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Sabbath vs. Sunday

An Internet Debate
Installment #13

This is the thirteenth installment of the ongoing

Internet debate on the Sabbath.

This installment contains Dale Ratzlaff's farewell

message. As you will notice, Mr. Ratzlaff has decided
to withdraw from the discussion for reasons given in
his message. Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi will first post
Mr. Ratzlaff's message in its entirety and then he will
respond to some of his comments.

Links to significant points in this installment

Argument/Response 1 Response: Expresses

Argument: Mr. Ratzlaff decides to
withdraw from debate, gives
farewell message. His conclusions
on the Sabbath spring from a
large data base of biblical
evidence. (Dale Ratzlaff).
appreciation for Mr. Ratzlaff's
time. Nowhere in the New
Testament suggests that the
Sabbath was replaced with the
Lord's Supper. Christ Himself
affirms that the Sabbath was
made for mankind, and not just
for the Jews. Others have
prematurely stopped a debate
with Sam. (Samuele
Bacchiocchi)

Master Index to major arguments in all installments.

Farewell message from Dale Ratzlaff

Note: The page references given in parenthesis are from the

1990 edition of Mr. Ratzlaff's book The Sabbath in Crisis.

It has been my goal from the start of this discussion to look

at the biblical evidence and try to agree on what the Bible
says. Then, after we agree on what the Bible says, I thought
we might reach some kind of agreement on what the Bible
teaches on the topic of the Sabbath.

It appears that this method is not acceptable to Dr.

Bacchiocchi. I started out listing just the evidence, or
summary conclusions, from my study hoping he would state
which ones he agreed with and which ones he did not.
Immediately, Dr. Bacchiocchi started pulling texts from all
over the Bible trying to show what the text in question meant
before we even agreed on what it said.

He stated he felt I was trying to "trap" him by my summary

conclusions. For example, he would not accept the fact that
both the covenant signs of circumcision and the Sabbath
were presented as perpetual signs in the old covenant. He
knew that I did not believe that circumcision was a valid sign
for today so it was hard for him to accept my conclusion that
the old covenant stated that circumcision was an everlasting
covenant.

Dr. Bacchiocchi Emailed me stating that he did not like the

bits and pieces (summary statements) I was sending and
wanted me to write an essay instead. In answer to this I sent
two slightly revised chapters from Sabbath in Crisis on "The
New Covenant" and "Jesus and the Sabbath", part One, which
contained full biblical support for all conclusions reached. In
response to this, he stated to me that it would not be
acceptable to post chapters from my book. He wanted only a
summary position essay that he could counter.

The problem with the above is that my conclusions on the

Sabbath spring from a large data base of biblical evidence. To
present the conclusions without the evidence is foolish. I am
not interested in discussion or debate for the sake of
discussion or debate. My goal is to discover biblical truth,
then be obedient to that truth. I want to take the Bible for
what it says and not try to make it say more or less than that.
In other words, I want to come to Scripture with the spirit of
a learner, not using Scripture (hear a little and there a little)
to support preconceived opinions.

Therefore, I am going to withdraw from this discussion. I am

a busy pastor growing a church and I think my time may be
spent in better ways as my conclusions have already been
carefully stated in my book, Sabbath in Crisis.
I believe that truth needs no other foundation than honest
investigation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a
willingness to follow truth when it is received.

I have also revised my web site http://www.ratzlaf.com/ so

that several complete chapters may be downloaded (but not
duplicated) from this site. Also, I have summarized some of
the chapters in Sabbath in Crisis and may, if time allows, do
more.

I hope this is received in the spirit in which it was sent. May

God bless us all in our search for truth: Jesus Christ, himself.

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the

surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them
but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be
found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived
from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the
righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith"
(Phil. 3:8-9)

Dr. Bacchiocchi replies

First of all I would like to express my appreciation to Dale

Ratzlaff for taking time in his busy schedule to interact with
me. Judging from the thousands of messages received, I
believe that the exchanges have helped many people. The
New Covenant theology espoused by most evangelical
Christians today and recently adopted by several former
Adventist pastors, like Dale Ratzlaff, needs to be subjected to
Biblical scrutiny because it is affecting the lives of many
people. If nothing else, this discussion has impressed upon
me the need to undertake a major investigation of the New
Covenant theology.

