Abel. But removing Abel, in Cain’s mind, does not jeopardize Cain. He is convinced that nothing will be altered by his action, and that what he has, he will continue to have. even if it is on the basis of the presumption that God’s protective care would continue.

But now God comes. Now God comes. And when God comes, He comes in a way that reveals the apocalypse itself. His coming has apocalyptic proportion. It brings near the concluding, final judgment of the law. And Cain is face to face with the true nature of things and the transformation that God’s drawing nigh must mean. The reversal of such expectations as Cain had, the undoing of those presumptive thoughts and convictions which When Jesus, later in the history of redemption, comes upon this world, he is God in the flesh, and he comes in apocalyptic dress and significance. When he appears, the kings of his day, believing the church and the world virtually theirs, conspire to execute him.

They are convinced that nothing can alter their position in the scheme of things. In fact, their action will ensure their position in the scheme of things. In one parable, Jesus presents their thinking this way. They say, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize the inheritance.” At root, Cain is killing the heir in his execution of Abel, in the hopes, in the conviction that he is securing for himself the inheritance.

But God’s visitation sets the record straight. After all, Abel is not without an advocate. Even though he is dead, he is not without an advocate. Nor is he without an inheritance. Even the inheritance upon which he has set his heart. That inheritance. turns out to be the advocate himself, none other than God and the kingdom of his splendor.

The irony of Cain’s crime is that it deprives Abel of nothing that Abel prizes. For Abel’s inheritance is God. It is the kingdom of God. And Abel is not denied either. Even this world, which seems to be lost to Abel, is bequeathed to him in that all that is God’s is Abel’s.

This then reflected upon later in the Psalms and by Jesus when he speaks in his Beatitudes remarking on the fact that the meek shall indeed inherit the earth. McCain, he loses what he imagined was his. In the picture of eternal judgment now, he is identified by God as the enemy within the inheritance he hoped to secure. He is a stranger, he is a wanderer, he is excommunicated from the church, he is hid from the face of God, cut off from God’s presence, and denied the earth itself in the end. What Cain perceived in this forecast of his eventual eternal doom is his absolute powerlessness and the disappearance of all protection, even that protection upon which he presumed.

There is then no sanctuary left to Cain. That is the horror of hell. That is the horror of hell. There is no protection. There is no sanctuary left to gain, then, in the ultimate playing out of the affairs that are set before us here in Genesis 4. He has no covering left for himself even within the church, for he has been cast out of the church. But in this circumstance, we must recognize that though the end of the world is forecast, and hell even in all of its horror, is asserting itself in this text. We are not yet at the end of the world, and therefore an even deeper irony intrudes within the text and within the case of King.

Marked out for destruction The Lord mercifully provides protection for this one, even outside the church. The wicked are granted a grace, even in the drawing of their breath. The wicked are granted a grace by the Lord, a kindness shown to them, a protection is granted them even though they are outside the sanctuary of the Lord. This protective care is what we call God’s common grace. distinguished from his special grace by which he saves his elect. In this common grace, God exhibits a mercy upon an unbelieving world, and inculcates through this common grace a sense of order and restraint within this present world order. This grace, this mercy, should itself be convicting.

Understanding it, one would think it would drive sinful men to their knees in repentance. But it just seems to harden the wicked, as is evident from what we read further in Genesis 4. On the one hand, the city that is built by Cain’s descendants and the line of Cain are testimonies of God’s mercy within an unbelieving world at the same time They are testimony to the fact that these men, wicked as they are, are driven to greater lengths to create for themselves their own sanctuary, their own city and temple, in which they will establish for themselves protection against any intrusion and any threat, deceiving themselves all the more. thinking they are safe, when they are not. These then confirm their sin, and confirm the fact that they are marked out for God’s judgment.

Oh, that we would rejoice in the special mercies shown to us. Yes, there are those blessings of God’s common grace in the world which are a help to us, but how wonderful The reality of that protective care that is found nowhere else but in God’s sanctuary. We are brought into that sanctuary by God’s mercy and there we are secure. In this world, for the next. Our Father, may we be appreciative of the full range of your mercy, the kindness which you have directed towards an unbelieving world. May that be instructed to us. May we rejoice in those evidences of your common grace, but also, Father, may we see that we, like our God, might in fact be merciful ourselves when it comes to the unbelieving world.

We also ask, Lord, that you will heighten our appreciation for the protective care that is given us within your household, within the sanctuary that you have established. A sanctuary in which you are in communion with us, with the assurance that there is nothing that can destroy the fellowship that exists between us and you. All of this, then, see you to us through Christ and by your Spirit, in whom we rejoice.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.