Notes on the Review of Ratzlaff of Goldstein's book "Graffiti in the Holy of Holies Biblical Support or obscurantism"

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University     

Sangju Campus 

South Korea

conjoint lecturer of Avondale College      

Australia

28 September 2009

Dale Ratzlaff reviewed a book by Clifford Goldstein (see Dale Ratzlaff, "Review of Graffiti in the Holy of Holies Biblical  support or obscurantism?" Proclamaton [January, February 2004]: 14-19).

As background we need to point out that Goldstein is part of the Biblical Research Institute team in Washington for Seventh  Day Adventism. Dale Ratzlaff is a seemingly ex-Adventist who employs the hermeneutics of suspicion as his modus operandi.

What we will do in the following writing is to take the statements of  Ratzlaff and pick out some highlights and comment on  them.

1. Ratzlaff on error of Miller

I have a copy of Miller’s chart which I purchased not long ago when I visited Miller’s Chapel in Vermont. This chart lists the events upon which Miller’s 15 “proofs”were based, and EGW said,“The Lord showed me that the 1843 chart was directed by his hand, and that no part of it should be altered; that the figures were as he wanted them.” EGW said that “the prophetic periods reached to 1844”, and that the same evidence they had presented to show that the prophetic periods closed in 1843, proved that they would terminate in 1844.2 Here EGW uses the plural “periods” showing that there was more than one line of prophecy pointing to 1843, 44.

van wyk notes:

1. It is no problem when a period is calculated to 1843 and then corrected to 1844. The essence of the period of the 2300  days or years does not change.

2. When you are dealing with a Julian, Babylonian or Hebrew calculation, as Thiele-Horn showed so many times, then you  have a shift that what is in one Julian year following a Babylonian reckoning, but the same length is actually in the next  Julian year by Hebrew calculation.

3. Ellen White would correctly use periods for the 2300 year period is composed also of a 490 year period that starts at the  same point.

4. Ellen White used periods, not because she endorse William Millers date of 1843 and 1844 but because she endorsed the  combination of 2300 years and 490 years as starting the same time (same terminus a quo). 

2. Ratzlaff on socalled false gospel of EGW

Ellen White said that Miller’s message proclaiming that Christ would come in 1843 was a “saving message”, and of those who rejected the “time” aspect of this false message she said,“The blood of souls is upon them.”Here she makes Miller’s error “a saving message”. These same pastors “had no opposition to the preaching of Christ’s coming, but they objected to the definite time.”3 Here EGW makes the acceptance of the date of 1843, 44 a “saving message”. This is clearly a false gospel!

van wyk notes:

1. Ellen White does not focus on the terminus ad quem, she is focussing on the value of this message as a biblical principle.

2. She is not navigating the exactness of the second.

3. Not when it happens exactly but that it happens at that time, whether 1843 following one calendar or 1844 following  another calendar.

4. Miller's message was a saving message and it was a peril to reject this light. Why? Since it is all within the great domain  of systematic theology, called soteriology, the how Jesus saves us in His new ministry in heaven.

5, The acceptance of 1843/1844 is a saving message furthermore, since Protestants of the Reformation tuned in with  biblical prophecy here and become part of the fulfillment anticipated here.

6. The Sanctuary Message and Christ's role in the Most Holy became the greatest contribution to Protestant Soteriology  that Adventists have made, recognized as such or not.

7. While Protestant churches have all suffered from the liberal theological strands and brands to reject miracles,  incarnation, veracity of the Word of God replaced by Historical Criticism and its attachments, Adventists are still biblical  Fundamentalists and gladly and proudly so.

8. What Miller found he did not found in a vacuum. All protestant theology during the era shortly before his announcements  were steered in this direction.

9. In a letter to Miller, when Miller asked him if he made a mistake to suggest this date, the Hebrew Professor George Bush  at New York University said to him, you had no choice but to follow the tradition of such great men as Jerome, Isaac Newton  and many others before you.

10. Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg predicted also a coming at the end of the 2300 years, although a bit later than Millerites.

11. To throw stones at history, you need to study history since that is proper historiography. To write about spiritual  history, you need to be faithful yourself and not play with God and secularism (secret sausage eatings [Elder Henry Brown's  memoirs 3 Proclamaton January/February 2004: 20]; or using contemporary music to attract youth resulting in a noisy  worship dedicated to God [Christopher Lee, same Journal).

