“Sunday-keeping must be the mark of the beast.”—The Marvel of Nations, by U. Smith (page 183).
“The seal of God is his holy Sabbath.”—Thoughts on Revelation (page 452).
These give the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine in its full force. All, then, who keep the Jewish Sabbath are sealed for eternal bliss. This would include the Pharisees, and all Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and Seventh-day Adventists. The teeming millions of earth that do not keep the seventh day are not sealed; cannot be. If the Sabbath is the seal of God, then all who disregard it, and keep the Lord’s Day, are not sealed. What, then, is their condition? Smith answers “Sunday-keeping must be the mark of the beast.” All who keep Sunday, therefore, are of necessity beast-worshipers. Listen. “Sunday-keeping is an institution of the first beast, and all who submit to obey this institution emphatically worship the first beast and receive his mark, ‘the mark of the beast.’…Those who worship the beast and his image by observing the first day are certainly idolaters.”—Advent Review Extra (August, 1850, pages 10, 11). Uriah Smith says that those who keep the first day are “thereby marked” (The Marvel of Nations, pages 174, 175). The Revelator says that all who worship the beast and receive his mark will be cast into eternal torment (Rev. 14:9-11). So, to sum up the whole, all who keep the Sabbath are “sealed” for eternal glory, while all who observe the Lord’s Day are “beast-worshipers,” “idolaters,” “marked,” and doomed to “eternal torment.”
Surely such absurdity should awaken even those who have been ensnared into that dark yoke of legal bondage. Luther, Wesley, Huss, Bunyan, Milton, Baxter, and all the other great and good men down through the ages who effected mighty reformations in the earth and were powers in the hands of God, all rejected the seventh day and were Sunday-keepers. But according to the foregoing quotations from the Adventist literature, they were all “marked by the beast” and were “idolaters.” But the Adventists themselves admit that these very men were Christians. This admission overthrows their position that Sunday-keeping is the mark of the beast. I again quote from Adventism Renounced:
“Mrs. White says of him [Luther]: ‘Zealous, ardent, and devoted, knowing no fear but the fear of God, and acknowledging no foundation for religious faith but the holy Scriptures,’ etc. ‘Angels of heaven were by his side, and rays of light from the throne of God revealed the treasures of truth to his understanding.’—Great Controversy (pages 94, 97). Good. Now hear Luther. Carlstadt, a zealous and learned Sabbatarian, laid his arguments for the seventh day before Luther, who examined them. Here is Luther’s decision in his own words: ‘Indeed, if Carlstadt were to write further about the Sabbath, Sunday would have to give way, and the Sabbath—that is to say, Saturday—must be kept holy; he would truly make us Jews in all things, and we should come to be circumcised; for that is true and cannot be denied, that he who deems it necessary to keep one law of Moses, and keeps it as the law of Moses, must deem all necessary, and keep them all.’ —History Sabbath (page 457).”
Luther heard the teaching on Sabbath observance; but he, like true Christians today, rejected it. Mrs. White admits that “angels and light from God’s throne” revealed the truth to Luther. Amen. Then, Luther was clear in his observance of the Lord’s Day and his rejection of the Jewish Sabbath.
“Hear Mrs. White on John Bunyan: ‘John Bunyan breathed the very atmosphere of heaven’ (Great Controversy, page 174). Well, now hear Bunyan: ‘As for the seventh-day Sabbath, that, as we see, is gone to its grave with the signs and shadows of the Old Testament; yea, and it has such a dash left upon it by apostolic authority, that it is enough to make a Christian fly from it forever (2 Corinthians 3)’—Complete Works (page 915).” So Bunyan, who breathed “the atmosphere of heaven,” rejected and opposed the observance of the Jewish Sabbath.
Thank God for these admissions from the great prophetess of Adventism. So we today, with Luther, Wesley, Baxter, and Bunyan, reject the Jewish Sabbath, and keep the great memorial day of the gospel; and while doing so breathe the atmosphere of heaven. Hallelujah!
Instead of Sabbath-keeping being the seal of God, the Bible plainly states that the seal is the Holy Spirit. ‘Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:22). “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13). “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).
Nowhere does the Bible state that the observance of the Lord’s Day is the mark of the beast. To assert such a thing is bare assumption, without one text of proof. It is false for the following reasons:
- The first day of the week was the day upon which the early Christians held their meetings and met for divine worship. This we have conclusively proved.
- The united testimony of the early Christian writers who wrote but a few years after the death of the apostles, and during the first few centuries of the Christian era, testify that the church in their time regarded the resurrection day as the great memorial day of the gospel, and termed it the Lord’s Day. This was long before the beast arose.
- The Catholic sect did not change the observance of days from the seventh to the first. This we have abundantly proved.
- The Adventists quote a few old Catholic catechisms as their only proof that the beast changed the Sabbath; and in this they misrepresent the Catholic teaching, as any scholar knows. So whatever the mark of the beast in the forehead and right hand may signify, it cannot be the observance of the great memorial day of the gospel.
All chapters from The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.
The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. By H. M. Riggle, 1922. Life Assurance Ministries, Inc.
- The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day - October 2, 2021
- 27. Sunday-Keeping is Not the Mark of the Beast - July 8, 2020
- 26. The Pope and the Sabbath - July 2, 2020