RE-FORMATION THESIS #6

Thesis #6  of 95: Cain rather than Adam is the type of the damned or reprobate who is later described in the New Testament as derived from the Evil One (Greek: ek tou ponerou)

BIBLICAL REFERENCE

Be not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s deeds were righteous (1Jn3:12)

COMMENTS

These first few theses focus on Genesis, and it should already be evident that Cain features as much as his father Adam. Cain’s parent Adam is several times referred to in Paul’s epistles. For at the human level it is through Adam and his partner Eve that sin came into the world. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1Cor15:22). Adam is our federal head; his fate is our fate – but that is the point being made in this thesis. We are in Adam, not Cain. Quoting from The Little Book of Providence on the subject:

The historical error of mainstream Christian theology since its systemization in Late Antiquity has been a failure to distinguish between disobedient Adam and his psychopathic eldest son. That was not the case amongst the earliest Fathers such as Irenaeus [ref1] and Origen [ref2] who classified fallen Adam with righteous 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 “the body of this death”, the other was the type of the damned, being those who through an act of free will leave the intuitive path of sound reason and deference to God’s still small voice speaking through the conscience “to walk in the way of darkness, and rejoice in evil and delight in the waywardness of the wicked, whose ways are perverse and devious” (Prov2:13-15).

Sound reason, even the spiritual faculty of conscience will not instruct a man how to be a disciple of Christ – His demands go well beyond such faculties. They require special revelation, spiritual empowerment and the means of sanctifying grace. However, innate human reason, informed by conscience is effectual and normative regarding what is to be pursued and what is to be avoided in the cause of being humane, and that is the basis upon which everyman is judged, being without excuse if he has opposed and rejected the light that he has received (Mt25:31-46). Cain did just that, killing his innocent brother in cold blood and so was cursed, whilst Adam had never received such a curse. Cain became alienated from such light, Adam did not. Cain came under Satan’s mastery, Adam did not. Cain was a plant of the devil, Adam a lost child of God: for whom Christ came to die – providing pardon for the many and fulness of salvation for those destined to partake in His life (Rom5:10; Rom8:29; Jn6:53-54).

From: The Little Book of Providence chapter two

Ref1:  Irenaeus against heresies Book III chap. 23 (5)

Ref2: Origen de Principiis Preface (4) 194 Mt25:31-46

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