Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #7 of Genesis, chapter 4 and we are going to look at Genesis 4:7:
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
As I mentioned in our last study this verse in Genesis 4 is one of the most difficult verses in the entire Bible. It has proved difficult to students of the Bible for centuries and maybe even thousands of years because this was written about 1,500 years before the close of the Bible and now we are living about 2,000 years since the Bible was completed, so this has been a difficult verse for millenniums. It is almost impossible to understand. No matter how you try to understand it and tilt your head this way and that way to try to make sense of it, it just does not make sense.
There is pretty much a guideline in the Bible that when a verse is awkward and difficult and does not seem to make sense, it is in that verse that God has hidden spiritual meaning, so it is actually teaching a very important thing and I think that is the case with this verse. If we look at the Scripture verse in just an historical way and we try to understand the man Cain as the one God is speaking of, that is when it does not seem to make sense. It is mostly the second part of the verse that is a problem. Speaking to Cain, it says, “And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” We would think that sin’s desire would be toward Cain, but Cain would rule over “him,” somehow ruling over sin, but this does not make sense because Cain was of the wicked one, according to 1John 3, verse 12. He was an unsaved individual and, shortly, he will kill his brother. He was a murderer and it does not make sense that he would rule over sin.
However, maybe God can help us here and I am going to present this idea as a possibility and you can check it out. It seems to be the only thing that fits and makes sense. Before I explain what that is, let us look at the word “desire.” It is a Hebrew word, Strong’s #8669, and it is only found three times. The first time was in Genesis 3:16:
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Here, we understand what God is saying. He is speaking to the woman Eve and her desire will be to her husband Adam and he (Adam) will rule over her. The husband rules the wife, spiritually. There is no problem with that. Eve is a picture of Jerusalem above, the elect, and she came out of Adam’s side and Adam was a figure of Christ, so the elect’s desire is to our spiritual husband, Jesus, and He (Jesus) will rule over His bride, the elect.
The second place this word is found is in the Song of Solomon, chapter 7. In the Song of Solomon the entire Book is focused on the bride of Christ or the love affair between the Lord Jesus Christ and His bride, the elect. It says in Song of Solomon 7:10:
I ammy beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
We know that “beloved” is a word that describes the Lord Jesus, as King David pictures Christ and David’s name means “beloved.” The word “beloved” is Strong’s #1730 and I think “David” is Strong’s #1732.
Again, it says, “I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.” We saw that Eve’s desire is to her husband. Now in Song of Solomon 7, verse 10 it is letting us know that the “desire” in this spiritual union between Christ and His eternal church flows both ways. There is love and desire from the body of Christ toward the spiritual bridegroom and there is love and desire from the spiritual bridegroom toward His bride. That means that the word “desire” in both Genesis 3:16 and Song of Solomon 7:10 involves the marriage relationship and a spiritual marriage is in view.
Again, it said in our verse in Genesis 4:7:
And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
The word “rule” is Strong’s #4910. It is the same word that is found in Genesis 3:16, where it said, “and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” That is how God established marriage. The husband rules the household and he is in authority in the home and his wife is to be in submission. This word that is translated as “rule” is also translated as “dominion” a few times. Let us look at Genesis 37, where Joseph told one of his dreams to his brothers. It says in Genesis 37:8:
And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.
The word “dominion” is the same word translated as “rule.” Someone has authority over someone, as the husband has authority over his wife. Spiritually, Christ has authority over His bride, the eternal church, but what is in view in Genesis 4, verse 7? Let me read the whole verse. Again, it says in Genesis 4:7:
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
What could be in view? We know the word “desire” relates to marriage and the word “rule” is also involved in marriage, so in this verse how could Cain be related to marriage? Remember what God tells us in the New Testament in the Book of Romans, chapter 7 where the Lord lays out an important truth. It says in Romans 7:1-2:
Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Then it says in Romans 7:4:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
God says the Law has dominion over a man in verse 1 and then He speaks of becoming dead to the Law by the body of Christ, “that ye should be married to another.” He had just said that a woman is bound to a husband as long as he lives, but if her husband be dead she is loosed and free to marry. Then God uses that earthly picture to teach the spiritual reality that all mankind are married or bound to the Law. God has joined man that He created to the Law of God in spiritual marriage and that Law has dominion over mankind. The only thing that can break that marriage of Law having dominion or rule over a man is if Christ has died for that individual and he becomes part of the body of Christ; then the man is “dead” to the Law and he can be married to another and that would be married to Christ, the spiritual marriage the Bible tells us about.
