Global
Rebellion and the Patriarchs
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the January 16, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“The
Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth,
and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all
the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and
his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of
the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds
and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made
them.” Genesis 6:5-7, NIV
As we move along in the biblical narrative of the Great
Controversy, many things are left out of the story, and one is left trying to
fill in the gaps by speculating from what we know. Ellen White did a
commendable job of covering the theme in a book of forty-two chapters, but our
quarterly, perhaps vainly, attempts to cover the theme originally described in
the sixty-six books of the biblical narrative in only thirteen terse installments.
As a result, the time line is observed but without significant depth.
Naturally, many more questions may be raised than answered.
For instance, even in the Bible we move abruptly from
the account of the Fall in the third chapter of Genesis into the controversy
that develops over the offerings presented by Cain and Abel. There is no introduction
of this offering system, nor an explanation of its significance. If this
narrative was written at a later time when the sacrificial system of the
tabernacle or the temple in Jerusalem was in full swing, the author may have
felt that understanding was a given, and therefore not important. However, for
those of us who have never been participants in such a system and have not
known anyone who has, the meaning may not be clear.
Why were there sacrifices in the first place? What
difference did it make whether it was an animal or vegetables? In modern Asian
cultures, worshippers of diverse religions from animism to Hinduism as well as
several others leave offerings of food, including fruits and vegetables, on the
altars in their temples and before their idols. In fact, while some, like the
Samaritans of Palestine, still offer animal sacrifices,[i] most cultures, especially
western ones, find the practice primitive and abhorrent.
We may be safe to assume that the practice of making a
sacrifice on an altar did not spontaneously arise in a vacuum. Cain and Abel apparently
felt they had reason to believe that sacrifices were necessary. Since there was
no mention of sacrifice prior to the Fall, we might also assume that it relates
in some way to that event. While God was apparently in the habit of speaking to
man directly as we can see in the narrative of Genesis, chapters three and four,
no mention is made of Him instructing anyone regarding sacrifices until the debacle
with Cain and Abel. Some have surmised that the first sacrifice was the animal
or animals that died to provide clothing for the first man and woman.[ii] While this may be a good
guess, it is still only a guess for the Bible does not say that any animal had
to die in order for God to provide these garments. The same God who created a
woman from a man’s rib may have been able to provide skins without death.
However, the death of an animal would make very real to the first couple what
death was.
Nonetheless, how we get from that dead animal to Abel’s sacrificial
lamb and the detailed disposition of the fat of that lamb upon the altar is not
clear, nor is its meaning save in retrospect from the information related to
the Passover and the wilderness tabernacle shared in the later volumes of
Exodus and Leviticus. This lack of explanation continues throughout the
patriarchal period when Noah[iii] and Abraham[iv] offer sacrifices.
Strangely, the account of Noah’s sacrifice goes so far as to say that God
enjoyed the smell of the burning flesh and implies that the smell was behind
His deciding not to flood the Earth.[v] However, there is likely
more to all of this than God simply enjoying a good barbecue.
Fortunately, thanks to the remainder of the Bible, we
have the gift of 20/20 hindsight. The focus of the first eight chapters of
Genesis is the problem of sin and how to find forgiveness and redemption. When
we use a concordance and search on the word “forgiveness,” we find it mentioned
frequently throughout the Bible. We also come across an interesting passage in
the Epistle to the Hebrews. “… the law requires that nearly everything be
cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”[vi] So it would appear that
the shedding of blood is part and parcel with cleansing and forgiveness. This
would certainly explain why Abel’s offering would have more significance than
Cain’s. Cain’s vegetable sacrifice would not involve the shedding of blood.
So can we conclude that Abel’s sacrifice gave him
redemption and cleansing? Maybe not. Hebrews also tells us something else about
sacrificing animals. “Day after day every priest stands and performs his
religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sins.”[vii] So why were sacrifices
so common back then? If it does not solve the sin problem, what are we to do?
Perhaps what we are reading in the Bible are powerful
examples of metaphor. While the blood of the many, many animals sacrificed was
useless to take away sins, they pointed to blood that was efficacious. That
blood was shed by Jesus Christ on our behalf, yes, and on Cain and Abel’s
behalf as well, on the cross of Calvary. For if sin could only be cleansed
through the shedding of blood and the blood of animals could not accomplish it,
there needed to be a better sacrifice that could.[viii] God’s love for mankind
provided that sacrifice in Jesus[ix] thus ending the
continuous chain of animal sacrifices.[x]
That the blood of animals could not remove the problem
of sin may be seen in the story of Noah, for in spite of the sacrifices that
had been made on altars unknown and unmentioned in the Bible, sin grew more and
more prolific. Even though there were those who followed God, perhaps the sons
of God referred to in the account,[xi] it did not seem to stem
the tide of evil filling the Earth. In the end, out of all those multitudes,
only eight continued to serve God. They were Noah, his three sons and all of their
wives. According to the story of Noah, God chooses to wash the world of the sin
problem with a flood that will destroy all life except those preserved in a
wooden ark to be built by Noah and his family. However, just like the blood of
animals, this did not provide a solution to the sin problem either. As we can
readily see by simply reading the morning paper or watching the evening news on
television, sin is still very much with us, and evil seems to pervade every
level of society. Perhaps once again, the story can be understood better as a
metaphor. But in this case it may be a metaphor of a metaphor.
Jesus spoke to Nicodemus during a night meeting of the
need to be born of water and the Spirit in order to be saved.[xii] We understand that his
words refer to the ceremony of baptism, which is a metaphor for death to our old
life of sin and rebirth in a new life with Jesus. Therefore, if we understand
the world-wide flood of Genesis, chapters six and seven in a metaphorical
sense, it may be seen to represent cleansing from sin and an opportunity to be
reborn, to start over. The old world having passed away, all having died, everything
becomes a new creation. The Bible even refers to our rebirth in Jesus in those
terms.[xiii] We have an opportunity
to restart life just as the ante-deluvians did. However, where almost all back
then chose to perish in their evil, we can instead find life through Jesus.
If we give ourselves by faith to God, as Abraham did
when called out of Harran,[xiv] we will walk as he did,
and our faith will allow us to witness miracles and draw closer to God in
understanding and faith. Just as Abraham’s call to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on
Mount Moriah,[xv]
may have deepened his understanding of what God intended to do for all mankind,
God will bring us to unique experiences that will build our faith and reveal
His character as well. We only need to turn to Him and away from the evil that
surrounds us. We may feel that is hard to do, but we only need ask Him. He is
waiting just now for each of us to invite Him to come into our lives and
hearts. Even so, come.
