Lesson 12: “Precursors”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Problem with this lesson: This lesson assumes that the Sabbath will be the final issue representing loyalty to God at the end of time and appropriates Scripture to attempt to support this scenario.
Every Adventist has learned that the seventh-day Sabbath will be final “test” of a person’s loyalty to God. Adventists grow up believing that, of all the commandments, the Sabbath is the most important because, they say, it is the one command that identifies God as creator and reveals His eternal method of worship. They also say that the seventh-day Sabbath originated at creation and that it was intended for all people. Moreover, they say that the Sabbath will become the center of religious persecution during the last days, and worship on Sunday, the false Sabbath decreed by the antichrist pope, will become the mark of the beast.
Thus all those keeping the Sabbath—on pain of death—when Jesus returns will be demonstrating their loyalty to Him by being willing to die for His eternal day. They will be safe to save. Those Christians who meet corporately on Sunday will be part of Babylon and will be among the wicked who will be thrown into the lake of fire. The Sunday-keepers, Adventists believe, did not love God truly and were unwilling to put their lives on the line in the face of a Sunday-law to embrace the Sabbath and thus properly worship the true God.
This week, again, the essence of the Adventist skew on both prophecy and true worship of our triune God was buried almost entirely in Thursday’s lesson. Only there did the overtly skewed Bible interpretation and the great controversy assumptions reveal themselves clearly.
Flawed Framework
Before we look at the way the Sabbath is presented as the final test at the end of time, we need to visit Sunday’s explanation of the Adventist approach to reading biblical prophecy. The last paragraph of the day’s lesson explains the Adventist view:
The apocalyptic prophecies in Daniel all follow the foundation set in Daniel 2. That is, the rest of these prophecies, like Daniel 2, follow the sequence of one world empire after another until God establishes His eternal kingdom (see Dan. 2:44; Dan. 7:13, 14). In other words, the prophecies go through history in an unbroken sequence of empires, starting in antiquity and ending in the future, even to our time. This is the historicist approach to interpreting prophecy and is what the texts demand. This use of the historicist approach is crucial for understanding last-day events, particularly as they are depicted in the book of Revelation.
We see here Adventism’s usual way of approaching the books of Daniel and Revelation. Holding onto the historicist interpretation allows them to hang onto their identification of papal Rome as the beast and the pope as the antichrist. Christianity, however, rarely uses this interpretive grid any longer. The following quotation from GotQuestions.org explains why historicism has been largely abandoned:
Historicism, so popular with the Reformers, remained a dominant perspective on eschatology through the 19th century. However, due to its nebulous interpretation method (no two historicists agree on what symbols go with what historical events) and the fact that John’s original readers could not have understood the book of Revelation in a historicist manner, the historicist view is not widely held today.
Ellen White and her co-founders of Adventism, as we know, were firmly products of 19th century America. Furthermore, Ellen and James White and Joseph Bates as well as others who participated in forming Adventist doctrines borrowed much of their worldview from the writings of various reformers. Although the Adventists themselves were not born again and committed to the contextual reading of Scripture, they borrowed many of the Christian paradigms which have made Adventism appear to belong to the Christian community.
During Ellen’s day, it was common for Christians still to carry the Reformation mindset that Catholicism was an antichrist power—and I don’t deny that may well be an accurate assessment—yet this idea gave power and impetus to Ellen White’s subsequent visions that established among Adventists the idea that the pope was responsible for changing God’s times and laws and declaring Sunday to be the “Christian Sabbath”, thus abandoning the seventh-day Sabbath as the biblical day of worship.
This borrowed idea of papal apostasy became the engine that drove Ellen’s great controversy model of the Time of Trouble. She cemented the seventh-day Sabbath as Adventism’s central object denoting true worship. In fact, she created a scenario declaring that the United States would formulate a nation Sunday Law as the Time of Trouble approached. This law would give legal permission to all people—Christians and especially former Sabbath-keepers—to hunt and kill those who clung to the eternal sacredness of the seventh-day Sabbath and were willing to die for the Sabbath rather than to renounce it and accept Rome’s mark of the beast: Sunday-sacredness.
In Ellen’s great controversy, Sabbath is considered eternal and sacred—in fact, Adventists believe that they will keep the Sabbath in heaven along with Jesus who also will keep the day for eternity.
Ellen Required Sabbath Sacredness
How can a created day be eternally, intrinsically holy?
This question is never actually analyzed, but it is always assumed. Adventists live in fear of being marginalized and killed for Sabbath-keeping. Adventists never consider that the Lord Jesus Himself may be the great issue as evil reveals itself on earth. For Adventists, the Sabbath is the object of their worship which represents to them that they “love God”. After all, they wouldn’t be defending, keeping, and suffering for the Sabbath if it weren’t holy and mandated as the right way to worship.
In fact, Ellen said this about the Sabbath:
The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false sabbath in compliance with the law of the state, contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God. GC, p 605
Yet Scripture never establishes the Sabbath as a new covenant requirement.
