Praise for Sabbath in Christ
“For those who are troubled by the endless confusion surrounding the biblical teaching regarding the keeping of the Sabbath, welcome relief has arrived. Plunge into this work by Dale Ratzlaff and be refreshed by a remarkable breadth of research about the biblical, historical, and theological background of the Sabbath. This is a must read for anyone who questions how to interpret the Old Testament in light of the fulfilling work of Jesus Christ. Ratzlaff’s work demonstrates that those who rely on the keeping of a literal Sabbath have missed the Sabbath that is ours in Christ.”—Dan Lind, Senior Pastor, Faith Bible Church, Glendale, Arizona
“Scripture is generally unambiguous and easy to understand. It is perspicuous. Yet the apostle Peter acknowledged that Scripture contains ‘some things hard to be understood’ (2 Peter 3:16). One of those difficult topics is the Sabbath. Colossians 2:16 and Romans 14:5, 6 suggest that confusion on this subject was a problem even in the earliest church. Over the years, much of what has been written about the Sabbath from both the church and the cults has only contributed to the confusion. That’s why I am grateful for the clarity and biblical insight Dale Ratzlaff brings to the issue. Sabbath in Christ is a real treasure—a simple, straightfor- ward, understandable digest of the best insights on a very difficult issue.”—Phil Johnson, Executive Director, Grace to You
“Interpretation of Scripture correctly hinges on a proper understanding of the covenants, and a crucial decision of whether to let the old or new covenant define the other theologically. I greatly appreciate the assistance Dale Ratzlaff has given though Sabbath in Christ for all who are seeking a clearer understanding of the gospel of grace in Christ Jesus.” —Clay Peck, Senior Pastor, Grace Place, Berthoud, Colorado
“At last…an easily readable work that untangles every link of the formidable claims of Sabbatarianism. Ratzlaff has done this by laying the plain Scriptures before our eyes and with great force of sweet persuasion causing us to see Jesus our Priceless Treasure.”—Geoffrey Drew, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, California
About the author
Dale Ratzlaff was a fourth generation Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) and was educated in SDA schools. He pastored in the Adventist church for 13 years, seven of these as a Bible teacher at Monterey Bay Academy, La Selva Beach, California.
In the 1980s, while nearing the end of his doctoral program at Andrews University, Dale Ratzlaff did an in-depth study of the SDA doctrine of the Investigative Judgment and Cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary, which Adventists teach started in 1844. He became convinced that this doctrine could not be supported by Scripture, was contrary to clear biblical teaching, and undermined the new covenant gospel of grace. As he could no longer teach this doctrine in clear conscience, Dale Ratzlaff and his wife, Carolyn, left the SDA denomination.
About two years after leaving the SDA church. Mr. Ratzlaff led a group of Christians in a seven-month inductive Bible study of the Sabbath. He continued studying the topic of the gospel, the covenants and the Sabbath and published Sabbath in Crisis in 1990. This book went through four printings, was revised and enlarged and printed under the title, Sabbath in Christ. The present volume is the second revision of Sabbath in Christ.
Mr. Ratzlaff has authored three other books dealing with Seventh-day Adventist issues: The Cultic Doctrine of Seventy-day Adventists, Truth Led Me Out and Truth about Adventist “Truth”. Three of these are now available in Spanish and are being translated into several other languages. He owns and operates LAM Publications, LLC, gives weekend seminars on Adventism and is a speaker at Former Adventist Conferences. He founded Life Assurance Ministries, Inc. and was the founding editor of Proclamation! now sent to about 30,000 homes. He has dozens of published articles.
The Ratzlaffs live in Peoria, Arizona have two married sons, Bruce and Mike, and four grandchildren.
Dedication
To my wife, Carolyn, who is my best friend and has been a supportive life partner on our theological journey. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude for her numerous helpful suggestions and for the countless hours she spent in reading the many versions of this and other manuscripts. Mostly, however, I thank her for our 53 years (and counting) of happy marriage!
