Is Sabbath The Seal In Revelation 7?
I recently watched an Adventist apologist on Youtube. He was doing a study on the seal of God and how the seal in Revelation 7 can’t be the same as the one in Ephesians which is, of course, the Holy Spirit. His argument was that in Revelation, an angel is “carrying” the seal which God’s people will receive in their foreheads (as opposed to the mark of the beast). He argued that the angel would not be “carrying” the Holy Spirit. As we know, Adventism teaches that it is this seal in Revelation which is identified as obedience to the seventh-day Sabbath ( as opposed to worshipping on Sunday in the last days).
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Adventism completely misreads Revelation 7. In context, the 144,000 in Revelation are Israelites—they are specifically numbered, and the tribes are named. Adventism says they themselves are the true “Israel”, or those who are faithful to keep the Sabbath and the law. This interpretation is based entirely on EGW.
By equating the 144,000 in Revelation 7 (who reappear in Revelation 14) with Sabbath-keepers, he’s reading EGW INTO the Bible. He is not using the Bible’s words as the source of his understanding but is imposing an extra-biblical prophet’s words over Scripture to interpret Scripture.
There is mystery about the specific ways Revelation will play out. Biblical prophecy gives us pictures and big-picture constructs that let us know what we can expect, but very often we don’t know until the actual fulfillment of prophecy exactly what it will look like.
We DO know that Adventism has created a false gospel that does not depend on Christ’s finished work of atonement on the cross but also requires seventh-day Sabbath keeping for those who will be saved.
The fact that this explanation of the seal in Revelation is coming from an Adventist makes it non-credible at the outset. A purveyor of a false gospel that has a fallible, unbiblical Jesus and that describes humans as NOT being literally dead in sins and needing spiritual life through belief and trust in Jesus’ blood and resurrection means that his explanation of the seal of God cannot be trusted.
As far as the seal in Revelation 7 goes—we can’t conclude that God’s seal on those 144,000 is not the Holy Spirit, nor can we conclude that those 144,000 are Adventist Sabbath-keepers! The saved will be committed to honoring the Lord Jesus, not a day. We are not proving our worthiness by being loyal to a day. That kind of loyalty reveals that Sabbath is an idol to Adventists. Being loyal to the Lord Jesus does not require a holy day; it requires being loyal to Him and being literally spiritually born again through faith and trust in Him!
However one parses those words, the New Testament never refers to God’s seal in any terms other than the Holy Spirit. The prophetic language of God sealing those 144,000 in Revelation 7 does not tell us exactly the nature of that seal; it may be a special form of God’s protection for those people as they live through the tribulation. Yet GOD is the One who holds and seals them. We can conclusively say that it is not the seventh day! The seventh day does not fit any pattern of God’s seal in Scripture, and the new covenant clearly says that the Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of the sabbath shadows (see Col 2:14–17; Hebrews 1:110; Hebrews 3 and 4, Galatians 3 and 4, etc.)
I want to reiterate that one cannot listen to an Adventist pastor and hear truth. Period. An Adventist pastor would have to renounce his physicalist, great controversy worldview and trust in Jesus alone and believe the Bible alone before he could begin to understand and teach Scripture contextually. Even if what the man says makes some sort of logical “sense”, the fact that the invisible Adventist worldview underlies his explanations means that you can’t listen to him and hear truth.
Here’s a comparison: would you listen to a Mormon bishop or a Jehovah’s Witness leader explain prophecy and believe that he might be right? You have to see Adventist pastors in the same category as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are deceivers, and they teach a counterfeit gospel. You cannot get caught up into their philosophical logic and emerge with truth. Their logic is human logic and does not plant itself in God’s word alone.
I hope this helps!
Help! My Coworker Keeps Proselytizing Me!
Yesterday at work I was approached by my coworker. She and her husband have been witnessing to me about Adventism.
She asked me to listen to a sermon by Walter Veith and just take notes. The speaker is a former Catholic. She hopes we can meet and talk over our notes during dinner later this week.
Would you please also consider listening?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Water Veith is actually notorious even among Adventists. He is ultra “historic” and sensationalist. He builds cases on lots of speculation and sort-of “faux science”. He comes from a firm base of EGW-belief and dependence. He interprets the Bible through his great controversy worldview.
He is particularly appealing to many who are drawn to his speculations and clever “logic”.
I did watch the video you sent, and Veith’s entire sermon was based in Ellen White’s writings. He seductively wove her picture of the Catholic’s changing Sabbath into his description of history and the future—and his entire scenario was a bit like reading a science fiction story. It sounds compelling and is punctuated with proof-texts, but it is not a biblical account. He even threw some particularly unusual comments into his talk—for example, he reiterated his belief that humans resembled the angels until the time of Abraham! That idea is nowhere in Scripture!
I really want to reiterate that anything an Adventist spokesperson and evangelist says is designed to make converts to Adventism—or to compel members to remain loyal. His words will be carefully cobbled together to sell you the Adventist prehistory story of Lucifer becoming jealous of Jesus because Lucifer believed he was worthy to have been exalted into the heavenly council instead of Jesus. Everything about Adventist soteriology and worldview flows down from that story!
Your coworker is trying to get you to become Adventist. I can tell you this: listening to the Adventist videos and reading the Adventist materials that she gives you will not help you talk to her. She is giving you things that are almost impossible to refute unless you intimately know the ways Adventists skew reality. When you know Adventism and when you know the word of God well, the craziness becomes apparent. But those Adventist presentations are designed to function a bit like a motivational talk: they stir up loyalty and amazement at the speaker’s knowledge and arguments—without giving you time to look up texts or to ask questions.
I really believe that you should refuse to watch or read the materials she gives you. You already know Adventism is wrong; you don’t have to know all the deep “skews” it perpetrates in order to reject that religion. It is enough to know that they teach a false gospel with a fallible Jesus who did not complete the atonement on the cross—and that they require the seventh-day as the mark of one’s loyalty to God. Those things are not the gospel!!
I know that it feels harsh and rude to refuse to listen or read, but she has pursued you for well over a year. At this point she is disrespecting you. Her persistence further shows that she does not trust the Holy Spirit to lead you; she believes she herself has to persuade you to believe, and she also believes that she will be credited with a convert. If you were to become an Adventist, then she would, as EGW said, receive a star in her crown representing her success at getting you converted when she gets to heaven.
Here is what EGW said about those supposed stars:
I saw that some of God’s professed people are like the man who hid his talent in the earth. They keep their possessions and means from doing good to God’s cause.…And the crowns they might have worn, had they been faithful, are put upon the heads of those saved by the faithful servants whose means were constantly in use for God. And every one they have been the means of saving, adds stars to their crowns in glory, and increases their eternal reward.—4b Spiritual Gifts 38.1
She needs to know her own true need of a Savior. As long as you engage with her discussions and her material from Adventism, she feels she has a chance at winning you. I believe that you need to cut off all the discussions about Adventism that you have with her. You can enjoy her as a coworker and share your lives at work together, but she needs to know that she cannot continue to try to convert you. A “rejection” of her Adventism may feel abrupt and offensive at first, but in the long run, by refusing to continue engaging with her doctrines of demons, you are actually ministering truth to her.
The Lord does not ask us to keep subjecting ourselves to the strange teachings of false religions in order to preserve a relationship. Jesus said that His mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it (Lk. 8:21). Adventism is not the word of God, and your coworker needs to know that you will not read nor listen any longer to her material. †
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