# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S336
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

other particular day of the week apart as a holy and
rest day? This question was at once answered by many
with a definite "No," and, besides what had already been said, the following
was adduced in support: If any obligation is found for Christians to keep a particular day holy, it must be either a moral or a ceremonial one; now the ceremonial commandments are not imposed on us in the New Testament: therefore the obligation would have to be a moral one, or one written into our hearts at creation. But then it would also have to be traceable back to one of the 10 Commandments, which are the short summary of the moral law. Now we have heard, however, that it is not found in the 3rd Commandment, nor has anyone even once attempted to find it in any other of the 10 Commandments: consequently there can be no obligation here. Moreover, if there were one, it ought not to be discovered solely from dark and veiled hints and allusions of Scripture, such as Pastor Clausen had earlier adduced for his opinion, and where we do not deny that there is encouragement enough for us to prefer Sunday over another day of the week as the particular holy day, just as there is encouragement enough to keep Easter and other festivals; nor ought it to be merely the factual circumstance that the Lord rose on a Sunday, etc.; rather there would have to be a clear, definite command, one that could be understood without any art of interpretation. But far from such a command being found, there are, on the contrary, clear words in Scripture to the effect that there is no distinction among the days, and it says there: "Let no man judge you in this." But if someone transgressed a moral commandment and made himself guilty of fornication, murder, or theft, God's Word could surely not say to the Christians about that: "Let no man judge you in this!" Indeed the apostle even rebukes the Galatians for "observing distinctions among days," and fears on that account that he may have labored among them in vain. We can, of course, have a strong, deeply rooted prejudice that Sunday was instituted by God; but this, like all human thoughts and opinions, must nevertheless yield before such clear and simple words of God.

Pastor Clausen now asked leave to be permitted to develop his opinion in this matter. He believed that if we were compelled to conclude from God's Word, by the analogy of faith, that something was God's will, we would be just as obligated to obey it as if we had an explicit commandment. As to the original origin of the Sabbath, he believed that the Lord's word in Mark 2:27, "The Sabbath was made for man," shows us that it dates back to creation itself. By using the word "man" [not "Jews"], the Lord shows the general, human significance of the Sabbath, and can therefore in this passage not be speaking of the Sabbath given through Moses in the 3rd Commandment, but only of the Sabbath instituted immediately after creation. And if God instituted the Sabbath at that time, then man must already have been in a condition