The Results of the Fall

Genesis

 

March 2, 2025

 

In Genesis 3 through 5 we see the Fall and its immediate effects. When we use the term “the fall” we mean that Adam has plunged mankind into sin. 

Now in Genesis 4 and 5 we begin to grapple with the results of this fall and discuss Cain, Abel, and Seth, the sons of Adam and Eve.   Often when people look at Genesis 4, they see the title “Cain and Abel” and we immediately think about brother murdering brother which of course is not a good thing, but actually, the structure of this chapter indicates that Moses has another significant idea in mind. In Genesis 3 we ended with Adam and Eve being expelled out of the garden. They’re put out of the presence of the Lord. They’ve been covered by skins made from animals and now we jump into Chapter 4. When most people read through this chapter they think about their Sunday School lesson about Cain and Abel and they miss the bracketing that Moses gives around the Cain – Abel narrative. We see that bracketing in verse 1:
“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said ‘I have acquired a man from the Lord.’” If you skip down to verse 25 you read “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.’” 

And then even more, in this bracketing, we have this statement “And as for Seth, to him also a son was born: and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the LORD.” And “Lord” here is God’s personal name Yahweh Jehovah. And so here we have this statement from Eve “I’ve acquired a man from the Lord and God has appointed another son a seed for me instead of Abel. This is actually important to understand in the structure of Genesis. Eve seems to exercise faith in the promise of God in Gen. 3:15. Remember that right away when mankind is plunged into sin, God offers this promise to Eve. He says to Satan in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” This is ultimately a Messianic prophecy pointing towards Christ, but for Eve it was clear that God’s promise of defeating the serpent, which would be symbolic of defeating sin and Satan, would be accomplished through one that was born through her. That’s the promise – that her seed would bruise the head of the serpent. And of course as we talked about when we were in Genesis 3:15, a bruise to the heel is bad but a bruise to the head is a crushing blow. This word is a strong one. Satan and his sin would sting Christ, ultimately the Messiah, but Christ would destroy Satan and his evil actions. We’ve had a foretaste of that at the cross and the resurrection and we’ll see the full joy of that at the coming of Christ.  Of course Eve doesn’t know all of that but what she does know is that one of her offspring is going to bring about this defeat. It seems that when Cain was born, she says, in Gen 4:1, that she had “acquired a man from the Lord” that she is seeming to exercise some sort of faith in the promise of God. That’s especially clear when we compare this statement to Gen. 4:25 where she uses this word “seed” again. God had appointed another “seed” another “offspring”. The word “seed” was first introduced in the narrative in Gen. 3:15. It seems likely that Eve believed in God’s promise of defeating the serpent through her seed.

In addition to Eve’s declarations, Gen. 4:26 also gives hope in the narrative with the statement “At that time men began to call upon the name of the LORD.” That seems to be a very encouraging sign. People are calling out to Yahweh, to God, and identifying Him as God. 

When we think about the structure of the Genesis 4, we might miss what Moses is trying to do here. He’s going to talk about sin and its consequences but he brackets that with hope. God intends to do something about this. The structure of this chapter is reminiscent of the rest of Genesis where the reader is confronted with sin and its terrible consequences or with trials that threaten God’s plans. Remember we have Genesis 1 and 2, where God creates everything and it’s very good. Sint enters into the world and right away God does something about it. In spite of the sin or trials, there is reason to have hope in the promises of God. Often in the accounts of Genesis the reader is led to feel that hope is lost. It seems that there’s no chance for things to be fixed, but along the way, every time, God brings about a restoration, a healing, a promise, and hope is restored. So what you see is this established pattern in Genesis where there is a problem and then God fixes it.  This happens all the way through and here is the first example. There are other examples. For instance: In the flood narratives of chapters 6-9, the whole earth is full of violence and all seems to be lost. Yet, Noah and his family are faithful and God is faithful to preserve mankind. In the tower of Babel, the people gather into one place which defied God’s plan for humanity, but God stops their rebellion. In the account of Abraham and Isaac, Isaac is about to be sacrificed but God provides a substitute. With Jacob’s sons, most seem to be evil and in some cases, very evil. But God preserves a godly son in Joseph. We could go on and see this repeated pattern throughout Genesis. 

