Sin lies at the door

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it." – Genesis 4v7

I read this passage this morning. Then I made a big mistake – I read a couple of commentaries to see what others thought. When I was done I realised that there really is no consensus to what is talked about here. Different Hebrew scholars all have different views. So, I am going to just record what I saw in the verse this morning.

Cain was furious at God. His sacrifice had been refused while his brother Able’s sacrifice was accepted by God. Cain’s response was to go to God with it. God’s response – ‘Why are you complaining? If you do the right thing it will be accepted. If not, then sin lies at your door.’

We are not told why Cain’s sacrifice was not acceptable, but it is obvious that Cain did. Maybe his sacrifice was not a blood sacrifice. Maybe it was because it was not from the best of his crops. Maybe he just had a bad attitude. God told him, basically, ‘if you had done the right thing it would be obvious, but if not the sin is just as obvious.’

If we are honest we have to admit that we know when we do wrong. Try as we might to mask it, we know. Our sin is right there at the door as clear as it can be. We really can’t play games with it.

The last phrase in the verse is greatly debated. I was happy to see that several scholars agreed with my first opinion. Here it is, take it or leave it.

God knew Cain’s heart. He knew that sin sought to rule over Cain. He knew that anger was seething and was Cain was capable of doing. And yet, God tells Cain – ‘You should rule your sin, don’t let it rule you.’ God gave Cain a choice – let sin rule over you or you rule over it. It is a choice a lot like the choice Adam and Eve had.

Sin still seeks to reign today. For those of us who are believers sin lost its power when Christ conquered death. We may attack and be critical of Cain’s upcoming choice, but we have a power over sin that he did not have.

Our sin choice is even more appalling than his.