Foreword
“Sabbath in Christ” declares its main goal in the title, and then offers a well defended and much needed paradigm shift to the Christian community. Traditionally, Christian debate over the Sabbath has focused on Saturday versus Sunday. Through careful Biblical scholarship, Sabbath in Christ demonstrates how the heart of the ‘Sabbath-for-Christians’ issue (like all true Christian issues) is Christocentric, not a debate about days.
Dale Ratzlaff builds a strong case that arguing for one holy day or the other misses the New Testament’s main point about the Sabbath: all old covenant holy days, including the seventh-day Sabbath, predicted and find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. They were the shadows pointing to His substance (Colossians 2:17). In other words, Scripture offers only two real options for seeking “God’s rest”:
- The old covenant way of seeking rest in a day—whether it be Saturday or Sunday.
- The new covenant way of entering God’s rest through the Person of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, and His finished work of salvation: “Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
This clarification, if true, is needed by both that great body of evangelical Christians who accept the absolute authority of Scripture; and by Seventh-day Adventists and other “Sabbath- keeping” groups who believe their seventh-day Sabbath doctrine sets them apart as God’s true commandment-keeping people.
I’m honored to write this foreword for my friend, Dale Ratzlaff, and like him, I can speak to both the above groups with some authority. I wore the yoke of Adventism as a pastor, administrator, doctoral student at an SDA seminary and associate professor of theology at an SDA college. Over several decades I served on key church committees and wrote significant portions of the SDA secondary religion textbooks. Adventism is a denomination filled with so many wonderful and highly dedicated people.
But I came to realize that, in practice, the true integrating center of Seventh-day Adventist theology is not Jesus Christ, but the Sabbath. It defines their identity and ecclesiology. Contrary to Romans 11:5, SDA’s are taught they are God’s true remnant church because they keep the seventh-day Sabbath. It defines their soteriology and their eschatology: for Adventists, the Sabbath is the great issue that ultimately decides who wears the mark of the Beast and receives God’s wrath (because of Sunday-worship); and those who are sealed by God for salvation (because of Sabbath-keeping).
In Adventism, anyone may openly question Christ’s sinless nature or even the sufficiency of His atonement and still be accepted. But to deny the seventh-day Sabbath as a moral test is grounds for immediate disfellowship. My Adventist friends need to test this focus biblically, with honest hearts, and I know of no other book that could help them do that better than this volume.
Like Dale, the clarity of the Gospel led me to separate from Adventism and move into the larger Christian community as the senior pastor of a large, thriving evangelical church, relishing the profound truth of Romans 7:4–6. Yet on this side, I still find many Christians who fail to grasp and celebrate how Jesus Christ both completely fulfilled and simultaneously deepened the old covenant law given to Moses. They need greater clarity concerning the glory of John 1:17: “The Law was given through Moses; but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
This book is a treasure for any Christian who can still relate to the confusion of Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1–8), when faced with the glorified Christ and with Moses [the Law] and with Elijah [the prophets]. This volume will help you preserve all God’s truth and yet, at the center, truly see “no one, except Jesus Himself alone” (17:8, NASB).
Dale is an expert guide through the covenantal tapestry in all of Scripture as God brings about eternal redemption and true rest in Jesus Christ for all humanity. Dale’s analysis (in chapters 9–12) of why Jesus intentionally instigated so many Sabbath controversies, especially those recorded in John 5 and 9, is alone worth the price of the book—even just his exegesis of John 5:18. Powerful!
This is now the third edition of “Sabbath in Christ.” The first edition, titled Sabbath in Crisis, was honored with a forward by the eminent New Testament theologian, D. A. Carson, who said “the merits of this book are three, and they are considerable.” He then cited Dale’s very accessible writing style, especially his chapter summaries; Dale’s own pilgrimage from Adventism into a deeper New Testament faith, and Dale’s careful adherence to time-honored biblical hermeneutics. I echo Dr. Carson’s sentiments that this volume, especially in its revised edition, could become the benchmark study of the Sabbath in Scripture.