This pattern of hopelessness to hope begins in Gen. 4. We do want to focus on the evil nature of what Cain does. The New Testament does that, by the way. The Apostle John picks up on this and so does Jude. But what we see is this pattern of hopelessness to hope. And it begins in Genesis 4. As noted in the introduction, this message would have been very important to the people of Israel as they receiving the Pentateuch from Moses as they were about to cross over into Canaan. Moses is about to be taken home to heaven. He’s already told them he can’t go with them. He delivers the law to them and they’re going to go jump into this land that’s full of giants. They see all of these problems ahead and wonder if God could actually take care of them. Genesis says “You may feel hopeless now, but there’s hope.” All the way through. In this sense, Genesis is a gospel book (a good news book). It keeps reminding us of God’s faithfulness to His promises and it ultimately points to Christ, the Messiah. We’ll talk about that a little more when we eventually get to Genesis 49. 

Now we’ll look at the section between the brackets of Eve’s statements and the hope that men began to call on the name of the Lord. We’re going to see some terrible things in the middle of Genesis 4, but around this, God is already offering hope. 

Let’s look at the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:3-16. The story is a familiar one, how Cain kills his brother out of jealousy and bitterness because God accepts Abel’s offering and rejects Cain’s offering. Immediately there is an interpretive question in this section about why God rejected Cain’s offering and accepted Abel’s. Notice Genesis 4:2-5 “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. ” 

We have several suggestions that Bible teachers have made: 

The first thought is that Cain did not offer of the first fruits while Able brought of the firstborn. The language suggests that Cain’s offering was only “some” of what was in the ground. There’s a consistent pattern as you go through the Pentateuch that when you bring a sacrifice to the Lord, it was always to be your best. It was the first fruits of the grain, the firstborn of the flock and without blemish – always the best. There may be some sense in which Cain did not bring the first fruits. 

Others have suggested that Cain’s offering was not “by faith” while Abel’s offering was “by faith.” The author of Hebrews does use that language in Heb. 11:4. “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice” So the emphasis and the grammar say that it was by faith that Abel offered his sacrifice. There was some sense in which Cain did not believe in what God had said in making his offering. 

A third suggestion is that Cain’s offering was not a blood sacrifice. The Bible does not say explicitly whether Adam and Eve and their descendants were to immediately offer blood sacrifices to God. However, the concept was likely introduced when God provided the skins from animals for clothing for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). That would have required the death of an animal. There’s a good argument to be made that they were already  introduced to the concept of a “covering” which is the heart of the idea of an “atonement”. The covering comes by means of a blood sacrifice – that something must pay for, or cover, one’s sins. The argument here in Genesis 4 is that Cain should have offered a blood sacrifice but he offered something from the fruit of the ground instead. Any of these options are acceptable and they are not mutually exclusive. In other words, you can say that Cain’s offering was not accepted because it was not a blood sacrifice and it also wasn’t by faith and it also wasn’t the first fruits of the ground. The grammar of this passage because it doesn’t explicitly say that and in addition, if you read through the rest of the Pentateuch, God does command the people of Israel to bring offerings of grain at times. In fact the word that’s used for offering here is the same word that’s often associated with the grain offering or the offering of the harvest.  So if you hear Bible teachers who don’t teach that this should have been a blood sacrifice, you shouldn’t think they’re denying the atonement of Jesus. They’re just trying to wrestle with the text as it stands. For me, I look at the emphasis throughout scripture on the centrality of a blood sacrifice for covering, for atonement of sin. I think that is likely the case here, that Cain did not offer a blood sacrifice.

However, it is clear, through the progress of revelation, that God demanded for atonement for sin a blood sacrifice. As you read through the rest of the Pentateuch, that clearly, blood sacrifices were commanded to be given in terms of atonement. Ultimately, this would be a picture of the firstborn of all firstborn – the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for our sins. It may have been that the Lord was not pleased with Cain’s offering because it was not a blood offering that would portray the Seed who would one day be slain for sinners.

