Dear friends,
Welcome again to Two Ways News. Working with my brother makes it a bit of a family concern. The last episode of the older brother killing the younger reminds us of the mixed blessing of family life. In this episode, we follow through the family of Cain. It’s not a pleasant story, though in the midst of evil there are great achievements. Don’t forget to tell others of Two Ways News.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: Thank you to those subscribing; we love to hear from you, and we hope that you’ll spread the idea of subscribing to your friends.
But before we get into our topic, a couple of questions have been asked of us in the last couple of weeks that I believe are important to answer. The first question was asked a couple of weeks ago in light of our episode ‘Marriage in the New Testament’: “What happens if one person in a marriage no longer likes sex?”
This question is informed by that passage in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, which tells us that each is to provide for the other inside marriage and give to each other the conjugal rights, both for the male and the female. But what is the godly response of the partner who is disinterested in sex? Is it just simply self-sacrifice out of love? It is a very difficult pastoral question, but one that’s common enough that we should address it.
If one partner loses interest, then they must still be concerned for their spouse, to provide and care for them. The one who is still interested must also seek to provide for their spouse. The key is conversation. It’s not something to endure in silence; it’s something to talk to each other about. If there’s no resolution that they can work out, I would recommend seeking medical advice on the matter, because sometimes it is a matter of medical concern. It can also be addressed through counselling. A lowered testosterone level, or too much emotional pressure in one’s lifestyle, can reduce libido. Counselling and/or medical advice should be pursued in this situation. However, the idea of self-sacrificial love is the bottom line: the kindness of caring for one another, of providing when we do not feel like it, and of refraining when we do not feel like it. We should live out of concern for the welfare of our spouse, rather than simply ourselves, and provide for them. Though, if there is a way of addressing the problem so that we can provide for each other in physical sexual activity, that is to be preferred.
The second question comes from a few weeks before, following our episode ‘Men and Women in the New Testament’. The question was about why we didn’t talk about the hot-button issue of whether women should preach to mixed congregations. We didn’t address this issue in that episode because we were interested in talking about the broader topic rather than this one issue. But it is a major controversy in our world today. The issue comes from 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and is something on which I have written and spoken. At the end of our transcript you can find the details of my preaching on this topic and a reference to the commentary I wrote on 1 Timothy for The Good Book Company, in which there’s a section on this particular passage. Thus, I don’t want to go into the details of the exegesis of the passage now; rather, I will address what we should be doing in church.
There are many things we do in church which are symbolic of our theology of ministry. Notable examples include the use of the stole and the raising of hands in singing. A stole, for our non-Anglican friends, is a coloured scarf that some clergymen would traditionally wear: evangelicals would wear a black one, while people of a different churchmanship would wear a coloured one. It’s symbolic of the theology of the ministry of the church; it speaks of what we believe when we are gathered in church.
Likewise, the difference between those who see the worship of God being expressed liturgically and those who see the worship of God experienced in music and the raising of hands is expressive of the differing view they have of ministry. In one sense, it’s an irrelevance. I can sing with my hands in the air or deep in my pockets. But in another sense, it does matter, because what I do while singing is a reflection of what I am teaching of the truth of the gospel in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Thus, women’s preaching in church is an expression of how we deal with the scriptures, such as 1 Timothy 2. Paul has spoken several times of a practice that he enjoins upon all the churches. This is a passage which speaks of creation and sin, so there is a universalism about it. In preaching the gospel, we challenge the culture of our day with the word of God. We are concerned with how God created the world, how he has saved the world, and how we live now as men and women who are his children. However, there are others who, in their attempt to reach the world with the gospel, wish to make accommodations for the world. The diversities of approaches to preaching can be seen in those churches which are seeking to change the culture by the scriptures, as opposed to those who are accommodating the scriptures to the culture of the world.
That’s why only in the last century have we seen this desire to have women now leading the church of God. Those who are seeking this accommodation will call this a secondary issue, not a gospel issue, and thus it doesn’t matter.
However, there are no secondary issues. All issues are expressive of our theology, and this one is expressive of a theology I disagree with, for it seems to me the purpose of preaching the gospel is to call the world to repent and be conformed to the Creator’s wish. Therefore, we should not be departing from what the scriptures are saying on this topic.
That being said, let’s turn to our topic for today. Peter, What have you been up to recently?
Peter Jensen: I’ve been looking into our lineage recently, and I have done the famous DNA test, which yielded a few unexpected results. Danish, Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh DNA were there, but there was also 2% of West African blood. I’m rather proud of our connections with people from West Africa, so it’s good to have a bit of West African blood in both of us.
Phillip: It’s strange to think of the history and how that could be.
Peter: The material I received came via the United States of America. So our West African ancestors were in America and were clearly the victims of the slave trade.
Phillip: It is muddled like that. The globalisation of the world picked up in the last century, and we started moving peoples around, sadly because of slavery, but also through the empires. So we get mixed up, but we get mixed up in the evil of it too.
Peter: Yes, so I looked at the material that’s been sent to me, and the result filled me with a degree of horror at what happened.
Phillip: I suspect we tell this history because we did the right thing in the end, in getting rid of slavery, so that we can face just how evil and horrific the West African slave trade was. The loading up of people, even the fact they loaded more people into boats than they needed, because they knew how many were going to die en route. The whole thing was so hideous, so inhumane, and so godless that it had to be removed. Though slavery has been universal throughout the history of mankind, it was this hideous form of it that led the Christians, particularly in England, to take up the great campaign to remove it from the world. One of the good parts of the British Empire was their willingness to take on the responsibility to spread this anti-slavery message across the world.
Peter: It was, and at some cost to themselves. So there you have the goodness of humanity, but dealing with an unspeakable evil.
Phillip: The great John Newton was a man wonderfully converted, but he didn’t immediately give up the slave trade. Even after he became a Christian, he continued for a while in it. But then he became a leading exponent of the anti-slave trade. So his shift to Christianity did, in the long run, shift him against slavery.
Peter: It’s our family story, but of course we’re dealing with the family of Adam and Eve back in Genesis. The sin of Adam and Eve doesn’t belong to them alone; it’s not as though they sinned and then the next generation was much better. Their sin was passed on to generations untold down to the present day, the brilliance and the corruption of humanity. We are born with a sinful propensity which shows itself very soon into our childhood and into the whole arena in which history is played out. This is the living dead, so to speak. Death has entered the world, and we are dying even as we live because of this sinfulness. It’s not merely an old story, but it’s our story. The Bible then raises the question: ‘How does God deal with this?’
Phillip: Last week we looked at the immediate succession of Adam and Eve in the birth of their firstborn, Cain, who killed his younger brother Abel, and that continuation of sinfulness, the extension of their sinfulness, and the judgement of God. We pick it up where God speaks to Cain in Genesis 4:12
When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Then the LORD said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.
Lamech said to his wives:
“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,
then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”
Peter: We see the ongoing reality of judgement here. Let’s see if you can fill us in here. Where is the land of Nod?
Phillip: It sounds odd, like it’s a make-believe place. It’s east of Eden, which is where they were driven when they left the garden of Eden. But the word ‘nod’ in Hebrew just means wanderer. So it picks up that he’s now going to be a wanderer in the land of wanderings.
Peter: Here’s the most famous question for the Bible: Where did Cain’s wife come from?
Phillip: It’s likely that there were more people than those in the Garden of Eden. Who they were, we do not know. But the Genesis account does not tell us everything; it tells us the essential. Suddenly, there is a wife, and from him come children.
Peter: Genesis fixes our attention on the essentials rather than the questions which we may have. It may well be that there were other people around.
Phillip: You see in verse 17 that he builds a city. The word ‘city’ may mean something like a village or a fort.
Peter: Kidner makes the point in his wonderful commentary on Genesis that it may be that the image of God was shared across the existing populations, and out of that comes the real humanity. But all of this is speculative; the Bible doesn’t tell us.
