My Friend:  This is my understanding: The Law of Moses is summed up into two: love the Lord your God and love your neighbor. So basically the 10 commandments are kinda being summed up here. So we are to follow this as our guidelines in life.

Cody:     And I think this is true.  Jesus Christ summed up the law in this way and Paul followed Him (Rom. 13:9, Gal. 5:14).  Of course, we must be clear about what is meant by “guidelines.”  It is not through the 10 commandments or even the “greatest commandments” that salvation (from beginning to end) can be obtained.  That is, we do not earn salvation as a repayment for our love of God.  On the contrary, we only can love God as a result of his initial love towards us.  As John writes, “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19).  Our love, faith, and all subsequent God-pleasing virtue is produced in our lives due to the free and gracious work of God in our hearts to conform us to the image of Christ.  They are called the “fruit of the Spirit” as opposed to the “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5.  An apple tree doesn’t have to work to produce apples, it just will, providing it is tended properly and is, in fact, an apple tree.  God has planted us.  We are his workmanship (Isa. 61:3, Eph. 2:10).  It is God who works in us to will and to work according to his good purpose (Phil. 2:13).

     To be sure, good works follow regeneration necessarily.  That is, there is no such thing as a Spirit-indwelt person who has not been re-wired to please God and seek His glory.  Such is the meaning of the sometimes confusing “faith without works” verses in James’ epistle.  Works are a wonderful thing in this regard as they bear witness to our hearts that we are truly in Christ—they testify to the genuineness of our faith.  However, we must never forget that these works are the product of the free grace of God, the result of His saving work in us.  They do not merit God’s favor in any way.  We are free from the Law in that our just condemnation (because we are law breakers) has been fully satisfied in the atoning death of Christ our Lord.

     Of course, the law is still written.  It remains the inspired word of God that has come down to us.  So what are we to do with it?  Are we simply New Testament people who consult the Old only for Bible trivia purposes and vacation Bible school stories?  I don’t think so.  The promise of the New Covenant is that God’s law would no longer be the written letter on paper or stone but it would be written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33).  As people born of the Spirit it is our nature to want to please God.  However, we cannot simply create a written code of regulations for everyone to follow.  This, of course, has been attempted by many Christians throughout the years.  But this is not the way of the Spirit.  If we want to please God, it is no longer a matter of turning to chapter and verse as much as it is about cultivating a genuine communion with our Father.  Paul said we must “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10).  In this, the word of God written will be our true friend.  We will soak ourselves in the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation – meditating, praying, exegeting, believing, joyfully obeying – trying to discern.  Then, the 10 commandments and the Beatitudes and even the regulations about mildew cleansing will become as manna from heaven for us.  “Man does not live by bread alone, but by this,” we will say.  We’ll read about the mildew, Sabbaths, feasts, and more and ask, “Father, what does this tell me about your character?  What does this say about what pleases your heart? ” And then, we probably will remember to go spray our shower with Tilex.

     Before we leave the topic of creation, I want to spend some time talking about where the real battleground is for those who want to be faithful to the Scriptures.  That is, I want to talk about the Biblical doctrine of creation.  As we encounter Darwinists in our attempt to communicate spiritual truth, I think it is critical that we know where exactly we should be focusing our apologetics.  There are certain battles that we simply don’t need to be fighting. 

     It has often been the case in church history that Christians have picked the wrong fights, often claiming that the Bible teaches things that it does not.  For example, when Galileo Galilei supported the Copernican view of a heliocentric universe, he was charged with heresy and forced to recant his claims.  The Roman Inquisition incorrectly believed that the Bible taught that the earth was in the center of the universe.  This exegetical blunder has long been one of the great historical and unnecessary embarrassments of the Church.

     It is absolutely essential that we understand what the Bible actually teaches regarding the doctrine of creation, so we don’t find ourselves fighting silly battles that are at best a waste of time.  In short, I find that the Scripture teaches four key truths regarding creation that we must understand, believe, and vigorously defend.  I have listed these principles below with several scriptural texts that  support them:

1.   The source and cause of the created world is an uncreated God who is thus supreme and sovereign over all creation (cf. Gen. 1:1ff; Ps. 89:11, 104:24, 148; Isa. 40:25-26, 42:5; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 4:11).

2.  After creating the universe, God continued to be actively and intimately related to his creation.  That is to say that God is present and active in the whole universe and in our particular lives (cf. Gen. 1:4, 7-11, 14, 16-18, 20-22, 24-31, 2:1-3, 5-9, Isa. 41:17-20, 43:6-7; 45:7; 65:17; Eph. 2:10; Heb. 1:3).

3.  God directly created human beings in his own image and thus radically different from the rest of creation (cf. Gen. 1:26-27, 5:1, 9:6; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 11:7, 15:49; Eph. 4:24; Jam. 3:9).

4. God created Adam and Eve as the first humans.  They are the real ancestors of the entire human race (Gen. 2:7-8, 21-25, 3:20; Rom. 5:12-21).

      To the extent that Darwinism challenges any of these principles, Christians who desire to be faithful to the Bible have a serious theological motivation for engaging in debate.  Indeed, we must be willing and ready to give a defense of these essential Biblical truths (1 Pet. 3:15).   The good news is that some really great resources like the Case for a Creator, Expelled, and the Face that Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution are available to help us in this battle.

     Now, beyond these four points, I don’t believe there is a strong Biblical exegetical or theological reason for arguing with non-believers.  No one is being kept out of God’s Kingdom because they believe in an old earth or that dinosaurs weren’t contemporary to humans.  There are plenty of “in-house” debates that Christians can have on these kind of side issues, but it is the essentials that we must proclaim and defend in our various mission contexts. 

     To be sure, Darwinism as it is commonly delineated is clearly heretical, a worldview that is undeniably anti-Biblical.  It certainly fails on theological grounds from a Biblical perspective.  But it is worth remembering that on a completely different level, the scientific, Darwinism falls short of glory.  Darwinism tends to be just bad science that cannot withstand real scrutiny and so does not invite any.

     Over the next few blogs, I plan to reflect a bit more on the four principles of the doctrine of creation mentioned above.  For now, I invite you to let me know in the comment section if you think there are parts of the doctrine that I have overlooked and that you feel should be included among the other four.