bleeding lamb upon the altar. Cain will not own this, and brings but
But he will not come, save in some such way.
In a very different way does Abel draw near. He feels that it is only as a sinner that he can come; and that it is only in that character that God can deal with him, or he with God. He does not hide nor palliate his guilt. He does not cast the blame upon others, nor upon his own circumstances, as if he could not help sinning. He does not accuse the law of being too strict, or the lawgiver of being too severe. He comes as a sinner, laying the guilt on no one but himself. The Holy Spirit has taught him what sin is, so that he has learnt to abhor himself because of it. Yet that same Spirit has taught him that God "receiveth sinners,"
who come to him as such. And therefore he comes. All that he knows about himself is that he is a sinner; yet, having "known and believed" that story of grace which God taught his father when he sinned, he does not stand afar off, but draws near at once, attracted and emboldened by the grace which that story reveals. That grace he sees to be as sufficient as it is suitable. This is his encouragement and his confidence. He comes, because the God of grace has invited him to do so. Does he need more than this ? However evil he may be, the grace that is in God tells him that he is welcome.
2. Abel comes acknowledging death to be his due; for he lays his bleeding lamb upon the altar. Cain will not own this, and brings but the fruit of his garden as his gift. There is nothing that betokens death in that which he brings; for he denies that death is his due.
Possibly his offering might be as valuable in itself as Abel's. It would cost more toil; for it was gotten by the sweat of his brow in tilling the ground. Yet there was no death acknowledged in it; and therefore no acceptance either for his gift or for himself. For so long as death was not acknowledged as the wages of sin, grace could not flow out.
Grace takes for granted the infinite evil of sin, and that nothing short of death is its due. With the man that will not own this, grace refuses to deal. He may own that he is a sinner; but unless he owns that he is such a sinner as is totally unworthy of life, grace turns away.
Not that there is not grace enough even for him; but he is shutting it out: he is doing that thing which would make it dishonouring to God to extend it to him; he is putting himself in a position, and taking to himself a character, in which grace cannot recognise him.
It was as one deserving of death that Abel came, as one who felt himself under the sentence, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." He brought with him the visible symbol of this, in the lamb which he laid upon the altar. Thus he was saying each time he brought it,
"I deserve to die; for death is the wages of sin— nothing less than death; either I must die, or another must die for me: if I die, then I am shut out for ever from God, for the dead cannot praise him ; if another dies for me, then it is just as if I had died and borne the curse myself; in that case I am set free, and allowed to come to God as if the whole penalty had been paid, or had never been due. Let this death, then, which I bring, stand for my death, and let that curse which was my due, pass over to this substitute." Thus it was that Abel took God's estimate of sin and its penalty; and thus it was that he took God's method of atoning for that sin and paying that penalty. His conscience was pacified; his soul found rest in God. He saw that this death was the channel through which grace was flowing to the sinner, and that it was by taking his place as one whose desert was death, that grace was to flow to himself.
Is this the place that we are taking, the footing upon which we are seeking to stand before God? No other will avail us. A less humbling one may suit our pride and self-righteousness, but it will secure only