Congregation Forums
Forum members who are not a member of that denomination may not debate in that denomination's area. Questions and fellowship are allowed, proselytizing is not.
What this means is that you're not permitted to coerce members of the forum who don't accept the 28 FB's of the SDA church into accepting them. Initiating a thread that seeks acceptance of a premise that isn't found in Scripture would more closely describe your effort to proselytize others to Adventism than a discussion of the topic you brought up in the first place. This sub-forum has its own statement of purpose, and that has been quoted for you.
It would seem that you're making every effort to avoid discussion of a topic you insist others accept blindly. When others make an effort to compare your premise to Scripture you can't seem to respond to that.
There isn't going to be a Sunday law, for the premise it depends on is unBiblical. It would be beneficial for you to accept that conclusion and discuss it rather than continue to ram an unBiblical premise down the throats of the membership that isn't compelled to accept it.
You're welcome to address this topic you're devoted to, but insisting that others accept it without any valid reason to isn't acceptable.
Yes, that is my understanding of how it will be. Watching for a few worshippers on Saturday will be easier than ensuring that 100% of the people are worshipping on Sunday...
You're making predictions of how a Sunday law will play itself out in political affairs based on a assumption that there is going to be a Sunday law, and that assumption has permeated this entire thread. It is that assumption that I have tried to turn your attention to, to no avail. You simply rely on an assumption that is nowhere present in Scripture.
Where it is presented is in the writings of Ellen White, and it is there that you formed your opinion concerning the possibility of a Sunday law ever coming to pass. Look at this quote from Ellen - and this is from the 1858 draft that originally published as
The Great Controversy.
I saw the saints leaving the cities and villages, and associating in companies together, and living in the most solitary places. Angels provided them food and water; but the wicked were suffering with hunger and thirst. Then I saw the leading men of earth consulting together, and Satan and his angels were busy around them. I saw a writing, and copies of it scattered in different parts of the land, giving orders, that unless the saints should yield their peculiar faith, give up the Sabbath, and observe the first day, they were at liberty, after such a time, to put them to death. But in this time the saints were calm and composed, trusting in God, and leaning upon his promise, that a way of escape would be made for them. In some places, before the time for the writing to be executed, the wicked rushed upon the saints to slay them; but angels in the form of men of war fought for them. Satan wished to have the privilege of destroying the saints of the Most High; but Jesus bade his angels watch over them, for God would be honored by making a covenant with those who had kept his law in the sight of the heathen round about them; and Jesus would be honored by translating the faithful, waiting ones, who had so long expected him, without their seeing death. {1SG 201.1}
There are a couple of items to pay attention to in this quote.
The first is the endorsement of divine inspiration by the claims of "I saw".
The second is Ellen's assertion that God is going to make a covenant with those compliant to the first covenant (as described in the epistle to the Hebrews, which is the covenant from Mount Sinai mediated by Moses known as the Ten Commandments). This amounts to a claim that there is going to be a
third covenant, made only with those compliant to the first covenant, and Ellen completely disregards the second covenant Christianity affirms: "
He takes away the first that He may establish the second" (Hebrews 10:9).
This claim of a third covenant is so absurd that it vanished when this was edited to become the 1884, 1888, and 1911 editions of
The Great Controversy. The loss of divine inspiration apparent in the newer editions is explained by the White Estate as tailoring the book to public consumption, but the omission of a third covenant that was originally "inspired" has no explanation. It is ridiculous, and as the SDA church became better versed in Scripture the divine "vision" of a third covenant was dropped.
That is an admission that Ellen White's vision was not inspired, and even the prophet didn't believe it enough to retain it.
Furthermore, there isn't anyone God has determined compliant with the first covenant, and I believe I have quoted Romans 11:32 enough times that this doesn't need to be addressed anymore. The condition Ellen claims the third covenant would be made with is for a people that will never exist. It is complete fiction that is contrary to Scripture's explanation that the first covenant was broken by the recipients and was the basis for a new covenant: "
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second." (Hebrews 8:6-7).