Regarding Ratzlaff's allegation that I found his method

unacceptable, the truth of the matter is that initially I took
time to respond to each of his summary statements, as all of
you can verify by going back to the first six or seven
exchanges. But each time he came back asking me to accept
his statements with some modifications. The reason I refused
to endorse several of his statements is because I knew how he
uses his earlier statements later in his book to jump to
unwarranted conclusions.

Ratzlaff offers a good example, when he writes: "For example,

he [Bacchiocchi] would not accept the fact that both the
covenant signs of circumcision and the Sabbath were
presented as perpetual signs in the old covenant. . . . He
knew that I did not believe that circumcision was a valid sign
for today so it was hard for him to accept my conclusion that
the old covenant stated that circumcision was an everlasting
covenant." I have no problem accepting the plain fact that
both the Sabbath and circumcision are presented in the Old
Testament as "perpetual signs." The problem is the
conclusion that Ratzlaff draws from this simple fact. He
argues that as the circumcision, which was supposed to be a
"perpetual sign" was replaced by baptism, so the Sabbath,
which was supposed to be a "perpetual sign," was replaced
by the Lord's Supper (p. 185).

This conclusion is obviously wrong, because nowhere in the

New Testament suggests that the Sabbath was replaced with
the Lord's Supper. Circumcision was given as a sign to Israel
to remind them of their election and calling to be a separated
people among the surrounding pagan nations. The Sabbath
is a creational sign given to mankind to remind believers in
every age that God has created us perfectly, redeemed us
completely, and He will restore us ultimately.

It is true that the Sabbath, like circumcision, was also given

to Israel to remind the people of their covenant commitment
to God. But whether or not both of them were "an everlasting
covenant" given only to the Jews and meant to last only until
Christ's coming, depends from the witness of the Bible,
especially the New Testament. The Biblical witness is
abundantly clear. Christ Himself affirmed that the Sabbath
was made for mankind, and not just for the Jews (Mark 2:27).

The terms "everlasting," "for ever," "eternal" must be

interpreted in the light of the subject which they qualify. A
Hebrew slave who refused to go free on the Sabbatical year
was to serve his master "for ever" (Ex 21:6). God punished
Sodom and Gomorrha with "eternal fire" (Jude 7). The
limitation of "for ever" or "eternal" is self evident in these
instances. The point I am trying to make is that Ratzlaff
cannot lump the Sabbath and circumcision together as
Mosaic temporary signs simply because both of them are
designated as perpetual covenant signs.

The continuity or discontinuity of a sign is determined by its

function in salvation history. Contrary to circumcision, the
function of the Sabbath spans the whole history of
redemption, from creation to the final restoration. In fact in
all my 25 years of reading of the Sabbath/Sunday literature I
never read before that the Sabbath was replaced by the
Lord's Supper. To my knowledge no scholar has ever
suggested such a replacement. The New Testament clearly
links the Lord's Supper to Passover and not to the Sabbath.

In his summary statements Ratzlaff never tells the reader

where he is heading to. This is why I asked him repeatedly to
give a complete exposition of his position. I find his
fragmentary method very deceptive, especially for lay people
who have not been trained to think analytically. He gives the
impression of being very Biblical by giving numerous
supporting test, but he ignores those texts which negate his
conclusions. The credibility of a Biblical research is
determined not by the number of texts used, but by the fair
inclusion of the representative texts.

For example, Paul explicitly says: "Neither circumcision

counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but the keeping of
the commandments of God" (1 Cor 7:19). It is evident that
Paul distinguishes between circumcision and God's
commandments. But Ratzlaff ignores the distinction made by
this text, in order to defend his thesis that both the moral
and ceremonial law are part of the Old Covenant terminated
at the Cross. This is an irresponsible methodology. A
responsible Biblical scholar endeavors to examines all the
data before drawing conclusions.