If we take a step back, however, we see that this entire scenario depends upon a historicist reading of Daniel and Revelation. Yet we refer again to GotQuestions.org which tells us that this method of understanding prophecy is almost never used any longer because of “its nebulous interpretation method (no two historicists agree on what symbols go with what historical events) and the fact that John’s original readers could not have understood the book of Revelation in a historicist manner,”
Already we can see that Ellen White’s last-day terrors of standing firm for the sacredness of the seventh-day is shaky at best. Their historicist reading of Scripture simply crumbles as time marches on. The historicist view of Catholicism being the beast and the pope being the antichrist is simply not a clear interpretation of Revelation. While Catholicism may play into the final beast power, the details of how those days will “look” are simply not clear from Scripture. Even more, there is no historical evidence, in spite of Ellen’s interpretations and borrowed quotes, for the idea that the pope officially changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday nor that Sabbath-keepers ever were marginalized for their loyalty to the seventh day. Those ideas are the core of Ellen’s terrifying predictions, but they have no basis in fact.
The seventh-day Sabbath has never been changed, only fulfilled—and Jesus Himself is the One who taught that He came to be the One who fulfilled every shadow of Sabbath rest. He is Lord of the Sabbath; He had authority to harvest grain and eat it on the Sabbath, to heal the lame, the blind, and the crippled on the Sabbath, and to restore spiritual wholeness to those who came to Him and believed that He was their Messiah. In fact, right before giving one of His most comprehensive Sabbath explanations of what it meant that He is Lord of the Sabbath in Matthew 12, Jesus said this:
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”—Matthew 11:28–30 LSB
Doubling Down on Sabbath vs. Sunday
Thursday’s lesson assumes, without explaining, that a death decree for Sabbath-keepers and Sunday as the mark of the beast define the essence of the final conflict. Yet the author acknowledges that “some have expressed doubt, even skepticism, about our interpretation of final events”. After all, “the death decree and the enforcement of the mark of the beast” haven’t happened yet. But author Boonstra continues:
The book of Revelation is clear: we either worship the Creator or the beast and its image. And because the seventh-day Sabbath is the foundational sign—going back to Eden itself (see Gen. 2:1–3)—of God as Creator, it should not be surprising that, in an issue about worshiping the Creator, the Sabbath would be central. Also, it is no coincidence that the beast power is the same power that claims to have changed the Sabbath commandment from the biblical day to Sunday, which has no sanction in the Bible. With this background in mind, the idea of Sabbath and Sunday being involved in the issue of worship—again, either the Creator (see Rev. 14:6, 7) or the beast—makes good sense.
But Does It Make Good Sense?
The Adventist argument above juxtaposes the message of Revelation 14:6–12—the command to worship God and to come out of Babylon to avoid the mark of the beast—with Genesis 2:1–3 and says that Sabbath-sacredness began in Eden.
This juxtaposition of ideas and texts is a logical fallacy. These passages are not related in the way Adventist relates them. First, the angels of Revelation 14:6–12 are not calling people to worship on Sabbath although Adventists say they are. They are calling people to worship God—the only One who is worthy of worship. He is sovereign over all because He is Creator of all! The first angel’s message has absolutely NOTHING to do with the seventh-day!
Second, the seventh day is not “the foundation sign—going back to Eden itself—of God as Creator”. God gave NO command to anyone to keep the Sabbath holy when He finished creating. Here are Genesis 2:1–3:
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. And on the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created in making [it].—Genesis 2:1–3 LSB
God CEASED on the seventh day. The Hebrew underlying “rested” is a word which means He stopped; He finished, He ceased His work. He was done! He didn’t “rest” because He needed to rest nor because He was setting a pattern for work and rest. That idea is never stated.
Furthermore, He “blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” because His work was done. The seventh day had no boundaries of “evening and morning” as did the first six days. The seventh day was a different kind of day—a different epoch. The seventh day marked the finished fulness of God’s completed work—and that work did not begin and end with an evening and morning. It was a continuous reality of God’s perfect work and of His CEASING to work because He was finished—and His work was very good.
Furthermore, Adam and Eve had not worked the preceding six days. They needed no rest, either. That seventh day was the first full “day” of Adam and Eve’s existence. The finished, unbounded, unending work of God was what was holy and very good.
It was only when Adam and Eve sinned that God began working again for the salvation of His people as they struggled to live under the boundaries of God’s judgment against their sin. Yet God was already providing for their redemption, and when He formed and chose Israel as a nation and led her out of slavery in Egypt, God gave her, as the sign of His conditional covenant with them, the weekly Sabbath in which they were to rest one in seven and watch Him work for them. They would be more prosperous than any of the surrounding nations—and no one could ever say their success was because they worked harder or that they were smarter than the Canaanites.
On the contrary—all the nations would see that Israel did NOT work as hard as they did—yet their God—Yahweh—worked for them. Their success and prosperity would be the gift of their God as they rested as He commanded.
Sabbath As a Memorial Of the Exodus
In fact, when Moses reiterated the law to the wilderness generation before they went into Canaan under Joshua, He restated the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:12–15, but he did not say that they were to keep the Sabbath because God had created the world in six days. In fact, he didn’t even MENTION creation. Instead he gave this reason:
“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.”—Deuteronomy 5:15 LSB
The generation that went into the land was reminded to keep the Sabbath as a memorial of God’s redemption of them from slavery! Creation is never mentioned.
