When Moses here says, "And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?" I understand Moses to mean, as above, that it was Adam who spoke by the Holy Spirit in the person or place of God; and that God there assumed the person of a father speaking to his son. This sacred phraseology therefore, "And the Lord said," etc., is intended as thus used by the Holy Spirit to commend the high authority of parents; whom when children dutifully hear and dutifully obey, they hear God and obey God. And I believe that Adam knew by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, that Abel had been slain by his brother; for he spoke at once concerning the murder, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground;" although Cain all the time endeavored to conceal the deed.
PART V. HOW CAIN WAS PUNISHED FOR HIS MURDER.
I. And if Eve heard these words spoken to Cain by his father; what do we think must have been the grief and horror of her mind! They must indeed have been beyond all description. But the calamity fell still nearer and heavier upon Adam himself. For as he was the father, he was compelled as his duty thus to rebuke his son and to excommunicate him from his family and from the Church of God for his sin. And although he did not slay him, for the law concerning punishing a murderer by death, which is pronounced hereafter in the ninth chapter, was given after the patriarchs saw murders becoming frequent; and though inspired by the Holy Spirit so to do, he even "set a mark upon his son, lest anyone finding him should kill him;" yet it was an awful punishment which was inflicted on Cain and upon all his posterity. For in addition to the personal curse of bearing about this mark of a murderer he was excommunicated from his family, driven from the sight of his parents and from the society of his brothers and sisters, who still continued with their parents, as in the Church of God.
Now Adam could not have performed all this awful duty without the deepest pain; nor could Eve have heard all that Adam said without the same indescribable anguish. For a father is a father, and a son is a son. Adam therefore would willingly have spared his son and would willingly have retained him at home. And we do now sometimes see murderers reconciled to the brothers of those whom they have murdered. But in this terrible case no place was left for reconciliation. Cain is bidden at once to be a vagabond upon the face of the earth. The pain therefore of the parents was doubled. They see one of their sons slain by the other; and now they see the slayer excommunicated by the judgment of God and cut off forever from the society of the rest of his brethren.
Moreover when we here speak of excommunication from the Church, you are not to have in mind our present Churches, magnificent structures superbly built with carved stones. The temple or Church of Adam was a certain tree, as in paradise; or a certain little hill under the open heaven, at which they assembled together to hear the Word of God and to offer their sacrifices, for which purpose they had altars erected, and God was present with them when they thus offered their sacrifices and heard his Word, as is manifest from the divine presence at the offering of Abel.
And other portions of sacred history testify that altars were erected in the open air and that sacrifices were there offered. And indeed the same practice for many reasons would be useful even now; that we might assemble together in the open air, pray with bended knees, preach the Word, give thanks to God and bless each other, etc. It was from a temple of this kind and from such a Church, not a conspicuous and magnificent Church in a certain place, that Cain was ejected or excommunicated. He was thus doubly punished; first, by a corporal punishment, because he was cursed as a vagabond in the earth with the mark of a murderer set upon him; and secondly, by a spiritual punishment, because he was cast out by excommunication, as from another paradise, and ejected from the temple and Church of God.
Lawyers also have made much use of this passage of the holy Scriptures, and have treated it with becoming dignity, seeing, as they did, that the Lord inquired into the matter before he passed condemnation upon the murderer. The Scripture therefore the framers of laws have so applied, as to determine thereby, that no man should be condemned until his cause had been fully known; nor until he had first been called to the bar of judgment, had been convicted, and had confessed his guilt. We have seen the same also before in the case of Adam. "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" Gen. 3:9. And again further on, "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know," Gen. 11:5; 18:21.
Let us however, leaving for the present all civil and political doctrine, look at the all-blessed theological or divine doctrine and consolation, contained in this, when it is recorded that the Lord inquired for Abel after his death. For in this fact we have made manifest unto us the resurrection of the dead. Because God by this inquiry testified that he was the God of Abel, though now dead; for he inquired after him though now slain and no more. From this passage therefore we may frame this most immovable argument; that if there were no one who had the care of us after this life, Abel would not have been inquired for after he was slain. But God does here inquire after Abel, even after he is taken away out of this life, he has not a will to forget him, he still retains the remembrance of him; he asks "Where he is." God therefore we see is the God of the dead. My meaning is that even the dead, as we here see, still live in the memory of God and have a God who cares for them, and saves them in another life beyond and different from this corporal life in which saints are thus afflicted.
This passage therefore we repeat is most worthy our observation, in which we see that God had great care of Abel, even when dead; and that on account of Abel though dead he excommunicated Cain, and visited him with destruction even while living, though he was the first-born. This therefore is great and glorious indeed, that Abel though dead was still alive and canonized, as we call it, in another life; a canonization far more blessed and more really divine than is the state of any of those whom the Pope has ever canonized! The death of Abel was indeed horrible; for he did not suffer death without excruciating torment nor without many agonies of tears. And yet his death was a goodly death; for now he lives a better and more blessed life than he did before. For this corporal life of ours is lived in sins and is ever in danger of death. But that life which is to come is eternal and perfectly free from all trials and troubles, both of the body and of the soul.