3. Ratzlaff on the Shut Door experience

Goldstein, in seeking to defend the erroneous statements of EGW, makes a passing reference to EGW’s vision that supports the shut door of mercy and then says,“Whatever Ellen White was shown in that first vision, she could have simply read more into it than was there.”4 Yes, Mr. Goldstein, I believe that is exactly what she did! How, then, can one trust her writings to be “a continuing and authoritative source of truth” as stated in the Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists?

van wyk notes:

1. Goldstein comment is his own one and is not inspired and stands thus under correction or not: "Whatever Ellen White was  shown in that first vision, she could have simply read more into it than was there".

2. Whatever Goldstein meant by this statement, the Shut Door Vision means that God gives to everyone a chance to accept  truth so clearly presented or to reject it. Why? Since the error was followed by a correction and that was envisaged by God  as well. But, God work with corrections while Satan claims the errors. The fact of the Shut Door still remains.

3. These people at that day had the clearest seminars, lectures, sermons hourly, daily, weekly, even monthly so that a full  understanding of all the implications was very vivid.

4. To reject this chance of theological and biblical enrichment and not continue following the proper hermeneutics to the  final Sanctuary Message was indeed something that deserved a Shut Door case.

4. Ratzlaff on the Shut Door repeated

Goldstein does not mention the letter of EGW to Joseph Bates and several other visions and letters where Ellen White, based upon a vision she had,“corrects” those who had given up the shut door of mercy and, by so doing, she “closed” that door of mercy again! Read Chapter 7,“The Swinging Door” for abundant evidence.

van wyk notes:

1. Luther did study the Sabbath but very flaky.

2. The Sabbath was not the Mercy Door experience for Luther but Justification by Faith alone based upon sola scriptura  principles was.

3. In the days of Ellen White and Miller, that experience was the Shut Door experience for them, since it was yet another  developement in a line of theological cognitive growth of the remnant.

4. Luther was a remnant without the Sabbath but Miller would become a remnant with the Sanctuary Message  understanding and later the Sabbath understanding, all cardinal issues.

5. Ellen White is not Shutting the Door again, she is restating that the Shut Door experience is a fact and reality. God does  hold people accountable for what they can know in a particular moment. It is biblical fact.

6. The Shut Door for Judas Iscariot is when he walked out on Christ when Christ reached out to him with the bread.

7. It is not a case of a swinging Shut Door as Ratzlaff tries to invent, but a case of multiple Shut Doors every time one has a  chance to be saved and rejects it, especially continuously.

5. Ratzlaff citing Cottrell as defense for not studying DARCOM

Goldstein takes me to task for not responding to the approximately 2,000 pages of the seven volume DARCOM series which supposedly answers all of the questions raised in Dr. Ford’s Daniel 8:14 The Day of Atonement And the investigative Judgment and also Cultic Doctrine. True, I did not, but read on: The late Dr. Raymond Cottrell, who has studied this topic more than any other person, said of this series and the church’s response to those who raise real questions about SDA’s Sanctuary doctrine: “Webster defines obscurantism as ‘depreciation of or positive opposition to enlightenment or the spread of knowledge, esp. a policy ... of deliberately making something obscure or withholding knowledge from the general public.’ Here, the word ‘obscurantism’ is used in the specific sense of making presumably authoritative decisions and/or statements with respect to the sanctuary doctrine on the basis of untested, preconceived opinions and/or without first weighing all of the available evidence on the basis of sound, recognized principles of exegesis and basing conclusions exclusively on the weight of all the evidence.” “Obscurantism has characterized the official response of the church to every question raised with respect to the traditional interpretation of Daniel 8:14, the sanctuary doctrine, and the investigative judgment. In at least most instances this obscurantism has been inadvertent and not intentional, but its effect has been the same as if it had been intentional. It is high time for the church to be done with the traditional clichés with which it has heretofore responded to questions regarding the sanctuary doctrine. It is time to face up to and to deal fairly and objectively with all of the evidence.”

van wyk notes:

1. Cottrell had many problems in his life and ontology that is reflected in his epistemology and flows into his methodology  and finally in all his endproducts (deontology) articles, books, comments, sermons, lectures etc.

