By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird
an article posted in the October 2024 Light Magazine
John Knox, an unlikely Scottish Reformer, is
the most influential Scotsman in Scottish history. Born around 1515, he went to the University
of St. Andrew’s before working as a notary priest who drew up and certified
contracts.
It was a wild and wooly time in the beginning
of the Scottish Reformation. John Knox said that it was merchants and mariners
who first brought the Reformation to Scotland, often in the form of books. In 1528,
Professor Patrick Hamilton of St. Andrew’s University was burnt at the stake by
Cardinal Beaton. John Knox said: “The reek of Master Hamilton’s burning has
infected as many as it blew upon.”
Knox’s first reformation appearance was
carrying a two-handed sword as he served as a bodyguard for the Scottish
Reformation preacher George Wishart. After preaching to the plague-infested
people of Dundee, Wishart became a Scottish hero. In December 1545, Wishart at
age 33 was taken by the Roman Catholic Cardinal David Beaton to the Castle of
St. Andrew’s where he was condemned and three months later was burned at the
stake. Beaton as the most powerful person in Scotland was nicknamed ‘the cruel
persecutor’.
After the killing of Cardinal Beaton by five
Scottish Lairds, 150 people took over his castle for nearly a year. Knox’s role was teaching the bible to the
children in the castle. The St. Andrew’s
Castle Chaplain, during a sermon, prophetically singled out John Knox, commenting
that God called John Knox to be a preacher and a leader of this Reformation.
All the people at the Castle congregation said ‘yes, we believe it. John Knox,
you are our man.’ Bursting into tears, John Knox ran into his chambers. This
was Knox’s turning point when he realized God’s call on his life to preach the
gospel and change a nation. He was a modern-day
prophet, a man of strong feeling. Knox’s two passions were justification by
faith alone and the call to flee idolatry. If the bible did not specifically
allow something, Knox’s default was to reject it as idolatry.
St. Andrew’s Castle was untouchable until the
Scottish Queen Mary of Guise called on the French Navy to siege it. John Knox
ended up spending eighteen months as a slave rowing on a open-air French
galley. Few people survived such back-breaking rowing for long, being totally
exposed to the worst of the weather. While
sailing past St. Andrew’s Castle, Knox prophesied in chains that one day he
would again preach at St. Andrew’s. It
did not look at all likely.
Unexpectedly King Edward 6th rescued
John Knox, licensing him to serve as a royal chaplain in Westminster Cathedral
and in Hampton Court. During this time
of favour, Knox turned down All Hallows Church the most influential pulpit
in London, and also the opportunity to be the Anglican bishop of Rochester. Knox
was a very fiery preacher, a white-hot firebrand. The English Ambassador Thomas Randall said:
“the voice of that one man is able in one hour to put more life in us than a
thousand trumpets continually blustering in our ears.” There is in John Knox the spirit of an Old
Testament Prophet, like Moses at the Burning Bush. The 19th century
Scottish author Thomas Carlyle said that he saw in Knox: “a sympathy, a veiled
tenderness of heart, veiled, but deep and of piercing vehemence, and withal
even an inward gaiety of soul, alive to the ridicule that dwells in whatever is
ridiculous, in fact a fine vein of humour....”
His suffering in the French galley ship left
him with many health problems: kidney stones, insomnia, fever, parasites, and
perhaps PTSD. In a March 23rd 1553 letter from Newcastle to his mother-in-law,
he said: “My old malady troubles me sore, and nothing is more contrarious to my
flesh than writing. Think not that I weary to visit you, but unless my pain
shall cease, I shall altogether become unprofitable.” Knox's life shows how God
often delights to work most powerfully through people who are most weak in
themselves.
Knox lived a rollercoaster life with many ups
and downs. There were three painful Marys in Knox’s life: Mary of Guise, Bloody
Mary, and Mary Queen of Scots, all who resisted the Scottish Reformation. With intense
waves of persecution from the new Queen, Bloody Mary, Knox fled in 1553 to Dieppe
in the Netherlands before moving to Geneva.
This gave him a chance to be directly mentored by John Calvin. Historian Philip Schaff held that Knox became
more Calvinist than Calvin. While in
Geneva, he preached three sermons a week to English refugees, each message lasting
well over two hours. Though he wrote a five-volume series on the History of
the Scottish Reformation, Knox saw himself as more of a preacher than a
writer: “I consider myself rather called of my God to instruct the ignorant,
comfort the sorrowful, to confirm the weak and rebuke the proud by the tongue
and lively voice in these corrupt days, rather than compose books for ages to
come.” Knox dreamed of turning Scotland into a nationwide version of Geneva.
Knox had a painful time in Frankfurt where he was
ousted from the Anglican Church over the Book of Common Prayer. Then he
returned to Scotland where he preached the gospel to working class Scots: “God
gave his Holy Spirit to simple men in great abundance.” The Queen mother, Mary of Guise, was a French
aristocrat who appealed to the Scottish elite. Knox dared to disagree with Mary
of Guise’s inner circle, speaking truth to the powerful. The thundering Scot
had a will of steel. With the sudden
death of Mary of Guise in 1560, the Scottish Parliament passed the Scottish
Confession of Faith, all within five days. Knox helped put out the first Book
of Discipline for the Church of Scotland.
When
Mary Queen of Scots at age 19 returned to Scotland in 1561, John Knox noted,
“She brings with her only darkness and impiety.” She was a great charmer, but
nothing worked on Knox who was summoned five times by Mary Queen of Scots. Weeping, flattering and charm did not move
John Knox. He taught: “One man with God is always a majority.” Mary Queen of
Scots said that she feared the prayers of John Knox more than an army of 10,000
men. Knox is best known for his prayer ‘Give Me Scotland or I die.’ In 1559, Mary Queen of Scots was determined
to kill John Knox, ordering her French army to follow John Knox, and fire on
Scottish congregations where he was preaching.
Knox fearlessly preached the gospel, hunched over the pulpit, and
thousands were converted to faith in Christ: “By God’s grace, I declared Jesus
Christ, the strength of his death, and the power of his resurrection.” In one
famous painting, he is portrayed as preaching with wild, tortured eyes at St.
Giles Cathedral to Mary Queen of Scots. John Knox was arrested in Oct 1563 by
Mary Queen of Scots after criticizing her upcoming marriage to the adulterous Henry
Stewart, Lord Darnley.
John Knox saw education as not the privilege of
the few, but the right of all. Education
was vital to a population able to read the bible for themselves. Scotland
became one of the most literate societies in the world.
Not everyone loved John Knox. He was burned in effigy and almost assassinated on at least one occasion. One hundred years later, his books were still banned by parliament in England, and one of his books was publicly burned. Even in 1739, the famous Great Awakening leader George Whitefield was condemned for allegedly reflecting the doctrine of John Knox. Recently Edinburgh City Council removed Knox’s gravestone, turning his grave site into a parking lot stall #23. Around 75 million Christians today are Presbyterians. It is better known around the world than in the UK.
When he died in 1572, the testimony was given
‘here lies one who never feared any flesh.’ In Arthur Herman’s book How the
Scots Invented the Modern World, he showed how John Knox and the courage of
his preaching has had lasting impact on western civilization. Bruce Gore says that the idea of government
by the people, of the people and for the people can be traced to John
Knox. His vision for spiritual freedom
led to a passion for freedom from political and cultural oppression.
May John Knox’s passion for freedom in Christ
inspire each of us to live more fully alive in Jesus.
Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird, authors of God's Firestarters
