Mark of the Beast

In Rev. 13 an identifying “mark” that represents submission to the authority of the first, or leopardlike, beast mentioned in the chapter, during the time of its eschatological revival, when an attempt is made to extend its authority over the entire world. Like most of the Revelation, the thirteenth chapter is essentially symbolic. In the imagery of the chapter the first beast represents a human religious system allied with the supernatural powers of evil, and opposed to God in the person of those on earth who choose to be loyal to Him ( vs. 1 , 2 , 7 ). The second, or lamblike beast, is presented as the agent by which the authority of the first beast is made universal ( v. 12 ). The device used to force compliance is to require a “mark” of allegiance of all in their forehead (mental assent) or in their hand (outward conformity). The announced alternative to compliance is the application of extreme economic sanctions, and eventually the death penalty ( vs. 15–17 ). In the Revelation the mark of the beast stands in contradistinction to the seal of God ( Rev. 7:2–4 ). See also Revelation, Interpretation of . In general, commentaries on the Apocalypse prior to the fourteenth century are content to explain the mark of the beast simply as a mark of the coming antichrist. From the fourteenth century onward pre-Reformation and Protestant expositors have identified it as a mark of submission to the Papacy. Walter Brute, a Wycliffite writer on prophecy, considered it to be the supposedly indelible imprint made by the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church upon those who receive them (L. E. Froom, Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2, p. 86). Others, such as John Purvey, who, upon Wycliff’s death, took his place, regarded the mark received in the hand to be compliance with works prescribed by the church, and on the forehead, as the public profession of papal teachings ( ibid. , p. 99 ). Reformation writers identified it as subservience to the canons, decrees, and traditions of Rome or Rome’s power to excommunicate ( ibid. , pp. 300, 306, 342, 367, 461, 462, 616, 617, 678). New World expositors took a similar view of it ( ibid. , vol. 3, pp. 40, 96, 353; vol. 4, pp. 95, 247). From the beginning Seventh-day Adventists have connected the mark of the beast with the observance in the future of Rome’s counterfeit of the Bible Sabbath, when it will be enforced by law and observed as a token of submission to Roman authority. In the second edition of his pamphlet The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign (January 1847), Joseph Bates asked ( p. 59), “Is it not clear that the first day of the week for the Sabbath or holy day [of which he speaks on page 57 as “a perpetual covenant” of allegiance to the true God] is a mark of the beast?” Writing to Bates in April 1847, Ellen White identified receiving the mark of the beast as the act of giving up “God’s Sabbath,” and keeping “the Pope’s [sabbath]” ( A Word to the “Little Flock ,” p. 19). James White similarly wrote: “The observance of the first day as a day of holy rest, instead of the seventh, is a mark of the beast, it undoubtedly is the mark mentioned in the solemn message of the third angel” ( Present Truth 1:68, April 1850). In 1851 Roswell F. Cottrell called the mark of the beast “the counterfeit sabbath of Rome” ( Review and Herald 2:40, Oct. 7, 1851). J. N. Andrews spoke of the mark as an “institution of papacy, enforced by Protestantism” ( The Three Messages of Revelation XIV, 6–12 , 1860 ed., p. 99). Perhaps the earliest full Seventh-day Adventist statement on the mark of the beast occurs in an article by J. N. Loughborough in 1854: “The Sabbath is a sign between God and His people [ Ex. 31:13–18 and Ex. 20:19 , 20 previously cited]; hence it seals His law as genuine. As the seal of an earthly monarch is a sign between him and His subjects, so the Sabbath is a sign between the Lord and his subjects, that they may know Him from all others. Take this fourth commandment from the ten, and the seal of the living God is gone, and the knowledge of their author is taken from us. Here is where Papacy has aimed a blow. The Pope has taken away the seal of the living God, and the ten commandments as taught by him do not contain it. . . . [Cites catechism on the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath on the basis of church authority.] In place of God’s seal or mark, we have Sunday attached to the law. It does not point out the living God but claims to be instituted on the authority of the Papal church. Yea, it points to the Pope. It is ’the mark of the beast.’ The two-horned beast is to cause all ’to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.’ We do not suppose that this is a mark, visible in the forehead; but as we have already shown, it is Sunday . The forehead is the seat of the mind. There the decision is made by men whether they will keep this institution or not. This mark is also to be received in the right hand” ( Review and Herald 5:75, 79, Mar. 28, 1854). Just what the reception of the mark in the right hand might be Loughborough was not sure, but suggested the raising of the right hand in taking an oath to observe Sunday, in order to secure exemption from the economic sanctions of Rev. 13:16 , 17 . He was clear, however, in making it “an event yet future.” In his classic commentary, Thoughts on the Revelation (1865, i.e. , 1867), Uriah Smith, foremost early Seventh-day Adventist expositor of Bible prophecy, wrote: “To receive the mark of the beast in the forehead, is, we understand, to give the assent of the mind and judgment to his [the first beast’s] authority, in the adoption of that institution which constitutes the mark; to receive it in the hand is to signify allegiance by some outward act. The mark is the mark, not of the two-horned beast, nor of the image of the beast, but of the papal beast. . . . The mark of the beast is understood to be a counterfeit Sabbath which is erected in opposition to the Sabbath of Jehovah, which we have shown on chap. vii, 1–3, to be the seal of the living God” ( p. 224). Seventh-day Adventists emphatically deny that anyone now has the mark of the beast. For instance, James White in an 1852 editorial stated: “We do not teach that those ’that keep the first day as a Sabbath, and they that believe the Sabbath is abolished, have the mark of the beast” ( Review and Herald 2:100, Mar. 2, 1852). As he goes on to explain, it is only after the Sabbath message has been fully proclaimed and after the observance of the first day of the week is enforced by law that this line of demarcation between the faithful and the unfaithful will be drawn. A number of years later Uriah Smith wrote in similar vein. “We do not hold that Sunday-keeping will constitute the mark of the beast, till enforced by the government in direct opposition to the Sabbath of the Lord” ( Review and Herald 44:52, July 28, 1874). Ellen White stressed this aspect of the subject in 1888: “When Sunday observance shall be enforced by law, and the world shall be enlightened concerning the obligation of the true Sabbath, then whoever shall transgress the command of God, to obey a precept which has no higher authority than that of Rome, will thereby honor popery above God. . . . They will thereby accept the sign of allegiance to Rome—’the mark of the beast” ( GC 449; Ev 233, 234). In 1899 she declared: “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” ( Ev 234).