Why build cities?
Phillip: I presume there are other people. Cain is afraid of people. Who are these people that he’s afraid of? We’re not told. In one sense, as you’re reading, you can be saying, ‘There’s Adam, there’s Eve, there was Cain, there was Abel, Abel’s gone, there’s just Cain.’ Then there are people he’s going to be afraid of. Are these creatures that have not received the image of God? Is this where Neanderthals fit in? We have no idea. It’s speculation.
Peter: Moving on from that, what is meant by ‘sevenfold vengeance’?
Phillip: I take it to mean completion. Our culture is very mathematical, so we want precision in mathematics, whereas the Bible uses numbers in symbolic senses. But you see it in our society. Our Chinese friends’ motorcars have 888 number plates, which is a way of declaring their prosperity. You’ll never see them driving in a car numbered 444, because in Chinese, the word ‘four’ sounds like ‘death’. As another example, I was in a hotel the other day, which didn’t have a floor 13. And on every floor, there was no room 13. The symbolic use of numbers goes way back and covers many cultures. ‘Sevenfold’ is a way of saying ‘complete’.
Peter: A sevenfold vengeance is a pretty bad vengeance: full vengeance. And the preservation of Cain, this mark of Cain?
Phillip: There’s the grace of God at work. He doesn’t mean the judgement to be that Cain, the murderer, will himself be murdered. So he protects him with a mark. What the mark was, we do not know. The point is God’s grace in protecting the man. He hasn’t given up completely on him. It’s the nature of the world we’re in that there is good and evil operating at the same time. There is God’s judgement and his salvation operating at the same time.
Peter: We all carry within ourselves both good and evil.
Phillip: I think about it in terms of statues of great people. The good, the bad and the ugly are all there in every person. Statues are put up as part of the quest for immortality. We never want to forget this great person, be they a sports person, a financier, a generous person, or a politician. Generally, it’s wealthy people who put up statues of themselves, but they’re always flawed. There is no hero that doesn’t have, as the expression goes, ‘clay feet’.
In recent times we’ve come to a stage where people are trying to pull statues down. The United States of America has removed Confederate statues and others. Thomas Jefferson has been removed because of the sensitivities that our American friends have towards the slave trade. Jefferson, the great founder of some of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment of the American Constitution, owned slaves, so statues of him are now thought to be inappropriate. But take someone like Sir Thomas Guy: Guy’s Hospital is named after him because of his generosity and concern for people, and there was a movement to have his statue removed, but in the end they decided to go the other way. There’s an interpretive plaque explaining this.
Cecil Rhodes in Oxford is another example. The Rhodes scholarship has paid enormous quantities of money for the education of some of the leading people of the world, but Rhodes made his name out of South Africa. The big statue at Cape Town was pulled down because of the oppressive nature of Rhodes in South Africa. There’s also a statue of him in Oriel College, Oxford, which was intended to be pulled down, but then they found the costs and the complexities engineering-wise of removing it were such that they left it up. You have to laugh at an institution with the wealth of Oxford that’s come from Rhodes for not having enough money to be able to pull the statue down. So instead, they’ve installed a plaque explaining it. He was someone who made money inappropriately, though they’re happy to have his money and use it.
In Australia, one of the leaders of our Labor Party has fallen out with the party. There was a movement to have his picture removed from the line up of pictures of all the leaders of the Labor Party down the years. Instead, they went for the soft option of putting up an explanatory plaque to clarify that ‘We don’t like this man after all.’
It’s like eulogies. When have you been to a funeral where they’ve told the truth about the person? I’ve been to many funerals and have noticed the differences in how a person is remembered. When you sit in the first car following the hearse to the cemetery, silence reigns. But when you sit in about the tenth car, you hear the truth about the deceased as they discuss the eulogy.
Peter: Phillip, now we know your view of statues and eulogies. Why are you mentioning these things?
Phillip: Because humans are a mixture of the good and bad: the good of being created in the image of God and the bad of being like Adam, in rebellion against God.
