Today’s post includes theses 12-13. The first has to do with the transference of the day of religious worship from Saturday to Sunday. Like Zanchi, Hemmingsen asserts that this was done by the apostles. In principle, the day could have been any day, but Sunday was chosen as the most fitting, because on that day the Lord rose from the dead. Therefore the use of the first day of the week for Christian worship, within the context of evangelical freedom, relates primarily its utility as a memorial.
The second thesis begins a new section on the typological or symbolic significance of the Jewish Sabbath that will be continued in the next post. In the theses that follow, we will see the symbolism of the Sabbath as it relates to past, present, and future.
Assertions concerning the Jewish Sabbath and the Festivals of Christians (Continued)
- But, although this Jewish Sabbath does not bind us as far as the species is concerned, nevertheless, as far as it pertains to the genus, piety itself demands that every week we separate some one day from profane use and appoint it for divine worship. Therefore, what the apostles did was pious, who substituted the first day of the week, in memory of the Lord’s resurrection from the dead, in place of the last, which they called κυριακήν [kuriakēn, “the Lord’s”] as a result.
- But how far the Sabbath pertains to symbolic significance and serves as a type, we should know that it is considered according to the system of threefold time. 1
Notes:
- The translation is my own. ↩