One of the things we see in Genesis 4 is the very first glimpses of religion in this world. It is very common that we often despise the religion we find in the Old Testament as something archaic and long since past, but this was never how God intended for us to read these accounts. God has always intended that we look upon the spirit of religion in all such people and see instruction towards true religion.

What is profound in this chapter here is how we see religion established since the foundation of the world. This is a very significant thing, because it shows us that the religion of God exists since the beginning of all creation, and that true religion is as much a part of the foundation of creation as anything else.

One of the things that God intends for us to understand about Christ is how He established Him before the foundation of the world. Not that Christ was created then, but that He was established then, taken hold of.

“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up, at the first,
before the beginning of the earth.”
(Prov 8:22-23)

What we see in Abel is this spirit of true religion towards God. This spirit is faith. Faith is this true acknowledgment of God’s authority and respect to Him as our Creator. It is the flame that purifies and burns in true godliness and holiness.

If we only look at the physical, we will miss the spiritual. All throughout Scripture we see this great spirit of religion. Abel was bringing before God a sacrifice of an animal, but in that sacrifice was this deep worship of God. This true submission and holy humility. The physical thing presented was a way to express this to God. It was a physical sacrifice in worship, echoing the spiritual sacrifice within (Rom 12:1-2).

Though we do not sacrifice animals in our worship of God, we should not see even that as strange, when we look at how this was a true regard of God, an offering before Him the things of one’s own possessions. We see the spiritual religion of God, running here in Abel, all the way to today.

The great reason that God accepted Abel and not Cain was because Cain’s offering didn’t have this spirit of true worship in it, and Abel’s did.

Over and over this is what the Lord labored to teach Israel, that mere sacrifices mean nothing if they do not come from this spiritual bowing down and worship of God (Isaiah 1). This is what God is pointing at with faith. Faith is true religion within. It is a spiritual understanding and sight of the things of God, which flows into true religion.

The physical acts of many of the Jewish people were like Cain’s offering. It had no real godliness or holiness within (again, Isaiah 1). And God worked to show the people that true religion is about this godliness and righteousness within. Though people expressed this through the physical acts, it was never merely the physical acts themselves.