parable form by the Lord in the parable of the Tares, "the good seed are the children of

the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one".

We cannot help feeling that a due recognition of those scriptures which speak of one

section of the human race as "children of the wicked one", "children of the devil",

(I John 3: 8; Acts 13: 10; John 8: 44), a "generation of vipers", and of THE man of

sin as the "son of perdition", etc., is necessary to arriving at a true understanding of the

scope and results of redemption. When the Lord asked the question, "Ye serpents, ye

brood of vipers, how can ye escape the judgment of Gehenna?" He gave expression to a

query that runs through the whole Bible. As a "fundamental of dispensational truth" the

recognition of the two seeds and their destinies is all-important.

The high hopes that burned in the heart of our first parents were doomed to

disappointment, Cain was not the promised deliverer.  By the time Abel was born

experience had taught the lesson of the age, at least in its elements, that the creature had

been made subject to vanity. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity", was the summing up of

the wisest man that lived, and we venture to say that no more important portion of

Scripture from the dispensational point of view can be found than that of Ecclesiastes.

Abel was so named because Abel means vanity. Cain is referred to in the N.T. three

times, viz., Heb. 11: 4, "Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain"; I John 3: 12,

"Not as Cain who slew his brother"; Jude 11, "They have gone in the way of Cain".

Abel is mentioned four times in the N.T., viz., Matt. 23: 35, "From the blood of

righteous Abel"; Luke 11: 51, "From the blood of Abel"; Heb. 11: 4, "By faith Abel

offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that

he was righteous"; Heb. 12: 24, "The blood of sprinkling which speaks something better

than Abel."

The first thing we learn is that Abel was RIGHTEOUS, and that Cain was "of that

wicked one". There is no question of salvation in the case of Cain and Abel, but rather of

righteousness and unrighteousness. Abel was evidently a prophet (Matt. 23: 34), and

when Cain shed his brother's blood, he shed "righteous blood" (Matt. 23: 35). The two

offerings that figure in Gen. 4: were not offerings for sin, but for worship, the word

minchah is that rendered meat offering, an offering that is in the nature of a gift, not an

expiation (see Gen. 32: 13-21, "gift"). Abel's offering is given in Gen. 4: as, "the

firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof". Cain's as "the fruit of the ground". Heb. 11:

gives no such details, but says instead that Abel "offered unto God a more excellent

sacrifice than Cain". The testimony that God bore to Abel was, "that he was righteous".

To introduce the future into the past or present is to fail in interpretation; to introduce

into Gen. 4: the question of justification by faith is to teach a truth that does not find a

place therein. Gen. 4: does not raise the question as to how righteousness was obtained,

but whether it existed, the purely elementary fact that is taught by Gen. 4: in the light of

Heb. 11: and Matt. 23: is that Abel was righteous. We might, in the light of

subsequent revelation, be led to suppose that because Abel's offering was that of an

animal, and involved the shedding of blood, that this constituted the great difference. It

must be remembered that when God Himself gave the law of the minchah, the offering of