As through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men (Rom5:18)
This verse from Romans alludes to the eluded universal Covenant of life as does the passage below. I have translated directly from the Greek which clarifies how the basis of justification at the universal and trans-historical level is Jesus’s faithfulness (culminating in the Atonement) not an individual’s faith in Jesus:
But now apart from the Law, God’s righteousness has been revealed witnessed by the Law and the Prophets; even the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward to be a propitiation through Faithfulness by means of His blood to display God’s righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over previous sins. It was to demonstrate His righteousness in the present time – that He Himself might be just whilst justifying people by Jesus’s faithfulness (Rom3:21-26)
The reference to “God’s righteousness” (v21) and the “righteousness of God” (v22) should be understood as a subjective genitive; it pertains to God not to the believer and refers to His saving justice and faithfulness with respect to His covenants. Justification is what concerns the believer and is freely granted through the merits of Christ’s faithfulness to all who “believe”. Thanks to the gospel it is now being revealed “apart from the Law”, not “without law” as some translations infer. The Jews needed to understand that faith is and always has been the badge of acceptance before God, not the deeds of the Torah (works of the Law), for Abraham and righteous men before Him predated the Law; they and all Gentiles subsequently had been accepted (justified) through the merits of Christ’s faithfulness applied to those who demonstrated an underlying faith, positively responding to the divine enlightenment they had received. When Paul refers to the Jews seeking to establish their own righteousness instead of submitting to the “righteousness of God” (Rom10:3), he is not referring to some misguided moralism, sometimes referred to as “proto-Pelagianism”; on the contrary JHWE had constantly urged His people to learn to do good (cf. Is1:17), be holy in themselves and administer social justice. Mary’s son had been disclosed to be the Incarnated Word or Logos, the One by Whom human souls are created and provided with a measure of wisdom, reason and divine enlightenment imparted by their Creator. And it is by the Son of Man’s death that the racial barrier that had prevented Gentiles from participating in the privileges of the Covenant of Promise had been broken down (Eph2:12), justification in that context was no longer to be on a racial basis signified by circumcision and Torah observance but by submitting to the “righteousness of God”. This had now been revealed separately from the Law (Torah) and enacted through Christ’s faithfulness to His death on the cross. It meant that the physical seed of Isaac if they wished to form part of God’s augmented and now racially inclusive royal priesthood must exercise faith and allegiance to the very One their leaders had crucified so that they could be sanctified through obedience to the Christian Faith.
Christians and the Jewish nation before them are members of an exclusive covenant evidenced at its inauguration when Abraham’s own beloved circumcised son Ishmael was excluded together with his offspring (Gen21:8-20). Yet Paul was also aware of an inclusive covenant to which God was being faithful by which the likes of Ishmael and the righteous before him had been accepted on the basis of their “faith” through the merits of Christ’s faithfulness. This Universal Covenant of life is more explicitly referred to in the fourth chapter of Genesis which we will look at in a moment and again in more detail in chapter six of this book in the context of those who default from it; for it is a key to understanding the mystery of evil. In terms of “the Fall”, a short-lived implicit covenant was in place relating to God’s warning to our first parents not to eat fruit from a certain tree and the implied promise that if they were obedient all would go well otherwise they would die on the day they ate of it. Some have called it the “Covenant of Works” but really it is also a Covenant of Faith, for acceptance with God has never been on the basis of “attaining a standard of worked merit” but of the obedience of faith and remaining faithful. Justification consists of demonstrating that one is a valid participating member of a covenantal community such as the Church, or indeed the redeemable human race that benefits from the Atonement in the context of the eluded covenant to be considered. This is closely related to the issues raised in chapter three (justification through the faithfulness of Christ). With this overlap there is bound to be a measure of repetition; tiresome for some but hopefully helpful for others less theologically minded and to whom some of these concepts will be quite new, for they are somewhat new to the author.
Covenantal Membership: grace to get in; faithfulness to stay in
Everyone entering into a covenant with God is there by unmerited grace, i.e. divine favour and generosity not dependant on merit (which as we will see is not always the case when receiving “grace” or finding favour with God). Unmerited grace clearly applied to a Jewish baby born within the Abrahamic Covenant; equally to the Christian baby baptized by the Church and incorporated within the Covenant of Christ’s blood; also, to the adult convert given faith to apprehend Christ (Eph2:8) and receive Christian baptism; and the human baby, starting with Cain as the world’s first infant, freely incorporated within the universal Covenant of life through the two-way age-enduring merits of Christ’s righteous act (Rom5:18). The issue then becomes how one retains the benefits of that covenant as opposed to defaulting. The answer is faith or faithfulness [same word in biblical Greek] evidenced by “fruit”. The Jew who turned from JHWE to idolatry defaults his covenantal privileges; those in Christ who fail to produce fruit may remain in the Church but will be finally rejected by God (cf. Jn15:2); members of the human race who fail to produce any fruit in the form of compassionate love (agape) like Cain and the Matthew 25 “goats” remain on Earth (for the time being) but become alienated from God’s loving care; they have a new master to look after their interests, and at least as far ahead as Scripture permits us to foresee will not be incorporated within God’s eternal Kingdom but will receive post-mortem punishment (Mt25:45-46).
As the apostle James emphasized, justification requires evidence in the form of obedience or works to confirm that the faith is “formed” as opposed to “dead” (Jam2:17, 22). For devils believe in God’s existence as did Cain; but they are not thereby justified for they never respond positively to that belief. Eve and Adam defaulted from their implicit covenant because having been led astray they ceased to be faithful and showed it by disobeying God’s command concerning the tree of knowledge. We will work through the implication of our first parents’ disobedience shortly, but this chapter is equally concerned with an incident concerning their two sons which is just as significant though has certainly not been recognized as such.
Cain, Abel and what God required of them
I suggested that the verse quoted from Romans in the chapter sub-heading alluded to a covenant; the following verse from Genesis is unquestionably covenantal in form, though most theologians for the last two thousand years have chosen not to regard it as such:
If thou (Cain) 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 (Gen4:7 King James Version)
The translation of this verse from the Hebrew is admittedly problematical: “Will you not be accepted?” (Hebrew: seeth) could equally be “will your countenance not be lifted?” which is utilized by some versions of the Bible. The King James Version quoted above recognizes “sin” to be a person (the Sinful One), which makes sense since it or he is lying or crouching (Hebrew: rabats) at the door and “desires” to control Cain. Sin per se could hardly be “at the door” in Cain’s case, it’s already in Cain’s heart and about to wreak havoc. Cain is described elsewhere as “of the evil one”, confirming that the Sinful One was indeed at the portal of his soul and was able to master Cain and thereby control him; indeed, own him (1Jn3:12). From the human perspective, that would not have been so if Cain had responded differently to the challenge JHWE presented to him in Gen4:7 (however one chooses to translate it), so the verse effectively reflects a Universal Covenant for fallen humanity; for Abel was fallen but he was accepted. The purpose of the Cain and Abel story which is drawn upon in the New Testament is not to show how Abel “got saved” it is about how Cain became reprobate (rejected), indicated by the vital yet typically glossed references to “this day” and “now” regarding the elder brother’s fate. The day he killed his brother he was cursed and entirely alienated from God and not before that day. When God told Cain to “do well”, He was not seeking perfection but to do what the young man intuitively knew to be right: offer like Abel the first-fruits of his crop and preferably not go on to slaughter his innocent brother in cold blood. For no one is born devoid of at least one “talent” (the light of reason and a sense of justice) but some choose to bury it in the ground and they will be condemned (cf. Mt25:14-29). Cain, an agricultural farmer (4:2) was not expected to steal from his livestock farmer brother Abel to sacrifice an animal in offering for his sin, as some would dissemble (e.g. the Young’s Literal translators). Comparing Scripture with Scripture we see that Cain and his sacrifice were not accepted because his works were evil whilst his brother’s works were righteous (1Jn3:12). That was because the one exercised faith and the other didn’t, for one was a child of God, the other as confirmed in later Scripture was or had become satanic (1Jn3:12 cf. Greek). As second century Irenaeus had expressed the matter precisely in this context: “It is the conscience of the offeror that sanctifies the sacrifice when (the conscience) is pure and thus moves God to accept the sacrifice as from a friend”1. Abel showed by his works and a good conscience that he had “faith” so was justified by that faith with reference to works (offering the best of his flock), not by achieving a standard of worked merit (justification by works). Why was perfection not required by either of them? – it was in view of the Sacrifice