Israel’s requirement was to keep the Sabbath to remember GOD’S WORK, not their own. They were to remember that He completes and blesses everything He does. He made the world; He made them a nation; He rescued them from Egypt and parted the Red Sea; He gave them the Promised Land. God did everything He promised they would receive—and they only had to be still and watch Him work!
That was what the Sabbath symbolized!
And when Jesus came, He revealed that He was actually Yahweh, God the Son, the One who had led them through the wilderness and now was doing everything the prophets foretold that He would do. He was bringing them wholeness, spiritual healing, and fulfilling prophecy in front of their eyes—but they refused to believe.
In fact, Adventists’ refusal to believe is similar to Israel’s refusal. Thursday’s lesson closes with these words:
In Matthew 12, after Jesus healed on the Sabbath the man with a withered hand (Matt. 12:9–13), how did the religious leaders respond? “But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus” (Matt. 12:14, NIV). Death because of the seventh-day Sabbath?…
Death because of human tradition (nothing in the Bible forbade healing on Sabbath, just as nothing in the Bible has put Sunday in place of Sabbath) versus the seventh-day Sabbath? Though the specific issue here with Jesus isn’t the same as in final events, it’s close enough: human law versus God’s, and, in both, the contested law centers on the biblical Sabbath.
These paragraphs are a series of logical fallacies and illegitimate equations. The Pharisees were plotting to kill Jesus because He was showing them that He had authority OVER the Sabbath. He was doing what the prophecies had said the Messiah would do—healing, raising the dead, restoring life to lost limbs, fulfilling the law—and they knew only God could do what He was doing. They liked their traditions, and they wanted the sort of political Messiah they had hoped to receive. They didn’t want Jesus! They wanted to keep their power and control over the people and their traditions.
Yet Adventism makes the issue about the Pharisees human rules for Sabbath, and they also miss the fact that Jesus IS God, and Jesus fulfilled the shadow of Sabbath. The Sabbath is now obsolete because the Lord Jesus has come and has fulfilled every part of the day’s shadow.
They say they will be hunted and killed for the Sabbath—but this self-centered assumption is completely upside down from what Jesus came and revealed. Adventism has on the authority of it prophet, created an idol—a created day— which they call eternal and holy, a day even God honors. Yet if Sabbath were intrinsically holy, if God had to honor the Sabbath, then the Sabbath would be a deity. It would be the ultimate deity which even the Trinity must honor.
This idea is pure blasphemy!
Adventists Worship a False God
The lesson above attempts to equate Adventists’ expectation of being killed for their loyalty to the Sabbath with the Pharisees seeking to kill Jesus because He was revealing Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath—the only One with the authority to reveal Himself as the substance of the weekly, monthly, and yearly shadows of the sabbaths God gave Israel in the law!
The Adventists bear no resemblance to the Lord Jesus and His authority over His own creation and over His own law. Adventism is idolatrous. It places a DAY in the position of a golden calf—the vehicle that carries God, as the gold calves carried the pagan gods in Canaan.
God punished Israel and 3,000 died when they made a golden calf while Moses received the covenant. Furthermore, God punished the Northern Kingdom of Israel when they erected golden calves in their illegitimate places of worship. Golden calves equaled idolatry, even though they were said to represent the power of Yahweh.
Adventism has created a false god that must be attached to the Sabbath in order to be worshiped. According to Adventism, Christians who worship on the first day of the week are engaged in false worship and will receive the mark of the beast—even though they are worshiping God
They cannot see that their own form of worship is false because it requires a created day to identify God. They call any worship of God that is not connected to the seventh day—“false worship”. Yet they are guilty of exactly what they accuse Christians of doing: false worship.
Adventists worship a different Jesus and a different god. Their god requires a sacred seventh day; the Lord Jesus revealed Himself. We are to come to HIM and find rest. Paul said,
Therefore, no one is to judge you in food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day– things which are [only] a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.—Colossians 2:16, 17 LSB
I ask you, have you faced the fact that you cannot keep the law as Adventism says you must? Have you faced the fact that you cannot manage to keep the Sabbath perfectly? Have you realized that you are by nature a sinner, dead in sin, and unable to be good?
Come to Jesus. He came and showed us who He is: He is God the Son who took responsibility for us and rescued us from our natural state of death and condemnation. He alone had the authority to redeem us, and He alone had the authority to fill all the shadows of the law with their true meaning. He alone had the authority to render the law obsolete for everyone who trusts Him because He has now given us His life and the Father has adopted us.
If you haven’t trusted the Lord Jesus with all of your sin, your fear, your doubt, and your shame, come to His cross. Admit that you are helpless, and ask Him to save you. Trust His death for your sin, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day which broke your curse of death!
Trust Jesus today, and enter His true Sabbath rest eternally. He will come and make His abode with you, and you will never again fear that you will have to die for the Sabbath. The Lord Jesus has already done the only death that can pay for your sin, and He invites you now to come to Him and live. †
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