Chapter 10: None Might Buy or Sell
This chapter uses historicism, the reading that sees Revelation’s symbols unfolding through successive history. Futurists place much of Revelation 13 in a future crisis, preterists relate it chiefly to the first centuries, and idealists read it as a recurring pattern of idolatrous power. Those approaches differ about the referent and timing while sharing reason to oppose coerced worship.
Current Sunday-rest laws show that governments can regulate weekly commerce, but they do not themselves satisfy Revelation 13’s description. In the Adventist historicist reading developed here, the prophecy concerns enforced Sunday worship joined to economic exclusion under human authority.
I am still learning to keep the Sabbath faithfully. I do not have a settled fellowship or a perfect routine. These pages are not written from a pedestal but from within that same struggle. Practicing faithful rest now prepares the conscience for any future conflict over worship.
Revelation describes economic participation conditioned on allegiance to the beast and its image:
âAnd 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: And 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.â
Revelation 13 describes pressure reaching people across social and economic classes and specifically names exclusion from buying and selling. The historical cases below do not prove how a future fulfillment will occur; they show narrower precedents for religious loyalty tests, Sunday regulation, and administrative exclusion.
In Israel, the Sabbath placed commerce under covenantal limits. Amos condemned merchants who waited impatiently for the day to end, asking, “When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?” (Amos 8:5). Revelation presents a different use of economic power: authorities exclude those who refuse demanded allegiance.
Early Precedent: The Roman Libellus (250 AD)
Coerced religious conformity predates the medieval church. In 250 AD, under Emperor Decius, imperial authorities required sacrifice to the gods in the presence of officials. Those who complied received a signed certificate called a libellus.1 Surviving papyri record the petitioner’s identity, sacrifice and libation, date, and an official certification. The original edict does not survive, so its precise wording and administrative reach must be reconstructed from these certificates and literary evidence.
The certificate documented compliance with an imperial religious loyalty test. The surviving papyrus establishes the required act and official confirmation; it does not by itself establish a uniform penalty for every refusal. Nor does the evidence establish that the libellus functioned as a general pass required for ordinary buying and selling, so it should not be presented as a direct commercial precedent for Revelation 13.
The comparison with Revelation 13 is limited but useful: both involve demanded religious allegiance, while Revelation uniquely specifies exclusion from buying and selling. The Decian paperwork is later than Revelation and cannot establish what John’s first readers had already experienced.
Later Precedent: The Council of Laodicea (364 AD)
The Council of Laodicea (c. 364 AD), an Eastern regional council whose canons were later received by the Council in Trullo, gives a fourth-century precedent for discipline against Sabbath rest. Canon 29 told Christians not to “Judaize” by resting on the Sabbath, instructed them to work that day and, if possible, rest on the Lord’s Day, and pronounced anathema on those found to be “Judaizers.” The canon did not prohibit every form of Saturday assembly, Scripture reading, or Eucharistic celebration. As chapter 3 documented, later Western Sunday norms developed through further ecclesiastical and civil measures rather than one continuous act of enforcement traced in chapter 8.2 Council of Laodicea, Canon 29 (AD 364), in Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 14; Council in Trullo, Canon 2 (692), which receives the Laodicean canons. Canon 29’s target is its category of “Judaizing” by Sabbath rest; it should not be paraphrased as anathematizing every form of Saturday worship.
Sunday-Rest Law, Equality, and Conscience
Civil Sunday-rest laws remain in force. Germany’s Basic Law designates Sundays as days “of rest from work and of spiritual improvement.”3 Federal Republic of Germany, Basic Law, Article 140, incorporating Weimar Constitution Article 139 (1919). The official Federal Ministry of Justice translation supplies the quoted wording. Available at: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html. Tonga’s constitution requires the “Sabbath Day” to be kept holy and restricts commercial undertakings then, subject to the text’s legal exception.4 Constitution of Tonga, Clause 6 (1875, as amended). The clause bars trade, professional work, and commercial undertakings on the Sabbath Day except as allowed by law; it also addresses agreements made or witnessed that day. Tonga’s Order in Public Places Act defines the statutory Sabbath Day as the period from midnight Saturday through midnight Sunday.
American proposals for national Sunday rest are not new. In 1888, Senator Henry W. Blair of New Hampshire introduced a federal Sunday-rest bill, which would have forbidden specified secular work and recreation âon the first day of the week, commonly known as the Lordâs day,â and named religious worship in its title and purpose. Alonzo T. Jones testified against it before the Senate committee, arguing that civil Sunday legislation would join church and state. The bill did not become law.5 Sunday-Rest Bill (S. 2983), 50th Congress, 1st Session, introduced by Senator Henry W. Blair, May 21, 1888; Congressional Record, vol. 19, 4452. A.T. Jones testified before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor on December 13, 1888; his argument was published in 1889 as The National Sunday Law.
