# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S334
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

"out of the land of Egypt," and thus speaks there only to the Jews. So too he promises in the 4th Commandment long life in the land of Canaan — naturally, however, not to us, but to the Jews; and in the 10th Commandment he speaks to those who have menservants and maidservants, that is, male and female slaves, which are indeed not found among all peoples. The moral law in the 10 Commandments, then, is only that which was written in the hearts of all men at creation, and to which each is therefore bound to acknowledge himself obligated in his conscience, once that conscience has been awakened to reflection on God's Word. In this way I can easily convince any heathen or Turk that it is sin to steal, for his conscience tells him so; but of resting on a particular day, or of keeping it holy, his conscience knows nothing. Because, however, the conscience is darkened by sin, God has come to our aid in the New Testament by clearly telling and establishing for us what a moral commandment is; and with respect to the 3rd Commandment it says there expressly that the Sabbath, as a particular day, is a "shadow" (Col. 2:16), and: if my friend has come, I no longer look for his shadow-image. Romans 14 says that both he who regards all days alike, and he who makes a distinction among the days, have freedom to do so, and "let each be fully persuaded in his own mind" and do it unto the Lord. Against this, Hebrews 4 explains what kind of rest we are to have in the New Testament. One must look, in the case of divine commands, at whom they were given to — so here, that it is the Jews to whom he commanded the keeping of the 7th day, and that he has not commanded us to keep any particular day. God commanded Noah to build an ark, but that does not obligate me to do so as well.

As a mark that a commandment is a moral commandment, besides the two already named — namely the testimony of conscience and the confirmation of the commandment in the New Testament — a third was adduced, namely that God also punishes its transgression among the heathen. But we find nowhere that the Lord punishes for transgression of the Sabbath. While the Canaanites were punished for many other sins, it was only the Jews who were punished for not keeping the Sabbath.

It was further pointed out that one may not, for this reason, ascribe to the Sabbath commandment a force binding for all time, because it says that it should be "for a perpetual memorial." For this word is also used of such things as were meant to last only for the time of the Old Testament, as for example circumcision.

Must we then concede that the 3rd Commandment, in the sense that they were obligated to keep a particular day, was given to the Jews — then it is clear that, insofar as we Christians also consider ourselves bound to the commandment in this way, we must keep the same day that is imposed on the Jews in the commandment, namely Saturday. If we do not do this, then, but instead use Sunday as a holy day, we declare thereby — as the Augsburg Confession also says — that we do not, like the Jews, hold ourselves bound by the 3rd Commandment to a particular day, and thus the u-