Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Yahweh said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” Yahweh said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.“
(Genesis 4:9-10)

Just like with his parents, God gave Cain the opportunity to repent. Unlike his parents, who shifted blame to the one who held authority over them, Cain – who had taken Abel out into a field away from all witnesses – claimed ignorance. He hadn’t done anything. He denied his temptation, his feelings, the emotions he chose to build from them, and his actions. In a sense, he was claiming to to have listened to and followed through with what God had suggested he do in Genesis 4:7. And he was doing it to the God who was audibly talking to him – which shows how commonplace it was. It didn’t even make him sweat. He lied to God’s voice.

True repentance means accepting responsibility for our actions. Anything short of that means you are NOT truly repentance because you are refusing responsibility for your actions.

Abel was dead. He had been a righteous man (Hebrews 11:4), and now he was murdered. We know that God sees everything (Hebrews 4:13; Proverbs 15:3). But here God is revealing to us that the Earth He created was ALSO a witness. God is revealing that shed blood is ALSO a witness AND cries out to Him. That means that the Earth spiritually holds onto shed blood and that blood cries out to God from wherever it was shed or is being held. So not only does God witness everything we do, think, and say; but the very elements of our existence also witness against us. Nothing can be hidden – even if we manage for a time (Luke 8:17).

Cain’s answer also shows that he did not care to know about God or what God could or couldn’t do. He saw the question at face-value. That is was about the location of Abel’s body. He completely missed the spiritual nature of the question and the response the question was designed to produce. Can was completely consumed by the NATURAL and he projected that mindset onto God.

The sage Steinsaltz writes and shows us that this issue is about more than violent murder, but covers a multitude of ungodly behaviours and practices that we humans engage in: ‘He, God, said to Cain: What have you done? Think about your actions. Do not behave like those individuals, and this includes criminals, who attempt to justify or rationalize their behavior by claiming: It happened spontaneously, or: I lost my temper. The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. The murder itself calls out with the cry of unfulfilled life. The spilled blood screams out not only over the pain and the injustice but also for the loss of life itself.’