We have now completed the first dispensation of innocence and saw that even though man was placed in a perfect environment, he failed and ejected the plan of God for that dispensation, Gen 3:1:22.
Unless the believer understands divides the Bible according to dispensations, he will become overwhelmed and confused by its many subjects and perplexed by its differences.
If the believer neglects to study and sort these differences out, he will cheat himself out of understanding not only God's plan and purpose for man in general, but also for himself in particular.
It is that the very word of God is not only vital and important to understand but through study of the dispensations, it is easy to understand.
God has purposely made the major subjects such as man's problem with sin, and his accountability to God, as well as our Lord's substitutionary spiritual death, and personal salvation so simple that a child can understand them.
MAR 10:15 "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it at all."
These clear yet vital doctrines are referred to as the "simplicity that is in Christ" (2Co 11:3).
Though the more complex subjects reveal more of the mind and intentions of God, knowledge of them is not necessary for one to be saved.
They are necessary, however, for one to become a winner believer, but not saved.
The Exodus, Israel's Captivity, Daniel's Seventieth Week, the Rapture, the Judgment Seat of Christ, the Tribulation, the Millennium, the White Throne Judgment, the New Heaven and New Earth, etc.
The major differences in the Bible can be reconciled by rightly dividing it into dispensations and keeping the different doctrines found in the dispensations in their proper place.
Dispensation = Conscience
Opening Event = Able offers a lamb - Cain murders Able (Gen 4:2-15)
Man's Responsibility = Believe and obey - Gen 4:3-7; Heb 11:4.
Man's failure = Conscience defiled - Gen 6:5-7
Man's Tendency = Away from God - Gen 6:11-13.
Closing Event = Judgment - flood - Gen 7:11-23
Personal Salvation = By Grace through Faith - Gen 6:8; Heb 11:4-7; 1Pe 3:18-22.
Like the first dispensation, this is known as a Theocentric dispensation or the dispensation of the Gentiles because the Jewish race had not yet begun.
The Theocentric dispensations are divided into three parts:
- The Period of Positive Volition (Adam and the woman)
- The Period of Negative Volition (from Conscience to promise)
- The Period of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob etc.
The period of negative volition is the era or the dispensation of the first murder in history, Gen 4:1-15.
Cain was an individual who was religious and he typifies the self-righteous, jealous, petty type of person who thinks more highly of himself than what he ought to.
Abel - Habel means vanity, vapor, nothingness and even disappointment.
The name assigned indicates disillusion on the part of the original parents because by the time that Abel was born, they discovered what they had left behind by way of perfect environment.
Cain turned out to be a murderer and a loser in life. Abel turned out to be a winner and a visible hero.
There's no place for blaming the parents! And there's no place for the parents blaming themselves. Cain was a product of his own decisions not his genes.
Cain was the first unbeliever recorded in human history.
Cain was also the first criminal in human history.
Adam and the woman were right man and right woman, designed for each other by God, and, in spite of that, their children did not all turn out right.
HEB 11:4 By means of doctrine [resident in the soul] Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain.
"better" = pleiona which means "better, greater, a more excellent, and it refers to the fact that it wasn't a matter of offering a sacrifice but it was offering a sacrifice which was meaningful.
Abel is a picture of the believer who has P.V.T.D. and does the right thing in the right way. Cain is a picture of an individual who is minus doctrine and tries to impress God with his works.
Who motivated this murder in 1JO 3:12, Cain was of the evil one, and murdered his brother.
Because his deeds [his form of worshipping God] were evil [religious], but those of his brother were honorable and righteous."
Physical symptoms of anger range anywhere from a mild headache to ulcers, high blood pressure, even heart attacks according to the Bible.
Cain murdered his brother Abel because Abel fulfilled the principle of worship portraying TLJC being judged for our sins with the shedding of blood.
HEB 9:22 without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness for sin.
Abel offered an animal sacrifice while Cain offered only human good, his work or produce from the ground.
Cain was a great farmer but offering up human works instead of a blood sacrifice is like an individual today believing that mankind can be justified before God by his works.
Cain offered to the Lord the result of his own sweat and toil, his own good works, he should have purchased a blood sacrifice or asked one from his brother Abel, who was a keeper of the flocks.
In Gen 3:19, man was to live by the sweat of his brow.
In the immediate era following the fall we have envy, jealousy, arrogance, and this was the motive for the first murder.
This is a also the beginning in history of capital punishment.
Capital punishment has been authorized form the time of the first murder, right down to this moment.
Even in the animal kingdom, every animal that murders, even domestic animals were also executed.
A murderer was to be executed, not rehabilitated, not counseled, but executed.
It is not what the KJ's translation says Exo 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
It is what the NAS says, "You shall not [ratsach] murder."
A change in dispensation did not change the law of capital punishment.
The unlawful use of weapons, crime, violence, terrorism, rape, murder,...all of these categories draw the sword illegally.
This is a perfect illustration of the fact that every dispensation has certain divine laws which apply to all of them.
Capital punishment began in Gen 9;
It continued in the Mosaic Law, Exo 21:14;
Then in the hypostatic union, Mat 26:52;
In Rom 13:1-8, it continues in the Church-age;
In the Tribulation, terrorism is dealt with by capital punishment;
In Rev 2:26-28, capital punishment will even be practiced in the Millennium.
ISA 65:20 "No longer will there be in it an infant {who lives but a few} days, Or an old man who does not live out his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred Shall be {thought} accursed.
Establishment principles remain basically the same throughout all the dispensations.
The difference in dispensations is God's plan for believers, not the laws of divine establishment.
"If murder demands capital punishment then why did God allow Cain to keep on living?"
The reason why Cain was not executed was because it had not been a law up to the time of Cain.
Prin-The mark of Cain was the mark of divine protection not a mark of violence.
Prin-The mark of Cain permits Cain to remain alive so that he can have an opportunity to be saved.
Prin-God's grace permits the unbeliever to live on the earth even in direct defiance of God.
God in His very own righteousness, gives the unbeliever every chance and opportunity to be saved.
Prin- God took punishment into His own hands and protected the human race from further violence at this time.
A perfect God can only administer perfect punishment.
By administering the punishment Himself, God keeps the human race from entering into a warfare over whether the justice is correct or not.
God throws a circle of protective love about Cain and says in effect, "Yes, he is guilty. He's a murderer -- but he is still My property, and don't forget it in your dealings with him."
It is rather, a mark of grace, by which God is saying, "This man is still my property. Hands off!"
The heart of God is always ready to show mercy, 2Pe 3:9; 1Ti 2:4; 1Ti 4:10; 1Jo 2:2; Joh 3:15.