A BROTHER’S BLOOD

GENESIS 4:15–24

Coin lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to bock Coin was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch

(Genesis 4:17).

The Romans believed that their city was founded by Romulus. Romulus and his twin Remus were orphaned at birth and were found and raised by a she-wolf. When they were grown, Romulus plowed a circle in the ground. “Inside this circle is my city, and I am its god and king,” said Romulus. Remus tested him by stepping into the circle, and instantly Romulus slew him. Thus Rome was built on the human sacrifice of a brother’s blood.

Whether this story is true or not, a story just like it tells us that the first city built on earth was built on the human sacrifice of a brother’s blood, for it was after killing Abel that Cain went out and built the city of Enoch. This was the City of Man, a new counterfeit Garden of Eden where the Son of Cain, also called Enoch, could be god and reign supreme.

Notice that this City of Man was the place where a material culture first developed. Jubal perfected musical instruments and the techniques for playing them; Jabal perfected agricultural techniques; and Tubal-Cain perfected metallurgical techniques. Unfortunately Jubal’s music was used for false worship; Jabal’s animal husbandry to raise sacrifices for false gods; and Tubal-Cain’s metallurgy for weapons of violence and the architecture of false temples.

Not only were culture and worship perverted in the city of Cain, but so were the institutions of marriage and the family. The seventh from Cain—and remember from Genesis 2:1–3 that seven is the number of completion and fulfillment—was Lamech. Lamech took two wives, perverting marriage, and then murdered a young boy, possibly his own son. Not only did he do these things, but he produced a savage song of triumph that is recorded in Genesis 4:23–24—the first song in the Bible—to celebrate it.

The first city is a picture of the essence of humanistic civilization, a culture raised in defiance of God. We can praise God that there is another city, the New Jerusalem in heaven, of which we are citizens.

CORAM DEO

Numbers 16–17

Mark 6:30–56

Is the Christian’s city founded on a brother’s blood? Whose? Who put that Brother to death? Who builds that city? How do we enter it? Is it Cain’s son or someone else’s who sits on the throne of it?

For further study: Matthew 27:46 • Hebrews 11:10 • Revelation 22:1–2, 17

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