My point: there was no moral law in the creation template from the beginning.
The first law and only law necessary in the Kingdom of God was first practiced by the Son and the Father.
It goes like this: Father to the Son, "I am bound by my love for you. Do what I reveal to you."
This is the arrangement seen at creation after God said "Let there be light". From that point on, God would reveal eternal, hidden things about Himself, in time and space, through His Son.
Genesis 1:3 "Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light."
John taught us the order in which this occurred: through the Son: the Word of God "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made."
And furthermore...
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
So, the entirety of creation, both heaven and earth, was assembled to house the fullness of the estate of the Son who was sent. This is the kingdom of the Son of His love.
"He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love..."
This ensures that all who are in Him, likewise, receive what the Father has for the Son: love. The "inheritance of the saints", therefore, is the presence of the Father and Son in them, just as the saints are in the Father and Son.
Jesus said it like this:
"And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."
Now, some might quote "God does not share His glory with another." This is from Isaiah 42: "I am the LORD; that is my name; I will not give my glory to another..."
This is true: God will not give His glory to another.
But in Christ, we are not another! We are His flesh and His bones, as the scriptures say:
"For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones."
This is the reality of Jesus' prayer and the spiritual reality of all who are in Christ, by His sacrifice. We are inserted, through the veil that is His flesh, into Him and so are regarded AS HIM by the Father: His beloved, His only begotten. By this, man is fully reconciled to God, as sons of God, to the Father.
This is not CONciliation; the best we can do in our efforts. This is RECONCILiation: the full restoration of what was lost in the fall: we are born anew, in the image and likeness of the Son.
My point: there was no moral law in the creation template from the beginning. What was transcribed was the icon, the perfect image of God, in the Son. And the Son, having given up His own life in order to represent the Father fully. There was only love between the Father and the Son. "For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does..." This love, the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father, was the only law needed. And this law was like gravity: a condition of the template of creation, further understood by the revelation by the Spirit or Christ Jesus.
Jesus shows that moral law existed from the beginning, not starting at Sinai. When He answered the Pharisees about marriage, He did not introduce a new rule. He took them back to creation and said, “
From the beginning it hath not been so” (Matthew 19:8 ASV). Jesus was teaching that God’s way, God’s order, and God’s expectations were already set at creation. He did not say the standard started with Moses. He said it started “from the beginning.”
To make this even clearer, the creation story itself shows moral law existed before Adam and Eve sinned. God
commanded Adam, “
Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat” (Genesis 2:17 ASV). A command is a moral standard. Obedience and disobedience only exist where moral law is already present. And when they broke this command, God judged them. Judgment proves a standard. You cannot judge without law.
We also see moral law in how God expected Adam to live
before the fall. God told him to “
keep” the garden (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew meaning includes watch, guard, take care. These are moral duties. They existed before sin entered the world.
Then comes Cain. God told him, “
If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin croucheth at the door” (Genesis 4:7 ASV). God uses the word “sin” long before Sinai. Sin means breaking God’s will. This shows that right and wrong, obedience and disobedience, were known from the earliest days of humanity.
Even the story of Noah proves the same truth. Before the flood, God said the people were filled with “
violence” (Genesis 6:11). Violence is wrong only if there is a moral law defining it as wrong. Noah, on the other hand, was “
a righteous man” (Genesis 6:9). You cannot be called righteous unless God’s standard already exists.
All these things stand together with Jesus’ words. When He said “from the beginning,” He was reminding us that God’s way has never changed. God’s character does not begin at Sinai. His moral will was present in creation, active in Eden, spoken to Cain, and used to judge the world in Noah’s day.
The claim “there was no moral law in the creation template” is not true. From the beginning, God gave commands, judged disobedience, and praised righteousness. Jesus confirms it. The whole early Genesis history confirms it. Moral law was there from the first breath of human life.
GOD was with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden from creation and spoke to them!