Portraits Of The Christian Faith

Adam, Cain, and Abel

A portrait of an authentic Christian is most accurately depicted as a person swimming against the tide of the human race having been placed within the race of Jesus Christ.

Portraits Of The Christian Faith According To Genesis

It is always best to start at the beginning to understand our spiritual life in its proper context. On the sixth day of creation, God saw all He had made after creating man and said it was very good. The man was made in God's image, without a moral flaw or blemish, but he was naive. Brilliant and at the height of the genetic chain, he could obey God and name all the animals. In chapter 3, we learn of Adams and Eve's fall into sin, by which they plunged the entire race into bondage and slavery to sin and its consequential effects as per God.

Portraits Of The Christian Faith According to Hebrews 11

In chapter 4, we learn that Cain, a son of Adam, killed his brother Abel as the first recorded persecution of God's people. How do we know it was persecution? You have to love this by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, "By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks." Cain offered the works of his hands as a farmer, but Abel offered a blood sacrifice, which God desired. We are told God had no regard for Cain's offering, Genesis 4:5. Therefore, Cain hated Abel and killed him because of it. It is through Genesis 4 that Abel still speaks.

Portraits Of The Christian Faith According to Matthew 23

Jesus, when rejected by men, said this, "I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah..." Matthew 23:34-35. In Hebrews 11:35, we are told about the glory of the martyrs. "...others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection."

Portraits Of The Christian Faith According To The Martyrs

Here is a godly principle by which to live. God can do whatever He wants with whomever He wants and whenever He wants. God is bound by nothing but is free to choose according to His arbitrary will, which is always consistent with His righteous character and inherent goodness from whom all goodness originates. Man is inherently evil, enslaved to sin, the idols his heart creates, and the continuing lies the devil and his demonic host tell. God converts the souls of sinners, sets them apart for His holy service, and endows them with gifts, grit, a heart, and a passion for the God of their salvation. In time and eternity, God receives all the glory by the death of His saints.

Portraits Of The Christian Faith According to Seth and Enoch

"Adam had relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for, she said, "God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him." "...Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD" Genesis 4:25-26. Concerning Eve's testimony of Seth, he was a replacement for the son she lost in Abel. Her testimony speaks well of Eve, who may have been redeemed after falling into sin.

We can follow the line of Seth to Enoch, Methuselah, and Noah. Concerning Enoch, we are told, in Genesis 5:22-25, "Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had [other] sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." The writer to the Hebrews in chapter 11:5-6 fills in the blanks we need to know about this godly man, Enoch. "By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please [Him], for he who comes to God must believe that He is and [that] He is a rewarder of those who seek Him."

Enoch was sought for but not found. His heart was in heaven, but how did he get there? Was there a Gospel? There wasn't even the law of Moses. All these things took place on a pre-flood earth. Men lived incredibly long and in a very violent manner as sin abounded through their intelligence and, no doubt, athletic prowess that would put anyone today to complete shame.

Nevertheless, God claims those who were His by His sovereign choice. God makes men good. God makes men holy. God speaks to the human heart and makes the camel go through the eye of the needle because He can and wants to save whom He will. Portraits of the Christian faith always give God all the glory.