Ellen G. White and Her Critics

The Sabbath as a Seal

The attention of the Sabbathkeeping Adventists soon focused on another passage in the Revelation, the statement of John in the seventh chapter regarding the sealing work. Mrs. White refers to this in January, 1849. However, she does not present any line of reasoning to show what the seal is; she simply states, “This seal is the Sabbath.” ^* EGWC 187.2

In January, 1849, Joseph Bates published a seventy-two-page pamphlet entitled A Seal of the Living God. In this he presents a reasoned argument to show that the Sabbath is the seal of God. However, on page 24 Bates credits to Mrs. White the presentation in vision of the first “clear light” on the subject of the sealing work of Revelation 7. EGWC 187.3

John declares that the number of those sealed is 144,000. From this statement the Sabbathkeeping pioneers drew the conclusion that “the remnant” “which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17), would be 144,000 in number. EGWC 187.4

Thus was early built into the doctrine of the seventh-day Sabbath an added prophetic element—the “seal”—which gave further Scriptural reinforcement and prophetic timeliness to the doctrine. It became a part of “present truth.” (See Joseph Bates, A Seal of the Living God, p. 17.) EGWC 187.5

Near the close of his pamphlet Bates seeks to show the distinction between the Sabbathkeeping group, of which he was a part, and “Second Advents,” as he describes all others of the Advent movement. Says he: “The first wonderful sign by which they were distinctly known from Second Advents, was shut door believers, but the greatest wonder, and sign by which they are now known is 7th day Sabbath believers.”—Ibid., p. 56. This leads him almost immediately to observe: “The shut door and Sabbath, then, are the two prominent marks by which they are known.” EGWC 188.1

In other words, our forebears first grasped the truth of the heavenly sanctuary service, with Christ entering the most holy place on October 22, 1844, for a final work of judgment and the receiving of His kingdom. Second, they saw the Sabbath in a prophetic setting—saw it as the third in a series of angelic messages timed for the last days. EGWC 188.2