The Gospel of Cain
False teachers and judaizers often preach the gospel of Cain. They speak lies in hypocrisy. They claim to love god by offering the fruit of the ground as a sacrifice instead of the acceptable sacrifice that God provided with righteous Abel.
The gospel of Cain is a gospel of religious works and pretended declarations of spiritual superiority. The false teachers say that one must keep a law or set of rules to be saved and accepted by God.
One of the most nefarious versions of this false gospel is the version that proclaims you must love God to be saved.
And this requirement to love god is a lie. You do not need to love God to be saved. The entire Law of Moses is summed up in, "loving God."
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." (Deuteronomy 6)
No man can keep this commandment. Yet Jesus taught that this commandment is the entirety of the Law of Moses:
"Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
The way of Cain teaches that you must offer a sacrifice of this love, being feigned and fake, as the 'fruit of the earth' or the fruit of the law. Cain's gospel demands that to be saved you must keep the greatest commandment which equates to keeping the whole of the law of Moses. But we know that no man is saved by the deeds of the law.
"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:20)
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Romans 3:28)
The command to love God is a deed of the law.
The sacrifice of Abel is different. Abel chose an acceptable sacrifice of the firstling of the flock. Abel's sacrifice is the sacrifice that God appointed and provided. Cain's sacrifice is what Cain provided by forcing the ground (religion, law) to bear fruit (outward deeds, creeds).
And we know that Cain was a murderer and hated righteous Abel. So we should examine the difference between the sacrifices of Cain and Abel to understand how Cain perverts the gospel.
From time to time the reader may see false teachers advertising the false gospel of Cain as the only way to salvation. These false teachers will say things like this:
"You must love God with all your heart, soul, and mind."
It sounds reasonable to those unlearned in the way of truth. But it is not reasonable and it denies the truth. Jesus came to save not the righteous, but to save sinners. The Law of Moses kills the sinner, rather than saving him. No man can keep this law to have perfect love for God. No man has the power to love God. No man can choose this love. Rather it is God who chose to love man:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
The way of Abel is to trust in the lamb, which God caused to grow fat and acceptable as a sacrifice for sin. Jesus is the unblemished firstling of the flock that takes away sin. Cain's sacrifice is the result of Cain's own work, rather than the work of God.
The way of Cain is to toss around pithy platitudes about how a man must eke out his salvation by pantomiming that he has great love for god and is loving god with all his mind, and showing it in his works, or in his own sacrifices and declarations of piety.
If a man tells you that you must love god to be saved, he is denying that we are saved because God loves us. He is preaching works as the means of salvation, offering up your own fruit for sacrifice in place of the lamb that God has provided. We learn this also from Abraham:
"And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together."
Abraham said that God will provide himself a lamb for the sacrifice. This is the way of Abel. The way of Cain is for men to provide their own sacrifice of creeds, deeds, and high-minded screeds which have no power to save. You can have creeds, deeds, and screeds. Or you can have the word of God. One is death. One is life.
So the liar that preaches that you must love god to be accepted by God, is teaching that you must offer your own righteous sacrifice, a thing that no man can do. Every sinner already is at enmity with God and can't love God because of sin. Yet the gospel of Cain demands that you must first love god before God can love and accept you. Instead, the true gospel teaches we must trust in the sacrifice that God provided for us to be saved:
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
The prescription for salvation is simple: believe on Jesus Christ. Pretending to love god with all your mind cannot merit salvation. Such false piety is the gospel of Cain which merits damnation. The modern gospel of Cain is sacrificial judaism disguised under a false Jesus mask. Cain denies the simple gospel of child-like faith and replaces it with a bellowing dragon that demands perfect love from imperfect souls, and threatens constantly to punish them for failing to do the impossible. With man it is impossible to please God, but all things are possible with God:
"But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."
Perhaps that is why Cain was so angry and persecuted his righteous brother. His righteous brother did nothing to earn God's love and approval. He simply took hold of the sacrifice that God provided, and God did the impossible for him. Whereas Cain has his own righteousness to boast of, a righteousness that Cain planted himself and toiled hard to grow, and God rejected it.
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And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
------------- (Matthew 19) '''
The rich man is the religious man, rich in the religion of the world, or rich in the fruit of the ground grown up by Cain's work. We see these modern Cains polluting the gospel of grace with their holier-than-thou and lovelier-than-thou and more-biblical-than-thou spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Mark them and avoid them. Do not trust in your own righteousness to be saved. Trust that Jesus took away your sin, and you shall be saved.
You will falter. You will fail. You will doubt. You will make mistakes. None of this can undo what God has already promised to those who trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus will guide you into all truth. He will guide you into the perfect love of God. Once you trust Jesus and are saved, then you will have power to love the Father. The gospel of Cain puts the cart before the horse, and requires you to muster up love for God in order to be saved. But it is God's love that saves us, not our own love for Him.
Cain is still in the world today. Cain is still murdering righteous Abel. Cain has risen up in the field using his false gospel as a cudgel to beat the life out of those who trust in Jesus instead of their own works. And like his father, the devil, he does it with a lie, teaching that salvation comes from your own will to choose righteousness. Don't be deceived. God is the chooser. God is the accepter. And God is the one who provides the sacrifice.
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Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
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 hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
------------- (Romans 3) '''
The command to, "love God" is a deed of the law. If you are required to first love God to be saved, then you are doomed. But if you believe that God loves you and gave Jesus as a sacrifice for you, then you are saved. Having love for God will be something God works in you, not something you work for Him. And we know who loves God--those who love the brethren and speak the truth without hypocrisy. This, Cain does not do. For Cain this is impossible. Cain hates the brethren of Jesus and wants to destroy them with his false gospel.
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NightBulb | https://blog.nightbulb.net | Flip the night switch.
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