IDEA: There are many things about the story of Cain and Abel that we can't explain, but the difference between the two men is clear.
Text: "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks" (Hebrews 11:4).
PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate how much God values righteousness produced by faith.
Does the Bible ever seem puzzling to you? Why? How much of the interpretations that we make are based on informed or uninformed guesses?
I. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews selects Abel as the lead-off person in the honor roll of heroes.
Why do you think the writer didn't start with Adam or Eve? Do you think we will see them in heaven?
Perhaps it is because they lived by SIGHT and not by faith. They had a relationship to God that we do not have in the same way.
Perhaps they were more characterized by a great SIN than by great faith.
In the story of Abel, there are several questions raised by the text but not answered:
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the LORD." Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Any why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it." Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, 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?" He said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" And [God] said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground" (Genesis 4:1-10).
Why was Abel's sacrifice better than Cain's? Was it in quantity or quality?
How would they have known what to bring? What might they have learned from their mother and father about sacrifice?
How did God make known to Abel and Cain which sacrifice He would accept and which He would reject? Neither the writer of Genesis nor Hebrews tells us.
One of Rembrandt's paintings portrays the two brothers as they present their offerings to God. The smoke of Abel's sacrifice spirals up to heaven, but the smoke of Cain's sacrifice fails to ascend.
Other traditions say that fire came down from heaven and consumed Abel's sacrifice but not Cain's.
How did Cain lure Abel to his death?
What was the "mark" on Cain?
Do you think any of these questions occurred to the author of Genesis?
We are not to read between the lines; we are to read the lines. We have to leave the gaps without seeing what the author is getting at.
II. We do know that it was not the sacrifice but the spirit in which the sacrifice was offered that made the crucial difference.
The sacrifice of Abel was made "by faith." His faith is bound up in his sacrifice just as the faith of Jesus is intimately associated with His sacrificial death (Hebrews 12:1-3).
Genesis does not tell us that the sacrifice was made in faith. How did the writer of the Hebrews letter know that? What were the clues in the story?
Noah, not Abel, was the first person in the Bible to be called righteous (Gen 7:1). But Abel has gained the reputation for "righteousness" (Matthew 23:35; 1 John 3:12). Where did that reputation come from?