of atonement effectual throughout human history that St Paul was referring to above. Through the faithfulness of Christ (ek pisteos christou), which more theologians and the more recent Bible translators are recognizing needs to be distinguished from cognisant faith in Christ (pisteos en Christo), expiation has been provided for the faults arising from human weakness for those who themselves seek to be faithful to God (cf. Rom1:17 Greek: Faith applied to faith) i.e. the atoning benefits of Christ applied to all those who in turn are faithful2. The understanding of some that Cain and Abel were expected to anticipate a future Sacrifice for sin by killing an animal is unsustainable; cultic sacrifices were not clearly established as a religious system until the Law of Moses. Paul, James and the writer to the Hebrews make it clear why Abraham had been counted as righteous, being a belief in the God he had encountered evidenced by obedience, in his case that he would be rewarded with a great family (cf. Gen15:1). No one in the Old Testament is declared to be justified by offering an animal sacrifice, so Abel cannot be an exception. As will be demonstrated from Scripture, Old Testament folk and all “people of good will” were and still are accepted by God through Christ’s faith/faithfulness being applied to those who are deemed to fear God through their positive response to the divine enlightenment they have received. The Faithfulness of Christ3 (pisteos christou) does indeed relate to His atoning Sacrifice at the centre of history, but the beneficiaries do not necessarily have an awareness of it; universally so in Old Testament times (as we have shown, none of the twelve disciples initially had a clue about their Lord’s future death, further evidenced by their initial despair after His crucifixion in spite of Jesus’s assurances). Abel exercised faith and produced fruit in the form of good works (1Jn3:12). Abel didn’t “get saved”, he remained accepted (justified) and was acknowledged as righteous within the Universal Covenant; Cain reprobated (became rejected) and was brand-marked for Satan, and to scare the life out of all who would dare cross him, but that was not at the point he failed to offer his first-fruit in sacrifice, for although God was not pleased with his offering, He still held out an olive branch. Rather he was called to account immediately he had killed his brother. The issue was never the brothers’ religious observance per se for God has always delighted in compassion rather than religious offerings, as is affirmed by Jesus (Mt9:13). Cain’s reprobation resulted from a total absence of the fruit that is the evidence of justifying faith: godly fear or that still small voice of God speaking through conscience. These are the criteria that distinguish those who are or will become the children of God from those who become the delegates/envoys/messengers/agents of Satan (aggelois diabolou - cf. Mt25:41). Like Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel were uniquely special, being the first siblings to be born of woman. That is why they are representative within the Universal Covenant to demark how fallen man is regarded by God on an individual basis. The criterion of judgement being “faith” resulting in the fruit of agape fully aligns with Christ’s final judgement of “the nations”, that is those (under Plan A) outside the Abrahamic Covenant (Mt25:31-46). This will be dealt with in considerably more detail in the next chapter.
The demise of the Adam-project
Returning to the error of our first parents, why from a human perspective was God’s “Adam project” allowed to go so horribly wrong, almost resulting in global annihilation by water within ten generations? Who was at fault; to what degree and what were the respective penalties handed out to the guilty parties at what we know as “the Fall”? Account also needs to be taken of a subsequent cosmic drama cryptically referred to in Genesis 6:1-2 which impacted upon humanity, but as with the elusive Universal Covenant, in accordance with God’s stratagem of progressive revelation it has not been taught or generally understood by the churches, even though the earliest Fathers refer to it4. Once clarified, our loving God’s decision to flood the Earth, obliterate Sodom and Gomorrah and annihilate the men, women and children of the Canaanite territories will be better understood, indeed perceived to be necessary. With that in mind and again contrary to my personal intentions I have been led to refer to the extra-biblical Book of Enoch5, as it throws considerable light on Gen6:1-2 and matters concerning judgement and the age to come. In recent times fragments of copies were found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is literature that was regarded as inspired and a genuine work of the Patriarch by early Church Fathers such as Clement, Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine and Tertullian, which is hardly surprising since it is directly quoted in the New Testament (Jude14,15). Tertullian specifically regarded Enoch as falling within the remit of 2Tim3:16 concerning “all Scripture” being inspired and useful6. He believed the book had been rejected from the Jewish Cannon because it contained this prophecy pertaining to Christ:
And there was great joy amongst them and they blessed and glorified and extolled because the name of that Son of Man had been revealed to them. And He sat on the throne of His glory and the sum of judgement was given to the Son of Man and He caused the sinners to pass away and be destroyed from off the face of the Earth, and those who have led the world astray (En68:26,27).
