CHAPTER IV
Cain and Abel
Gen. 4:1-26
Agnes M. Lawson
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The Colorado College of Divine
Science
Denver, 1920.
The
narrative of Cain and Abel is impressive
for two reasons. It reveals the evolution
of sin and its consequences and it
commences the series of allegories,
running throughout the Bible, of the two
brothers, symbols of the natural and
spiritual man. Sin after it possesses us,
like fire, is difficult to confine and it
carries us along the broad road to
destruction, gaining speed by its own
momentum. Jealousy may not seem a great
sin but it leads to hatred and murder,
and not even natural affection can stay
its ravages. Yet gleaming through it like
sunlight through a crevice we see the
restraining care of God, seeking to save
us ere we yield to passion, and He is
merciful to us when we turn to Him and
ask for His aid.
This story
gives us vivid pictures of wrong-doing
and its consequences. It gives us warning
that the wrong-doer is on the road to
Nowhere but it lingers to tell us that
the right road leads to peace and joy. In
all of the other brother-stories, the
elder brother is made to serve the
younger, for natural man must be
subordinate to spiritual man.
The moral of
this allegory is to impress upon us the
fact that there is a Way but this is not
it. Scientists tell us that in the center
of every cell there is a microscopic
nucleus called Chromatin. Take this out,
the cell behaves automatically for a time
and then dies. Symbol of man with the
Spirit unrecognized; fugitives and
wanderers on the face of the earth, no
meaning to life, no purpose, no
destination.
Eve called
her first-born Cain (acquired). The
Hebrews attached great importance to
names. They were usually descriptive of
some characteristic in the thing or
person on whom they were bestowed. Cain
is a tiller of the ground but Abel is a
keeper of sheep. Sheep is the symbol of
obedience, while “tiller of the
ground” is the symbol of the curse
for disobedience. Cain brings the first
fruits of the ground, and Abel the
firstlings of his flock as an offering
unto the Lord. The Lord has respect for
Abel and his offering, but for Cain and
his offering there is no respect.
Cain’s
gifts are “acquired” while
those of Abel (a son) are the result of
inheritance. God never accepts from us
anything that he has not given us.
Acquisitions all come from the
“material realm” and are
unknown and therefore unacceptable to
Spirit. Cain is wroth when God does not
accept his offering. The Lord asks Cain:
“Why art thou wroth? If thou doest
well shalt thou not be accepted? And if
thou doest not well, sin lieth at the
door. BUT THOU SHOULDST HAVE RULED OVER
IT.”
Then Cain
rose up and slew his brother Abel. Do we
not slay the SON every time we think the
mortal of us, to be real and desire to
have our willful way in life? The murder
of Abel is the stifling of one’s
own individuality. One who can
“come forth from among them and be
separate” is the one who rights
himself with the universal order of
things, and is stronger than he was
before “As a man is stronger who is
standing upon his feet than the one who
is standing upon his head.”
The mark is
upon us, every one of us, the brand of
Cain, sensuous, weak, mediocre, or the
mark of the Spirit, vital, individual,
strong. The only sin is the dominion of
evil and this is rebellion against the
laws of our spiritual nature. The only
true happiness is to be conscious of the
Spirit and to keep it in the ascendancy.
He alone can be said to possess It whom
It wholly possesses. There is really no
difference in degrees, even the smallest
action opposed to the Spirit stamps us as
in opposition to it.
When we are
not conscious of the Son, we must be
conscious only of the Cain. Then God is
always demanding of us, “Where is
Abel, thy brother?” To care for the
spiritual first is the only possible way
to care for the physical. We are our
brother’s keeper and God demands
our brother’s blood of us and will
not hold us guiltless if we slay him.
“The voice thy brother’s
blood crieth unto me from the
ground!” Indeed an outraged God
sees the Spirit in man always and hears
its cry for self-expression no matter how
many fathoms deep we have buried it.
Cursed are we while this blood lies on
the ground; everything that we do proves
a failure, we are uneasy, restless and
unhappy.
Only the
Spirit knows the way, and if It has not
the right of way in us then the ground
cannot yield its strength to us. A
fugitive and a vagabond are we in the
earth, wandering to and fro, aimless,
meaningless, hopeless. Do we not feel
life a burden, the life that under the
Spirit is so free, spontaneous, glorious?
Again the punishment for sin is
banishment from the presence of God, and
the greatest blessedness is the visible
presence of the Spiritual Reality.
No one can
take from us our misery, we cannot be
slain and end it all. There are no secret
sins, no violation of our spiritual
nature, but are branded upon us. No soul
can meet a critical, condemnatory
judgment, if it is deserved, and not
shrink back upon itself, just as no one
can receive commendation, if true, but
his soul reaches up to it as the flowers
creep out to greet the spring
sunshine.
Trust your
own individuality, trust your own
thought, trust your ability to receive
from Spirit what Spirit has to give you.
Trust your own judgment and “Trust
in thine own untried capacity, as thou
wouldst trust in God Himself.”
“All the capacity one has is
God’s; there is but one Mind and
Power. Be genuine; what matter how little
you offer so it be genuine and true. One
true original thought and act evolved
from your own Spiritual insight and
experience and you are born out of the
Cain class of mortal mediocrity, into the
originality of Spiritual Reality, and
have made an offering that God
respects.”
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