Part IV — The Days of the Son of Man

Christ appoints the FIRST Genesis judgment as the picture of the last age — Luke 17:26-27; Matt. 24:37-39:

• Luke 17:26. "And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man" — Christ Himself fixes the type: the antediluvian world is the mirror of the last generation. He does not reach for a new figure; He reaches back to the first judgment.
  • the days of the Son of man = the last age, defined by Christ Himself through the matched Noah/Lot pattern — heedless absorption in lawful things ("they did eat, they drank... bought... sold... planted... builded"), mingled worship as the covenant line blends with the world, and sudden separation by judgment on "the same day" the righteous go out; the mark is not open rebellion but "knew not" (Luke 17:26-30; Matt. 24:37-39; Gen. 6:2, 5; Gen. 13:12-13). Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Luke 17:27. "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all" — four verbs, every one lawful. Eating, drinking, and marrying made the whole of life right up to the day of separation; not one open crime is named — the indictment is absorption.
• Matt. 24:37. "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." — the parallel account fixes the same appointment; the days of Noah are not an illustration but a stated equivalence.
• Matt. 24:38-39. "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage... And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" — the diagnosis in two words: "knew not." Heedlessness, not defiance, is the mark of the age (eating and drinking as the mark of the heedless class is defined in “The Days of Noah — the Institutions of Eden Under Attack”).
• WitnessDA 633.1. White: "Christ continues, pointing out the condition of the world at His coming: 'As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be'... He tells us that as it was in Noah's day, so will it be when the Son of man comes again." — confirms that the Noah saying is Christ's own definition of the state of the world at His coming, not merely its suddenness.
• WitnessAH 121.3. White: "There is in itself no sin in eating and drinking, or in marrying and giving in marriage... But in the days of Noah men married without consulting God..." — the precise edge of the charge: the condemned things were LAWFUL, carried on without God until they became the whole of life.

The SECOND judgment added as a matched pair — the days of Lot — Luke 17:28-30:

• Luke 17:28. "Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded" — six verbs now: to the antediluvian four Christ adds buying, selling, planting, building — the busy commerce of the city. The last age is pictured as uninterrupted business.
• Luke 17:29-30. "But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed" — "the same day": the going out of the righteous and the fall of judgment are one event, as at the ark door. The commerce runs to the very hour.
• WitnessCD 17.6. White: "Our Saviour warned His disciples that just prior to His second coming a state of things would exist very similar to that which preceded the flood. Eating and drinking would be carried to excess... more and more like the doomed inhabitants of Sodom" — joins BOTH judgments, flood and Sodom, as one last-days picture of appetite and pleasure — exactly Luke 17's pairing.
• WitnessCD 435.2. White: "The world's Redeemer, who knows well the state of society in the last days, represents eating and drinking as the sins that condemn this age" — names the lawful-made-ultimate as the condemning sin of the age, per the Noah pattern.

What "the days of Noah" actually were — the mingling behind the meals — Gen. 6:2, 5:

• Gen. 6:2. "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose" — behind the eating and marrying stood the MINGLING: the covenant line of Seth blended with the line of Cain, and the distinction dissolved (the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the mingling are defined in “The Mingling — How the Peculiar People Lost Their Peculiarity”). The attack fell on the Eden institution of marriage.
• Gen. 6:5. "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" — the result once the two classes blended: universal corruption. The mingling, not merely open sin, produced the world the flood swept away.
• WitnessPP 81.2. White: "For some time the two classes remained separate... So long as this separation continued, they maintained the worship of God in its purity. But in the lapse of time they ventured, little by little, to mingle with the inhabitants of the valleys... and they lost their peculiar, holy character" — the master witness: separation maintained the pure worship, and gradual mingling — "little by little" — dissolved the peculiar character. THIS is the substance of "as it was in the days of Noe."
• WitnessPP 85.4. White: Enoch, "fearing that their infidelity might lessen his reverence for God... avoided constant association with them, and spent much time in solitude, giving himself to meditation and prayer" — the counter-example inside the same generation: deliberate separation from the mingled society preserved the walk with God.