More likely, Enoch was excluded from the Old Testament Cannon (apart from that formulated by the Coptic Orthodox Church) because of an unacceptable degree of variation in the manuscript copies available to the early Church councils that determined the composition of the Biblical Canon. Apart from being directly quoted in the Bible, this Scripture clarifies some otherwise obscure verses which themselves are quite important and cannot be properly understood by comparing canonical Scripture with Scripture. None more so than the opening of Genesis 6, vital to a rounded understanding of God’s nature and modus operandi, together with the respective culpability of the human and celestial agencies that contributed to the fall and the flood. The latter was another reason it was more conclusively rejected by the later Fathers who believed it did not place sufficient emphasis on man’s culpability for those cosmic disasters, especially having endorsed Augustine’s austere take on the matter. This extra-biblical literature also clarifies less important but nevertheless intriguing issues such as “the blood that speaks better things than Abel” (Heb12:24), Enoch’s walk with God (in much detail) and the ethnicity of Adam, Eve and their offspring (hinted at in Genesis5:3). It also reveals, albeit cryptically, the ethnicity of Noah’s three sons, and for that reason alone, especially in view of Gen9:25, it was providential it was excluded, and until relatively recently not readily accessible. But it also re-affirms the fact that the wicked are to be removed at the Parousia and the Messianic Kingdom established on Earth for a period before the Earth is written down for destruction and the New Heavens and Earth prepared at the general resurrection. With the aforementioned early Christian writers I have no doubt the book is inspired and should be consulted to aid completion of the biblical jigsaw. In the present context it also contains certain prophecies regarding the final mystery of God that would not have remained such a mystery had the book been received within the canon and historically focused upon within the Church.
Enoch’s exclusion from the biblical canon will have been in accordance with God’s will, for if we do not accept that the early Church councils were infallibly guided in determining which of the alleged “gospels”, “epistles” and “revelations” were genuine and divinely inspired then we cannot trust the Holy Scriptures at all. Researchers into the matter will note that an agreed canon was not properly settled until the late fourth century, and for some time thereafter very few Christians would possess a Bible, for before the invention of the printing press the complete manuscripts would have been rare and extortionately expensive. Much later the Protestant Reformers relegated seven books (classified as deuterocanonical having been included in the Septuagint but not the Hebrew Bible) and these have subsequently disappeared from most Protestant Bibles. Yet some of these books are referenced in New Testament Scripture and you will observe that many were utilized as proof-texts in the writings of the early Fathers. Had Luther had his way James, Revelation, Hebrews and Jude would have disappeared along with them for these more than most challenged his concept of salvation through “faith” alone as he redefined it. But there is another reason to believe Enoch was not intended for the Church throughout its history yet is relevant for today as “profitable reading” – that is the very opening verse:
The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and the righteous who will be living in the day of tribulation when all the wicked and godless are to be removed (Enoch1 ch1 v1)
And at the end of Enoch there is a prophecy concerning the book itself and other books:
But when they write down truthfully all my words in their languages, and do not change or remove anything from my words but write them all down truthfully – all that I first testified concerning them; then I know another mystery, that books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom. And to them shall the books be given, and they shall believe in them and rejoice over them, and then shall all the righteous who have learnt therefrom all the paths of uprightness be recompensed (Enoch104:11-13)
This is quite remarkable: the idea of books or scrolls being made widely available for distribution is a concept nowhere to be found in the Cannon of Scripture and was beyond human envisaging before the invention of the printing press. If you have ever read through Enoch you are bound to agree that that book of itself could never be the cause of widespread joy or enlightenment, neither can “another mystery” be referring to the propagation of the Protestant Bible in the Middle Ages, for the Reformers like the Catholic Church did not regard Enoch as canonical, apart from which Enoch’s prophecy pertains to the generation living at the time “when the wicked are removed from the Earth” (En1:1). For there will be something quite unique about that generation (our generation?): unlike all Christians who have gone before them, they will not have visited HQ before the Lord comes to realize His Kingdom. As St Peter indicates in his epistle (1Pet4:6), those who have died will have had the opportunity to be acquainted and fully prepared for the next age whilst in Heaven; not so the Christians alive at His coming. “But surely we have the Church and the gospel to prepare us?” Which Church and gospel did you have in mind? The Jews had the Law and the Prophets, if only their scribes could have interpreted them – JHWE had to make further provision to prepare the way for His Son to come and inaugurate His Kingdom in the form of a messenger prophet (cf. Mal3:1). It is sobering to reflect upon these “scribes” of Jesus’s time: how even the true Faith and it Scriptures could be misinterpreted to the point of crucifying the One who was meant to be their fulfilment.
