By Stefani Leeper
Jesus is coming soon.
This is something we believe as Adventists. In light of recent political and religious turmoil around the world, we could be worried about the future of this planet.
A question could be asked: Are you ready to stand by your convictions?
As a reward for remaining loyal to his religious and moral conscience, Sir Thomas More was beheaded, his head boiled and displayed on the London Bridge for a month, and then removed and kept by his daughter Margaret until her death. The sentence was delivered by friend King Henry VIII after More refused to recognize the king as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and to verify Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
“I die the king’s faithful servant,” More said to those who came to witness the execution, “but God’s first.”
The unfortunate tale is retold in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, an adaptation of the play by Robert Bolt, an agnostic playwright concerned with the issue of conscience.
In the film, King Henry admits his sins to More, yet breaks from the Catholic Church as the pope would not grant the divorce. Only by naming himself Head of the Protestant Church of England was he able to divorce Catherine and secure a marriage to Anne Boleyn. More resigned as Chancellor of England in response, thereby pitting him against the king.
More was given multiple opportunities to save his life, but each offer met a refusal. At one point, his friend begged him to sign the petition as everyone else had done, a supplication echoed by the More family. “And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me?” retorted More.
Earlier, More asked his friend if he would keep a secret, even from Henry, and receiving the affirmative, More asked what became of his oath of obedience to England. “When a man takes an oath, he is holding his own self in his own hands, like water,” explained More, “And if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.” According to David Hagopian of the Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics, “an oath or promise is simply an agreement entered into between one person and another whereby the one taking the oath (1) explicitly or implicitly appeals to God to witness and sanction what he has said or committed himself to, and (2) calls God to judge and avenge His name if what he said is false or what he committed to do never comes to pass” (So Help Me God: A Biblical View of Oaths).
In other words, by pledging oneself to an oath, one is entering a promise, or a covenant, with God. To further complicate matters, these oaths are based on our convictions, which each of us has an obligation to follow. This concept is beautifully explained by Paul in Romans 14.
Romans 14 discusses the weak and the strong in faith in terms of how fundamentally—rigidly—Christians follow the law. For example, some may eat meat and some may eat vegetables, but neither is wrong, per say, in the sight of the Lord, as long as they follow their convictions in regard to their understanding of the law.
“One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. . . . He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks” (Romans 14:6,7 KJV, emphasis added).
“God gives to every soul freedom to think, and to follow his own convictions,” echoes Ellen G. White in “The Law of the New Kingdom,” Desire of Ages, p. 550. We are to answer to God based on our own conviction, or what we feel is right and how we behaved according to that conviction.
What gives Paul the certainty of this claim? God’s revelation, of course, after the Spirit was found in recent converts not yet circumcised.
The Jews claimed Paul a heretic for denying the covenant of circumcision. Seventh-day Adventist pastor and founder of ARISE David Asscherick justifies Paul’s reasoning behind his claim in Acts 21 and 22. On July 16, Asscherick told the Mills Spring Ranch, Casper, Wyoming congregation that circumcision “was to create wounded genitals.” Abraham laughed at God, and was to be circumcised as a result. In effect, Abraham was to recognize that the promise of heirs did not rest on his own physical accomplishments and prowess, but on God’s divinity and goodness.
In essence, circumcision was to be a symbol of not trusting to the self, but trusting that God will deliver on His promises. However, by the time the New Testament was written, the purpose of circumcision diminished and, said Asscherick, “became a symbol of cultural elitism and disdain for Gentiles.”
In the words of Ellen G. White, “The ordinances which God Himself had appointed were made the means of blind- ing the mind and hardening the heart” (“The Fullness of the Time,” The Desire of Ages, p. 36).
Paul and other early church leaders knew that when symbols cease to hold their meaning they become irrelevant.
“And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:7-9 KJV).
And Paul stood for his belief, only to later meet the same fate as Sir Thomas More. Both men believed in the power of prayer over forsaking conscience.
We are called to do the same.
A day may come when we must “face the music” in our lives. Thomas More’s example may be helpful, allowing us to look in the eye of an executioner, and whisper, “I forgive you, right readily. Be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.”
Stefani Leeper was the RMC 2016 summer communication intern, and is a senior at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska.