# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S333
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report of the sixth ordinary synodical convention of the Norwegian Evang. Luth. Church. 333

Contemplation of the Word of God and as a holy day, e.g. Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:2; then, that he is called the Lord's Day in Rev. 1:9. Moreover, the Lord had thereby attached the memorial of his name to this day, in that he had risen from the dead on it, revealed himself to his disciples, and poured out his Holy Spirit. For this reason the apostles and the first Christians had indeed also called this day the Lord's Day, because through these deeds he had, as it were, pointed to it as a day for the contemplation of his Word, and that it had also always remained.

To this it was answered: the moral law is indeed the law which was written in the hearts of men at creation, and we find an expression of it in the 10 Commandments. If we agree on this, that the moral law contains no obligation to any particular day, because nothing of this is written in the hearts of men, then it cannot help matters, however many indications may be found in Scripture that a day was nevertheless kept in the New Testament. Sunday does indeed have holy remembrances, but so do Christ's day of death and his ascension day, without Friday or Thursday having been appointed for that reason as the weekly day of assembly; and even though Sunday has the most glorious remembrances, that still does not carry within it the slightest obligation to keep it. To try to prove this from the fact that Paul preached at Troas on a Sunday (Acts 20:7) would be no better than if the Sabbatarians wanted to prove the obligation to keep Saturday from the fact that Christ often preached in the synagogues on Sabbaths, that is, on Saturdays. One could just as well prove from the fact that Christ preached from a boat, that we too must preach from a boat. In general, examples can prove nothing; they only illuminate what has already been proven; and whoever wishes to make the keeping holy of Sunday into a divine ordinance is truly obligated here to show us a definite divine command for it. That the keeping holy of Sunday became so general in the church certainly happened under the guidance of divine providence, as does everything that happens, but this still contains no divine obligation for us; moreover, history shows that precisely the first Christians did not at all bind themselves strictly to any particular day, but rather, precisely in order to demonstrate their freedom, went both on Saturday and on Sunday from work to church and from church to work.

After this answer had been given, it was resolved to return to the question concerning the first proposition, whether the 3rd Commandment obligates us to a definite day as a holy day. In order to defend the proposition that denies this, it was developed still more precisely just what the moral law, which obligates all men, actually is. It is not the 10 Commandments in the form in which the Lord spoke them on Mount Sinai, for there he prefaces them with the words: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out