Chapter 6: The Two Humanities
chapter 6
the two
humanities
Division, separations–they rend the fabric of society. The history of man is the record of splits and schisms, every one of which has its origin in the primal separation of man from God. We turn now to some of the early forms which these separations took in the flow of biblical history.
Thy Seed and Her Seed
In Genesis 3:15 we have a rather different aspect of the curse that comes from Adam’s rebellion. God here speaks to Satan who used the serpent: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (ASV). It is important to emphasize that the seed here is considered personal, “he.” The one who is promised here is a person. A person will bruise Satan’s head, and in doing so will be wounded.
Let us reflect further on thy seed and her seed–the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. The reference to “her seed” is peculiar in Semitic languages because as in our own thinking the male is considered the one who has the seed. Descent is indicated in men as in animals as the descent or offspring of the male. Why is it different here? Is it possible that this way of speaking already cast a shadow of the Virgin Birth? Does it suggest that when the Messiah was born, he would be the seed of the woman and that in his conception there would be no male seed?
Another implication of Genesis 3:15 is indicated in Hebrews 2:14. Speaking of Jesus, the writer of Hebrews says, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he [Jesus] also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Here is an indication that Jesus fulfilled the promise in Genesis 3:15, for it is the Messiah who is to be bruised, and yet, in the bruising, destroy the power of death and the devil. By this death, he would “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (v. 15). That is, there would be a substitutionary note to his death face to face with the adversary, Satan, and by this death the results of the Fall would be overcome. There is also a tie between Genesis 3:15 and Hebrews 2:13 that I think is not just coincidental–the phrase, I and the children which God hath given me. The chief thrust is undoubtedly on the substitutionary aspect of Jesus’ death. Yet it also reminds us of that magnificent passage in Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” Note again: He shall see his seed. It is in this sense, therefore, that God has given Jesus children. Romans 16:20 also ties in with Genesis 3:15. Speaking to the Christians in Rome, Paul writes, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” The reference is to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when God himself shall bruise Satan under the feet of the Christians.
Therefore, we find that indeed Christ is the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15. And yet from his unique redemptive work he has a seed which shall stand against the seed of Satan. And when we bring these together, I think we can feel the force of what is gradually developed through Scripture beginning from this phrase in Genesis 3:15. Christ is to be the second Adam and the second founder of the race.
We remember that in theological terms Adam lived under the covenant of works. That is, he could approach God without any mediator. He did not need a Savior. Soteriology would not have existed in Christian theology if there had been no Fall. Adam stood before God under the covenant of works. Then, when Jesus came, Jesus worked. He continued and finished the work under the covenant of works. Because of the Fall and our own sinning, we can no longer come to God under this covenant. But Christ finished the work needed for us in his substitutionary death, and in doing so he became the second Adam–the second founder of the human race.
Two Suits of Clothes
In Genesis 3:7 we learn that Adam and Eve found out that they were “naked” and so they “sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” That is, immediately after their rebellion as they came face to face with what had previously been their great joy and their great fulfillment –themselves in open communion with God–they were now afraid and tried to cover themselves. But in verse 21 God took this covering away and gave them a coat of skins: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” Probably these were the first animals to die. This indicates, I believe, that man could not stand before God in his own covering. Rather, he needed a covering from God–a covering of a specific nature–a covering that required sacrifice and death, a covering not provided by man but by God. One would want to be careful not to press this into a dogma, but it is my opinion that this was the beginning of the Old Testament sacrificial system looking forward to the coming of the one who would crush Satan’s head. If this is so, God himself provided this picture, in the same way that, in the reality which this pictures, the Father in his love sent the Son.
We might note at this point that the death of Jesus Christ was not an afterthought in history. It isn’t that sometime, say, around 100 B.C. God said, “What shall we do about this?” and then suddenly the idea of the death of Christ dawned on him. Rather, 1 Peter 1:19-20 and other passages indicate that the death of Christ, “the precious blood of the Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” was “foreordained before the foundation of the world.” Thus the death of Christ in space and time, planned before history began, the solution of man’s rebellion in the light of God’s character of holiness and love, stood in the natural flow of all that had been.
The Ultimate Separation
We recall that numerous separations came about because of the Fall. There were alienations between God and man, man and himself, man and other men, man and nature, and nature and nature. The last separation is the separation between the Father and the Son when Jesus died on the cross. The separations that resulted from man’s Fall were brought to their climax as Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, being bruised and bearing our sins in substitution, cried aloud: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46).
