Sunday Legislation and the Golden Calf

Coming out of Adventism is a bit like navigating a moral minefield. Because we were taught a false worldview, because everything Christians believe was redefined and falsified to keep Adventists compliant and loyal, every glimpse of new covenant truth elicits a cascade of fear or confusion. The most pervasive fear that lingers long after understanding the grace of God in Christ Jesus is this: what if the Sabbath really is God’s day? What if a Sunday law does come and I have abandoned the Sabbath? Will I be stumbling into eternal damnation? Have I been deceived?

This week we received an email asking about this very question. This week I am sharing both the email and my answer because this is a universal concern among those of us who have had to figure out the biblical place of Sabbath. Following is the email: 

I am beginning to see the Sabbath in a new way and to feel a new joy in the gospel, BUT it’s still so hard to totally let go of it. The main reason for my fear is the Adventist view of the great controversy/mark of the beast scenario with its prediction of a coming Sunday law.

According to Adventists the pope is apparently speaking currently about working together “for the common good” and having a regular rest to allow the world to heal. All of this supposed talk is in relation to climate change and Covid. 

Adventists see these suggestions as the way the pope will set up an insistence on Sunday rest. This possibility is making me feel very nervous of completely letting go of the Sabbath—just in case! 

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this possibility.

Our common fear

I completely understand what you are describing. I believe the possibility of a Sunday law is a fear we ALL have as we leave. Moreover, with every world crisis, the Adventists have new “evidence” that such a law is coming.

Here’s what I have come to understand: Ellen White is a FALSE prophet. As our younger son said when he was only nine years old, “She’s a prophet…a FALSE prophet.” I realized with a start that he was right: she actually was a prophet; she had visions and dreams and an other-worldly visitor. But her supernatural revelations and visits were not from the Lord. She taught doctrines of demons.

Thus, even IF there is a Sunday law, that law is not a fulfillment of EGWs visions and “mark of the beast” prophecies. Satan knows his own plans; he knows how to frighten people and keep them in bondage to his proclamations of doubt and fear. 

Here’s what I know: EVEN IF there is a Sunday law one day (and I doubt there will be…but even if…), it will not be what she said it would be. It will not be the mark of the beast. I know it will not because the seal of God is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is our guarantee of our eternal future that God has promised when we trust Jesus. It is the mark of our being born again. The mark of the beast will not be a “false Sabbath” because the seal of God is not the Sabbath. Whatever that mark may be, it will not mimic a “true day of worship” because observance of days is not related to salvation. Such things are not part of the new covenant. 

Ellen White said the Sabbath is the seal of God (modern Adventists often say it is the “sign” of having the seal). This  belief is blasphemy; it makes a created day fulfill the role of God Himself. 

The New Testament explains that the physical observances, rituals, and religion of Judaism were all fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. The reality He ushered in with the new covenant is spiritual. We can’t “see” our Sabbath rest, our eternal, once-for-all sacrifice, our eternal High Priest, and so on. We are born again into an “unseen” reality that is more profound than the physical shadows ever were. We actually have eternal life when we are literally born of the Spirit.

Ellen White made the created Sabbath the “seal of God” instead of acknowledging that God Himself IS our seal. She substituted a physical, created shadow for God Himself.

Thus, her idea of the mark of the beast is wrong in the same way. A “holy day” cannot be the mark of the lost. The lost are “lost” because they do not believe (Jn 3:18). Whatever the mark of the beast will be, it is not a “holy day” in itself.The mark will be a subtle deception that those who do not honor the Lord Jesus above ALL will receive because they do not believe. 

Jesus did away with the physical shadows of the law when He died, was buried, and rose again on the third day according to Scripture. He became their fulfillment, even the holy days. Thus a day cannot be the seal of God, and a day cannot be the mark of the beast. While the mark of the beast may have a physical manifestation, it is actually something those who do not believe and trust Jesus will take willingly because they are not born again.

Even the texts in Revelation about the mark of the beast do not hint at its being a day. The Adventists’ explanation of how it is Sunday are invented and twisted to fit the text.

No fence-straddling

I had to decide, when I first left Adventism, that I couldn’t retain an internal honoring of the seventh-day “just in case”. If I kept an internal “what if” about the day, I wasn’t putting all the weight of my faith and trust in Jesus alone. I was hedging my bets. I had to believe that Jesus ALONE was my true Sabbath rest and Source of salvation. Nothing I did could keep me saved, even hedging my bets with the Sabbath. 

In fact, if I hedged my bets and internally held onto a “what if” attitude about the Sabbath, I was holding onto my Sabbath idol. I was trying to honor Jesus and keep the old mark of my salvation at the same time.

I realized that the Sabbath was the equivalent of the golden calves that King Jeroboam erected at Dan and Bethel in the Northern Kingdom. The Canaanites never thought of those calves as “gods”. Rather, they were the representation of their gods’ strength, power, and dominance, and they were always depicted with their gods riding them.

Jeroboam erected two golden calves, but he didn’t put Yahweh on top of them because Yahweh was invisible. Thus he still called his false worship “Yahweh worship” and used the calves to represent God’s strength and power. But God called Jeroboam’s syncretism idolatry. Using anything to symbolize God to ourselves is idolatry. 

For Adventists, the Sabbath was our golden calf. We believed we had the right God, the right “plan of salvation” because we had the Sabbath. Without the Sabbath, we decreed every other belief in God to be false. We even believed Christians whom we knew loved the Lord had a false religion because they didn’t have the Sabbath. 

I had to give up Sabbath because it was part of my Adventist salvation package. It had a much deeper meaning for me than a day had for a “normal” Christian. Sabbath was the Adventist “golden calf”. It carried our view of correct worship of the correct God—and we had it all wrong. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “God is spirit, and true worshipers worship Him in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24). There is no day we bring along with us in our worship of the Lord. No day holds up true worship—and no day will be the mark of the beast. 

Days are neutral and irrelevant. True worship is that of a born-again heart, a living spirit worshiping the living God. When we are born again, we will not receive any external thing that is defined as “worship” of another God…even if there IS a Sunday law.

No potential mandated worship day will mean what EGW said it would mean. We have to let go of our fear that she might be right and fear only God. He knows His own, and He keeps us. He gives us His wisdom and knowledge, and He will hold us fast. Sunday is not the mark of the beast, but those who do not believe and trust in Him will receive whatever that mark is because they will not trust Jesus alone. †

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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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