In terms of the Genesis story, the ultra-metaphorical reading employed by the likes of Augustine has resulted in some essential principles and events being glossed. Clearly, he was right even in his time to recognize that the creation story as presented in the Pentateuch was not intended to be a scientific account of the various creative processes; still more so in view of what we know today. So the seven “days” of creation will hardly be referring to 24-hour periods; Scripture elsewhere testifying that “one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2Pet3: 8), or as Augustine pointed out, Sirach18:1 (which he regarded as canonical) refers to creation being made at once (creavit omni simul). However, when the Lord tells Cain “Now you are cursed” and Cain replies “from this day I will be hidden from thy face” (Gen4:14), that has a theological significance which has been quite eluded. Most Christians acknowledge that the whole of human history has been tainted by the disobedience committed as an act of free will by Cain and Abel’s parents against their Creator; but there has also been a tendency to understate the influence of the third player in this catastrophe, for Satan (the snake) was its instigator, not Eve or Adam and this is fully reflected in the punishments. These are radically different in degree once the prepared remedy is applied, for it benefits the one guilty party at the expense of the other. The eternal Word’s incarnation as a Man and His death on the cross would bring about the ultimate destruction of the one guilty party, whilst for the other it would result in forgiveness, salvation and ultimate theosis (union with the Godhead), so that in the words of one of the last Church Fathers to be revered in both the Catholic and Orthodox Church, St Maximus the Theologian, “we may consort with God and become gods, receiving from God our existence as gods”7.
Having created what we now know to be a staggeringly immense universe, our sun just one amongst an ever-increasing but scarcely reliable estimate of 100 octillion stars (cf. Gen15:5), the Lord of the universe through His Spirit prepared this pinprick within space we call Earth to receive life (Gen1:2). But not just any life; for He had determined to initiate within this perfectly suited physical environment a relationship with beings created to be both physical and spiritual in makeup; made according to His nature so that they themselves could come to share in His divinity (cf. 2Pet1:4) and support His activity by subduing the Earth (Gen1:28). So from the outset, man was to act as God’s vice-regent, overseeing and caring for all that had been created on Earth. Provided with an equal yet complementing helpmate, Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it (Gen2:15). The garden contained all the trees required for this first couple’s eternal sustenance (cf. Gen3:24). It also contained a tree with the ability to give them knowledge of good and evil, intended for their future participation in the divine life (cf. Gen3:22). Meanwhile they were forbidden to touch it; but having been tempted by the devil to do so, these two children of God who were created innocent yet pliant disobeyed their Father and immediately lost their original state of righteousness. At that very moment they “died” just as foretold (Gen2:17). That death pertained to their relationship with God, whilst what had been a perfectly complementing union between man and woman became subject to tensions and marked by lust and domination. In terms of their morality, their demise had the effect of weakening the soul’s ability to master the latent tendencies of the procreated body for the latter had become fatally subjugated to the pleasures of the senses, covetousness for material goods and ostentatious pride. This is a triple concupiscence pertaining to “worldliness” as summed up by St John:
All that is in the world: the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the ostentation of life is not of the Father but of the world (1Jn2:16)
Through Satan’s treachery and our first parents’ disobedience, man together with the whole visible creation became subject to physical decay and death, and by procreation the human body became a corrupting influence on the soul that would come temporarily to inhabit it; what Paul and Peter refer to as our earthly tent (2Cor5:1; 2Pet1:13, 14) or vessel (1Thes4:4). However, we’re only a few chapters into Genesis and already some traditional theological assumptions need to be challenged. Firstly, it is erroneous to intimate that the Fall led to “death of the human soul”, for that implies that the whole person including the human’s spirit had become entirely alienated from God and no longer had any effectual enlightenment. The historical error of mainstream Christian theology since its systemization in Late Antiquity has been as basic as failing to distinguish between disobedient Adam and his psychopathic eldest son; that was not the case amongst the earliest Fathers such as Irenaeus8a and Origen8b who classified fallen Adam with Abel not Cain. Adam was the first man to be created; Cain the first to be born of woman; the one was the federal head of humanity and the progenitor of “original sin”, the other being the type of the “damned”, being those who