Many may have preferred Knox to simply tolerate Mary, Queen of the Scots, but he could not tolerate what he did not believe to be biblical. There are too few men like this today. Knox was not a man who tolerated sin or opposition to God’s Word in any manner, but he was a man committed to the truth of God’s Word and ways. This commitment to God and His Word would even lead him into the life of a slave in the French galley, but even there, he would remain committed to the Lord, longing for the day when he would once more preach His Word.

Preaching the Word of God is one of the most blessed tasks a man may be called to perform. However, just as James warns that not all should desire to teach—for their judgment will be all the harsher before Christ (James 3:1)—many others prove to be ineffective communicators of gospel truth because they have failed to apprehend by faith the very conviction of truth needed to be a true preacher of the Word of God. Though various styles are used in preaching, and though God can take a man who mumbles, stumbles, and studders and make much of his message, the one who is not convicted of the truth will not a good preacher make. The point is not as much oratoary ability, but zeal for God and His Word.
John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, was one of those blessed men who possessed, from all accounts, both pathos and ethos; that is, Knox possessed the rare ability to passionately communicate what he held most dear: The Word of God. While the aim of preaching is never to entertain or produce a manufactured emotional response, true Gospel preaching will often thunder forth from a pulpit whether or not the preacher is himself emotional. The Word of God carries with it a distinct power to rouse up faith, conviction, repentance, and a turning towards Christ within the hearts of sinners as the Holy Spirit performs the act of regeneration (Rom. 10:17). But man is much less likely to preach that which he does not believe or care about. Therefore, the one who is convinced of the truth of Scripture and convicted by it cannot do anything other than stand upon the Word of God, will be, of necessity, a compelling communicator of Gospel truth.
John Knox was such a man. From the time his pulpit ministry began, right up until his death, Knox thundered forth the Word from the pulpit and wrote ferociously with his pen. James Melville, having gone to see Knox in 1571 only one year prior to his death, wrote:
“Of all the benefits I had that year was the coming of that most notable prophet and apostle of our nation, John Knox, at St. Andrews. I heard him teach the prophecies of Daniel that summer and the winter following. In the opening of his text he was moderate the space of a half an hour, but when he reached the application he made me tremble so much that I could not hold the pen to write. He wielded this power when in bodily weakness, for he had to be helped into the church and lifted into the pulpit where he had to lean on his first entry. But when he came to his sermon he was so active and vigorous that he was like to beat the pulpit into pieces and fly out of it.”[1]
The Scottish reformer, even frail in weak in age, was bold as a lion while tender as a lamb and always a bulwark of true, Christian faith. There is much, then, that the Christian who lives in a society intolerant towards Christians can learn from this powerful Saint of the past.
Bold Proclamations
Knox is, perhaps, best known today as a thunderous preacher of the Word of God who embodied the righteous man of Proverbs 24:1: He was as bold as a lion throughout his ministry, whether preaching to the masses or standing against “Bloody” Mary, Queen of the Scots.  Protestant Christians were typically not tolerated in Knox’s day, and the reformer often found himself facing various modes of persecution. Yet, he never once stopped boldly proclaiming the truth.
This courageous preaching was an admirable feature of his ministry. In his exceptional and succinct biography of Knox, Iain H. Murray writes:
“It was said of [Knox] when he died that he ‘never feared the face of man’; and that is true of him… He was never afraid to be alone, and to stand alone. His was the same heroic character that you see in Martin Luther standing in the Diet of Worms and elsewhere.
“But consider him as a preacher. His great characteristic as a preacher was vehemency.”
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A failure to grasp the relationship between the new covenant and prior covenants diminishes how the entire biblical storyline coheres and finds its culmination in Christ. Finally, a failure to misperceive that the new covenant has been already inaugurated through Christ is to obscure Christ’s work as the Last Adam, the definitive offspring of Abraham, the true and faithful Israelite, and the final son of David. Put simply, a proper appraisal of Christ’s work in inaugurating the new covenant magnifies the glory of Christ and the glory of God’s grace toward us in him.