So, in the Bible there are two marriages, spiritually. There is the marriage of all human beings to the Law of God and they will remain in that marriage unless Jesus had died for their sins and through His death they become dead to the Law through the body of Christ and become free to marry Christ. The second marriage that is possible is that spiritual marriage to Christ. So, every person in the world is “married,” spiritually, including the baby in the womb and the oldest person that is living in the world (and everyone in between) and they are either married to Christ or they remain married to the Law itself, which would mean that Christ had not interceded on their behalf. But every human being is married, either to Christ through salvation or they remain bound to the Law and under its dominion. It is basically just like how every human being is either saved or unsaved. It is just saying it another way – we are either married to the Law or married to Christ and are either saved or unsaved.
God addresses this very thing in the Book of Galatians when He spoke of two covenants. Do you remember that? It said in Galatians 4:22:
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Notice that two sons are going to represent two covenants (as do their mothers), but it is speaking of earthly sons and their mothers and, yet, they represent two covenants:
In other words, it is the covenant of being saved through Christ and married to Him or the covenant of remaining married to the Law of God.
Then it goes on to say in Galatians 4:23-26:
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
We see two covenants. We have two types of people, the saved and the unsaved, and they are either married to the Law or married to Christ. They all mean the same thing. You know, I think God gave away who Cain represents when He said in Jude 1:11:
Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain…
They have gone in the way of Cain rather than the way of Christ. Christ is the way, the truth and the life, but the “way of Cain” is the way of attempting to please God through one’s own works and trying to keep the Law to get right with God.
Concerning Cain and Abel, it says in Hebrews 11:4:
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
Notice, again, that Abel offered by faith (which means by Christ) unto God a “more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” We know that Cain also offered sacrifices. There were two sacrifices, representing two covenants and two spiritual marriages, but Abel’s sacrifice was more excellent. Why was it more excellent? We are helped by the use of this Greek word that was translated as “more excellent.” The same Greek word is found in Mark 12:32-33:
And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
If you love God with all your heart and all your strength, what does that mean? It means you have been born again. The word translated as “more excellent” is translated in Mark 12:33 as “more than,” in reference to being better than “all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” There is our answer. Abel was already saved and his sins had been paid for and he already had a new born again soul when he offered his sacrifice. Again, he may not have put much effort or time into his offering, but he knew God required an offering and he presented it in a spiritual relationship with God that was acceptable because he had no sin upon him. Jesus had already paid for all his sins. This is what made his offering “more excellent” than Cain’s offering. Let us give Cain the benefit of the doubt and say that he put forth tremendous effort, care and concern into this sacrifice. He wanted to please God as much as possible through his offering, but no matter how much effort went into Cain’s sacrifice, what was the problem? It was his “heart.” He does not love God with all of his heart, mind and soul and he does not love his neighbor as himself because he was not born again. He still had his desperately wicked heart, a heart of stone, so God was not pleased with the offering. He does not accept the offering.
Again, King David said in Psalm 51:16:
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
This reveals that all along, even with all the commandments concerning sacrifices in the Bible, God did not accept that for satisfaction of the Law of God. It never took away sin, no matter how many animals they slew, but it was always designed to point to the real and truly acceptable sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. That is why it the next verse says, in Psalm 51:17:
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
That begins with Jesus, but it is also a characteristic of the heart that God gives His saints at the time they receive their new resurrected hearts. That is the “more excellent” sacrifice – it is that broken spirit and contrite heart. Abel possessed it, but Cain did not, so God was not delighted with Cain’s sacrifice and He let it be known.
This set up Cain and Abel as figures of the two covenants and of their respective spiritual marriages: one was of grace and free and one was of works and in bondage. The “way of Cain” identified with Hagar and Mount Sanai and the Law.
Let us understand Cain as representing the Law and the Law has dominion over unsaved man. So, in our verse, God is speaking to Cain who represents the Law and He says, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” If according to the Law (works) man keeps the whole Law, he would be accepted with God. But, then God goes on to say, “and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” If he fails to keep the whole Law perfectly and he transgresses in even one point of the Law, he is guilty of all. Then it goes on to say to Cain, “And unto thee shall be his desire,” and this refers to man’s spiritual marriage to the Law and the desire to get right with God by keeping the Law. Finally, it says, “and thou shalt rule over him.” The Law would have dominion or rule over the man, just as Romans 7, verse 1 tells us. The Law has dominion over the man as long as he lives, unless Christ intercedes and delivers him from that state of bondage to the Law and he can marry another, who is Jesus.
I think this is how to understand this verse. Everything seems to fit together once we look at it from the deeper spiritual perspective and then God’s statements to Cain fall into place. Looking at it any other way, it just does not seem to fall into place. Again, I am presenting this as a possibility, but the more you look at it and the words God uses that are related to marriage, I think it is a very good possibility. This may be the answer to what God has written in Genesis 4, verse 7.