"4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks."
Hebrews 11:4
The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 has a monumental significance in that it is the record of the first home and family. It has many lessons for us. In the first place here was a home with religion at its heart; coming before God was, it would appear, a familiar and much practised habit with them. Not only so; it was a. home where the things of God had been imparted to the children - how else could Abel have known how to draw near to Him? (See Proverbs 22:6). And yet it was a home that was clouded and darkened by sin, and we can only explain this tragedy that came upon them in terms of the sin of disobedience that had marred the lives of their parents in the Garden of Eden. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap".
Back to Abel, however. He was moved by faith to offer an acceptable sacrifice by which he obtained witness that he was righteous - i.e. accepted as righteous before God. This is a faint shadow of the great sacrifice Christ offered for men in the fulness of the time on Calvary. We sometimes speak of the gospel being the dawning of a new day for humanity. Yes, but how does a day dawn? There are the first faint streaks of light in the eastern sky, barely perceptible, and scarcely piercing the darkness of the night. But that light slowly and steadily increases until finally the sun rises over the horizon. And so it is in the spiritual sphere. This story is one of the first suggestions of the light that was finally to break upon our sin-darkened world in the coming of Jesus Christ. Wonderful, isn't it, that Abel should have witnessed it?