Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Observe the sabbath day is a command given more to us, because we are commanded to observe it spiritually. The Jews, you see, observe the sabbath day in a servile fashion, as an occasion for self-indulgence and getting drunk. How much better occupied would their women be spinning wool, instead of dancing on the balconies on that day! Heaven preserve us, brothers and sisters, from allowing that they really observe the sabbath! The Christian observes the sabbath in a spiritual way, by abstaining from servile work. What does that mean, after all, “from servile work”? From sin. And how do we prove that? Ask the Lord: Everybody who commits sin is the slave of sin (Jn 8:34). So then, the spiritual keeping of the sabbath is enjoined upon us as well.
Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on the Gospel of John 1-40 (c. 406-20), trans. Edmund Hill, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Volume 12 (Hyde Park NY: New City Press, 2009), 3.19, p. 82.
Did Augustine really believe that the fourth commandment only applied to Christians in the New Testament age as simply a command to abstain from sin?
Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on the Gospel of John 1-40 (c. 406-20), trans. Edmund Hill, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Volume 12 (Hyde Park NY: New City Press, 2009), 3.19, p. 82.
Did Augustine really believe that the fourth commandment only applied to Christians in the New Testament age as simply a command to abstain from sin?