Cain grew bitter because of this rejection. God confronts Cain. Instead

of offering a better sacrifice, Cain grew more bitter and killed his

brother.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t like a catastrophic failure that Cain did not offer the correct sacrifice. He could have offered a better sacrifice. God gave him that opportunity. Cain rejects it out of hand. And in doing so his bitterness and his jealousy grew. In fact, it’s Jude who actually warns us to not go the way of Cain. This is a powerful statement that his attitude could actually become part of us. 

This is the first example where we see that worship of God is not to be done however we please. This is something that confronts modern sensibilities including the modern evangelical church, you’ll say to people, I don’t think that’s how you should approach God and everybody says “I approach God in the way I feel that I should.” So if it makes me feel good about how I’m approaching God, then it’s OK.  This passage rejects that. God has prescribed ways of approaching him and if we do not approach him in the way that He prescribes, there is condemnation. That has lots of practical effects. Worship is not about what it makes us experience, but rather it’s about us conforming ourselves to God’s expectations. This is an important text that establishes this early on. We also see this in 1 Samuel where the priests were not offering sacrifices according to God’s direction. God was very angry because it was not done the way He had directed. 

We also see, in this account of Cain slaying his brother, we learn that God values human life in v. 10 -“The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” We see right away what the image of God means for humanity. That image was not lost after the fall.  

The account of Cain and Able demonstrates immediately in the narrative

the serious nature of sin and how much it immediately affects humanity. 

Sin is against God. Cain rejected God’s counsel and choose to act

independently of God’s will and plan for his life. It’s hard to know if Cain knew ahead of time that his sacrifice was not going to be accepted by God. I tend to think the answer is yes, he did know that it was not going to be accepted, but we don’t know for sure, but it is clear that his offer was rejected by God. Instead of humbling himself before the Lord, Cain rebels. So sin is always against God. It rejects God’s counsel and his commands. Sin is often also against other people. I say “often” because there are sins of the heart, there are sins that are directly against God and they usually also affect other people. 

After Adam ate the forbidden fruit, the first sin recorded in human history against another human being is murder. Which also demonstrates the severity of the fall. This is a really big deal. People begin to sin in spectacular ways. In fact, think about how fast we go from the whole earth being good to the whole earth being filled with violence in chapter 6. Granted, it took a long time if you look through the genealogies in Chapter 5 and think about how long people lived, but in the narrative, Moses wants us to see that sin has dramatic and serious consequences. By the way, we shouldn’t be shocked at that. We all live in 2025 and we see around us some pretty spectacular sinful behavior in our culture. There’s stuff going on today that 100 years ago would not have even been known or tolerated. Today it’s embraced and celebrated. Genesis helps us see how fast mankind embraces sinful patterns. 

From here we move to the story of Cain and Seth in Genesis 4:17-5:32. 

The narrative introduces contrasting genealogies between Cain and Adam.

The end of Cain’s genealogy concludes with Lamech who takes two wives. Genesis 4:23-24 says,

 “Then Lamech said to his wives: 

‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech!
For I have killed a man for wounding me,

Even a young man for hurting me.

If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,

Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.’”

There are a couple interesting things about this. First of all, this is the second poem written in human history. The first one was said by Adam in Genesis 2:23 “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of the man. ”  

