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Evangelical Pastors & Seminary Teacher's Special
Seventh-day Adventists teach that Sunday keeping is, or will become, the “mark of the beast”
Seventh-day Adventists
teach the
seventh-day Sabbath
is the “seal of God”
Revelation depicts a sharp demarcation between those who serve God and those who serve the “beast”1 .
Adventists have traditionally held that the Seventh-day Sabbath is the seal of God. Ellen White on numerous occasions confirmed this in her writings. She wrote that Sabbath observance would be the “line of distinction” in the “final test” that will separate God’s end-time people who “receive the seal of God” and are saved, from those who “receive the mark of the beast” and are cast into the lake of fire.
The traditional Adventist support for the seventh-day Sabbath as the seal of God comes from the common understanding of what a seal is. It is a mark which shows authenticity by (1) giving the name of the one in authority, (2) the title of the one in authority, and (3) the dominion of the one in authority. Seventh-day Adventists show that the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment has all of this information.
This may be good human reasoning, but the New Testament never speaks of the Sabbath as the seal of God. Because the Sabbath commandment was placed in the very center of the Ten Commandments, it served as the dynastic sign of the Sinaitic Covenant. On several occasions within the old covenant we find the Sabbath called a sign. In context it is always the sign between God and the sons of Israel.
Never is the Sabbath called a seal or a sign within the new covenant. Rather, the Holy Spirit is said to be the seal which the Christian receives when he believes.
" Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us in God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge (2 Cor. 1:21, 22)."
"In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation¾having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:13, 14)."
"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30)."
According to Scripture it is the Holy Spirit and not the seventh-day Sabbath that is the seal of God. According to the New Testament the seventh-day Sabbath is not the sign which is to be remembered. Rather, Christians are to celebrate the Lord’s Supper (the new covenant sign) in remembrance of Christ.
There is no major problem with Christians worshiping on Saturday. However, when SDAs make their Sabbath keeping a sign that they are right and everyone else is wrong, then that teaching becomes very divisive. This is especially so when such great importance is placed on a divergent teaching. It is clear that the Epistles never place positive emphasis on Sabbath keeping. Never do they explain how Gentile believers are to keep the Sabbath, and Sabbath breaking is never included in any New Testament lists of sins. This certainly seems strange if the Sabbath, as Adventists claim, is to be the testing truth for all Christians in the last days. The Apostle Paul teaches that the Sabbath is to be included with the other ritual holy days of the old covenant and serves only as a shadow of Christ.
White, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, p. 605; emphasis added. Describing a supposed vision direct from God, she wrote, “I saw that the Holy Sabbath is, and will be, the separating wall between the true Israel of God [in context, true Christians] and unbelievers” (Early Writings, p. 33; emphasis added). She also wrote that Sabbath observance “was of sufficient importance to draw a line between the people of God and unbelievers” (Ibid., p. 85; emphasis added).” See www.watchman.org/sdapro.html.
See Ratzlaff, Sabbath in Christ, pp. 40–43, 50 and Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King, pp. 13, 14.