Peter: We sometimes think the image of God was removed when Adam and Eve sinned, but that is not what the Bible says. If we think of the image of God as being the stamp whereby human beings are set apart from the rest of creation – because we, in a sense like God, rule over the created order – how does that work itself out? We can see this in Cain’s family. Cain was awful, but as time goes on, we come across this extraordinary bit here about one of his descendants, who was the father of ‘those who dwell in tents and livestock’; in other words, farming. His brother’s name is Jubal, the father of ‘those who play the lyre and harp’; in other words, music. Then there’s Tubal Cain, who was ‘the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron’; in other words, technological advancements. We see the beginnings of cultural advance here, proving that we are still image bearers, still capable of good.
We use the word ‘culture’ a lot. It begins with agriculture, the development of the created order by farming and so forth, so that culture describes fundamentally our interaction with creation. It develops in different ways, from farming to music to the use of bronze and other metals. It’s a description of the way we human beings interact with the world in which we find ourselves and which contains astonishing achievements. But as well as astonishing achievements, we can see that we all are failure and corruption.
Phillip: But failure and corruption can be in the instruments and in the culture.
Peter: Yes, because all of us have a view of who human beings are; our anthropology, if you like, our vision for and our doctrine of human beings. You may never have thought of the subject, but you’ve still got it. Every discipline works on an anthropology of some sort, though this may not be explained or brought to the surface. Movements like Marxism have an anthropology which, as I understand it, sees people as basically good, but it has its impact. One example is that of Trotsky, one of the great leaders of the Russian Revolution, who said
What is man? He is by no means a finished or harmonious being… Man, as an animal, has not evolved by plan but spontaneously and has accumulated many contradictions… To produce a new, “improved” version of man – that is the future task of Communism… Man must look at himself and see himself as a raw material, or at best a semi-manufactured product, and say, “At last, my dear Homo sapiens, I will work on you.”1
Phillip: This is a scientific man in a scientific society, which, like Trotsky, had the idea that they could recreate, out of their great scientific discoveries, a new man.
Peter: It impacted, for example, architecture. Marxist architecture sought to answer the question, ‘What sort of buildings best reflect our goal of creating man?’ Some fairly ugly architecture resulted, which hardly suited human beings at all because they were meant to all live together. Those who weren’t Marxist did not have positive opinions either about some of the architecture which emerged at much the same time in the West, similarly based on the question as to who a human being is.
Phillip: A human being is Lamech. He really is a very ugly character: all the bad of the Cain line is seen in him. As far as we know in the Scriptures, he’s the first man to have more than one wife. There may have been others, but I take it that the point is being made that polygamy has now entered in, and vengeance. Those became two of the big problems of humanity. Polygamy was almost universal in the ancient world. Even up into the modern world, where 50 or so countries around the world have legal polygamy. It was always a terrible injustice to women. It always excludes many men from having family life. Just like the Bible largely cleansed the Western world of the wickedness of slave trading, so the Bible has substantially cleansed the Western world of polygamy. But the Bible itself is very honest about human nature, including polygamy and vengeance murders. Here we have the world still full of sin, yet with enormous cultural advantage, because we’re in the image of God to rule the world. We still can, with agriculture, with metalwork, with the beauties of music.
Peter: Where is God in all this? It’s a fairly grim passage. Are there any indications of his grace at work?
Phillip: There’s the common grace, as it is called, of our created status in his image, with our technology and music. The protection of Cain is a special grace, though. That special grace of salvation is where the Bible is going to take us next week. Just as we’ve got the common grace of God in chapter 4, in the midst of all the sin, chapter 5 tells us about God’s special grace in saving the world.
Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution (UK Jonathan Cape, 1996)
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on the topic of Cain, check out this sermon by Phillip on Genesis 4 entitled Crimes and Morality.
Information on Phillip’s book entitled 1&2 Timothy for You can be found here.
You can find a talk from Mid Year Conference 2016 on 1 Timothy 2-3 entitled The Godly Life here.
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