Two Brothers, Two Sacrifices, and The Strategic Lie
Two Brothers, Two Sacrifices, and The Strategic Lie
Part 3 of 5 - The Gospel of Adam, Abel, Abraham and Jesus - Wounds of Love in Eden and Calvary
IV. Two Brothers, Two Sacrifices
Though God had no need to receive sacrifices, His people desired to please Him and to show their love for Him, so they started bringing Him free-will offerings.
Adam’s younger son Abel, a shepherd, gave God his very best. With a heart of sincere worship, he offered God the choicest lamb from his flock. God was pleased with Abel’s genuine love and devotion, and thus He accepted Abel’s sacrifice.
Adam’s older son Cain, a farmer, went along with the idea, but only halfheartedly. Instead of giving his very best, he carelessly gathered a few second-rate fruits and grains. He went through the motions, but his heart wasn’t in it. God would have accepted his gifts, if he had made his offering with reverence, from a warm and loving heart. But since Cain was so careless, showing such little regard for his offering, God refused to accept it, in order to teach him how to make an offering properly.1
But Cain was unwilling to receive correction. He had no desire for repentance. He was angry that his offering had been rejected, and that his brother’s offering had been accepted. He seethed with envy and fury, finally murdering his own brother.2
The same ground that had received the blood of the spotless lamb that Abel had offered to God, now received the innocent blood of Abel himself. Thus the first man to taste of death was a righteous man who suffered unjustly. This death blow came not from the hand of God, but from a follower of the serpent. Death, having claimed its first victim unlawfully, set its own defeat in motion.3 Beginning with Abel, the righteous blood shed by the serpent would call to God from the ground, crying out for justice. Generations hence, Death would claim the most righteous One of all, on the cross, and would finally be conquered by Him.
Over the many centuries that followed, God's people continued to bring Him free will offerings. They brought Him the best animals from their flocks, and the best produce from their fields. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job provided several early examples of this.
In many cases, they erected memorial stones and built stone altars, not for the sake of animal sacrifices, but for the sake of worship, commemoration, and prayer.4 They would dedicate these altars to God, not with blood, but often with a sacrifice of oil.5
They also offered bread and wine during the time of the Patriarchs. After Abraham’s victory over the four kings in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, Melchizedek priest of Salem brings out an offering of bread and wine.6 Later, in the New Testament, Jesus would offer bread and wine at the Last Supper7, revealing Himself as a priest after the order of Melchizedek.8
V. The Strategic Lie
The lying serpent, at bitter war with mankind, had identified a working strategy:
Lie about the kindness of God, and God’s good character.
Convince men that God is cruel, greedy, and hesitant to share good gifts.
The serpent wanted more men to become like Cain, and to avoid the righteousness of Abel at all costs. He would thus extend his strategy, driving a wedge between God and men, persuading them of greater lies:
God is stingy with His gifts.
Death is punishment from an angry God.
Sacrifices are not free-will offerings we give from a heart of love. Rather, they are demanded by God, to appease His wrath and pay for His good favor.
Sacrifices are not our grateful response to God’s good gifts. Instead, those good gifts are God’s grudging response to our good sacrifices.
Only by offering worthy sacrifices can we coerce God to act favorably on our behalf.
As a God who punishes us with death, He places greater value on sacrifices that involve death and bloodshed. Thus an animal sacrifice is greater than a grain sacrifice, and a human sacrifice is greater than an animal sacrifice.
The greater the gifts we want from God, the greater the sacrifices we must make to Him.
Demoralized by these lies, most men would cease making sacrifices out of love, approaching God and thanking Him for His gifts. Instead, they would make sacrifices out of fear, fleeing the wrath and displeasure of an angry deity. Out of greed, rather than gratitude, hoping to earn favor from on high, sacrifices would be offered to God as a cosmic bribe—as a mere transaction.
As mankind spread across the face of the earth, the darkness spread, deception grew, and men forgot their Creator. The fallen angels, servants of the serpent, appeared in the form of men with heads of animals, seeking to be worshiped as gods—Baal, Molech, Ashtoreth, Osiris, Enki, Khnum, and many others.9 Capricious and cruel towards the human race, these false gods took pleasure in man’s humiliation and death. They threatened man with plagues and destruction, and demanded endless blood sacrifices. The blood of animals was grudgingly accepted, but what they most desired was the sacrifice of men. The murder of the innocent was best of all. It greatly pleased them to see wretched men plunge knives into the hearts of their virgin daughters and newborn infants, hoping to receive favor from the gods. It pleased the demons even more to betray these men, providing them with nothing in return.10
This is the world into which Abraham was born, of a nation steeped in pagan worship and human sacrifice, surrounded by nations which were equally deceived.
1 St. Ephrem the Syrian (+373): "Abel was very discerning in his choice of offerings, whereas Cain showed no such discernment. Abel selected and offered the choicest of his firstborn and of his fat ones, while Cain either offered young grains or certain fruits that are found at the same time as the young grains. Even if his offering had been smaller than that of his brother, it would have been as acceptable as the offering of his brother, had he not brought it with such carelessness. They made their offerings alternately; one offered a lamb of his flock, the other the fruits of the earth. But because Cain had taken such little regard for the first offering that he offered, God refused to accept it in order to teach Cain how he was to make an offering." (Commentary on Genesis 3.2.1.)—Andrew Louth and Marco Conti, Genesis 1–11, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture OT 1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 104.
3 Saint Photius the Great (+896): "the first was the righteous Abel, innocent of anything (at least from his own deeds), who was betrayed and subject to death, making its laid foundation rotten... for the murder of sinless people... completely overthrows and takes away the justification for death." (Selected treatises from the Amphilochies)—https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Fotij_Konstantinopolskij/izbrannye-traktaty-iz-amfilohij/#0_11 (Russian)
4 e.g. Gen. 12:7, Gen. 13:18, Gen. 26:25, Gen. 33:20
8 e.g. Ps. 110:4, Heb. 5:5-6, Heb. 6:20, Heb. 7:17
9 "Since many holy angels have appeared as sentient creatures with animal heads and human voices, it is reasonable to believe that fallen angels have done likewise. If so, this may help explain why so many false religions have involved the worship of gods that appear as animals. If some of the holy angels have the face of a cow, and the voice of a man, then perhaps some of the demons do as well. Thus there was Moloch worship and other forms of sacred cow worship in ancient times, and the Hindu worship of Kamadhenu today... According to Holy Scripture, it is apparent that many holy angels have an animal-like appearance, so it is not surprising to consider that fallen angels may have retained such forms."—Winged Lions & Talking Eagles in Scripture & Liturgy, https://russian-faith.com/explaining-orthodoxy/winged-lions-talking-eagles-holy-scripture-and-divine-liturgy-n5618
10 C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, chapter 9—"To get the man's soul and give him nothing in return - that is what really gladdens [the devil's] heart."