The last mingling is from INSIDE — a form of godliness, Laodicea at ease — 2 Tim. 3:1-5; Rev. 3:17:

• 2 Tim. 3:1-2. "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous..." — Paul dates the catalogue "in the last days," and the peril is a character-list, not a persecution-list: the danger comes from what men LOVE.
• 2 Tim. 3:4-5. "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away" — the crisis of the list: these are the PROFESSED. The Noah/Lot mingling is relocated from the world into the church — appetite and pleasure ruling under an exterior of piety — and the command is still separation: "from such turn away."
  • having a form of godliness = the last-days condition inside the church: an outward shape of religion emptied of its power, the professed mingled with the world in appetite and pleasure while keeping the exterior of piety — the Noah/Lot mingling moved from the world into the sanctuary (2 Tim. 3:1-5; Rev. 3:17; Matt. 24:39). Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Rev. 3:17. "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" — Laodicea: the church at ease in the city, and — like the antediluvians — "knowest not." The days-of-Noah heedlessness has entered the sanctuary.
• WitnessCOL 158.3. White: "The Lord says, 'Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing...' The gold tried in the fire is faith that works by love" — applies Rev. 3:17 to the church's self-satisfied wealth; the remedy is not more goods but tried faith.
• WitnessMYP 390.2. White: "The eternal God has drawn the line of distinction between the saint and the sinner... The two classes do not blend into each other imperceptibly, like the colors of a rainbow, but are as distinct as midday and midnight" — carries the two-classes line into the end time, and names the modern mingling precisely: "God's people cannot with safety enter into intimate associations with those who know the truth, but do not practice it."

Against it, the old calls sound again — out of the cities — Gen. 13:12-13; CH 268.1:

• Gen. 13:12-13. "Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly" — the two-classes divergence in one verse: Abraham in the pilgrim land, Lot drifting cityward while the city's wickedness is named in the same breath (the tent-and-altar life and the plain of Sodom are defined in “Abraham and Lot — the Tent and the Plain”).
• WitnessPP 168.1. White: "In how wide contrast to the life of Abraham was that of Lot! Once they had been companions, worshiping at one altar... Lot had chosen Sodom for its pleasure and profit... he had permitted his children to mingle with a corrupt and idolatrous people" — the narrative of the drift: one altar shared, then the city chosen for pleasure and profit, and the children lost to mingling.
• WitnessCH 268.1. White: "'Out of the cities,' is my message... I hope and pray and believe that they will now arouse to the importance of getting out into the country" — the present-truth reissue of the old separations: her repeated turn-of-the-century "Out of the cities" appeals reissued the antediluvian separation as present truth for the last generation — the modern tent-pitching.
• WitnessCL 5.2. White: "Parents flock with their families to the cities, because they fancy it easier to obtain a livelihood there... they stay where they are, until Satan gains full control of their children" — the modern Lot-toward-Sodom drift named: cityward for livelihood, exactly as Lot chose the plain, and the children lost to the mingling exactly as in Sodom.
• John 4:21, 23-24. "neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem... the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth... God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" — the call out of the city costs no worship: Christ de-localizes it. The peculiar people are bound to no city or temple; they carry the true worship with them, as Abraham carried his altar.

The return toward the Eden table — Gen. 1:29:

• Gen. 1:29. "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat" — the original grant, one of the institutions of Eden with marriage and the Sabbath (the institutions of Eden and the original diet are defined in “The Days of Noah — the Institutions of Eden Under Attack”); flesh was not granted until after the flood (Gen. 9:3).
• WitnessEv 663.4. White: "In the beginning, fruit was pronounced by God as 'good for food.' The permission to eat flesh meat was a consequence of the fall. Not till after the Flood was man given permission to eat the flesh of animals" — anchors the health message to Genesis: Gen. 1:29 the original table, flesh a post-fall, post-flood concession.
• WitnessCG 383.1. White: "Is it not time that all should aim to dispense with flesh foods?... Let them, rather, return to the wholesome and delicious food given to man in the beginning" — the reform framed explicitly as a RETURN toward Eden's institution: not salvation by menu, but the peculiar people re-learning the institutions of Eden while the world perfects the way of Cain (see “Cain and Abel — the Two Worships”).

