The Patriarchs. Bellett John Gifford
with too faithful an ear to mistake herself for her Seed. It was not over herself, but over him, that she now, in the language of another mother, was singing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour!" There was a mistake here, it is true. But there was witness how the object of faith filled her visions, and the expectations of faith stirred in her heart. And so soon as disastrous events manifest her mistake, and prove to her that this first-born of her womb was anything rather than the promised Seed-that instead of being the bruiser of the serpent's head, he turned out to be the murderer of his brother-still is she found on the rock where faith had fixed her soul. "Let God be true, but every man a liar," was her triumph. Over Seth she exclaims, "God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Though every cistern fail, she knows the fountain cannot. One son had been a murderer, and another his victim; but still God is true. "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations."
Precious faith, we may say, "like precious faith," with Adam, and with us, beloved. So Abel. Faith in him had respect to the same promise, the same gospel. The word had spoken of a bruised Deliverer; and accordingly it is a victim, a bruised or bloody sacrifice, he lays on God's altar. But not only so. He brings the fat of the victim likewise. He knows the delight which God Himself takes in the provisions of His own grace. He knows that He is pleased with the work of His own hand. He understands that God is a cheerful giver, that there is no grudging in the gift of grace. In spirit he hears the music which the Father's command has awakened in His own house over His returned prodigal. In the delight with which God Himself had clothed the naked sinner with coats which His own hand had willingly wrought (a happier task than even the six days of creation), the faith of Abel seems to glory. And as thus the richest joy that is felt in all the costly mystery of redemption is felt by God Himself, he lays the richest part of the victim, the fat of the animal, on the altar, making that the Lord's own portion in this feast of love and joy, in His own house, and at His own table.
This was another most excellent sample of a sinner's faith. Abel, in spirit, was in Luke xv. – that chapter which tells us that the Lord's own joy in it may account for the gospel. And all these are patternworks of the Spirit, forming the faith of sinners. There is no questioning of God's grace, no uneasy reflections on creature-worthlessness, though there was plenty of cause for that. The strength, the liberty, the triumph of the promise live in their souls.
And let me add, that if the confession of Lamech (chapter iv. 23, 24) be the utterance of a convicted believing sinner (as I believe it is), it is only another equally fine expression of this same early and excellent faith. It is of an order worthy to stand with that of Adam, or of Eve, or of Abel; fervent, strong, unquestioning, and full of liberty.
God's word to Cain had revealed a great truth-that He, and He alone, has to do with a sinner. Others, like Abel, may suffer; but all sin is directly done against God, and He asserts His title to deal with it alone. "Whosoever slayeth Cain [the Lord therefore says], vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold."
This great truth, so unspeakably precious to faith, Lamech seems to have received and fed upon, until his whole soul triumphed in it. Not merely preservationfrom man, like Cain, does he count upon, but salvation, "the salvation of God." Learning that as a sinner he was alone with God, he takes that place, and there discovers how God can deal with him, even in the security and provisions of grace; and that discovery is the light in which his soul at once walks. Like Job, afterwards, he publishes his confession far and wide. "Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech," he says; "hearken unto my speech." Then in true gospel intelligence he magnifies sin, and owns that it was his destruction. "I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt." But then again, in true gospel simplicity, he much more magnifies grace. "If Cain be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." In his thoughts, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." He is of the very mind and temper of Paul. His confidence and victory are apostolic. He seems to sing-
"I hear the accuser roar
Of ills that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more-
Jehovah findeth none."
A glorious sight his faith takes of the whole mystery, and of the boundlessness and riches of grace. He listens to the provisions of grace (when alone with God), and the charging of the law, the accusings of Satan, the alarms of conscience, and the self-righteous reproaches of men, are not heard.1
These operations of the Spirit through the promise on the souls of sinners are truly beautiful. The apron of fig-leaves drops off, or is rather cast away, when such operations go on. It is found unnecessary now, as it was found insufficient before. And so all the inventions of men. They are the contrivances of the wrong-doer himself, the efforts of the creature, the devices of the sinner, and they can therefore never do. But they are as unnecessary as they are insufficient. The coat of skin, the work of God Himself, has made them so.
There is, however, something which this glorious relief provided for the sinner does not accomplish. The thorns and the thistles of the cursed ground remain; and with them the sweat of the face, and the sorrow of the heart, and then the return of dust to dust. As to this hour. We shine in "the righteousness of God," adorned under His own eye, and by His own hand dressed for His presence; but all the while pressures and hindrances and sore grievances wait on the tilling of the earth; and pains bring us into the world, till we return to the dust from whence we came. Neither does this glorious provision of grace displace the cherubim. They accompany it rather. They are stationed at the eastern gate of the garden, with their flaming sword, to keep every way of the tree of life; and no promise which Adam had listened to, no covering which Adam had received, changes this. Man's capacity to regain that tree is gone, and gone for ever. Never will he be anything but a saved sinner, pass he along what paths of glory he may, from "paradise" to "the kingdom," from the kingdom to "the new heavens and the new earth." Eating of that tree is only by gift of Jesus, the woman's Seed of the first promise. Rev. ii. 7.
Such are among the mysteries taught us in this wonderful chapter, full of mysteries as it is, and of the profoundest secrets of God. But we have to come down for instruction to learn man and his ways, as well as to rise, as we learn God and His counsels.
Cain is declared by the Spirit of God in the apostle to have been "of that wicked one." The first thing we see in him is his religion. He renders to God, as offering or sacrifice, the fruit of the cursed ground, the produce of his own toil. But this was unbelief. It was the denial of all that had happened since the creation, the religious denial of it. It was the direct contradiction of the way of faith, or of Abel. Abel took the way of the promise to God, the bloody victory of the woman's Seed, the death and resurrection of Christ, and offered of his flock; but Cain refused to see man's ruin and God's redemption, giving God the fruit of the earth; in effect saying, that He was to be read and known in the thorns and the thistles, the sweat, and the sorrow, and the death; and by the solemn services of his altar he was denying all truth.
This was the way of a heart deeply departed from God. He was laying the scene of ruin at God's door, as Adam, ere he repented, had laid down the sin itself there.
His next way is in terrible keeping with all this. He hates his brother, being of that wicked one who is a murderer (John viii. 44), and in process of time he slays him.
Tremendous fruit of the apostate, departed nature. He was the first of that generation who delivered Jesus to be crucified-self-righteous and murderous. For envy the Jews delivered Jesus; and Cain slew Abel because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. It is the world. "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." The Lord pleaded with him. See iv. 6, 7. His heart had conceived the sin, but his hand had not brought forth fruit unto death; and with a voice of long-suffering grace and warning the Lord pleaded with him. The grace was despised; this grace of pleading with him at the last hour, as the grace of the promise had been despised before.
"This is the condemnation,
I do not, however, assume that Lamech was a murderer; but he could identify himself with such. With Paul, he could, in the sense of what he was before God, speak of himself as chief of sinners. And we know also that the repentant Remnant of the latter day will, in their confession, quite take the place of blood-guiltiness after this manner. They will look to Him whom they pierced. They will, in the spirit of Daniel or Nehemiah, make themselves one with the guilty nation.