In McGowan v. Maryland (1961), the Supreme Court upheld Maryland’s Sunday-closing statutes after finding their present purpose and effect secular. The Court acknowledged the religious origin of these laws while upholding them:
âThere is no dispute that the original laws which dealt with Sunday labor were motivated by religious forces⊠The present purpose and effect of most of our Sunday Closing Laws is to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens, and the fact that this day is Sunday, a day of particular significance for the dominant Christian sects, does not bar the State from achieving its secular goals.â6 McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 431, 444–45 (1961). Official report: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-366/pdf/USREPORTS-366-420.pdf.
McGowan upheld Sunday-closing rules rather than erasing them from American law. The Heritage Foundation’s 2023 policy volume proposed amending federal overtime rules to make Sunday work more expensive, presenting Sunday as a communal day of rest.7 Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (2023), 589. The proposal would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to require overtime pay for Sunday work.
These examples raise questions about secular purpose, equal treatment, and accommodation for people whose sacred day is not Sunday. They show that weekly commerce can be regulated; they do not show the compelled worship, allegiance test, or comprehensive economic exclusion of Revelation 13.
For selected legal and advocacy examples, see Appendix A: Sunday-Rest Law and Advocacy Examples.
The Catholic Case for Sunday Rest
In the ecological encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis described Sunday in theological and relational terms:
âOn Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world⊠The law of weekly rest forbade work on the seventh day, âso that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your maidservant, and the stranger, may be refreshedâ (Ex 23:12).â8 Pope Francis, Laudato Siâ: On Care for Our Common Home, encyclical letter, Vatican City, May 24, 2015, ¶237. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.
Paragraph 237 compares Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath and uses Exodus 23:12 to explain weekly rest. It presents Sunday as a time for Eucharist, restored relationships, and rest. The passage is a theological description, not a proposal for civil Sunday legislation.
The European Sunday Alliance is a broad network of trade unions, civil-society organizations, and Christian bodies that promotes a synchronized work-free Sunday as worker-welfare and social-cohesion policy. COMECE, the commission representing Catholic bishops’ conferences to the European Union, participates in that network; it is not the Alliance by itself.9 European Sunday Alliance, official website. Available at: https://www.europeansundayalliance.eu/. COMECE is one participating Christian organization among the Alliance’s broader membership. Its public rationale must be assessed as labor and social policy unless evidence establishes a worship mandate. A common rest day can still burden minority practice, so the durable issue is whether law protects conscience and distributes costs fairly.
The Biblical Pattern
Scripture records conflicts between worship and civil command. Nebuchadnezzar commanded worship of his golden image; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused (Daniel 3). Darius prohibited prayer to anyone but himself; Daniel continued praying to the Lord (Daniel 6). The Sanhedrin commanded the apostles to stop preaching; Peter answered, âWe ought to obey God rather than menâ (Acts 5:29). Revelation likewise contrasts faithful allegiance with worship of the beast:
âHere is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.â
Revelation places commandment-keeping and beast worship on opposing sides of an allegiance conflict. It does not name Sunday, the papacy, the United States, or a modern statute. The Adventist historicist synthesis connects the authority question with the explicit seventh-day command in Exodus 20:8â10 and expects enforced Sunday worship to become the outward test (see chapter 5). Scripture specifies economic exclusion (Revelation 13:17) and a death threat against those who refuse image worship (Revelation 13:15), but it does not provide a date or enforcement technology. Laodicea, current Sunday-rest laws, and Catholic teaching are different kinds of evidence. None by itself proves that the prophetic scenario is unfolding.
Within this interpretation, the mark involves a conscious choice under coercion to give worshipful allegiance against God’s command. Voluntary Sunday worship or imperfect understanding is not the mark.
Modern Sabbath-keepers can face economic consequences when work schedules conflict with Saturday observance. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy (2023) held that Title VII undue hardship requires an employer to show substantially increased costs in relation to its particular business, although Groff himself sought Sunday rather than Saturday rest. The rule applies across faiths; the case is not evidence of a Sabbath-specific prosecution.10 Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447, 468 (2023). The unanimous opinion rejected the former shorthand of more than a de minimis cost and required a case-specific inquiry into substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of the employer’s business. Official opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-174_k536.pdf.
Future enforcement cannot be inferred from administrative capacity alone. The durable principle is narrower: civil and economic participation must not be conditioned on worship, and conscience must be protected equally across traditions.
âWe ought to obey God rather than men.â
Economic exclusion and potential persecution are not light subjects. But Scripture does not leave the faithful without hope. The same God who shut the lionsâ mouths for Daniel, who walked in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and who fed Elijah by ravens, has not changed: âI will never leave thee, nor forsake theeâ (Hebrews 13:5). Those who endure to the end will see their Savior return in the clouds of heaven (Matthew 24:13; Revelation 1:7).
Adventist historicism expects a future worship test. Revelation’s cross-traditional warning is already clear: no state or religious body may demand worship through death threats or economic exclusion. Christian hope rests not in predicting the mechanism but in the return of the King.