This essay will seek to address the following three questions: How does the new covenant differ from the old covenant? How does the new covenant relate to God’s prior covenants with his people? Finally, in what sense did Christ fulfill the new covenant? These questions, while challenging for readers of Scripture, are necessary for us to have a right grasp of the Bible’s storyline, a right appreciation for Christ’s work on our behalf, and a right foundation for the church and the Christian life.
The New Covenant Transcends the Old Covenant
The descriptor “new” sets the new covenant in redemptive-historical contrast with the “old” covenant. The new covenant is new not merely in time but also in quality. As Hebrews 8 poignantly says it, the new covenant is qualitatively better than the old because it is founded on “better promises” (Heb 8:6). These promises are aptly summarized by Jeremiah 31:33–34, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” We can summarize these promises as the internalization of the law, an inviolable covenant relationship between God and his people, a community-wide knowledge of God, and the final forgiveness of sins. Each of these promises contrasts with Israel’s experience under the old covenant and evinces at least four ways in which the new covenant transcends the old.
First, under the old covenant God did not internalize the law within his people. God gave the law on tablets of stone, but he did not transform the hearts of Israelites such that they would receive the law and desire to obey it (see 2 Cor. 3:3). Put another way, old covenant Israel was circumcised outwardly but not inwardly. In contrast with Israel’s experience, the new covenant promise to internalize the law means that God would circumcise the hearts of the covenant members (Deut. 30:6) and put within them his Spirit so that they would desire to obey God’s commands from the heart (Ezek. 36:26–27).
Second, the old covenant did not provide a lasting covenant relationship between God and his people. Immediately after God ratified the Sinai covenant with Israel, Israel broke the covenant by worshiping the golden calf. The new covenant’s promise of a relationship that is “not like the [Sinai] covenant . . . that they broke” (Jer 31:32) strongly suggests that the new covenant relationship forged between God and his people will never be broken. Accordingly, at times the biblical authors will depict the new covenant as a “covenant of peace” or an “everlasting covenant” (Isa 55:3; Ezek 34:25; 37:26; cf. Heb 13:20).
Third, the old covenant community was mixed in that only some of the covenant members possessed saving faith, whereas the majority were characterized by unbelief. Shot through the Old Testament is the notion of a faithful remnant within the broader covenant community. This remnant was often keenly felt to be minuscule (e.g., 1 Kgs. 19:10; Jer. 6:13). The new covenant’s promise is that the entire covenant community would “know the Lord” savingly, even “from the least of them to the greatest” (Jer 31:34). This portrays a vastly different experience for the covenant community, not only in their relationship to God but also to one another.
Finally, through the sacrificial system, the old covenant provided forgiveness of sins for Israel (e.g., Lev. 4:26; 4:31; 5:10). At the same time, such forgiveness was only temporary and provisional, since Israel needed to offer animal sacrifices for their sins repeatedly. Even more, as Hebrews 10 notes, animal sacrifices cannot actually provide forgiveness of sins, but only served as a constant reminder for Israel of their need for forgiveness (Heb. 10:3–4). Embedded within the old covenant, therefore, was a system impotent to deal definitively with sin in the covenant community. Set in contrast to this system is the new covenant promise of final and definitive forgiveness, such that God would “remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34), thus abrogating the necessity of repeated sacrifices for sin (Heb. 10:18).
The New Covenant Fulfills All God’s Covenant Promises
A right understanding of the new covenant takes into consideration not only how it is set in contrast with the old covenant but also how it fulfills all of God’s covenant promises throughout redemptive history, including the covenant at creation and the covenants with Abraham, Israel, and David.
At creation God gave Adam and Eve life and joy in the Garden of Eden, where God dwelt among them. They lost this paradise when they failed to trust and obey God’s word, which led to their eviction from the garden and the concomitant loss of life and joy in God’s presence. The new covenant relates to this loss by promising that through the new covenant the paradise lost would become paradise regained. Particularly, in the new covenant God promised to pour out his Spirit, recreating and giving life to a new sacred community whose beauty would match that of the Garden of Eden. Coinciding with Jeremiah’s new covenant promises is a depiction of the entire new and expanded Jerusalem as holy to the Lord (Jer. 31:38–40).
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What we need when we pray is less awareness of ourselves and more awareness of God. When I get distracted or discouraged in prayer, I have to remind myself of the simple fact that someone is there, someone is listening, and not just anyone, but my Father who is in heaven. When I pray, I’m not going through a spiritual soliloquy, a ritual for the day, or something important to check off before I go to work; I am speaking to my Father and my God.

A Family Affair

The first word of the Lord’s Prayer in our English translation is “Our” (Matt. 6:9), but the first word in Greek is pater, father. Sometimes you’ll hear the Lord’s Prayer called “Paternoster,” which comes from the first two words in the Latin version of the prayer. Interestingly, there is an old type of elevator called a paternoster that is found mainly in Europe. It has a number of wooden platforms that cycle up and down without stopping. In order to ride on the paternoster, you have to step on and step off as it moves. According to some people, the device is called a paternoster because the contraption resembles rosary beads. I was told the name came from people praying every time they dared to use the thing.

Matthew 6:9 is not about elevators (even if it is elevated speech!). Again, we are probably too familiar with the prayer to properly marvel at what it says. The God of the universe—the God who made the world out of nothing; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of the ten plagues and the Red Sea; the God of the glory cloud in the tabernacle; the God who shakes the cedars of Lebanon; the God who showed himself to Daniel as the great Ancient of Days; the God before whom no one can stand face to face and live—Jesus wants us to call this God “Father.”

To pray with intimacy to God as father is not a human right; it is a spiritual privilege. It is a privilege for the people of God who have been born again by the Spirit of God. “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13). It is not our natural human birthright to call God “Father”; it is our born-again spiritual birthright.

Granted, there is a sense in which one could say that God is father to all, insofar as all people owe their existence to God (Acts 17:28–29). But that’s never how Jesus speaks of God the Father. One book I read made the old liberal argument about the universal fatherhood of God: “He is the father of all men.” As proof of that point, the author cites not a single Bible verse but quotes Rudolf Bultmann.1 There is no biblical warrant for thinking that God is father to all and that we are all his children in a spiritual sense.

God, Our Father

Only disciples get to call God “Father.” Even in the Old Testament, where the fatherhood of God is less clear than in the New Testament, we see that this intimate relationship of a father and his children is the special privilege reserved for God’s people.

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