There is a constant tendency in the heart to ground our peace and acceptance upon something in or about ourselves, even though we admit that that something is wrought by the Holy Ghost. Hence arises the constant looking _in_, when the Holy Ghost would ever have us looking _out_. The question for every believer is not, "what am I?" but, "what is Christ?" Having come to God "in the name of Jesus," he is wholly identified with him, and accepted in his name, and, moreover, can no more be rejected than the One in whose name he has come. Before ever a question can be raised as to the feeblest believer, it must be raised as to Christ himself. But this latter is clearly impossible, and thus the security of the believer is established upon a foundation which nothing can possibly move. Being in himself a poor worthless sinner, he has come in the name of Christ, he is identified with Christ, accepted in and as Christ, bound up in the same bundle of life with Christ. God testifies, not of him, but of his gift, and his gift is Christ. All this is most tranquillizing and consolatory. It is our happy privilege to be able, in the confidence of faith, to refer every objection and every objector to Christ and his finished atonement. All our springs are in him. In him we boast all the day long. Our confidence is not in ourselves, but in him who hath wrought every thing for us. We hang on his name, trust in his work, gaze on his person, and wait for his coming.
But the carnal mind at once displays its enmity against all this truth which so gladdens and satisfies the heart of a believer. Thus it was with Cain. "He was very wroth, and his countenance fell." That which filled Abel with peace, filled Cain with wrath. Cain, in unbelief, despised the only way in which a sinner could come to God. He refused to offer blood, without which there can be no remission; and then, because _he_ was not received, _in his sins_, and because Abel was accepted, _in his gift_, "he was wroth, and his countenance fell." And yet, how else could it be? He should either be received with his sins, or without them; but God could not receive him with them, and he would not bring the blood which alone maketh atonement; and, therefore, he was rejected, and, being rejected, he manifests in his ways the fruits of corrupt religion. He persecutes and murders the true witness,--the accepted, justified man,--the man of faith; and, in so doing, he stands as the model and forerunner of all false religionists in every age. At all times, and in all places, men have shown themselves more ready to persecute on religious grounds than on any other. This is Cain-like. Justification--full, perfect, unqualified justification, by faith only, makes God every thing, and man nothing: and man does not like this; it causes his countenance to fall, and draws out his anger. Not that he can give any reason for his anger; for it is not, as we have seen, a question of man at all, but only of the ground on which he appears before God. Had Abel been accepted on the ground of aught in himself, then, indeed, Cain's wrath and his fallen countenance would have had some just foundation; but, inasmuch as he was accepted, exclusively on the ground of his offering; and, inasmuch as it was not to him, but to his gift, that Jehovah bore testimony, his wrath was entirely without any proper basis. This is brought out in Jehovah's word to Cain: "If thou doest well, (or, as the LXX. reads it, if thou offer correctly, [Greek: orthos prosenenkes],) shalt thou not be accepted?" The well-doing had reference to the offering. Abel did well by hiding himself behind an acceptable sacrifice. Cain did badly by bringing an offering without blood; and all his after-conduct was but the legitimate result of his false worship.
"And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him." Thus has it ever been; the Cains have persecuted and murdered the Abels. At all times, man and his religion are the same; faith and its religion are the same: and wherever they have met, there has been conflict.