The Lutheran Church In America
Pastor A. C. Preus, in an article in Kirkelig Maanedstidende [Monthly Church Tidings], of August, 1855, endeavored to quiet an agitation on the Sabbath question that had arisen in Wisconsin, by claiming that the Sabbath commandment simply required the keeping of one day in seven. He wrote:FAFA 182.2
“It is a moral law, founded on a moral necessity, that a rest day must be appointed; ... but it is ceremony, resting on outward occasion of circumstances, whether one day or another is established.FAFA 182.3
“We know that ‘the law is a lamp and the commandment a light,’ and woe be to us if we would ‘abolish’ even one of the least commandments and ‘teach men so.’ But the law, the unchangeable moral law, which proceeds from the nature of God, says nothing about which day. The third [fourth] commandment simply reads thus: ‘Remember that thou keep holy the rest day,’ it does not say the seventh day!” -, 1855, pp Kirkelig Maanedstidende, August. 94-97. Inmansville, Wis.FAFA 182.4
A few Lutheran ministers saw in this article a direct blow against the sanctity of Sunday, others took exception to the claim that the Sabbath commandment is binding on us. The struggle that ensued is spoken of in their book on “The Jubilee of the Norwegian Synod, 1853-1903,” in the following statement:FAFA 183.1
“The struggle which began against the sects outside of the Lutheran Church thus soon became a controversy with those who had false ideas within the Lutheran Church itself, a controversy which was kept up till well towards the eighties, when it gradually died away, because other points of dispute arrested the attention.” — “Festskrift, ” p. 289. Decorah, Iowa: 1903.FAFA 183.2
During this long controversy much was written in their official organ, Kirkelig Maanedstidende [Monthly Church Tidings], in Emigranten, and in their Synodical Reports, especially from 1863 to 1866, and discussions continued in their “Synods.” The one side held to the “Explanation of Luther’s Catechism” (Oslo, 1905), which says that the ceremonial law was abolished at the cross, but that “the moral law, which is contained in the Ten Commandments, ... is still in force.... because, it is founded on God’s holy and righteous nature, and hence is immutable as God Himself.” — Pp. 5, 6.FAFA 183.3
The other party said:FAFA 183.4
“Either the words in the 3rd [4thl.commandment regarding the seventh day on which God rested are binding on us, and then we must and shall keep Saturday, or, if these words are not in force for us, then we have nothing to do with any definite day, or any day whatever.... We notice that the 3rd [4 th] commandment does not speak of one day in seven, or a seventh day, but only and solely of the seventh day, that is Saturday. As long as they will acknowledge this, which every honest Christian with common sound judgment certainly must, and they also acknowledge that the New Testament nowhere institutes or commands any other day, or says that one day in seven shall be taken in its place, then it also must be acknowledged that there is no word in Scripture to sustain the assertion that one day in seven is a moral command.” — “Record of the First Extraordinary Synod of the Norwegian-Evangelical-Lutheran Church in America,” held at Holden, Minnesota, reported in Kirkelig Mannedstidende [Monthly Church Tidings], Aug. 1, 1862, p. 232.FAFA 183.5
“To say, that the commandment regarding outward rest (Exodus 20:10, 11) [refers to one day in seven] is only arbitrary misrepresentation and falsification of God’s word, for it does not say ‘every seventh,’ but ‘the seventh day, on which God rested,’ and that, every one knows, was Saturday. If therefore this commandment concerning outward rest for man and beast is in force as a moral command for us Christians, then we must rest on Saturday, as that is the only day on which such rest was commanded.”-Id., April 1, 1862, p. 99.FAFA 184.1
Having called attention to the fact that the fourth commandment enjoins observance of the definite seventh day (Saturday) they then referred to Romans 14 and Colossians 2 as proof that the Sabbath was abolished. But those who held that the moral law is still in force, answered:FAFA 184.2
“In regard to the places, Romans 14 and Colossians 2, these refer ... to the appointed days of the Old Testament, which the contents in the whole chapter show.... By ‘Sabbaths’ is not to be understood the weekly Sabbath, which, before Moses, yea already at Creation, was instituted [Genesis 2], but [they refer] to other feasts, which have been types of Christ, and ceased at Christ’s coming.” — Id., September, 1863, pp. 271, 272.FAFA 184.3
The other side answered:FAFA 184.4
“Sunday, no doubt, had sacred memories, but so had the day of Christ’s death and the day of His ascension, without Friday and Thursday thereby becoming appointed days for weekly meetings, and even if Sunday had the most glorious memories, there would not be in that the least obligation to keep it.... After all, examples prove nothing, they only illustrate what has already been proved. And here it actually is incumbent on those who would make Sunday-keeping a divine ordinance to show us a definite command of God for it.” — Id., September, 1863, pp. 261,262.FAFA 184.5
The former, in their review, quoted Matthew 5:17-19 and James 2:10, 11, and declared:FAFA 184.6
“If it is so dangerous to offend on one commandment, what must it be then to wholly throw away one commandment? ... God has distinctly commanded that every tittle in His law is to be kept. And how it will fare with those who take away from, or add anything to, God’s word we can read in Revelation. [The writer then referred to the fate of the priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18]” — Id., April, 1866, p. 103.FAFA 185.1
We recognize that this was an argument in which two groups of Sunday-keepers were engaged, and in which each in his own way was trying to present reasons for the observance of the first day of the week. But in fact, the truths brought to light by this close study of the question prove that the fourth commandment enjoins the careful observance, not of one day in seven, but of the seventh day of the week in particular, that the Sabbath was instituted at creation, that while the ceremonial feasts, which were types of Christ, ceased at the cross, the seventh-day Sabbath did not pass away at that time, that there is no definite command in Scripture for Sunday observance, and that those who attempt to remove a jot or a tittle from the holy law of God by substituting the first day of the week for the seventh day fall under the curse of Revelation 22:19.FAFA 185.2