Chapter 5: The Deadliest Heresy in Seventh Day Adventism
“In the book Living Temple there is presented the alpha of deadly heresies. The omega will follow, and will be received by those who are not willing to heed the warning God has given.” {Ellen White 1 Selected Messages 203}
God gave a warning to us that this omega of deadly heresies would follow shortly after the Living Temple. This was a certainty. Not a few would receive it who did not heed the warnings given with respect to the Alpha. It is a deadly heresy. Death comes with this heresy.
What were the Heresies of the Alpha and Omega in regards to?
“Living Temple contains the alpha of these theories. I knew that the omega would follow in a little while; and I trembled for our people. I knew that I must warn our brethren and sisters not to enter into controversy over the presence and personality of God.“ {Ellen White 1 Selected Messages 203}
The Omega was surely coming in a little while. This heresy was in regards to the Presence and Personality of God.
“One and another come to me, asking me to explain the positions taken in Living Temple. I reply, "They are unexplainable." The sentiments expressed do not give a true knowledge of God.” {Ellen White 1 Selected Messages 202}
What does a false knowledge of God bring? Death. Kellogg’s understanding of the personality of God brought death. A true knowledge of God is eternal life.
Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
There is not a greater commandment then the first and great commandment. To know God is life eternal. To have a false knowledge of God is death, and deadly ,the greatest heresy can only be the opposite of the greatest commandment.
Mar 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
The first of all commandments is to hear that the Lord our God is one Lord. And it is eternal life to know him, the only true God and father of Jesus Christ.
The Omega would be a major Change in our Religion - Enter the Trinity
In the prophesy regarding the alpha and omega Ellen White prophesied that a major change would take place in our religion.
“Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error.” {Ellen White 1 Selected Messages 204}
According to some of our modern Seventh Day Adventist scholars and historical facts. What change has taken place in our religion? This is taken from the 1994 Adventist Review paper:
"Adventist beliefs have changed over the years under the impact of ‘present truth.' Most startling is the teaching regarding Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Many of the pioneers, including James White, J.N. Andrews, Uriah Smith, and J.H. Waggoner, held to an Arian or semi-Arian view ... that is, the Son at some point in time before the Creation of our world was generated by the Father ... the Trinitarian understanding of God, now part of our fundamental beliefs, was not generally held by the early Adventists. Even today a few do not subscribe to it." (William G. Johnsson in the Adventist Review, Jan. 6, 1994 p.10)
So our Fundamental Principles have been changed. The Trinity which is now part of our Fundamental Beliefs was not the same God that our pioneers worshipped. It was not the same God that our pioneers were proclaiming to the world in the first angels message.
According to modern Adventists our pioneers were fearing and giving glory to another God. In giving the message to “fear God and give glory to Him…worship Him”(Rev 14:7). They were telling the Churches in Babylon(Rev 14:8) to worship the wrong God according to most modern day Adventist teachers. Is this true that our pioneers were worshipping the wrong gods? Or have our leaders turned to the gods of Babylon?
Jer 2:11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?
Has a denomination changed their gods, which are yet no gods?
The Controversy with the Personality of God
The controversy with Kellogg was over “the presence and personality of God” which as we’ve seen above is the Foundation of our Faith.
Ellen said to Kellogg:
“You are not definitely clear on the personality of God, which is everything to us as a people. You have virtually destroyed the Lord God Himself.” (Ellen White Letter 300 1903.)
The Personality of God is EVERYTHING to US as a people. This is not a minor issue, this is not a distraction or secondary doctrine. Destroying who our God is destroys the gospel. How had Kellogg come to destroy the Personality of God? What was the change that was taking place in Adventism? Ellen White pointed Kellogg to the pioneers including her husband.
“Many of our people do not realize how firmly the foundation of our faith has been laid. My husband, Elder Joseph Bates, Father Pierce, Elder {Hiram} Edson, and others…What influence is it that would lead men at this stage of our history to work in an underhand, powerful way to tear down the foundation of our faith--the foundation that was laid at the beginning of our work by prayerful study of the Word and by revelation? Upon this foundation we have been building for the past fifty years.” {Ellen White 1 Selected Messages 206-7}
Regarding the Alpha, Ellen was asking what would cause men to destroy the foundation of our faith regarding our understandings of the personality of God? In referring to Kellogg’s understanding regarding the personality of God. Ellen pointed Kellogg back to our pioneers including her husband. Why was Kellogg being pointed back to men like her Husband?
“Here we might mention the Trinity, which does away the personality of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ.” (James White, December 11, 1855,Review & Herald, vol. 7, no. 11, page 85, par. 16)
He was pointed to men like James White because “This doctrine(the Trinity) destroys the personality of God, and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. .” {J. N. Andrews, Review & Herald, March 6, 1855}
It was also called a Spiritualistic Theory that denies the Father and Son
"It is something that cannot be treated as a small matter that men who have had so much light, and such clear evidence as to the genuineness of the truth we hold, should become unsettled, and led to accept spiritualistic theories regarding the personality of God." (Ellen White Special Testimonies, Series B7, p. 37)
A damnable and spiritualistic heresy that denies a literal Father and Son.
“Modern spiritualism, resting upon the same foundation, is but a revival in a new form of the witchcraft and demon worship that God condemned and prohibited of old.… Peter, describing the dangers to which the church was to be exposed in the last days, says that as there were false prophets who led Israel into sin, so there will be false teachers, “who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.… And many shall follow their pernicious ways.” 2 Peter 2:1, 2. Here the apostle has pointed out one of the marked characteristics of spiritualist teachers. They refuse to acknowledge Christ as the Son of God. Concerning such teachers the beloved John declares: “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” 1 John 2:22, 23. Spiritualism, by denying Christ, denies both the Father and the Son, and the Bible pronounces it the manifestation of antichrist.” (Ellen White, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 686)
Spiritualitic teachers refuse to acknowledge Christ as the Son of God, and God as the Father of Christ.
“The way spiritualizers have disposed of or denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ is first using the old unscriptural Trinitarian creed”(James White, January 24, 1846, The Day Star)
The Spiritualistic Trinity destroys the truth about the Father giving his Son. This is why it is so deadly. The Trinity teaches us that God has divided himself into 3 persons and all 3 have taken roles, or acted out the parts of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This is a denial of the literal Son ship of Christ and thus it is “Spiritualism”.
“He [Kellogg] told me that he now believed in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; (Letter by A. G. Daniells to W. C. White on October 29, 1903)
Kellogg believed in “God the Son” but as we have already learned in the previous chapter:
“Christ is one with the father, but Christ and God are two distinct personages”(RH June 1, 1905)
When did Christ become the Son of God?
Did they all decide at one point to pick straws and decide who of the three co-equals in the Trinity would be “The Son of God”? Is this how Christ became the Son? Modern Adventists have been saying that they decided to accept “roles”. In other words that God is 3 actors or pretenders. Quote:
“In order to eradicate sin and rebellion from the universe and to restore harmony and peace, one of the divine Beings accepted, and entered into, the role of the Father, another the role of the Son. The remaining divine Being, the Holy Spirit,... By accepting the roles that the plan entailed, the divine Beings lost none of the powers of Deity.... The divine Beings entered into the roles they had agreed upon before the foundations of the world were laid.” (The Week of Prayer issue of the Adventist Review, October 31, 1996)
That is heresy. And it is a deadly heresy, that destroys the love and truth of the gospel. The truth is God begat a Son in the ages of eternity.
“The dedication of the first-born had its origin in the earliest times. God had promised to give the First-born of heaven to save the sinner.” {Ellen White The Desire of Ages, p. 51}
Christ was born in heaven in earliest times. Can the finite mind explain when that was?
“Angels of God looked with amazement upon Christ, who took upon Himself the form of man and humbly united His divinity with humanity in order that He might minister to fallen man. It is a marvel among the heavenly angels. God has told us that He did do it, and we are to accept the Word of God just as it reads. And although we may try to reason in regard to our Creator, how long He has had existence, where evil first entered into our world, and all these things, we may reason about them until we fall down faint and exhausted with the research when there is yet an infinity beyond.” {E. G. White, S.D.A. Bible Commentary Vol. 7, p. 919} 1888
It is not for us to explain as to how long he has had his existence. Can a man explain eternity or the Spiritual realm? EJ Waggoner explained Christ’s beginning this way echoing the sentiments of Ellen White.
“As to when He was begotten, it is not for us to inquire, nor could our minds grasp it if we were told. The prophet Micah tells us all that we can know about it in these words, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.” Micah 5:2, margin. There was a time when Christ proceeded forth and came from God, from the bosom of the Father (John 8:42; 1:18), but that time was so far back in the days of eternity that to finite comprehension it is practically without beginning" (E. J. Waggoner—Christ and His Righteousness, pp. 21, 22).
Jesus was setup from everlasting, from eternity. He was brought forth before creation, since by him were all things created.
“The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, existed from eternity, a distinct person, yet one with the Father. He was the surpassing glory of heaven. He was the commander of the heavenly intelligences, and the adoring homage of the angels was received by him as his right. This was no robbery of God. "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way," he declares, "before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth."” {E. G. White, Review and Herald, April 5, 1906 par. 7}
Why is the Trinity So Deadly?
Why is this heresy so deadly? It denies the love of a real Father who really gave to Christ all things. It denies everything our Father gave to Christ, then after this it denies everything that was given to us since it denies that Christ was the literal Son of God. This takes away from the love of God, and cannot transform the character.
The bible says “By beholding we become changed”. If our God is actually 3 person’s role playing and acting, then the children of this God are beholding a pretend Father, thus they will become pretend children and pretend Christians. There is nothing in this heresy that has any converting power.
“Satan is determined that men shall not see the love of God which led Him to give His only-begotten Son to save a lost race; for it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance.” {E. G. White, Selected Messages Book 1, p. 156}
Satan is determined to keep us from seeing that God gave the firstborn of heaven from earliest times. His real Son.
1John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Behold the love of God thy Father, the only true God in giving to us his literal only begotten Son, and have eternal life rather than accepting a heresy that will only bring with it eternal death.
John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
"The Father was greater than the Son in that he was first. The Son was equal with the Father in that he had received all things from the Father" (James White, The Review & Herald, January 4, 1881).
To Summarize:
- The Omega Is a DEADLY heresy
- It destroys the Personality and Presence of God
- It was coming in a little while
- The Trinity destroys the personality of God
- It was a spiritualistic heresy in that it denies the literal Father Son relationship.
- The Trinity is a Spiritualistic heresy
- Christ is not God in personality
- God and Christ are distinct individuals and personalities
- True Knowledge of God is eternal Life
- The Religion has been Changed
A New Organization – New Movement – Built on Sand
As we have learned a reformation was to take place. This reformation included us giving up our foundational pillars.
“A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written...Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement…Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.” Selected Messages Book 1-Page 204, 205
A new organization has been established as we can clearly see, every point of this has been fulfilled. A new movement is going forward. The foundation is built on sand rather than on the rock.
The first angel’s message was about the God we worship and the gospel of His love. “Fear God and give glory to Him”(Revelation 14:6, 7). But the message does not stop here. There is another angel that follows this angel. First we need to examine some points about this “New Organization…built on sand”. Is this “God’s Church”? Is this even “the Seventh Day Adventist Church”?
God’s Church
Many today have confined God’s church to an earthly organization. There are many different organizations that call themselves “God’s church”. But what we want to look at is one particular organization that was NOT considered “the church” until recently by a large number of us who have had a misconception of the term “God’s church”. That organization is the General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists.
Next Chapter: God's Church is not Confined to an Earthly Organization
Book: "God’s Church Organization – The House Built on the Rock"
Chapters:
1: The Counterfeit Church Organization and the True Building
2: Reformers on the Church
3: Man Appoints a Head to the Organization
4: Foundation and Pillars of our Faith Changed
5: Deadliest Heresy in Seventh Day Adventism
6: God’s church is not confined to an Earthly organization
7: The True Seed of Abraham
8: The Elijah Message
9: Philadelphia – The 144,000
10: A Great Danger Right Before the Plagues are Poured Out
11: The Principles of Separation
12: Not to go and Listen to Error
13: Abomination and 25 Men A Prophecy by Ezekiel
14: Rebuilding That Which is Fallen - Reorganization
15: Church of the Firstborn - The Name of God's People
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