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Seventh-day Adventist doctrine proclaims that Sunday Sabbath observance equates to receiving the mark of the beast as prophesied in Revelation. This article will discuss this belief and explain it to be a false doctrine.

EXODUS 31:12-13,16-17:
And YHWH (the Lord) spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a SIGN between Me and you throughout your generations …
Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a PERPETUAL COVENANT. It is a SIGN between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days YHWH (the Lord) made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.”

SABBATH DAY CHANGED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Roman Catholic Church changed the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday and claimed the change as a “mark” of its authority.

“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change [OF THE SABBATH DAY] was her act… And the act is a MARK of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters.”
– Letter from C.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons, October 28, 1895.

DANIEL 7:25:
He [CATHOLIC POPES] shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law.

Though the Catholic Church claims responsibility for changing the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday, it has no authority or power to do so. God’s laws and times are eternal; no one can change them. The Catholic Church intended to change the Sabbath day from the seventh-day of the week to the first-day, but did not. The Sabbath day is on the seventh-day as a perpetual covenant and will remain on the seventh-day forever (Exodus 31:16-17).

Ellen G. White and her fellow Seventh-day Adventist Church founders proclaimed as doctrine that the Catholic Church’s intended Sabbath change, from Saturday to Sunday, was the mark of the beast spoken of in Revelation.

“Here we find the mark of the beast. The very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, on the part of the Catholic Church, without any authority from the Bible.”
– Ellen G. White, “The Mark of the Beast,” page 23.

“The Sunday Sabbath is purely a child of the Papacy. It is the mark of the beast.”
– Advent Review, Vol. I, No. 2, August, 1850.

“The change of the Sabbath is the sign or mark of the authority of the Romish church.” … “The keeping of the counterfeit Sabbath is the reception of the mark.”
– Ellen G. White, “The Great Controversy,” Vol. 4, page 281.

ISAIAH 24:5:
The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

The Catholic Church has deceived many mainstream Christians into honoring Sunday, the first-day of the week, as the Sabbath day. Not observing the proper seventh-day Sabbath day was a death penalty offense in Scripture (Exodus 31:14-15,35:2; Numbers 15:32-36). We are living under an age of grace and God knows of the deceptions that unscholarly Christians are under, being misled by Sunday Sabbath-honoring organized Christian religious institutions.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the reign of Elohim (kingdom of God)? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous (greedy of gain), nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the reign of Elohim (kingdom of God).

GALATIANS 5:19-21:
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, drug sorcery, hatred, quarrels, jealousies, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the reign of Elohim (kingdom of God).

REVELATION 21:7-8:
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. The cowardly, untrustworthy, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, drug sorcerers, idolators, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Christians, throughout millennia, have been misled by the first-day Sunday Sabbath deception. God, in His mercy, did not list Sabbath breakers among sinners to be excluded from inheriting the kingdom of God, according to 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19- 21, and Revelation 21:7-8, but improper Sabbath day keepers will need to be corrected before entering His kingdom.

THE 666 MARK OF THE BEAST IN REVELATION

REVELATION 13:16-18:
He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, AND THAT NO ONE MAY BUY OR SELL except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.

The problem, obviously, with Seventh-day Adventists’ doctrinal belief that Sunday Sabbath observance equates to receiving the mark of the beast, is that the mark of the beast of Revelation has nothing to do with the Sabbath. Saturday Sabbath observers are not prevented from buying or selling.

The Antichrist, after the collapse of the world’s economies, will impose some type of electronic mark to be implanted on the right hand or forehead, which will allow people to buy and sell. No one, small or great, rich or poor, free or slave, will be able to buy or sell anything without receiving this mark on any day of the week.

Seventh-day Adventists have argued against the literal buying and selling aspect of the mark for the sake of their doctrine. They claim that the mark on the forehead figuratively represents first-day Sabbath acceptance and the mark on the right hand symbolized first- day Sabbath work.

Breaking any of God’s commands is a type of a mark of disobedience. There are many antichrists, but only one Antichrist (1 John 2:18). There are many types of marks (Genesis 4:15; Job 10:14; Ezekiel 9:4,6), but only one mark of the beast (Revelation 13:16-18,14:9- 11,15:2,16:2,19:20,20:4).

REVELATION 16:1-2:
Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.” So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.

Sunday Sabbath observers do not get sores from their incorrect Sabbath day observance, nor are they engaged in worshiping an image of the beast (Antichrist). These sores, a bowl judgment of the wrath of God, will be physical sores from receiving the physical 666 mark of the beast.

Seventh-day Adventists are correct in proclaiming the seventh-day Sabbath as a perpetual covenant that will last forever, but err in proclaiming that Sunday Sabbath observers have received the mark of the beast.