# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 12 22_S104
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

...Jews no longer binds us, since now the fence that was drawn between Jews and Gentiles has been torn down in the New Testament; Japheth has been received into the tents of Shem, the Gentiles into the citizenship of Israel, and Jews and Gentiles have been gathered through the Gospel into one flock under one Shepherd. Christ, through his coming in the flesh, has taken from us the oppressive yoke of countless external statutes; the time of preparation is at an end, and with Christ freedom from all servile bondage has been given to us as a gift. No fixed place, no fixed house, no fixed ceremony, no fixed time of the Old Testament binds us now; all the shadows of Christ have been done away, now that Christ, as the body itself, has come; all the types of Christ are now abolished, now that Christ has appeared as the truth, as the substance.

That the old covenant, with all its shadow-work, would not last forever, was already revealed in the Old Testament. Already Moses proclaims, in chapter 18 of his fifth book, that only after him would the true Prophet be raised up by God, whom Israel was to obey. Furthermore, the prophet Jeremiah prophesies, in chapter 3 of his book, that when all the Gentiles, for the LORD's name's sake, would gather at Jerusalem, there would no longer be an ark of the covenant, nor any sacrifice; and in chapter 31 he says: "Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant they did not keep, so that I had to compel them, says the LORD. But this shall be the covenant after this time: I will put my law into their heart, and write it in their mind." With this Jeremiah clearly says that the outward commandments of the old covenant have no eternal validity, but would be abolished through a new covenant. Indeed, Isaiah adds, in the last chapter of his prophecies, that in the New Testament there would no longer be any fixed Sabbath, but rather "from one Sabbath to another," so that the children of the new covenant would keep Sabbath every day.

This we also find abundantly confirmed throughout the whole New Testament. As soon as Christ entered upon his teaching office, he already began to soften somewhat the strictness of the Mosaic law; he not only heals the sick on the Sabbath, as in our Gospel, but also lets his disciples pluck ears of grain on the Sabbath, even though the utmost necessity was not yet present, and thereby shows that the end of the Mosaic Sabbath had drawn near. But after, at Christ's death, the veil in the temple before the Most Holy Place was torn, and thereby a sign was given of the complete abolition of the Levitical worship, it was then taught brightly and clearly by the holy apostles that no Christian is any longer bound to the Jewish Sabbath. So St. Paul says in chapter 2 of his epistle to the Colossians: "Let no one therefore make you conscience-bound concerning food or drink, or a fixed feast day, or new moon, or Sabbath days, which are the shadow of things to come, but the body itself is in Christ." Here the freedom from the Jewish Sabbath is proclaimed to all Christians clear as sunlight, and it is made their duty not to let the observance of any particular day be laid upon their conscience as a commandment of God. When false apostles crept in among the Galatians, who persuaded the Galatians to observe particular days, on the ground that God had so commanded, and as if it were downright sin to omit doing so, the apostle cried out to them: "You observe days, and months, and feasts, and seasons. I fear for you, that I have perhaps labored over you in vain."

Recognize from this that Christianity is not a religion in which new laws concerning fixed times, places, and other outward things have been given to Christians by Christ; no — from all this, all Christians have obtained perfect freedom through Christ, and they now have no further commandment except love. St. Paul does indeed say, in the epistle to the Romans, that one should not offend or judge the weak in faith, but bear with and tolerate them, if they still held to certain days; but he also says: "The other regards every day alike, and whoever puts no store by it does so likewise unto the Lord." Romans 14:5–6.

What then — some among us will perhaps say here — is it not commanded in the New Testament that Sunday be kept instead of Saturday? Many indeed believe this, but where is it so written? Christ does indeed say, at the institution of the Holy Supper: "Do this"; he does indeed say, at the institution of Holy Baptism: "Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Christ does indeed say, at the institution of the holy preaching office: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." But where does Christ say: "Keep my day"? God did indeed hallow and bless the Sabbath already in Paradise, but did he say even then that man must keep it? — No, my brothers; just as the Gospel no longer commands us to worship in the temple at Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth, so too it no longer commands us any fixed time. Whoever thinks that Sunday has stepped into all the rights of the Sabbath, and that only the day has been changed, is thereby also bound to the whole strictness of the Old Testament, and would not dare so much as to light a fire on the Lord's new day. But far be that! The first Christians believed that in the time of the New Testament they had to keep Sabbath daily, serve God daily, and keep Easter daily; they therefore also often came together daily, to pray and to break bread, but for the sake of order the holy apostles appointed the first day of the week as the day for Christian assemblies.

Christ has come, and with him all outward laws have fallen; "for in Christ," says St. Paul, "neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love."

The precious symbolical books of our Evangelical Lutheran Church set forth the article of the justification of the sinner through faith alone so plainly and purely. How, then, do our confessions speak of the Sabbath? In the most definite terms, in the last article of the unaltered Augsburg Confession, the opinion is rejected that it should be a mortal sin if one performs manual labor on holy days, "even without offense to others." In that same twenty-eighth article of the Augsburg Confession, Sunday is reckoned among the ordinances and ceremonies which were instituted by the apostles, by their own free choice, only for the sake of order, unity, and peace. There it says: "They who hold that the ordinance of Sunday was set up in place of the Sabbath as a necessary thing err greatly, for Holy Scripture has abolished the Sabbath. The Christian Church has ordained Sunday so that people might have an example of Christian liberty, that it might be known that neither the observance of the Sabbath, nor of any other day, is necessary."

So it is, then, beyond all doubt: Sunday is no commandment of God, but a free institution of the Christian Church in memory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and of the institution of the holy preaching office, appointed for the holy assemblies of Christians. Sunday is indeed mentioned in Holy Scripture, but nowhere commanded; it is a part of Christian liberty.

But now, my dear ones, you have heard from what Christians have become free through the Gospel; let us now, secondly, hear from what Christians have not become free.

2.

The question now arises: Does the Christian, then, have only nine commandments? Has the Third Commandment, "Thou shalt hallow the holy day," been completely abolished through the Gospel? Is it then the right use of Christian liberty if we devote no day at all especially to public and private worship? Is the evangelical liberty of the Christian Church to be understood as meaning that within it everything proceeds without any discipline or order, according to each heart's free caprice and desire? Are Christians a mere crowd of people, in which each one does as he pleases, in which there is no cohesion, no unity, no ordered fellowship of worship? Do those, then, show themselves to be the true Christians who rightly understand Christian liberty — who keep no Sunday, who on Sunday give no thought to church and worship, but pursue their livelihood, or would rather devote the day to a walk, or lounge about in taverns? Far be it! That is not the use of Christian liberty, but its abuse; by this, Christ and the liberty which he, through his precious...