John Knox, the undisputed leader of the Scottish Reformation, lived in highly unstable times. Scotland frequently shifted its allegiance between France and England. As a result, the people were caught in the vise of this political conflict. The Reformation, which was in full swing, fed this instability.
Knox was born in a suburb of Haddington in about 1514. He received a superb education, studying six or seven years at St. Andrews University. At age 25 he was accepted into the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. But his study of the Scriptures and the early Church fathers, especially Augustine, convinced him that the teachings of Rome were in error.
He was thrust into the position of public leadership by the martyrdom of two giants of the early Scottish Reformation -- Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart.
Hamilton (1503-1528), the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation, had been lured by Archbishop David Beaton to St. Andrews, ostensibly to debate his Reformation convictions. But the archbishop ordered him killed.
Wishart (1513-1546) had ministered throughout Scotland and had taught Knox the doctrine of justification by faith. But Archbishop Beaton had him strangled and burned. Knox had been Wishart's bodyguard, and in a burst of Reformation zeal he yearned to share in martyrdom. But before his death, Wishart ordered Knox to carry on the ministry without him. So Knox assumed leadership of the Reformation in Scotland.
Archbishop Beaton was assassinated three months later, and in revenge, his successor demanded that Knox be killed. So Knox became a fugitive. In 1547 he found refuge in the castle at St. Andrews. There, under the protection of the castle, he resumed his teaching duties. As he honed his skills, his reputation grew.
The Catholics, who were in control of Scotland at that time, feared the spreading Reformation, so they appealed to France for help. On July 31, 1547, the French navy arrived at St. Andrews and seized the stronghold, taking all the occupants to France. Among them was Knox, who became a galley slave aboard a French ship. The Roman Church tried to reteach him Catholic doctrine but failed.
Knox's enslavement became the watershed event of his life, and he became a revolutionary for the cause of Christ. He cried, "Give me Scotland or I die."
After 19 months of slavery he was released, and he fled to England, where he joined others who were proclaiming the Reformation Gospel under the leadership of Thomas Cranmer. For more than two years Knox decalred this message as an itinerant evangelist. He also had input into two key documents of the English Reformation -- The Book of Common Prayer and The Articles of Religion.
But King Edward VI, who was a devout Protestant and was enamored with Knox, died in 1553. Mary Tudor, a steadfast Catholic, succeeded him. Her systematic and ruthless persecution of Protestants, which earned her the nickname "Bloody Mary," caused Knox to flee England for the European continent.
During his exile in Europe (1554-1559), Knox pastored a church of exiles in Frankfort, Germany, and developed a close relationship with John Calvin and other reformers on the Continent. During a pastorate in Geneva, Switzerland, he helped translate the Geneva Bible, one of the first true study Bibles that included notes, maps and written prayers.
Knox also wrote an attack directed at Queen Mary and her Catholic associates, called First Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. In this book he developed his position on the rights of citizens in the face of an unjust ruler. Do they have the right to overthrow that ruler? Knox said yes, and he based his argument on Scripture. He said that when a ruler does not support the true Church, as he felt Queen Mary was not, his or her throne is in jeopardy.
With Scotland on the verge of civil war, Knox returned there in May 1559 to lead the Protestant cause. He served as chaplain of the Protestant armies, as an enlistment officer and even as a spy for the English behind French lines. He became the heart and soul of the Protestant forces.
The war ended with the death of Queen Mary in 1560, and the Treaty of Edinburgh recognized Presbyterian control of the country. The first Scottish Confession, written by Knox, was adopted as the theological confession of the new Protestant state. It remained so until the famous Westminster Confession was adopted in 1647. For the rest of his life (1560-1572), Knox served as pastor of St. Giles Church in Edinburgh.
Shortly before his death on November 25, 1572, Knox said, "As the world is weary of me, so am I of it." He died as his wife read from John 17. Thousands attended his funeral. The epitaph on his tombstone reflects his single-minded commitment: "He never feared the face of man."
