# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S335
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report of the sixth ordinary synodical convention of the Norwegian Evang. Luth. Church. 335

sage of Sunday in the church is an argument for, and not against, this
proposition. Otherwise one would have to prove that the New Testament commanded us to exchange Saturday for Sunday; but no one can do that. Even
Pastor Clausen recognized that we do not keep Sunday because of the command in the 3rd Commandment, for that concerns Saturday. He had imagined it as though the Sabbath had now been moved forward by one day; but that cannot be so, for if the day to which the commandment refers has been shifted, then the commandment is abolished. This also agrees with Col. 2:16, where the particular Sabbath of the Jews is declared abolished. But it also follows from this that the 3rd Commandment does not command us to celebrate on Sunday, but rather that we rest on that day partly, as Luther says, because nature demands rest, and partly because we must rest from our work if we are to hear God's Word.

From another quarter it was also pointed out how the Sabbath was meant to be a covenant sign between God and his people; if now the old covenant was to cease, then the sign too had to be abolished when the mediator of the new covenant came. God raised up his people in the old covenant like a child, and for that purpose used many outward forms, commandments, and ceremonies. If one now wanted to make one of these ceremonial commandments binding for us, one would have to let them all stand, and it becomes evident too that those who let the false doctrine of the Sabbath in fell into the most dreadful bondage of the law, and, for example, did not dare go more than 1000 paces on Sunday.

Repeated calls went out to those who were still not clear, to come forward with their doubts and objections, and Pastor Clausen now declared that although he was fully in agreement with the proposition as it stood, he was not in agreement with the whole line of argument that had been used; he therefore feared that another meaning might be read into it, and preferred not to agree to it yet. Asked by the chairman to state what he found ambiguous in it, he answered that it was clear enough. His opinion was that, as a consequence of the 3rd Commandment, we were not bound to keep Saturday, or Sunday, or any other particular day, nor indeed any of the 7 days, and that we do not rest on Sunday because the 3rd Commandment commands us to. Pastor Ottesen, as the author of the proposition, explained that neither did the words of the proposition contain anything else, nor had he had any other meaning in mind than the one Pastor Clausen had now expressed — with which explanation the latter was satisfied, so that he could agree to the proposition.

After this first proposition of the report had thus been brought this far toward clarity, it was, on the basis of Pastor Clausen's earlier remark that he believed he could prove the divine validity of Sunday as a holy and rest day from other passages of Holy Scripture, deemed most expedient first to answer the question: Is there, besides the 3rd Commandment, any word of God which obligates Christians to set apart Sunday or an-