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2021-08-08: Sin’s Deadly Power

Genesis 4:1-16

Summary: Genesis 4 is an account of life in God’s once very good creation going from bad to worse. Despite God’s gracious warning that Cain’s anger was a prowling force waiting to devour him, Cain let his envy fester to the point of murdering his own brother. We see in Cain the way sin has turned human beings in on ourselves. Created to image God in the out-pouring and other-centered love of His triune persons, sin has instead turned us into vacuums who selfishly pull and grasp for ourselves at the expense of others. As it was for Cain, sin is not simply a behaviour in which we engage, it is a power that seeks to enslave and destroy. God is profoundly gracious in sparing Cain’s life and protecting him from vengeance. Far more gracious is the way in which he came in Christ to bear the very realities Cain so dreaded (see v.14) so that His blood might speak a better word than Abel’s (Heb. 12:24). Abel’s blood cries out to be avenged; Christ’s blood speaks of mercy and deliverance.

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