2. Ratzlaff acknowledge that he did not consult the DARCOM of the SDA church on 8:14.

3. If one does not get acquanted with the source of your contention then people begin to wonder why you are complaining.

6. Ratzlaff ascribing mala fide actions to SDA leaders

In my humble opinion, I would go further than the late, kind and gentle Dr. Cottrell and say that the SDA church’s practice of obscurantism is intentional. SDA leaders write and promote books that claim to have all the answers and are designed to deceive the SDA membership into thinking that SDA scholars have solved all the problems so the members need not be concerned, nor should they take the time to study into it for themselves. Moreover, by all means, they should not read books by former Adventist pastors who “attack” this doctrine or EGW!

van wyk notes:

1. Notice how Ratzlaff jump on the attack wagon by ascribing SDA leaders as mala fide deceivers.

2. Ratzlaff then states that the church leaders thinks their volumes of studies on a subject solved all the problems and that  members should not be concerned and finally not study. (Overreaction).

3. The studies and books of SDA research commitees is designed to help those who are more interested to investigate the  attacks by former SDA's. There is nothing wrong with that.

7. Ratzlaff citing sources against DARCOM

For those who want to do a scholarly comparison of the 2,000 pages of the 7 Volume DARCOM series,may I suggest that you (1) go to our web site (http://www.ratzlaf.com/Qstore/Qstore.cgi) and order former SDA Pastor Dr. Fred Mazzaferri’s new E-book, As In A Mirror, which is a scholarly and well documented answer to the DARCOM series and (2) go to http://www.ratzlaf.com/downloads. htm and download Dr. Raymond Cottrell’s, 40 page paper, “The Sanctuary Doctrine—Asset or Liability?”

van wyk notes:

1. Cottrell is a can of worms. This is an expression to say that he was full of troubles, in his own life (spinning into his  academics) and also for others.

2. At http://www.egw.org in the old series at VAN WYK NOTES, there is an article on Raymond Cottrell but liberal  theologians are in for many surprises.

8. Ratzlaff lay out rules for good church doctrine

Graffiti has many pages dealing with the apocalyptic passages of Daniel that are designed to show the validity of SDA’s 1844 Investigative Judgment. However, here is the major problem with this and several other SDA doctrines. Church doctrine should not be based on one obscure text or even several obscure texts from highly symbolic apocalyptic writings.

van wyk notes:

1. Ratzleff overlooks the history of interpretation and brush it aside with his own etiquette that rings a preteristic bell that I  have heard at Reformed Calvinistic schools that I attended in the 1970's, prophetic books that are etiquetted as "obscure"  just so that they do not have to interpret them.

2. Ratzleff calls Daniel 8:14 an obscure text.

9. Ratzlaff claims no theologian outside Adventism came near to the Investigative Judgement doctrine in 1844

Yes,Daniel 8:14 is an obscure apocalyptic text! To go from Daniel 8:14 to SDA’s Investigative Judgment in 1844 one must make over 20 dubious and linking assumptions, most of which are contrary to the evidence. Only a very few Adventist scholars are able to do this—most SDA scholars admit in private that it is impossible to do using good hermeneutics! No other Bible student or theologian from the time of Christ to the present day has been able to get the 1844 and the Investigative Judgment doctrine from Scripture. Why is this?

van wyk notes:

1. The Investigative Judgement was in E. Hengstenberg's vizier as well as the 2300 days that was to end somewhere in the  1880's. Is it just Adventists?

2. Ratzleff is operating with the hermeneutics of suspicion and that is why he ends where one finds him. Off-road.

10. Ratzlaff suggests sound doctrine should be from clear, contextual and didactic writing

The reason is that ALL of the above are following the cultic hermeneutic of basing doctrine on some obscure text(s) of the Bible, defining what that text(s) means, and then making all those who “have the truth” line up with their understanding of that text. Sound doctrine, however, should be derived from clear, contextual, didactic teaching.Where the Bible is clear we can be certain.Where the Bible is unclear we must be tentative.

van wyk notes:

1. Ratzlaff tries to lay down a rule of doctrines based on obscure texts that should be avoided.

2. Clear, contextual and didactic teaching should be at base for doctrines, he says. One can think that an archaeological  article on Temples in the ANE, other Old Testament genres on Temple or Sanctuary, Throne, Day of Atonement etc, is  relevant here.

3. The history of interpretation helps us to see if an obscure text receive valuable levels for example the 490 years  prophecy became connected to help the Messianic expectation near the coming of Christ as both Qumran on Jubilees (R.  Beckwith et al) shows.

11. Ratzleff's concept of a pre-advent judgement

The pre-advent judgment is our response to the gospel.That response is revealed to all at—not before—the second coming of Christ.You have misrepresented my understanding of the simple gospel of Christ which I clearly articulated.

