Advent images in the Torah / 6
In the story of Cain and Abel we encounter a paradox. The just man dies, the rebel survives.
Abel realises that accepting the death judgment is the key to a relationship with God. He expresses this through a sacrificial lamb, and God is present (Gen 4:4).
Jesus calls Abel a prophet (Luke 11:51). We do not hear a word out of his mouth. But with his sacrifice, Abel prophetically proclaims that God’s view on our lives makes all the difference.
Cain, on the other hand, wants to come before God with his achievements. God corrects him, because he has no open eye for God (Gen 4:7). Cain wants to serve God as he pleases. He is not willing to be corrected. God speaks to him, but he blames others. He transfers his anger at God on his brother. Therefore, Abel becomes the first person to die for his faith.
Hebrews 12:24 says: “Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” The blood of Jesus answers the cry for justice because it is shed freely and out of love. In Jesus, both perpetrator and victim can find peace.
Abel was not yet the promised redeemer. But it is clear that the renunciation of violence by the righteous exposes evil and that God’s view of our lives counts.
We often think that evil can be defeated by force. But evil is overcome when people allow themselves to be shaped by the goodness of God.
Messiah images in the Torah
- God seeks us – Adam where are you?
- The possibility of a choice – Two trees in the Garden of Eden
- Neediness instead divinity – A new view
- God’s master plan – Salvation through a human being
- A divine clothing – God acts
- A world upside down – Kai and Abel
- Living in the presence of God – Enoch
- God is calling – Noah
- A king-priest like Melchizedek
- God visits Abraham
- Life through a sacrifice – Isaac
- The ladder to heaven – Jacob
- New identity from Jacob to Israel
- Messiah Ben Joseph – Joseph the son of Jacob
- Shiloh, whom all nations will serve – Blessing on Judah
- Moses, the prototype of the Saviour
- References to Jesus in Moses
- The Passover Lamb
- The pillar of cloud and fire
- God wants to be with us – The tabernacle / The temple
- The snake on a pole – An image of a new beginning
- The rock in the desert – Faith is not a method
- A prophet greater than Moses
- A star from Jacob – Bileam