This is beautiful Hebrew poetry, everything is good. Now, after the fall, the first art that we see actually written down for us. This poem is constructed to talk about a murder, and what’s interesting is that the beginning of Cain’s genealogy is condemnation, resulting from a murder. Now we have the end of Cain’s genealogy here with Lamech, which results in a murder. Apparently, Lamech got into some sort of scuffle, whether it was intentional or unintentional, we aren’t sure. A young man wounds him. It’s not clear whether that was meant to happen. Lamech rises up in anger and kills him. The justice is totally out of whack. That’s Cain’s lineage, that’s Cain’s genealogy, that’s his family tree, which begins and ends with condemnation. In contrast, we have Adam’s genealogy, which begins and ends with hope. but Genesis 5:1 says this is the book of the genealogy of Adam, so we trace Adam and we have 10 generations if you count them down through Noah. If you want to see the hope, just go back to the end of chapter 4, where we have Seth – who was appointed as another seed to replace Abel. Genesis 4:26 talks about Seth’s son – Adam’s grandson – Enosh, and it says that men begin to call upon the name of the Lord, and then if you go down to Genesis 5:29, we have the last of the genealogy of Adam.  Lamech – a different Lamech than previously mentioned, –  “And he called his name Noah, saying, ‘This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground, which the LORD has cursed?” Noah is actually a source of blessing and hope Cain is a source of condemnation and terror. In addition, in Adam and Seth’s genealogy, you have Enoch mentioned. Enoch is the guy who walks with God in the middle of that genealogy. He is the seventh in Adam’s  genealogy. That’s by the way, highlighted in the book of Jude. That was significant in the Jewish mind. He is singled out as one who walks with God. So, what we have here is a very stark contrast in 2 family trees. Cain brings condemnation. Adam and Seth – ultimately, they bring hope. A very, very stark contrast, so one brings condemnation, while the other brings the promise of redemption? However, it is important to note that even in the hope of redemption, Moses notes that each one of Adam and Seth’s descendants died. Enoch, obviously being the exception. In fact, that’s one of the things as you read through Genesis 5 and you see the notes about these guys who lived really long lives. Along the way it mentions that they died. In fact, that’s one of the reasons that Enoch’s name popped so much is because he didn’t die. It says he was not for God took him. Death reigns here from Adam to Moses, Just as Paul says in Romans 5:14. We see death on display; the curse of sin is evident. So there is contrast in the genealogies. Despite the sin of Cain, his children are not all condemned. Moses actually points to cultural and technological achievements of Cain’s descendants. If you go back to chapter 4, we read things like that. Look at verse 20: “And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock,” so we have pastoral achievements here. And the next verse says, “His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who played the harp and the flute.” When it says, “father of” we’re talking about this: a progenitor of, the inventor of these things. So they’re exercising dominion here. “Zillah, she bore also Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron,” so there are some incredible cultural achievements that occur here from these individuals. We see that even in spite of the fall, that mankind still is exercising dominion on the earth. So we still can, even in a world of sin, exercise dominion here. A sinful mankind can still produce positive goods in spite of their failures.

Let’s just say a few words about interpreting genealogies here. A lot of times when people come to genealogies, when they read through the Bible, they just kind of skip down through them. Those who read through big portions of the Bible, you know you have done that. Especially when you get to long ones like the beginning of Chronicles where there are 9 chapters full of genealogies!

Genealogies we think of them as kind of odd in some sense. However, it is important to note that genealogies are not to be ignored in the Bible. Remember, Paul says that all scripture is inspired. All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. So that means that in some sense, that the genealogies have value and even have value for us today. Otherwise Paul wouldn’t have said “all scripture.” He would have said “most of scripture,” or “98% of scripture.” That’s not what he says. He says all of it. So genealogies are not to be ignored.

However, as a note here, the interpreter can easily misinterpret them with speculation that is not warranted, and this has been a problem throughout not only the history of Christianity, but also if you go back before Christianity into Judaism, of speculating on the nature of genealogies. So how do we avoid that? How do we see the value but also not speculate upon them?

Well, as in all biblical interpretation, key interpretive questions must be answered, such as: What did the author intend to communicate to his readers by means of this genealogy? In other words, Moses, in this case, here is, you know, Moses is the author of the Pentateuch, of Genesis, Moses is intentionally inserting these genealogies here. So he has a purpose. All right, he doesn’t just do that randomly. That’s especially important as we think about, you know, when Moses is writing stuff.He’s writing stuff often on stone. You know, or what we think of as paper today was incredibly expensive to produce,so you don’t just waste words just to throw them down for no reason. That helps us to know that he’s doing this with a purpose.

Now speculating on the significance of names that are merely listed is not wise. Genealogies are placed in the narrative for different reasons. What we need to become skilled at is reading what comes before, after, and in the genealogy itself. Careful reading in that way will help the interpreter to understand the purpose and the significance of the genealogy. So you notice what we just did with Cain’s genealogy and Adam/Seth’s genealogy. And so we took time to look at what came before, during, and after. It fits within the context of the narrative, and then in these cases, you see two genealogies that are almost stacked side by side, and we see radically different results that come out of them, which helps us understand why Moses would have inserted them into the narrative.

Now, there are potentially other reasons why genealogies are important. Let me give you three potential purposes and/or significance of genealogies. First of all, they establish a historic record. Genealogies not only demonstrate the history of the Bible, they help us to construct a chronology of the Bible. We see that specifically when you get into Adam’s genealogy in chapter 5, because of the numbers are attached. These guys lived, a long, long time. And yes, I think they really did live a long, long time. This chronology means something to us, but it may mean something more to certain peoples in the rest of the world. As Americans, everything for us is relatively new. I mean, we drive around here in Minnesota, and we see an old house. How old is an old house in Minnesota? 100 years, perhaps even 150 years. You might see a few that are older than that but not many.

All right. So 3 years ago, here coming up next month, I was in Turkey, and we drove one day to visit the ancient cities of Hierapolis and Laodicea, both mentioned in the Bible. And we’re going to see the ruins of these places and they’re spectacular in many ways. And as you’re driving along the Turkish countryside in the Lycus valley, you look out and you see sections of the ancient Roman aqueduct, just standing in fields. Those are over 2000 years old, just sitting there and they got, you know, farm equipment working around them. It’s just sitting there and it wasn’t just one place. You see that all the time when you live in parts of the world like that.

In fact, we had a guide that we hired to help us understand Hierapolis and Laodicea. He made a statement, that I don’t know if I’ll ever forget. He said, “If you stick your thumb in the ground in Turkey, you find history.” So anywhere you touch, it’s just there. We were there primarily to teach, so what I’m describing about sightseeing was a grand total of 3 days of our time there. But on one of the days we’re going to go through Istanbul, and we’re hoping to go to this ancient cistern that was built around the time of the Hagia Sophia. This is dating back to the early periods of the early church, and the cistern is hundreds of feet in the ground that provided water for the city of Constantinople – which is now known as Istanbul today and it was closed for some sort of renovation. Apparently you could actually walk down the stairs of it and go deep into the earth but it was closed for renovation. We were sitting around the table with a missionary who’s going to help us see some of these things and the local pastor. At some point the local pastor blurts out “Yeah, but you know, there’s also that other one that’s behind the Burger King.” That’s where it was. In the middle of the city, there was a cistern that was almost as old, a little bit smaller, and everybody knew it as “behind the Burger King.” And that’s where it existed.

When you live in a place like that, and you see the evidence of history all around you, anchoring yourself as to where you came from becomes a whole lot more important. It’s important to us today and maybe even more important. So you have the people of Israel, they’ve left Egypt. They’re going around part of the world where most of human history has taken place. Think Egypt up to Greece and out to Babylon. They’re in the middle of all of that. And where do they fit in? The historic record helps them with that. I think it helps us too, because we see the progress of what God does in history.

Second, genealogies are helpful in that they offer theological implications. Theological implications: often genealogies demonstrate the faithfulness of God’s promise. For instance, in Genesis, one of the purposes of the genealogies is to trace the promise of the seed of Eve that would defeat the serpent. The New Testament genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 demonstrate that Jesus was the rightful fulfillment, right, of the promise of a Messiah in the Old Testament, and you can see that with other genealogies that there are theological implications that come out of them if you’re a careful reader.

And third, genealogies offer identity and inheritance. This is specifically for the people of Israel. Identity and inheritance: the people of Israel were granted land rights and were dependent on their tribal allotment and family clan. Genealogies establish those rights. You don’t see that in Genesis 4 and 5, but some of the latter ones help with that, establishing some of their tribal rights and allotments.

So genealogies are important. What you don’t want to do, and you will find examples of this, is somebody will pick out a random name in a long genealogy, dig into the etymology of it, here’s what this name means, and then produce some sort of theological system from that. Unless the genealogy clearly is pointing to that, which is very, very rare, that’s just endless speculation and endless genealogies. This is what Paul warns about in First and Second Timothy, so don’t get caught up in that.