Was Cain a Recipient of Common Grace?
Rev. Angus Stewart argues that Cain received no common grace from God, but rather divine curse and judgment, using Old Testament exegesis to counter the doctrine of common grace. Stewart contends that Cain's prolonged life and his descendants' earthly prosperity were not signs of God's benevolence but rather instruments of divine judgment, illustrating God's sovereign reprobation of the non-elect.
Rev. Angus Stewart Reprobate Cain was a child “of the devil” (I John 3:10), who “slew his brother” because his “works were evil” (12). Thus Cain was an “abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 3:32; 11:20; 16:5), as was everything about him: his “hands” (6:16-17), his “lying lips” (12:22), his “thoughts” (15:26), his “sacrifice” and his “way” (15:8-9). God spoke with Cain (Gen. 4:6-7, 9-15)—a rational-moral creature—laying before him the ways of life and of death (6-7) and explaining his evil deed of...