SIXTH SEAL-FUTURE OR ALREADY FULFILLED?

THE SIXTH SEAL, SEALING OF THE 144000 AND RESURRECTION OF EARLY ADVENTISTS TO BE AMONG THE 144000

Relation of the sixth seal to the sealing of the 144000 provides an important and strong evidence that the sixth seal is future and that none of the 144000 has been sealed yet.

It is very evident and clear that the sealing of the 144000 saints occurs after the conclusion of the sixth seal events. We see this in Revelation 7. Since the sealing of the 144000 has not yet occurred, and therefore still in future, the church’s present teaching that the sixth seal has fulfilled is clearly unscriptural.

The church does teach that the sealing of the 144000 is on an individual basis and has been progressively occurring since the days of the Millerite advent awakening that officially began in AD 1833. The way she is able to support this false teaching is through her other equally false teaching about when the sixth seal events will conclude. According to her theology, the last part of the sixth seal is yet to be fulfilled, the part that begins with the heaven being rolled up as a scroll. This part of the sixth seal is seen by her as fulfilling in the second coming. 

But the second coming falls under the seventh seal based on the Chronology of the vision, which therefore renders the church’s theology of the sixth seal as false. To push a part of the sixth seal into the seventh seal period is contrary to the vision’s clear chronology as we have shown. The church has sought to support pushing the last part of the sixth seal to the time of second coming by confusing two different events, namely mountains and islands moved out of their places under the sixth seal (Revelation 6), with mountains and islands not seen at all(complete erasure) under the seventh plague(Revelation 16) As we will more fully show later, the two are not the same. Therefore, her teaching of progressive sealing of the 144000 saints stands on the foundation of a false teaching, and as such cannot be true.

The church’s teaching of progressive sealing of the 144000 also raises the problem of the fact that those supposedly sealed since the Millerite advent awakening are all long dead. She seeks to get around this by citing Ellen G. White’s prophecy that some dead Adventists will be included in the 144000. As a Seventh-day Adventist myself, who believes that EllenG. White is God’s true prophet, I believe that this prophecy is correct. But it does not however mean, nor does it support the teaching, that those dead Adventists were sealed before they died, which is what the church teaches. 

It has to be noted that the sealing of the 144000 is not the same as the sealing work of the Spirit in the new birth or conversion. That sealing is different from the sealing of the 144000 reported in Revelation 7. The 144000 would have already gotten the new-birth sealing, hence they are already seen and addressed as “the servants of our God”. The sealing here brought to view is instead that which is aimed at rendering them immune to death that would result from the judgement of the seven trumpets and seven last plagues. It is reminiscent of what the Angels did on the eve of the Exodus, when they had the people stain the lintels of their doors with blood of the slain passover lamb. This sealed them and their first born sons against the death unleashed by the Angel of death that night. This event foreshadowed the sealing of the 144000. In other words, the sealing of the 144000 is the first process to their immortality, to be followed by translation in the new, heavenly body at the second coming.

Therefore, once sealed, a member of the 144000 cannot die anymore. This clearly shows that the sealing of the 144000 could not have started since the days of the Millerite Adventists as those saints have long been dead. If the teaching of progressive sealing of the 144000 were true, those saints, sealed then, would never have died, and that means that Jesus would have come in their days to head off age related death. The reason the pioneers believed this progressive sealing theology is clearly because they believed that Jesus was coming in their lifetime. But time and more insight from scriptures now show that this theology is wrong.

Therefore, though true that some dead Adventists will be part of the 144000, they were however not sealed before they died. They will be raised in time to be sealed along with the rest of the 144000 that will not experience death at all. The implication of this fact is amazing, profound and astounding, and that is that Ellen G. White and some other early Adventists will soon be resurrected.

Contrary to what some believe, the resurrection of Ellen G. White and other early Adventists is not the one Daniel reported in Daniel 12:1-3. Those who have come to this erroneous conclusion did so because they presumed that these Adventists were already sealed before they died, and therefore simply needed to be raised to join the rest of the 144000 see Christ come back. The assumption is that only the 144000 will fully  witness the complete scenario of Christ’s coming, and that Christ would already have settled to his place in the sky before the dead in Christ will be raised. But in another study, Doctrine The Resurrections and the Advents of Christ, it will be shown that the dead in Christ will be resurrected in good time, and will be standing alongside the 144000 as they witness the descent of Christ. They will never miss any aspect of the second coming. The living will not have any advantage over the righteous dead. If the wicked will witness every part of the second coming, how then can Christ deny the righteous dead that same experience? That would make no sense at all.

So, the resurrection of dead Adventists that will be part of the 144000 will occur way before Daniel 12:1-3 resurrection. The reason is because, since they were not sealed before they die, they will be sealed at the same time along with those members of the 144000 that have never tasted death. They are to undergo the same experience as those that are alive in this generation, the experience that is designed to prepare them for the sealing. If they are to know that song of experience, that new song(Revelation 14:3), then they are also to undergo the experience because it is a song of experience, hence the reason no other saint will know the song except them. 

Being that the experience in question is that which will come with image and mark of the beast-Sunday Law persecution, it means that this resurrection will occur before the Sunday Law decree. This realization should fill our hearts with awe and amazement because it means that in a few months to at the most 6 years from now, God’s ancient power will be revealed among his people. Under the watchful eyes of the world, but most importantly his saints of this generation, God will open the graves of these early Adventist faithful saints, and will restore their youth before our wonderful gaze.

In conclusion, because the 144000 saints are to be sealed at once, all together, and this is still future, and being that it will occur after the last aspect of the sixth seal has fulfilled, which has not yet happened, the sixth seal could not have been fulfilled, and must therefore be in the future.