The following content contains further Q&A on the post called: "The IMPORTANCE of interpreting scripture using Progressive Dispensational Revelation". The questions asked were excellent to constitute creating a 'part 2' of this post.
COMMENT:
I like where your post was headed, but it needs more information to support your conclusion. Can you help us see how you determined, by progressive revelation, that Cain’s offering lacked faith, and needed blood?
ANSWER:
Earlier I mentioned that faith is believing what God has revealed. What God reveals typically keeps us in right standing with Him. Obedience to what God tells us is what saves us. As we advance through the pages of the Bible God reveals new, or additional things to keep us in relationship with Him. It’s these new, or additional things that I refer to as progressive revelation.
At the time of Cain, the only instruction to maintain righteousness with God was to offer a blood sacrifice and have faith that this would keep one in right standing before God.
By the time we come to Noah, God instructed him to build an ark. For Noah, the gospel was to build an ark. Noah believed God and did what He said, thus Noah and his family were saved.
For Abraham, God instructed him to leave his city and fathers house and go to a land that God would show him. Later God also instructed his to offer Isaac. Because Abraham believed God, it was account to him for righteousness.
For the nation of Israel, God gave the law. If they obeyed, God would bless them and saved them from their enemies.
In the days of John the Baptist, the instruction was to repent and expect the Messiah. When Jesus came, the gospel was enhanced to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Messiah. After Jesus death and resurrection, it was further enhanced to receiving the Holy Spirit.
Since the law of Moses in Exodus to the preaching of Jesus by the 12 apostles in Acts, the gospel message for the Jews had received more and more details. All these were a progression of revelation based on what God gave in revealing His Son, Jesus Christ, and what was required by the Jews as a statement of faith. Also remember that throughout all the Bible, from Adam and Abel, to Noah, to Abraham, and then written into the law of Moses, and all the way up to Jesus, the offering of blood sacrifices was maintained as a witness to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ.
Then we come to Paul. This is where a WHOLE NEW DOCTRINE was introduced. EVERYTHING CHANGED at this point. Paul’s gospel was not to Jews only but to all men. It was not to identify and confess Jesus Christ as the Messiah but to believe that Jesus’ death on the cross was for the forgiveness of sins and His resurrection was for our justification. Unlike God’s instructions all the way up the Bible which involved men doing what God instructed, including blood offerings, now the instruction of God was not to DO, but to BELIEVE in His Son. Our grace gospel today does not require us to do anything, except to believe that which Jesus did on the cross. Our righteousness is not in what we do but in what Christ did for us, and that this is sufficient for our salvation. This is why righteousness is by God’s pure grace through Christ, and not by our own works of obedience.
When our grace dispensation ends and we move into the 7-year Tribulation, God will again instruct men to do things to prove their faith and obtain righteousness.
Faith is constant throughout all dispensations, but what is progressive is what God instructed men to do to prove their faith. Cain did not do what God said. Cain put faith in his own abilities and not in what God said, which was simply to offer a blood sacrifice. God’s instructions progressed to reveal more and more to men concerning His Son. If men did not adhere to these progressive revelations, they failed to obtain righteousness. Ultimately, it has all to do with the glory of the revelation of Jesus Christ. The Bible ends with the ultimate revelation of Christ in the book aptly named, Revelation. Thus, what God revealed to humanity through the pages of the Bible progressed from Genesis to the finality of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
I trust this provides sufficient information to support my conclusion.
Kind regards.
FOLLOWUP QUESTION:
I just have one question about your understanding of Cain’s story, how did you conclude that a blood sacrifice was required?
ANSWER:
Genesis chapter 3 is the account of man’s fall and the subsequent judgement by the LORD God in the garden of Eden. Verses 15 and 21 are key verses in Genesis 3.
In verse 15, the LORD God spoke the very first judgement (curse), and prophecy, and gospel, recorded in the Bible. This one verse judges Satan; speaks of a future redeemer; and is the good news of God’s ultimate grace over humanity.
In verse 21, we see the condition that the LORD God sets upon sinful men to approach a righteous and holy God and maintain relationship with Him. The verse reads as follows,
Gen 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
We learn two things here. First, blood is shed for their sins. Although the details of this action are not defined in the garden, later in the Bible it is clarified that the life of a creature is in its blood, and that in this regard, a substitutionary death is required for sin. Secondly, God clothed Adam and Eve with the skin of that animal. This was because they were now physically naked, but this also clearly alludes that blood covered their transgressions. This animal sacrificial system would remain in place all the way up until the ultimate blood offering of Jesus Christ, whose blood does not cover sins, but washes it completely away.
Adam, having learned this from the LORD God in the garden would have naturally taught Cain and Abel of this condition. How else would Abel have even considered killing a lamb from his flock if this had not been taught to him. The fact that Cain offered a sacrifice, but not according to the standard set by the LORD God (and by his father) is the primary reason for God rejecting that offering. The blood offering was a means to foretell and remind humanity of the ultimate blood sacrifice according to the prophecy and gospel declared in verse 15.
God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment