Omega means end. From the following statement by Ellen G. White, one may easily discern that the Omega of Apostasy as to be "....developing and increasing and waxing stronger, and will continue to do so until the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout."
Some SDA leaders in their official organ, the Adventist Review, have said, as have some on this very forum, that the Omega was over shortly after the Alpha. Tom Cusack, an SDA pastor, said that on Adventist Issues Internet forum once. He said that the Omega was over. I know that Tom has now changed his mind. Praise God. This teaching is totally contradictory of Scripture and Ellen White, as is evinced by Ellen White's description of the Omega of Apostacy in the following statement::
"One thing it is certain is soon to be realized,-the great apostasy, which is developing and increasing and waxing stronger, and will continue to do so until the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout. We are to hold fast the first principles of our denominated faith, and go forward from strength to increased faith. Ever we are to keep the faith that has been substantiated by the Holy Spirit of God from the earlier events of our experience until the present time. We need now larger breadth, and deeper, more earnest, unwavering faith in the leadings of the Holy Spirit. If we needed the manifest proof of the Holy Spirit's power to confirm truth in the beginning, after the passing of the time, we need to-day all the evidence in the confirmation of the truth, when souls are departing from the faith and giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. There must not be any languishing of soul now." (E.G. White, Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 7, p. 57).
"The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath, of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.
Who has authority to begin such a movement? We have our Bibles. We have our experience, attested to by the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit. We have a truth that admits of no compromise. Shall we not repudiate everything that is not in harmony with this truth? (Ibid., no. 2, pp. 54, 55)."
Whole books have been devoted to the understanding of this apostasy, however, many of the authors have been involved in this very apostasy without even knowing it! By now it should be clear that all of Sister White's statements can be referring to only one issue, the nature of God's presence and personality as revealed in the false, pagan-papal Trinity doctrine. Some writers have attempted to connect the omega with the collapse of the medical work as it was first established. While it is true that the alpha began within the ranks of the medical work, the medical teachings of Dr. Kellogg were never brought into question by the brethren.2 Others, who consider themselves "historic Adventists," have sought to connect the omega to the Seventh-day Adventist - Evangelical conferences of 1955, 1956. While these conferences were a fruit of the omega, they were not the beginning of the omega. It was the acceptance of the Trinity doctrine that made these conferences possible.3
The Alpha of Apostasy
To better understand the whole issue, we need to go back to Dr. Kellogg and look at his understanding of the Holy Spirit. As we have noted before, the problem with The Living Temple was not physiology, but rather theology. Writing to George I. Butler, Kellogg noted:
As far as I can fathom, the difficulty which is found in The Living Temple, the whole thing may be simmered down to the question: Is the Holy Ghost a person? You say no. I had supposed the Bible said this for the reason that the personal pronoun "he" is used in speaking of the Holy Ghost. Sister White uses the pronoun "he" and has said in so many words that the Holy Ghost is the third person of the Godhead. How the Holy Ghost can be the third person and not be a person at all is difficult for me to see." (Letter from J. H. Kellogg to G. I. Butler, October 28, 1903).
Commentary by Ron Beaulieu:
The Omega Involves the Personality and Presence of Christ
"I have been instructed by the heavenly messenger that some of the reaoning in the book Living Temple is unsound, and that this reasoning would lead astray the minds of those who are not thoroughly established on the foundation principles of present truth. It introduces that which is noght bu speculation in regard to thepersonality of God and where His presence is." E.G. White, Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 201.
The first principles of our faith were Bible based and had nothing to do with any creed formed by any ecumenical body. Ellen White related the great apostasy mentioned by Paul, to the Alpha of Apostasy and the presence and personality of God. Scripture is plain that there is ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT. It says that that Spirit is the Lord. Ellen White says that that Spirit is the Lord. The trinity doctrine says it is another person extra to the Lord or other than the Lord. That doctrine denies that the Lord sacrificed His Holy Spirit life and soul for us as a regenerating agency, when it teaches that the Holy Spirit is another person extra to the Son of God. That teaching thus denies that Christ sacrificed His pre-Incarnation Holy Spirit life and soul for us as a regenerating agency. This is the first principle of our denominated faith, and this is testified by the fact that SDA's have always taught that we are to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. That is totally impossible without the first principle of our faith which is the fact that keeping the commandments is only possible when we partake of the Divine Nature Holy Spirit Mind of Christ, which He laid aside as a crowing gift to us. My latest contributions on this issue prove that this was a sacrifice in addition to the cross, and was even greater than the cross because it was the "greatest good--crowning gift" of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Other of our first principles are:
Landmarks: "Those who seek to remove the old landmarks are not holding fast; they are not remembering how they have received and heard. Those who try to bring in theories that would remove the pillars of our faith concerning the sanctuary or concerning the personality of God or of Christ, are working as blind men. They are seeking to bring in uncertainties and to set the people of God adrift without an anchor." {MR760 9.5}
Notice Ellen White includes as pillars of our faith, matters concerning the sanctuary OR CONCERNING THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OR OF CHRIST. This is crucial and is not generally recognized. This is why God has appointed men to bring these things to light. Without the correct teaching of the Godhead or personality and presence of Christ, the Sanctuary and the Atonement are rendered as GONE, The Upward Look, 152.
"I entreat every one to be clear and firm regarding the certain truths that we have heard and received and advocated. The statements of God's Word are plain. Plant your feet firmly on the platform of eternal truth. Reject every phase of error, even though it be covered with a semblance of reality, which denies the personality of God and of Christ." {RH, August 31, 1905 par. 11}
Pillars -- Landmarks of Adventism -- "The passing of the time in 1844 was a period of great events, opening to our astonished eyes the cleansing of the sanctuary transpiring in heaven, and having decided relation to God's people upon the earth [also] the first and second angels' messages and the third, unfurling the banner on which was inscribed, 'The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus' [KJV]. One of the landmarks under this message was the temple of God, seen by His truth-loving people in heaven, and the ark containing the law of God. The light of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment flashed its strong rays in the pathway of the transgressors of God's law. The nonimmortality of the wicked is an old landmark. I can call to mind nothing more that can come under the head of the old landmarks. All this cry about changing the old landmarks [1888-1900, etc.] is all imaginary. Ellen G. White, Mnauscript, 1889; The Landmarks Defined, Counsels to Writers and Editors, pages 30, 31.
The Alpha of Apostasy clearly had to do with Holy Ghost as a person--whether or not the Holy Ghost was indeed a person. Ellen White cleared that up, saying that the Holy Spirit was as much a person as God was a person. Then she went further: She said that the Holy Spirit was the personal life and soul of Christ. It is this latter point--that the Holy Spirit is the life and soul of Jesus Christ, that totally involves the personality and presence of Christ in the Omega of Apostasy, for if the Holy Spirit is the personality and presence of another third person to the Godhead, other than Christ, as the Trinity doctrine asserts, then the great sacrifice of Christ's Incarnation from His Divine Holy Spirit life essence substance, laid aside as a regenerating gift to us to restore us to the image of God, is sabotaged. The personality and presence of God is sabotaged by the trinity doctrine in saying that the personality and presence of the Holy Spirit is another person and personality other than (extra to and existing eternally extra to) that of the Son of God prior to His Incarnation.
That teaching denigrates by totally denying the greatest good crowning gift that the Son of God ever gave to man--His Holy Spirit life and soul at His Incarnation, for the purpose of regenerating man back into the image of God. That is the most abominable heresy imaginable. That is the greatest abomination of Satan, because it denies the greatest crowing gift of the Son of God to man. Ellen White said that this was "the greatest good--crowning gift" to us. The ministering brethren have never understood this, The Upward Look, 152 and Isaiah 56:10-12, reapplied by Ellen White in Testimonies, vol. 5, 211.
Jeremiah says that God's people have returned to the iniquities of their forefathers, Jer. 11:9. The trinity doctrine is the iniquity of SDA forefathers which they have returned to and for this reason, the holy flesh [Christ] is passed from thee." Jeremiah 11:15. This is one of the greatest of all abominations for which we should be sighing and crying. This is the greatest OMEGA (TO THE END) HERESY AND APOSTASY. There are others, but this is the greatest and it was prophesied by Paul and Ellen White to be extant to the shout of Christ at His coming. This is the greatest reason why destruction "begins at His sanctuary," the professing, nominal, Seventh-day Adventist church.
Ron Beaulieu
Adapted from a study by Smyrna Ministries