Look at these quotes from
Maranatha!, a 1976 collection to summarize Ellen White's writings on various topics:
The sign, or seal, of God is revealed in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, the Lord's memorial of creation. . . . The mark of the beast is the opposite of this--the observance of the first day of the week. {Mar 211.2}
Sundaykeeping is not yet the mark of the beast, and will not be until the decree goes forth causing men to worship this idol sabbath. The time will come when this day will be the test, but that time has not come yet. {Mar 211.3}
No one has yet received the mark of the beast. The testing time has not yet come. There are true Christians in every church, not excepting the Roman Catholic communion. None are condemned until they have had the light and have seen the obligation of the fourth commandment. But when the decree shall go forth enforcing the counterfeit sabbath, and the loud cry of the third angel shall warn men against the worship of the beast and his image, the line will be clearly drawn between the false and the true. Then those who still continue in transgression will receive the mark of the beast. {Mar 211.4}
If the light of truth has been presented to you, revealing the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and showing that there is no foundation in the Word of God for Sunday observance, and yet you still cling to the false sabbath, refusing to keep holy the Sabbath which God calls "my holy day," you receive the mark of the beast. When does this take place? When you obey the decree that commands you to cease from labor on Sunday and worship God, while you know that there is not a word in the Bible showing Sunday to be other than a common working day, you consent to receive the mark of the beast, and refuse the seal of God. {Mar 211.5}
When I researched the way that the Investigative Judgment permeates Adventist theology, I noted several quotes from Ellen explaining that 1844 became the time that the sabbath again gained jurisdiction, based on the symbolism of Christ entering the MHP where the covenant from Mount Sinai is allegedly stored in the heavenly sanctuary (both the claim of entrance in 1844 and the claim that the Ten Commandments are in the heavenly sanctuary are unBiblical, which is not germane to this observation). That time when Jesus entered into the IJ and used the Ten Commandments as the basis of that judgment supposedly made the sabbath binding once again. That is not consistent with the claims above that the mark of the beast doesn't exist until the RCC makes Sunday worship a requirement to those outside of it.
And look again at those quotes from
Maranatha!. What is this "counterfeit sabbath" she's so consumed about? Going to church on Sunday? Christianity doesn't affirm a sabbath at all - that is a component of the old covenant we have been redeemed from. Note Ellen's reference to the "fourth commandment", and that it is an obligation to observe (that she never complied with herself, BTW). Where is this "fourth commandment" found?
It is a reference to the covenant from Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments. That is the obligation Ellen White considers binding, and she never affirms the commandments of God that instruct us to cast that covenant from Mount Sinai off, because those retained by it in lieu of God's redemption in Jesus Christ have no claim to eternal life: "
Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman" (Galatians 4:30).
There is no such thing as a "Sundaykeeping" counterfeit sabbath. We have entered into God's permanent rest that is the reality the periodic sabbath symbolized as a shadow, and now we have the freedom in our redemption from the covenant mediated by Moses (Ten Commandments) to assemble whenever we desire. Honoring the day of the week Jesus was resurrected from the dead is the basis of a tradition that draws many to Sunday, just as Saturday is also based on a tradition from honoring the sabbath. Assembling on the sabbath is not keeping it, as the law mandates a Levitical priesthood to make the burnt offerings they alone were authorized to perform, and this is a requisite for keeping the sabbath holy under the law that ordained it.
Where's that third covenant?
Why are you basing eschatology on ignorance of God's redemption from the first covenant?
The entire premise you assumed for this thread is summarized in one word:
Wrong.
A Sunday law is unable to violate a sabbath ordinance that doesn't exist in Christianity, and this assumption consumed Ellen White to the point she fabricated visions she showed by her actions never occurred. Don't let that same error consume you into a lie.
