THEY CAN’T LET GO

The Mark of the Beast and Ellen White’s Authority

By Colleen Tinker

The Adventist Review announced in its June 1 edition that “during the next seven months—June through December 2018—[it] will feature a key Adventist idea—in print, online, through video, with podcasts—each month.”

Last week’s edition featured “The Mark of the Beast”. The feature article was an interview between an Adventist Review reporter and Mark Finley, the vice-president for evangelism for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. 

Significantly, this article reveals that Adventism is not changing in its commitment to its traditional interpretation of the mark of the beast and the necessity of the seventh-day Sabbath in eschatology. In fact, Finley explains that his understanding of this subject has “deepened” over the years; he now sees the real significance of the mark of the beast in the context “of a cosmic struggle in the universe between good and evil, and a battle over the issue of worship.” In other words, Finley’s interpretive grid for understanding the mark of the beast is Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm. 

He explained that now, when he preaches about the mark of the beast, he doesn’t just try to identify the beast power as Rome. While he concedes that he hasn’t changed the typical Adventist view that the beast is the papacy, he is “also clear in looking at the larger issues in the controversy between good and evil, where the devil attacks the very creative authority of God, tries to destroye humanity, and tries to destroy our consensus of who we are in Christ. The Sabbath is this refuge. I preach the Sabbath as a symbol not of legalism or works, but of faith: every Sabbath we rest in Christ. We rest in His love and we rest in His care. And if one meaning off the word antichrist is “another Christ,” a substitute Christ, then human works through the antichrist power substitute something else for the God-given Sabbath.”

Weaving his tapestry of Adventist arguments, Finley deftly moved from the “mark of the beast” to the centrality of the seventh-day Sabbath. Without the use of a single Bible text or reference to new covenant context, Finley continued his line of persuasion and merged old covenant practices with new covenant arguments and delivered Adventist logic that sounds convincing—until one actually goes to Scripture to try to trace his assumptions. 

Tucked into his compelling explanation, however, are revealing phrases. For example: “Sabbath is the symbol of righteousness by faith, and Sunday is the symbol of righteousness by works. How so? Because in Sabbath, I rest in the Christ who died on Calvary’s cross for me…Every Sabbath I say, “Jesus, You made me. You created me. You died for me. I’m resting in Your love and care.”

He continued, “Why is Sunday—the invention of the beast power—a symbol of righteousness by works? Because if during a period of church/state compromise the Sabbath was changed by human religio-political leaders, then to accept Sunday is to accept a human work contrary to a divine command. And any time I substitute a human work for a divine command, it’s as if I’m bringing Cain’s offering yet again…Sabbath is first a call to identity in Christ, a call to our roots in Creation, a refuge in time. I see it as a call to respect our bodies and the environment. I see it as resting in Jesus from our works to accept His work on the cross…If God can create the world, and the Sabbath is a memorial of that creation—then He can re-create my heart. So the Sabbath is a symbol of His sanctifying power…and at the heart of the Sabbath is the gospel.”

What’s wrong here?

In these opening arguments, Finley revealed several assumptions based on Ellen White, not in Scripture. First, Scripture never even hints that keeping the seventh-day Sabbath “is the symbol of righteousness by faith” or that worshiping on Sunday is “the symbol of righteousness by works.”

In the first place, the Adventist idea of “righteousness by faith” is not a scriptural concept. The Bible says, “But my righteous one shall live by faith” (Heb. 10:38 quoting Hab. 2:4), but this sentence does not describe the Adventist teaching of “righteousness by faith”. 

When Adventists talk about “righteousness by faith”, they mean that when a person has faith in Christ to work in him, Jesus will give him His power. With that power from Christ, the person will then be able to obey God and keep His law. Thus Christ in him gives him the power to overcome sin and to become righteous. The result of this dance between faith and Christ’s power yields righteousness by faith. In other words, the sincere Adventist will become righteous in himself by accessing the power of Christ through faith that He will equip him.

The New Testament, however, speaks of believers becoming justified—not becoming righteous—by faith. For example, look at these texts:

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith (Rom. 3:28–30). 

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1).

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified (Gal 2:15–16).

Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith” (Gal. 3:11).

From the foundation of Finley’s (and Adventism’s) argument, the assumptions are wrong. The Adventist “righteousness by faith” is not a biblical idea. Rather, it is an almost-right-sounding phrase that actually describes Adventism’s core belief that the saved must keep the Ten Commandments, especially the Sabbath, and actively be eliminating sin from their lives so that they personally become righteous. 

The Bible, however, teaches that God justifies those who believe. He credits them with righteousness because of their faith in Jesus’ finished work of redemption, and it is Jesus’ own righteousness that is credited to believers, not their own.

Furthermore, because the Bible teaches that a believer’s righteousness is completely apart from the law, keeping the seventh-day Sabbath is never a “symbol of righteousness by faith”, nor is worshiping on Sunday a symbol of “righteousness by works”. In fact, holy days are not even involved in “righteousness”. Holy days are fulfilled in Christ who IS our righteousness, as Paul states in Colossians 2:16–17 and as Hebrews explains in chapter 10. 