Ratzlaff accuses me of "pulling texts from all over the Bible

trying to show what the text in question meant before we
even agreed on what it said." The problem with Ratzlaff is
that he tries to interpret a passage in isolation, without
taking into account the total witness of the Bible. For
example, he argues that in the creation story there is no
indication that God established the Sabbath for mankind.
Then, he uses this conclusion to explain away the clear
testimony of Jesus that "The Sabbath was made for man"
(Mark 2:27) and of Hebrews 4:4 which takes for granted the
creation-origin of the Sabbath. This is an irresponsible
method of Biblical interpretation.

Regarding Ratzlaff's complaint that I sent back to him

chapters 5 and 6 of his book, asking him to prepare instead
an essay that offers a complete presentation of his view on
the Sabbath and the New Covenant, let me explain my two
reasons for such a request. First, I wanted to give a chance
to the readers to get a complete picture of his position.
Unfortunately the two chapters he sent are rather
disconnected. His views of the relationship between the
Sabbath and the New Covenant are most found especially in
chapter 5, 12, and 15. Second, an organic presentation
would have facilitated my analysis of his position. It would
not have been necessary for me to jump over several
chapters to figure out how he develops his conclusions.

I should clarify that I did not ask Ratzlaff to prepare a brief

summary statement to deprive him of the opportunity to
present an adequate Biblical data. I suggested to him to try
to keep the essay to 48K, because many members of our
Sabbath Discussion list have providers like Juno that reject
any document that is longer than 50K. What this means is
that length of his essay could have been about 30 pages,
which is slightly less than the length of the two chapters he
sent me (56K). Ratzlaff replied to me saying, "I do not have
the time to 'discuss' in your format." The issue was not the
length but the "format." If necessary, he could have divided
his presentation in two parts, as I have done with my
analysis.

I can sympathize with Ratzalff that it takes considerable time

to prepare an essay that gives a complete picture of one's
position. It is easier to post chapters of one's book, and let
other people draw their own conclusions. But this is not the
purpose of this discussion. Readers are eager to see how we
deal with the questions raised about our respective
methodology and conclusions. If they want to read chapters
of our books they can download them from our web pages or
order a copy.
 My final comment is about Ratzlaff's decision to withdraw
from the discussion. Let me say that I am not surprised by
his decision because I have had similar experiences before.
Four or five years ago an Evangelist of the Church of Christ
invited me to debate him in cyberspace in preparation for a
public debate. After three or four exchanges he decided to
withdraw. Actually he was very gracious because he
recognized that he had never had the chance to study some
of the issues we were debating, and accepted my offer of
sending him some books to read.

A little over two years ago the Pastor General of the

Worldwide Church of God asked me to meet with him for a
private dialogue here at Andrews University. A few weeks
before the date set for the meeting, he decided to cancel the
meeting. We had few exchanges in cyberspace, but it was not
long before he also decided to quit. I must say that Ratzlaff
has lasted much longer than these previous gentlemen.

At this point my plan is to complete the analysis of Ratzlaff's

book by posting at least three more installments. I feel that I
owe this service to those who wish to know what are the
fundamental fallacies of the popular New Covenant theology
that is attracting at this time some Sabbatarians, including
some Adventists. Mr. Ratzlaff will receive a copy of my
installments and he is welcome to respond to my analysis. If
he chooses to respond, I will be sure to post his responses
together with my comments as in this instance.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ratzlaff again

for taking time to discuss with me his New Covenant
theology. I know that many have appreciated our endeavors
because it has helped them to see the issues in a broader
perspective.

May God continue to bless our endeavors as we seek to

understand more fully how we can experience His presence,
peace, and rest in our tension-filled and restless society.

[Installment #12] | [Installment #14]

This article taken from the Bible Study Web Site at http://www.biblestudy.org/