In such a setting as this, we are ready to grasp the full impact of the verses in Romans which we considered only partially in the previous chapter. I will quote the whole section this time (Rom. 5:12-21) and from the American Standard Version (1901) in order to make the passage clearer.
Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:–for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come. But not as the trespass, so also is the free gift. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many. And not as through one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment came of one unto condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses unto justification. For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ. So then, as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. And the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is clear that Christ is the second Adam, the second founder of the human race. He picks up the covenant of works at the place where Adam forfeited it. As Lazarus Spengler wrote so long ago in 1524:
As by one man all mankind fell
And, prone to sin, then faced hell,
So by one Man, who took our place,
We now are sure of God’s grace.
We thank thee, Christ; new life is ours. . . .
This is exactly what was promised in Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (ASV). Already we have the death of Christ in promise–the first promise–made immediately after the rebellion and the Fall. The death of Christ, therefore, is presented as the solution to all the separations of which we spoke.
By the sufficiency of the death of Christ, these separations will be perfectly healed at his second coming. And yet the Bible says that (in the present life) on the basis of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, through faith and in the power of the Holy Spirit, there is to be substantial healing in regard to all these separations. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) pointed this out in Novum Organum Scientiarum. I’ve quoted this in some of my other books, but it fits here as well: “Man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocence and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by the arts and sciences.” This is to be the Christian view of life. A Christian, understanding the abnormality of nature, can see the arts and the sciences substantially delivered under God. And he can see even in this life a substantial reparation of the division between man and nature which one day, at the second coming of Jesus, will be perfect and complete.
Therefore, in the flow of history as we come to Genesis 3:15 we see that (except for Christ’s work) the covenant of works is past. From this time on the covenant of grace applies. From here to the last man who will ever pass from death to life, man no longer can come in his own works. It is well to put it in the first person singular: I cannot come by my own works. I can come only through Christ’s finished work. I can come only on the basis of the covenant of grace, the benefits of which I now receive as a free gift.
We can say this in a different way. Prior to the Fall, Adam in coming to God only had to bow once–as a creature before the Creator. But now, after the Fall of Adam, we must bow twice–as a creature before the Creator and as a sinner coming to a holy God through Jesus’ work.
Acceptable and Unacceptable Worship
So far in our study of the flow of history we have covered two major steps: the situation in the beginning when all was good and the introduction of the abnormality brought about by the Fall. Our third major subject is acceptable and unacceptable worship after the Fall.
In Genesis 4:1 we read: “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.” Here is the first baby to be born. What a wonder it must have been for Eve suddenly to have in her hands a little baby from her own body. Imagine her amazement as she looked at it: “Why, yes, it’s just like Adam! I have gotten a man from the Lord!”
We wonder if she could possibly have had in mind the promise in Genesis 3:15. There is no way to be sure, of course. But do you suppose she said to herself, “Maybe this is the one who will bring the solution to the problem we introduced”? As Christians living on this side of the New Testament, we think of the contrast to Mary to whom the seed of the woman was really born in the Virgin Birth. In Hebrews 12:24 the writer is speaking to men living after the time of Jesus, reminding them that they have come “to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” In Genesis 4:10 God said that Abel’s blood was calling out concerning the fact that Cain had killed him. It was the cry of the first murder, brother killing brother, a part of the separation because of the Fall. Christ’s blood is the solution.
But in Genesis 4:1 Eve has just given birth to Cain! So if she had in mind that this was the one who was to solve the problems of the Fall, how wrong she was! Born naturally, he brings forth the results of the fallen human race. A savior? No, he is going to kill his brother. What a contrast between the first-born child and Christ!
In Genesis 4:2 we have the birth of the second child: “And she again bare his brother Abel.” As the two grow up, we are brought to the question of acceptable and unacceptable worship this side of the Fall: “And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell” (vv. 3-4).
Hebrews 11:4 tells us what was involved: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” The distinction is that Abel’s act of sacrifice was by faith.
The whole process is related to Romans 4 which gives the clearest possible description of such faith: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Rom. 4:3). This is God’s description of faith–the very opposite of a Kierkegaardian leap into the void, God gave for Abraham a specific, propositional promise and Abraham believed God. This belief was reckoned unto him for righteousness. In other words, Abraham’s faith involved content.