The last-generation text — Remember Lot's wife — Luke 17:32; Gen. 19:26:

• Luke 17:32. "Remember Lot's wife." — three words, Christ's own memorial nailed into the days-of-the-Son-of-man discourse itself. The warning is not against staying in the city; she had left it. It is against a divided leaving of it — a separation of the feet without a separation of the heart.
  • Remember Lot's wife = the last-generation warning against a divided separation — out of the city with the body, in it with the heart; she obeyed the call to come out, and one backward look fixed her forever as the standing type of the professor whose separation never reached the affections (Luke 17:32; Gen. 19:26; Gen. 13:12-13). Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Gen. 19:26. "But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt" — the literal fate the command points back to: her feet left Sodom, her heart lingered, and the lingering look was fatal. Separation of the body without separation of the heart is no separation at all.

The war on worship goes universal — Rev. 13:3-4:

• Rev. 13:3. "his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast" — the power whose fourth-century church-world union supplanted the Creator's appointed day (the union traced in "The Church in the Wilderness — the Mountains Keep the Faith"; GC chs. 3-4) recovers its dominion, and the wondering is now worldwide. The two classes are about to become visible on a world scale.
• Rev. 13:4. "they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" — the text names the issue itself: WORSHIP. The serpent's seed does not end in mere irreligion but in a rival worship, dragon-empowered, universal — the enmity of the two seeds (see “The Enmity — Two Seeds from One Fall”) fought out at the last altar.

The mark enforced — and the siege of buying and selling — Rev. 13:16-17:

• Rev. 13:16. "he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads" — the rival worship is ENFORCED on every class of men; the badge of allegiance is set where choice lives (the forehead) or where conduct complies (the hand).
  • the mark of the beast = allegiance to the self-appointed worship-system enforced in place of the Creator's appointed worship — the way of Cain full grown, the substitute offering (Gen. 4:3-5) become world law; received in forehead or hand (Rev. 13:16), set opposite "the commandments of God" (Rev. 14:9-12), and enforced by economic siege (Rev. 13:17). Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Rev. 13:17. "that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" — the city-system's final weapon against the separate class: the confederated commerce of Babel turned into a siege engine (see “Babel — Congregating for Convenience”; see “The Two Lineages — the City and the Name”). Cain's congregation no longer merely excludes the separate; it starves them. The pilgrims (see “Abraham and Lot — the Tent and the Plain”) are pressed toward conformity.
• WitnessCS 59.3. White: "The time is coming when we cannot sell at any price. The decree will soon go forth prohibiting men to buy or sell of any man save he that hath the mark of the beast" — confirms Rev. 13:17 as a literal, coming decree against the class that will not conform.

The first angel answers — worship Him that MADE — Rev. 14:6-7; Exo. 20:8-11; Gen. 2:1-3:

• Rev. 14:7. "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters" — heaven's counter-summons: worship the CREATOR. The phrase is lifted from the fourth commandment; the angel answers the beast's worship by pointing all the world back to the Creator's own memorial.
• Exo. 20:8, 10. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy... the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God" — the commandment the first angel echoes; the day is the LORD'S, not man's to appoint.
• Exo. 20:11. "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is... wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" — the exact ground Rev. 14:7 stands on: "made heaven, and earth, and the sea." To worship Him that made is to keep the memorial He appointed for the making.
• Gen. 2:3. "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made" — the Sabbath instituted in Eden, before any fall or any nation — one of the three institutions of Eden the serpent's seed has warred on from the beginning (see “The Days of Noah — the Institutions of Eden Under Attack”). The end-time battle over worship is a fight over the original, appointed day.
• WitnessCCh 334.6. White: "The Sabbath question is to be the issue in the great final conflict in which all the world will act a part... Each sabbath institution bears the name of its author, an ineffaceable mark that shows the authority of each" — each day carries its author's authority: the Creator's appointed Sabbath against the self-chosen day — Abel's appointed offering against Cain's substitute, on a world scale (see “Cain and Abel — the Two Worships”).

God names the Sabbath His SIGN — Exo. 31:13-17; Eze. 20:12, 20:

• Exo. 31:13. "Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you" — God Himself names the Sabbath His SIGN: the mark of the God who sanctifies, set between Him and His people.
• Exo. 31:17. "It is a sign... for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed" — the sign is "for ever," and its content is creation — the same credential the first angel proclaims (Rev. 14:7).
• Eze. 20:12. "I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them" — the sign identifies WHOSE people they are, and that God — not they themselves — sanctifies them.
• Eze. 20:20. "And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God" — the sign marks those who acknowledge the Creator's authority against every rival: the self-appointed system carries the authority of its own maker.

