The Story of the Bible 5
Cain and Abel--Why is this story in the Bible? Democrats murder people all the time...
Genesis 4—Cain and Abel. The end of the promise?
Man ruined God’s perfect creation through his sin—separating himself from Jehovah on this earth (Isaiah 59:1-2). God immediately (Genesis 3:15) promised to send a Redeemer as a human (the seed of woman). The rest of the Old Testament, indeed, the rest of the Bible, is the fulfillment of this promise. Jesus was that promised “seed”.
The remainder of the Old Testament is the tracing of the coming of this Messiah. Who do we look for? What will He be like? Are there any clues as to when, where, how, etc. He will be born and what He will do when He arrives on earth? Well, we know He is going to come in human form, so he will be the offspring of our first parents, Adam and Eve. But Adam and Eve had “sons and daughters”—plural (Genesis 5:4). Which one will the promised Messiah descend from? Are we told? Yes, we are.
Well, just like he disrupted the perfect creation by persuading Adam and Even to sin, Satan will do everything he can to try to disrupt God’s scheme of redemption. He made this attempt many times in the Old Testament (this is, for example, the whole theme of the book of Esther, even though neither Satan nor God is mentioned anywhere in that book). From looking back at the “clues,” it appears that God intended the Messianic line to proceed through Abel. But Cain took care of Abel, killing him. The devil had immediately halted God’s plan of salvation, almost before it began! Or so he thought...
But God isn’t that limited. Genesis 4:25: “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, ‘For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.’” The Messianic line will descend through Seth. That is the next step in “The Story of the Bible.”