How much content Abel had we do not know, but then we should be conscious of the fact that the Bible does not tell us how he knew how to bring an offering at all. And this is not unusual; in the book of Genesis information has often been given that we do not know has been given until someone acts on it–for example, the clean and unclean beasts at the time of Noah (Gen. 7:2) or Abraham and the tithe (Gen. 14:20). So here it is clear that Abel did have knowledge about offerings even though the Bible has not told us when this knowledge was given. We could wonder if Abel’s parents had told him of the promise of Genesis 3:15 and the skins. And while this would be only speculation, one thing is not speculation: From this time onward, sacrifice was known and practiced, and the New Testament ties this up with the sacrifice of Christ.
We can hardly forget the words of John the Baptist, who (while he is recorded in the New Testament) is the last Old Testament prophet. When Jesus was just appearing on the public scene, one of the gospel writers recorded this: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29). You will notice that John the Baptist gives no explanation. He doesn’t need to, because the Jews understood the Old Testament emphasis at this particular point.
In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul calls Christ our Passover in the same way, expecting understanding without explanation. The book of Hebrews repeatedly draws the parallel of the death of Christ and the Old Testament sacrifices. For example, Hebrews 7:26-27: “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and higher than the heavens: Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once for all when he offered up himself.” And, as we have already seen, Revelation 5:11-12 refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God who has been slain and is therefore worthy to receive the power and the glory.
The Historicity of Cain and Abel
Just as in the case of Adam and Eve, the New Testament considers Cain and Abel as characters in history. We read in 1 John 3:12: “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” Jude 11 repeats this: “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain. . . .” But notice that, while in both cases the historicity of Cain is assumed, more than a historic fact is involved. In the flow of history, there is a line of Cain in which we should not walk. In contrast, in Hebrews 11:4 Abel is put in a line of historic characters, the line of faith, and we are commanded to walk in this line. More than this, Abel is the first one named in this line, and so in a real way this could be called the line of Abel.
The way of Cain is contrasted with the way of Abel, and that contrast is introduced in Genesis 4:6-7: “And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” Some take the possible reading of sin offering rather than sin to be the proper reading here. But, while the detail of the translation of these verses may be discussed, the central thought is definite. God is saying, “Why is your countenance fallen, Cain? You can still be accepted. You’ve made a mistake, but there is a way out.” It seems to me that God is telling Cain to go back and do what he should have done in the first place. By picking up the thread of acceptable worship, he could stop the rebellion (as far as he himself was concerned) right there. Instead he did something else: “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him” (v. 8). Instead of going back and doing what would have been right, he did something overwhelmingly wrong.
From here on two lines spread out before us–the way of Cain and the way of Abel. As we have pointed out, a separation between man and man had come as soon as Adam and Eve each tried to shift the blame from himself. But the separation is now accentuated with contrast between acceptable and unacceptable worship. From here on there are two humanities–the humanity that comes to God, bowing twice, and the humanity that follows in the way of Cain. The separation between man and man now extends to the separation between brothers. The love which should have existed between them as fellow beings created by God in the image of God has now become hatred and murder.
It is interesting that this murder sprang up, as we are told in the New Testament, exactly at the point of not believing God: One believed God, one didn’t.
“And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground” (Gen. 4:9-10). The blood of Abel speaks and cries for judgment and justice, and this cry echoes right down into the book of Revelation where we find the martyrs saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Rev. 6:10).
Abel’s blood cries out, “Judgment! Judgment!” And God must judge because he is a holy God. If he shrugged his shoulders and walked away, there would be no moral absolute in the universe. Hebrews, fortunately, gives us further dimension. There is another way, one rooted in the blood of Jesus shed in history. This blood “speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:24). The blood of Jesus goes beyond justice and offers mercy. It cries “Salvation!” on the basis of Jesus’ death to all who will hear.
The Culture of the Ungodly Line
Genesis 4:11-24 tells of the gradually developing culture of the ungodly line. For man is still really man, and he can bring forth a culture. But it is a culture with a mark upon it, a culture without the true God.
We need to note here, in passing, that verses 11-24 do not constitute a chronology any more than do the genealogies of the godly line which begin at verse 25. Rather, these passages exactly fit the literary form found in all parts of Genesis: The unimportant aspects (in this case the ungodly line) are quickly gotten out of the way so that the more central aspects (the godly line) might be dealt with in detail. We do not, therefore, know how much time elapses before we come to verse 24. It is not necessary that verse 24 contain history that precedes that in verse 25, for verse 24 brings to a close the consideration of the ungodly line, and verse 25 picks up the godly line.
