# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S329
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report on the Law. 329

not a bodily but a spiritual and eternal promise: He that believeth hath eternal life. But in Moses it sounds different. He wants the promise kept to them if they are also outwardly pious, and the meaning is this: If the Jews guard themselves against images, and live in the fear of God, then he will accept them and care for them in body and soul. Bodily they shall have enough, and if they know him with their hearts as the true God, then the soul too shall be saved. The New Testament reverses this, and begins with the spiritual and inward, putting faith first, and says: If you believe and are godly, then you shall have enough — Matthew 6: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and the belly will be well provided for. Both Testaments have this in common; but the Old begins with the bodily, and yet the spiritual lies hidden beneath it, namely, that one must have enough in faith. It is one and the same thing in the Old and New Testaments; but it is a different order. So then this promise was spoken not to the Gentiles, but to the Jews. Likewise also, that he is angry unto the third or fourth generation belongs to the law as well, and indicates a bodily wrath and punishment, not an eternal one. In the New Testament, however, it is different: the child is not punished for the father. But it happens in this way: each one believes for himself, the father for himself, the son for himself, the mother and daughter for themselves; as it also stands written in Ezekiel: I will abolish this, that the son shall not suffer for the father, nor the father for the son. But because he promised the Jews bodily assurances, he also threatened, showed favor, or punished them bodily. Paul and the whole New Testament have abolished the Sabbath of the Jews, so that one can indeed grasp that the Sabbath concerns the Jews alone. Therefore it is not necessary for the Gentiles to keep the Sabbath, although it was a great and strict commandment among the Jews. The prophets, too, have pointed out how this Sabbath was to be abolished. Isaiah, in his last chapter, says: When the Messiah comes, there will be such a time that there will be one new moon after another, one sabbath after another; as if he wanted to say: Every day will be Sabbath, and every day will be new moon. So, in the New Testament, the Sabbath lies set aside, in its crude, outward sense. For this commandment, like the other commandments, has a twofold understanding, an outward one and an inward or spiritual one. In the New Testament, among Christians, every day is a holy day, and all days are free. Therefore Christ says: The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath, Matthew 12. Therefore Paul again and again admonishes the Christians that they should let themselves be bound to no particular day: Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Likewise, to the Colossians even more clearly: Let no man therefore judge you in meat or drink, or in respect of a part of days, namely feast days, or new moons, or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, etc. Although now the Sabbath is abolished, and the