Following are quotes from my chapter summary:

(1) “By his death on the cross, Jesus judged Satan and demonstrated God’s justice in the way God saves sinners.”6

(2) “The good news of the judgment is that all who believe and trust in the life, death and resurrection of Christ can say with assurance,‘I’ve been acquitted!’We have already been judged in Christ.Those who reject the gospel, judge themselves unworthy of eternal life.”7 [This is what I said could be referred to as a “preadvent judgment.”]

(3) “The second coming of Christ will be a revelation of how men responded to God’s gracious gift of salvation.”8 This is not what Adventists have been saying.

van wyk notes:

1. Every sentence that Ratzlaff here states in 1-3 can be shown to be in EGW as well as in SDA doctrines on soteriology.

2. There is nothing wrong with what Ratzlaff says in these three numbers.

3. Probably if he talks longer than what is written here, differences will appear but on the face of the writing here,  Adventists are known to say the same.

12. Ratzleff on John 5:24

While John 5:24 states clearly that believers do not come into judgment, Adventists teach that only believers come into the Investigative Judgment.

van wyk notes:

1. Ratzlaff denies the biblical doctrine of two judgements: investigative and executive.

2. Even in modern civil procedures the investigation is prior to the allocation of the punishment.

3. John 5:24 is talking not about the investigative judgement but the executive judgement.

13. Ratzlaff's good summary of Adventist Investigative Judgement doctrine

For this reason,we are including the following summary of this doctrine as presented in Cultic Doctrine.

Summary of the Cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary and the Investigative Judgment

The Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the Cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary and the Investigative Judgment teaches that at the ascension Christ entered the outer apartment of the heavenly sanctuary. From that time until 1844, he performed a ministry of intercession and forgiveness analogous to that of the earthly sanctuary’s outer apartment.9 In 1844 Christ entered into the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary for the first time10,11 to begin a work of investigative judgment.12 This judgment deals only with those who have professed to believe in God.13 The wicked, according to SDA theology, will be investigated during the 1000 years14 and executed shortly after the close of the 1000 years of Revelation 20.15 The investigative judgment starts with the cases of the dead, reaching clear back to Adam, and reviews the life records of every person who has professed faith in God. Every deed is closely examined. Each succeeding generation is investigated and judged.16 At some time, none know when, the cases of the dead are completed and God then moves to the cases of the living.17 SDAs believe they will not know when their name comes up in judgment.18 Therefore, it is extremely important that they engage in no frivolous activity or sin. Every sin must be confessed. Sins which have been forgotten and unconfessed will stand against them in the judgment.19 Their characters must demonstrate perfect obedience to the Ten Commandment law,20 especially the Sabbath of the fourth commandment.21 Some names in this list of professed believers will be accepted, others will be rejected.22 When every person confessing faith in God has come up in review, Jesus then pleads his blood before the Father on behalf of those who are found worthy, and blots out the record of their sins from the books of heaven.23 Then, not knowing if or when the work of investigative judgmenthas been completed, the righteous, still in their human state, before the second coming of Christ, will have to live in thesight of a holy God without an intercessor.24 This, then, completes the atonement.25 Jesus then takes the sins of God’s people and transfers them to Satan, who is represented by the Day of Atonement scapegoat in Leviticus 16.26 Satan then bears the ultimate responsibility for all the sins he has caused the righteous to commit.He will suffer for these sins in the lake of fire and then be blotted from existence.27 The investigative judgment is conducted before all the intelligences of the universe.This, then, vindicates the character of God before all the unfallen beings.28 Then everyone will know the immutability of the law of God and the righteous character of God.29

van wyk notes:

1. This is a fine summary by Ratzleff of SDA concepts of the Judgement.

2. He does not cite the texts of the Bible related to this, but it is in essence a correct summary.

14. Ratzlaff and Edson, White, SDA Beliefs and the Book of Hebrews

a. Edson

It is clear from the earliest records that this was the teaching and belief of early Adventists. In the Hiram Edson Manuscript Fragment,Mr. Edson relates his experience in the field the day after the great disappointment which laid the foundation for the reinterpretation of Miller’s 1844 prophecy which, in turn, laid the foundation for the SDA Investigative Judgment.“Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw distinctly and clearly, that instead of our High Priest coming out of the Most Holy of the heavenly sanctuary to come to this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days, that he for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary; and that he had a work to perform in the Most Holy before coming to this earth.”See Knight, Rise of Sabbatarian Adventism,p. 126.