Verses 23 and 24 are a perfect description of the ungodly, humanistic culture of all generations: “And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man for wounding me, and a young man for my hurt.” Or to paraphrase this: “Because a man wounded me, I paid him back. I just killed him.” Look at what Lamech did! Isn’t that terrific? “O you wives, listen to me, both of you: This fellow hit me. I fixed him. I killed him.” “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” Here is humanistic culture without God. It is egoism and pride centered in man; this culture has lost the concept not only of God but of man as one who loves his brother.
The Culture of the Godly Line
Genesis 4:25 takes up the godly line: “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” Seth, therefore, takes the place of Abel as the vehicle of the godly line. “And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call on the name of the LORD.” Or possibly “Men began to call themselves by the name of the Lord.” In other words, at this particular place the godly line marks itself with the name of God in exactly the same way as Christians later were marked by the name of Christ. Both marked themselves by the name of the one they followed.
We learn, by the way, from Genesis 5:3 that when Seth was born, Adam was 130 years old. Therefore, there was not a great deal of time between the creation of man and the Fall, because all the way up to the time of the birth of Seth only 130 years had passed.
In conclusion, I would make three points. First, Adam and Eve had thrown away the opportunity to come to God on the basis of the covenant of works. From then on the only way men could come to God was on the basis of the covenant of grace. It was not that there was no work involved in this covenant, but that the work was Christ’s not man’s. This is true whether, as in the Old Testament, men looked forward to the work of Christ to come in history (the promise becoming known in increasing detail as time passed), or whether, as in our case, we look back to the death of Christ as the Savior in history.
Therefore, since Cain, everyone in the world stands either in the place of Cain or the place of Abel. From this time on in the flow of history there are two humanities. The one humanity says there is no God, or it makes gods in its own imagination, or it tries to come to the true God in its own way. The other humanity comes to the true God in God’s way. There is no neutral ground.
Second, as far as the promise in Genesis 3:15 is concerned, the Messiah could have come from anywhere in the human race. But Seth brings the first narrowing of the promise. From this time on, the Messiah will come from his line.
Third, when we look at Cain killing Abel, we can see a horrible lack of the love which should have existed between men as equal creatures–not just because they were fleshly brothers, though this makes the matter sharper, but simply because they were equally created by God. They were of the same flesh, the same blood, of one kind, of one race. In contrast to Cain, we who are Christians and therefore stand as the seed given to Christ in his substitutionary work are to show in the present life the restored brotherhood in restored love. This is the Christian’s calling. We are to show the opposite of what Cain, that murderer, showed. If we have become the second humanity, if we have come indeed under the blood of the second founder of the race, the second Adam, men should look at us as we stand in the midst of the seed of the line of Cain and they should see a reversal of Cain’s attitude. This should be true not just in our simple acts but in our whole culture.
The Bible makes plain who stands among this brotherhood. In Matthew 12:47-50 Jesus’ natural mother and his natural brothers came as he was talking to the people. “Then one said unto him [Jesus], Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.” But Jesus points out that the merely physical relationship is not central: “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Here then is the brotherhood. The same thing is made evident in Matthew 23:8 where Jesus instructs his disciples, “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.” Thus a new humanity is established on the basis of the work of Christ, and this new humanity is to love the brotherhood as brothers, and all men as neighbors.
We have long known that men were to live in a loving relationship with each other. As 1 John 3:11-12 says, “this is the message [or commandment] that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” John is saying that this commandment dates not just from Moses but from the time when God created men to be men. “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother”: Here is the contrast. We are called as Christians to step out from the line of Cain and to reverse that line. The world should be able to look upon us and see a love that stands, first of all, among the brotherhood but also extends (as commanded in the story of the good Samaritan) to all men.
Evangelism is a calling, but not the first calling. Building congregations is a calling, but not the first calling. A Christian’s first call is to step from the line of Cain into the line of Abel, upon the basis of the shed blood of the Lamb of God, to return to the first commandment to love God, to love the brotherhood, and then to love one’s neighbor as himself.
Abraham was a man of faith, a man of God, who in a specific way is a perfect example of standing in the line of Abel in contrast to the line of Cain. Facing Lot, his nephew, at a crucial time in a difficult relationship which had developed between them, Abraham said, “Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren” (Gen. 13:8). Abraham stood in precisely the place where all those who have become children of God should stand. And notice that there was a cost to doing so. Abraham said to Lot, “Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” Abraham paid a tremendous price. He stood in complete contrast to Cain. He gave the first choice of grazing land to a younger man. Abraham in costly love stood in the spirit of the godly line. In every age and every situation this is the Christian’s place.