In fact, in his attempt to “gospel-ize” the Sabbath, Finley even says, “Because in Sabbath, I rest in the Christ who died on Calvary’s cross for me…Every Sabbath I say, ‘Jesus, You made me. You created me. You died for me. I’m resting in Your love and care.’” This argument actually reveals his lack understanding true rest in Christ. When we have believed and have been born again, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13–14) and have passed from death to life (Jn. 5:24), our Sabbath rest is eternal and unbroken (Heb. 4:9). It transcends days and seasons. Every single day we rest in Christ in real and deep ways that resting on the seventh-day never replicates. 

Keeping the seventh-day Sabbath is not resting in Christ. Rather, it is a form of observing the old covenant law and attempting to transfer an Old Testament shadow into Christianity, and the two do not mix. Galatians, Romans, Colossians, and Hebrews reveal that hanging onto the shadow of Sabbath is a form of idolatry and cannot blend with the reality found in Christ. 

Finley’s arguments derive not from Scripture but from Ellen White’s writings. Worship on Sunday is not a man-made change in God’s law, as she declares. In fact, Sunday is not sacred nor is it required as a holy day. Meeting on Sunday was a tradition that pre-dated the Catholic church, but it is not a substitute Sabbath. In fact, according to Romans 14:5–6 no day at all is required; each person must do what he is convicted to do. God does not require us to keep any day holy!

The Sabbath was a sign for Israel of their covenant with God. It reminded them that God worked for them; they were to rest one in seven. While the surrounding nations struggled to appease their gods and make ends meet, Israel was to rest one in seven, and God Himself would prosper them. Never would they nor the pagans around them be able to say Israel was successful because they worked harder. On the contrary, the only conclusion would be that God prospered them. 

The Sabbath was a reminder that God was their Creator and their rescuer from slavery. It was the day when they had to remain in their tents and trust God to care for them, no matter what was happening around them. Their God trumped all the other gods of the neighboring nations, and Israel was to remember that He alone was sovereign and all-powerful. 

The Sabbath was a shadow of Israel’s entering God’s rest first established at the end of creation, and it foreshadowed their entry into Christ’s finished work in the new covenant (Hebrews 4:1–9). Keeping the Sabbath and attempting to syncretize that law with Christianity is unbiblical. In Christ all the shadows of the law are obsolete (Heb. 8).

One more thing…

The dialogue between Adventist Review and Mark Finley is long and develops the traditional Ellen-White-derived arguments that mandate Adventism’s requirement of Sabbath-keeping and of honoring the Ten Commandments as eternal. For people unfamiliar with the Bible’s clear teaching about the biblical covenants, these arguments are compelling.

After all, people who love God don’t want to offend Him. When Adventism slickly demonstrates that the Sabbath is the sign God gave Israel and therefore is an eternal, divinely required observance for all time, many people, even Christians who do not know what the New Testament teaches about God’s law and the new covenant, are deceived into believing. 

Towards the end of the article, however, Finley reveals the real reason Adventism still teaches their unique doctrine of the great controversy defined by the mark of the beast and Sabbath-keeping as God’s seal: Ellen White’s prophetic authority.

Finley admits that many Christians debate the nature of the mark of the beast and the identity of the beast power. He is even speculative rather than definitive about how a Sunday law and mandated Sunday-worship might be established. Then, however, he reveals his—and Adventism’s—bottom line:

If you deny the beast power as the Roman Catholic papacy, you have a real challenge with accepting the Protestant Reformers, for they were clear in their identification. But there are other major problems as well. Seventh-day Adventists accept the prophetic ministry of Ellen White, and she wrote extensively on this topic. If you deny the identification of the Roman papacy as the beast power of Revelation 13, and if you deny the United States as the lamblike beast of the same chapter, how then do you interpret The Great Controversy and Ellen White, which are so clear on it? You end by denying the prophetic gift and reducing the inspired writings of Ellen White to those of a helpful devotional writer.

There it is. Adventism cannot deviate from its historic doctrines; if it does, it denies Ellen White and her “prophetic gift”. Even if Adventism’s teachings are clearly opposed to classic Christian teachings and the Bible itself, they cannot deny Ellen White. 

She is Adventism’s prophet, and her visions and dreams provided the scriptural interpretation that shaped Adventist theology. Without her, Adventism would fall apart. 

On the bottom line, no matter how Christian-ish Finley’s and other Adventist apologists’ arguments sound, they are not biblical. They are defenses of Ellen White’s interpretations and validations of her supposed authority from God. 

Ultimately, Adventism defends Ellen White. The Jesus of Scripture, the biblical revelation of how we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone—these doctrines of the Lord Jesus which have defined His work and His body since the Day of Pentecost are modified and explained away in order to uphold Ellen White’s authority.

Adventism has not changed. It has modified its public presentation and has adopted more grace-based words, but its doctrines are still those of Ellen White. 

It is the prophetess, not the Lord Jesus, who is Adventism’s final word. †

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Colleen Tinker

Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.

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