b(1) Ellen White as source for Ratzlaff

Ellen White states,“Thus those who followed in the light of the prophetic word saw that, instead of coming to the earth at the termination of the 2300 days in 1844,Christ then entered the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary to perform the closing work of atonement preparatory to His coming.”The Great Controversy, p. 422.

b(2) Ellen White again as source for Ratzlaff

“As foreshadowed in the type, and foretold in the Scriptures,Christ, at the time appointed,entered the most holy place of the temple of God in heaven.He is represented by the prophet Daniel as coming at this time to the Ancient of days:‘I saw in the night visions,and,behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came’—not to the earth, but—’to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.’”Ellen G.White, Southern Watchman 1905-01-24.

c. Ratzlaff on SDA socalled cover-up of an error

In recent years Seventh-day Adventists have recognized this blatant disagreement with Scripture and now state that Christ “was inaugurated as our great High Priest and began His intercessory ministry at the time of His ascension.”

SDA Beliefs as source for Ratzlaff

See the SDA belief statement listed in the main text at the beginning of this chapter.Note,however, that all this says is that Christ became our High Priest at that time. It does not say that He entered the Most Holy Place. I believe this statement is designed to be somewhat nebulous. By itself it does not explicitly contradict Hiram Edson and Ellen White, which SDAs would not want to do, yet it also allows room for individual interpretation for those who want to make this doctrine agree with Scripture and want Christ in the Most Holy Place at the ascension as taught in Hebrews.)

van wyk notes:

1. There is no contradiction in Edson, White, SDA Belief, nor the Book of Hebrews.

2. In Daniel 7 there is no evidence that Christ did not interrupt His ministry on our behalf since the ascension to come with  a cloud of Angels taking up His work or new function again at the Father but in front of Him.

3. Since he was next to His Father before 1844 since the cross, one would expect Him to move away from the Throne to  come with clouds of angels for the Judgement in heaven and not on earth (also Ellen White).

4. Ratzlaff operates with the hermeneutics of suspicion here and as a result did not take time to properly reflect the  implications of what the four sources said above. 

d. Ratzlaff on Hebrews 6:19

Some Adventists make yet another reinterpretation in trying to harmonize EGW’s statement that Christ entered into the Most Holy Place in 1844 with the teaching of Hebrews 6:19.They state that Christ entered the Most Holy Place at the ascension to dedicate the Most Holy Place and then withdrew to the Holy Place until 1844 (see Ratzlaff footnote 11).

van wyk notes:

1. Hebrews 6:19 talks about the veil which Christ entered as forerunner as High Priest.

2. It sounds on the face of it and from quick reading as if Christ entered the Most Holy here.

3. First look at the word veil in Hebrews. There were two veils in the Tabernacle: a) one that separates the outer court from  the First Apartment. b) one that separates the Most Holy from the Holies.

4. The book of Hebrews recognize two veils: Hebrews 9:3 "and behind the second veil deuteron katapetasmata , there was a tabernacle which is  called the Holy of Holies". The same Greek word is used here for veil, katapetasma as in Hebrews 6:19.

5. If there is a second one there is a first one. We already explained that.

6. Although Jesus had direct access to His Father, the text does not say which veil He entered in Hebrews 6:19. Our  assumption here is that with the absence of information in this text itself, we may postulate rightly the first veil as Ratzleff  and other liberal theologians and hermeneutic of suspicion scholars postulates the second one.

e. Ratzlaff questioning Perfection as a goal

“Christ lived a life of perfect obedience to God’s law, and in this He set an example for every human being.The life that He lived in this world we are to live through His power and under His instruction.”Ellen G.White,Ministry of Healing,p. 180.“God requires perfect submission and perfect obedience. Eternal life is worth everything to us. You may come in close connection with God if you will agonize to enter in at the strait gate.” Ellen G.White, Testimonies for the Church,Vol. 4,p. 218 (see Ratzlaff footnote 20).

van wyk notes:

1. The doctrine of Christi exempli or the imitatio dei as goal is biblical. One sees it clearly in the words of Jesus, Paul,  Peter, John (1 John 3:2-3), James.

2. Perfection is a biblical doctrine of relationship founded on His Law in a new convenant descriptive relationship already  since Adam. The imputed Christ saved Adam and saves us equally well. No difference.

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