# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1863_S361
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report of the Sixth Ordinary Synodical Convention of the Norwegian Ev.-Luth. Church. 361

...in that the Augsburg Confession bases the keeping of Sunday precisely on this, that it is necessary in order to know when one is to come together for the common use of the Word of God. The right understanding of the day of rest as pertaining to one's whole life will, like the pure doctrine generally, both lay strong obligations upon us and at the same time bring us richer blessing, whereas one must note how under the false doctrine the use of the Word of God became almost entirely restricted to Sunday, whereby great harm has been done. One has fallen into a false bondage to the Law, and while one is often so very exact about Sunday, one makes no scruple of not considering a single word of God the whole week through. The best explanation of the Christian day of rest, however, is found in Hebrews 4. The author of this letter works above all against his readers becoming unbelieving, and to this end adduces examples from the Old Testament, in the course of which, at the end of chapter 3, he comes to speak of how the unbelieving Jews did not come to enter into their rest. By this rest is understood first of all the rest in the land of Canaan, but then certainly also that of which it was meant to be a type, namely, grace in Christ. And now he promises us in chapter 4 that we too are to have a rest, and this can of course be nothing else for us than grace in Christ. We enter into this rest by means of faith, just as the Jews entered by means of faith into the rest in the land of Canaan, and this our spiritual rest shall last for all eternity in blessedness, and there is no other rest for us. This rest, which God thus willed to give to both, to the Jews and further to all of us, to them in Canaan and to us in Christ, the author then connects and makes it, as it were, one with the rest of God after the accomplished creation. God did not need this rest, yet he rested in so far as his work was now accomplished and he thus in a manner did nothing more, and this rest of God was to be signified in the Old Testament by the seventh day as the Sabbath. But now there is a new covenant, and therein is the rest: 1. that Christ, after his work was accomplished, rested in the grave; 2. that all who believe in him rest from all their own works and have peace and comfort, that everything needful for their salvation is now accomplished, and the Christians enter into this rest through faith. For to prove that there is yet another rest than that in Canaan, the author afterward cites Psalm 95:7–11, where David, although the Israelites indeed at that time obtained by force the outward rest of the land of Canaan, nevertheless speaks of a new rest, and that is the rest in Christ, to which those whom he foresees in the Spirit shall not come, for they will not believe in him. And after those to whom the promise was first given did not enter in because of their unbelief, so, the author says further, he again appointed a certain day. And which day is this? Is it one of the seven days of the week? No, for it says there: "today, if you will hear his voice," and above, chapter 3:13, "every day, as long as it is called today."