Here is the bottom line. Dale calls us to realize that Jesus alone is the fullness of Prophet, Priest and King, Sacrifice and High Priest, Righteousness and Wisdom, Perfection, Covenant, Temple, Most Holy Place and Law. Jesus alone is our true Atonement, no longer a day. He alone is our true Passover, no longer a day. He is our true Provider of Pentecostal blessing, no longer a day; and Jesus alone is our true Sabbath-rest—it is no longer a day! We are complete in Him (Colossians 2:10). It is my prayer Sabbath in Christ will help thousands to “make every effort to enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:6– 11), so heaven’s courts may indeed resound with joy.
Richard Fredericks, Ph.D.
Senior Pastor
Damascus Road Community Church February 19, 2003
Preface
I was leading a weekly Bible study, and questions were being raised regarding the Sabbath. At the time we were in an ideal position to do a truly inductive study of this subject. Most of us were former Seventh-day Adventists, and we were meeting for services on Sabbath (Saturday). It had been about two years since we had left the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) church so we were far enough away from Adventism to not be bound by its theological paradigm, yet we felt no desire to change our day of worship. This proved to be the most rewarding Bible study most of us had ever done in that it was truly a “discovery” study. We were not seeking to prove anything.
We prayerfully studied the topic of the Sabbath every week for a period of about seven months. While the bulk of our research was done in Scripture itself, we also studied From Sabbath to Sunday and Divine Rest for Human Restlessness, both by the late Samuele Bacchiocchi, who was considered the leading SDA authority on this topic, The Forgotten Day, by SDA Desmond Ford, several articles by Robert Brinsmead, and From Sabbath to Lord’s Day, edited by D. A. Carson. These as well as several other works on the Sabbath topic, including a set of taped lectures by Nordon Winger, made up the resources for this original study. I freely acknowledge that many of the insights presented in this book are gleaned from the above writers and lecturers.
I continued to study the subjects of the Sabbath, covenants and the gospel and published Sabbath in Crisis in 1990. It was revised at the second printing in 1995. It was revised and enlarged again in 2003 and re-titled, Sabbath in Christ. Since the last printing, Ron du Preez has published Judging the Sabbath: Discovering what can’t be found in Colossians 2:16. His work purports to prove that the “Sabbaths” mentioned in Colossians 2:16 refer to the seasonal “sabbaths” and not the Seventh-day Sabbath. His work relies on the finer nuances of Hebrew and is supported by a number of Seventh-day Adventist scholars. The average reader who is not fluent in Hebrew will refer to this book as “proof that Adventists have been right all these years.” However du Preez supposition flies in the face of the conclusions of the vast majority of biblical scholars and commentators. So that the reader might better understand the issues involved, Old Testament scholar, Jerry Gladson, Ph.D., consented to do a scholarly review of this book and has given me permission to print his evaluation.
I again give my thanks to Dr. Richard Fredericks, former SDA pastor and scholar, and now Senior Pastor of the growing Damascus Road Community Church. Pastor Fredericks gave a series of messages on the topic of the Sabbath entitled, “Sabbath in Christ.” I listened to this audio series1 and both Dr. Fredericks and I feel that this title not only reflects his study but also the theses of my book and he has graciously let me use this title.
I have chosen to write out most of the Bible references used. However, when this would be too cumbersome, I have summarized the key concepts and listed the Scripture reference for further study. At times I have emphasized a particular word or phrase by putting it in italics. Words added within a quotation will always be enclosed in brackets. All Bible references are taken from The New American Standard Bible2 unless otherwise noted.
At the end of most chapters I have summarized what I consider to be the pertinent scriptural facts delineated within that chapter.
It is my earnest prayer that as you read this book you will be drawn into closer fellowship with the risen Lord, have a deeper understanding of the gospel of Christ and experience His true rest and real redemption; that you will accept Christ as your Covenant Keeper and the center of your joyous worship.
Dale Ratzlaff
Peoria, Arizona
August, 2010
- Available from Damascus Road Community Church, Damascus, MD at 301-253- 5276 or www.damascus.com.
- Some are from the updated edition and others from the earlier edition.