The sign set in the forehead is the seal — Rev. 7:2-3; 14:1; Eze. 9:4-6:

• Rev. 7:2-3. "having the seal of the living God... Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads" — the judgment winds are held back until the servants of God are sealed in their FOREHEADS. A sign set in the forehead is a seal; the Sabbath-sign of Exo. 31 and Eze. 20 is here fixed on the separate class before the plagues fall.
  • the seal of God = the Creator's sign of ownership and sanctification set in the forehead — the seventh-day Sabbath kept by faith. Scripture calls the Sabbath God's "sign" that He is the LORD who made heaven and earth and who sanctifies His people (Exo. 31:13-17; Eze. 20:12, 20); the sign in the forehead is the seal (Rev. 7:2-3), and the sealed bear the Father's name (Rev. 14:1). Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Rev. 14:1. "a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads" — the sealed bear the Father's NAME — His character and authority — the exact opposite of the beast's name and mark (Rev. 13:17).
• Eze. 9:4. "set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof" — the Old Testament type of the sealing: its mark — the seal-type — falls on the MOURNERS over abomination, not on the comfortable majority of the professed people.
• Eze. 9:6. "but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary" — the slaying spares only the marked, and it begins at the sanctuary: the distinction is drawn inside the professed church first, then made permanent by judgment — the flood-pattern of the two classes repeated (see “As in the Days of Noah — the Last Mingling”).
• WitnessSSP 132.2. Haskell: "this knowledge of God, is the seal placed in the foreheads of the chosen generation... this, Jehovah has placed in His Sabbath... The seal placed in the forehead by the angel, cannot be read by man; only God and heavenly beings can read it. For this reason, no civil law can enforce Sabbath keeping. Man may keep the form one day in seven, but only a knowledge of God can give the seal in the forehead" — the pioneer exposition binding Rev. 7 to the Sabbath-sign of Exo. 31 and Eze. 20: the seal is a knowledge of God, and precisely because it is inward, no decree can counterfeit it — only the mark can be enforced by law.

The third angel names the two classes — Rev. 14:9-12:

• Rev. 14:9-10. "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God" — the third angel's warning defines the mark by its object: WORSHIP of the beast and his image — allegiance to the self-appointed system enforced in place of the Creator's appointed worship. The way of Cain (see “Cain and Abel — the Two Worships”) stands full grown: a substitute worship, now persecuting the true.
• Rev. 14:12. "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus" — the sealed class named against the mark-bearers: commandment-keepers (the Sabbath memorial included) holding the faith of Jesus — Abel's line in its final, visible form.
• WitnessTMR 112.1. Andrews: "the worship of the beast and his image, and the reception of his mark, is the opposite of keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. And we have seen that one of the commandments of God has been superseded by an institution of the Romish apostasy" — the pioneer statement of the antithesis: the mark is the supplanting of the Sabbath commandment itself.
• WitnessGC 605.2. White: "The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty... While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other, choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God" — the master statement: the Sabbath is the final test that draws the visible line between the two classes.
• Witness8T 117.4. White: "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. This mark distinguishes those who acknowledge the supremacy of the papal authority from those who acknowledge the authority of God" (compiled in LDE 224.3) — seal = the Creator's memorial; mark = its opposite: the badge distinguishing the two allegiances.
• WitnessEv 235.2. White: "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" — the mark is received KNOWINGLY: informed submission to the enforced substitute over the Creator's appointed day.
• WitnessSR 383.3. White: "In the issue of the great contest, two distinct, opposite classes are developed. One class 'worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark'... The other class, in marked contrast to the world, 'keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus'" — the two-classes thesis of the whole study stated in its final-conflict form.

The door shuts — the distinction fixed forever — Rev. 22:11:

• Rev. 22:11. "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still... and he that is holy, let him be holy still" — probation closes and the two classes are fixed forever. As at the flood the LORD shut the door and judgment fixed the separation the mingled world had blurred (see “As in the Days of Noah — the Last Mingling”), so the distinction made visible by seal and mark is made permanent by judgment. After this word there is no third class and no crossing over.