Vanderlei Dorneles
Since the emergence of the first Sabbatarian Adventists, the Sunday law is seen in Adventist eschatology as an event of the end of times. Based on the idea of the “mark of the beast” and the “seal of God” in Revelation, it is understood that the Sunday law will distinguish those who belong to the kingdom of God from the ones who picked the government of the beast.
Choosing to obey God’s law shall imply being exposed to a state of intolerance and momentary persecution. On the other hand, the decision to align with the beast shall bring forth eternal consequences. What pieces of evidence from the Scriptures and history are there for this prediction? Could it be possible that democratic states might come to take on such an intolerant posture?
In Revelation 13, there are two prophetic metaphors: one represents the work of the papacy in the Middle Ages, and the other refers to the United States at the end of times. The understanding of these visions clarifies the perspective of the Adventist pioneers.
Interestingly, both apocalyptic metaphors bring back symbols from Daniel. With seven heads and ten horns (Rev. 13:1), the first beast comprises four animals: lion, bear, leopard with four heads, and the terrible animal with ten horns (Dan. 7:3-7). The beast features elements from these animals, but its seven heads are the sum of the heads of the four beasts of Daniel. It indicates that John saw the beast as an offshoot of the persecuting power already represented by these animals, symbolizing the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires.
It can be observed that the human traits depicted in the “little horn” (Dan. 7:8) and in the beast (Rev. 13:5-6) indicate that these entities incorporate both a political and religious dimension. The medieval papacy was indeed a political and religious power. It is the religion that, by manipulating the political power, leads this power to persecute the people of God, as it can be seen in the vision of the “woman sitting on a beast” in Revelation 17. In Daniel, the “little horn” makes war against the “saints” (Dan. 7:21) and wants “to change times and law” (v. 25).
In the same way, the beast persecutes the “saints” (Rev. 13:7)—those who keep the “commandments of God” (Rev. 14:12). It can be observed that the attack from the “little horn” as well as from the “beast” against the “saints” is motivated by their obedience to God’s law, in particular, to the point where this law implies a social difference: Sabbath-keeping. It is important to remember that both the Roman Empire and the medieval papacy upheld a Sunday law opposed to God’s law.
On the other hand, the beast with two horns that looks like a lamb (Rev. 13:11) recalls the ram of Daniel 8. The horns indicate that the symbols represent a power that results from the union of two entities and are allies of God’s people, but later become their persecutors. The Persians made an alliance with the Medes, and so the Persian Empire was formed. With this coalition, Cyrus was able to take over Babylon from Belshazzar (Dan. 5). He freed the Jews and allowed them to return to their homeland (Isa. 44:28; 45:1-7) and enjoy civil and religious freedom (Ezra 7:21-26).
However, we see that at the time of Queen Esther, Persia came to issue a death decree for the Jews (Esther 3:8, 9, 13). In Revelation, the region called “earth” is a place of protection and safeguard for the “woman” after the 1,260 days or years (Rev. 12:1, 14-16). However, in this same “earth,” a beast of two horn emerges to persecute those who do not have the “mark of the beast” (Rev. 13:11, 17).
There is a parallelism between Revelation 12 and 13, which alludes to the antagonism of the beast of two horns towards those who do not have the mark. In Revelation 12, after mentioning that the woman finds refuge on the “earth” after the 1,260 years, it is said that the dragon goes after her and makes war against her descendants “who keep the commandments of God” (v. 17). In Revelation 13, after the beast was in action (Rev. 13:5) for 42 months (1,260 days), it is wounded to death but comes back through the “image of the beast” who imposes an economic boycott and persecution of those who do not have the “mark of the beast.” It means that those who keep the commandments of God are the ones who do not have the mark.
The second vision of Revelation 13 can be divided into two phases. Initially, the beast “performs great signs” (v. 13), “deceives those who dwell on the earth” (v. 14), and gives “breath” to the image of the beast (v. 15). In this initial phase, it is, therefore, a religious power. In other words, it acts as the “false prophet” (Rev. 16:13; 19:20). After this religious power gives breath to what is dead in this context (the first beast), an “image of the beast” appears. So, the beast wounded to death resurrects, but through the “image of the beast.” So, in this second phase of the vision, the image causes killing (v. 15), imposes a mark (v. 16), and controls the economy (v. 17). Thus, now it depicts a political power: “a king” (cf. Rev. 17:11; 19:20).
Ellen G. White explains that the development of the image of the beast begins when religious and civil powers start to get closer. “The image is made by the two-horned beast, and is an image to the beast.” Therefore, “in order for the United States to form an image of the beast, the religious power must so control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends.”1 For her, the “image of the beast” represents “that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the enforcement of their dogmas.”2 The religious power takes the initiative for the formation of the image of the beast, since “in the very act of enforcing a religious duty by secular power, the churches would themselves form an image to the beast.”3
It is important to point out that the oppressing civil power of the final crisis, according to Revelation 13:11-18, is called the “image of the beast.” It is this power that imposes the mark, persecutes, and kills. In fact, the first beast returns, but only through its image replicated in Protestant America. In this case, John reveals that the “medieval authority of the first beast once again will be exercised through the earth beast.”4 It is also clear that “the earth beast will even replace the first beast in universal power and authority and will act as the end-time worldwide oppressive power.”5
In this way, the conflict unleashed at the end of times by the “image of the beast” against the faithful of God is motivated by the keeping of the commandments. Ellen G. White affirms that “the last great conflict between truth and error is but the final struggle of the long-standing controversy concerning the law of God.”6 In fact, Satan’s attack against God’s commandments can be seen all over history.
Since ancient Egypt, there is evidence that the nations, in several moments, persecuted God’s people because of the Sabbath. In ancient Egypt, by Pharaoh’s determination, the Israelites were deprived of the Sabbath “rest.” The term translated as “rest” in the New King James Version (Exod. 5:5) is the Hebrew verb shabath.
In the Persian kingdom, where many Jews remained after the Babylonian captivity, the officer Haman convinced King Ahasuerus to make a decree against the Jews. His motivation was clear: “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people’s … If it pleases the king, let a decree be written that they be destroyed (Esther 3:8-9, emphasis added). Due to the manipulation of Haman, Ahasuerus “took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman … the enemy of the Jews” (Esther 3:10). Except for the Sabbath, the other commandments of God’s law did not impose a significant distinction between the Jews and the Persian people. Ellen G. White affirms that the death decree to be issued by the “image of the beast “will be “very similar to that issued by Ahasuerus against the Jews.”7
Centuries later, in AD 32, in the Roman Empire, the Edict of Constantine was issued: “may all judges and townships and all occupations of trade rest on the venerable day of the sun.”8 Similarly, during the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic law prevailed that commanded people to “keep Sunday and holidays,” the third commandment, in opposition to the Sabbath of God’s law (Exod. 20:8-11).
In the Modern Age, the English Protestants were the first to promote the observance of the day of the Lord, which resulted from the translation of the Bible by William Tyndale (sixteenth century). The reformer was very impressed with the topic of the covenant, and he made several marginal notes to the Pentateuch.
Later on, as the British crown established the church, it led the British Protestants to see themselves as the replacement for the ancient Israelites and as true heirs of the covenant. In this way, Tyndale’s notes and the notion of a chosen people led the English Protestants to the rediscovery of the day of the Lord as a sign of the covenant.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Anglican minister Nicholas Bownd started teaching that to “profane the Sabbath was to profane God.”9 Thus, the English puritans began preaching that “to work on the Sabbath was as great a sin as to kill or commit adultery”10 because it would break the covenant with God. The later return of the British Crown to Catholicism left the Protestant zealous for God’s law exposed to intolerance.
However, despite reading the Pentateuch, the Protestants in England kept the day of the Lord on the first day of the week and called this day the “Sabbath.” However, it did not take long for some of them to conclude that the Sabbath of rest should be kept on the seventh-day. Puritans John Trask and his wife Dorothy began to keep the seventh-day Sabbath at the beginning of the seventeenth century—the reason for which they were persecuted.
On June 19, 1618, Trask was “sentenced to be whipped, ridiculed, mutilated and condemned to life in prison” accused of “conspiracy.” He was the leader of a group of separatists who believed that the “seventh-day Sabbath and the Mosaic dietary law were still in vigor for Christians.” Unfortunately, Trask retracted and was released. However, his wife Dorothy “was in prison for 25 years for not giving up on the seventh-day Sabbath.”11
The zealous Puritans of the “Sabbath,” who kept it on the first day of the week were not able to have peace in England under the later influence of Rome. Thus, they wished for a land where they could keep the “commandments of God” under the protection of the civil law. The colonization of America was their way out.
In 1620, the Puritans arrived in America in order “to establish a New Jerusalem that would preserve the Sabbath in its integrity.”12 Considering the role of the Puritan Protestants and their motivation in the development of the United States, it must be assumed that the “keeping of the holy Sabbath day is one of its powerful cornerstones.”13 Under this desire, the Puritan colonies in North America soon developed a “dominical legislature against the profanation of the day of the Lord, with heavy and grave penalties for its violations.”14 New England approved laws that prohibited “not only sexual crimes, but also blasphemy, drunkenness, gambling, and violating the sanctity of the Sabbath.”15 The Sabbath, however, was still observed by the Puritans on the first day of the week.
So, a Sunday law to be developed by Christian countries has clear precedents and historical motivations.
In recent decades, movements for Sunday keeping has been gaining strength due to the papal encyclicals about the matter. The so-called European Sunday Alliance defends the keeping of Sunday as a way for the renewal of family and society.16 Now the Lord’s Day Alliance in the United States proposes that Sunday keeping is compatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because the employers must “honor workers’ needs for timely faith observances, fair treatment & regenerative rest.”17
In May 1998, Pope John Paul II released the encyclical Dies Domini, in which he defends that Sunday keeping is the way for a “social reform,” the strengthening of the family and renewal of the church. He mentions the “civil law of the Roman Empire,” which recognizes the “day of the sun,” for everyone to stop working on this day. In paragraph 67, he affirms that “therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy.”18
In 2017, Pope Francis released the encyclical Laudato Si, in which he defends that the ecosystem needs a dominical rest. In paragraph 71, he supports his argument in the divine law about the “Sabbath.” For him, the earth and its inhabitants need to rest on Sunday since “we see this, for example, in the law of the Sabbath,” because “on the seventh day, God rested from all his work. He commanded Israel to set aside each seventh day as a day of rest, a Shabbath (cf. Gen. 2:2, 3; Exod. 16:23; 20:10).”19
Those who defend the Sunday law—both Catholics as well as Protestants—affirm that it will be coherent with the state of freedom maintained by the Declaration of Human Rights. Nevertheless, in the context of instability and the current situations of emergency, where the survival of humanity is put in perspective, this law most probably would not maintain the rights of opposing minorities. With these recent developments and other prophetic predictions, there is no doubt that the Sunday law will contribute to increased opposition and intolerance.
In the context of the Sunday law, Ellen G. White affirms that it will be made “the claim that the fast-spreading corruption is largely attributable to the desecration of the so-called “Christian sabbath,” and that the enforcement of Sunday observance would greatly improve the morals of society.”20
The United States, as the power represented by the beast of two horns, will be the first country to approve this law. As a result of its influence and power over the other nations, this same law will be reproduced throughout the world. “As America, the land of religious liberty, shall unite with the papacy in forcing the conscience and compelling men to honor the false sabbath, the people of every country on the globe will be led to follow her example.”21
It must be noted that the observance of Sunday by millions of sincere Christians is not in itself the mark of the beast. “Sundaykeeping is not yet the mark of the beast, and will not be until the decree goes forth.”22 In this way, it is the imposition of the Sunday law that determines the condition for the mark of the beast. In this context of Revelation 13, it is clear that the beast intends, as Nebuchadnezzar did (Dan. 3:15), to take God’s place. Therefore, to follow the law of the beast and to have its mark will be a condition to live on earth and have the protection of the law of the state. In contrast, following God’s law and having God’s seal is the condition for citizenship in heaven and divine protection. The choice made in this dilemma will define if one belongs to the beast or to God.
Sabbath keepers must have in mind that the Sunday law, at a global level, is the last eschatological event. Ellen G. White emphasizes that “the substitution of the laws of men for the law of God, the exaltation, by merely human authority, of Sunday in place of the Bible Sabbath, is the last act in the drama. When this substitution becomes universal, God will reveal Himself.”23
Prophetic revelation, therefore, is covered with persuasion in current times. The world journeys towards an eschatological event of great magnitude in which our loyalty to the Creator God will be put to the test. Prophecies point to the fact that the relationship between church and state will be renewed as a path to the emergence of a new and ultimate state of intolerance and religious persecution.
This intolerance tends to manifest itself in that same point in which God’s law is distinguished from men’s laws: the day of rest and worship, the day in which the Creator God is celebrated as worthy of worship and loyalty. However, God’s people must not fear the consequences of their devotion because having God’s seal guarantees their heavenly citizenship and divine protection.
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1 Ellen G. White. The Great Controversy, 443.
2 Ibid., 445.
3 Ibid., 448.
4 Ranko Stefanovic, Revelation of Jesus Christ: Commentary on the Book of Revelation, 2ª ed. rev. (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2009), 432.
5 Ibid.
6 White, The Great Controversy, 582.
7 Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, 605.
8 Codex Justinianus, Book. 3, Title 12, par. 2.
9 Christopher D. Ringwald, A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath (Nova York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 104.
10 Ibid., 105.
11 Walter B. Douglas, “The Sabbath in Puritanism” in The Sabbath in Scripture and History, ed. Kenneth Strand, (Hagerstown: Review and Herald, 1982), 237. [Translated from the Portuguese version of the article].
12 Christopher D. Ringwald, A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath, 106.
13 Walter B. Douglas, “The Sabbath in Puritanism, ” 239. [Translated from the Portuguese version of the article].
14 Ibid., 240. [Translated from Portuguese].
15 John A. Grigg, “Puritan Family” in What Happened?: An Encyclopedia of Events that Changed America Forever, eds. John E. Findling e Frank W. Thackeray (Santa Barbara: CA: ABC-Clio, 2011), 1:270.
16 European Sunday Alliance, http://www.europeansundayalliance.eu (accessed October 17, 2020).
17 Lord’s Day Alliance, http://ldausa.org (accessed October 17, 2020).
18 Paul John II, Dies Domini www.vatican.va (accessed October 14, 2020), emphasis added.
19 Ibid.
20 White, The Great Controversy, 587.
21 Ellen G. White, Last Day Events, 135.
22 Ibid., 224.
23 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, 7:141.