For one of my classes I was tasked with reading The Person of Christ by Donald Macleod. (Which has been a pretty good read so far). In his chapter on the pre-existence of Christ, Macleod quotes John Knox as saying:
Belief in the pre-existence of Jesus is incompatible with a belief in his genuine normal humanity…We can have the humanity without the pre-existence and we can have the pre-existence without the humanity. There is absolutely no way of having both.
This shocked me. John Knox is one of my bearded heroes. He’s the same guy who refused to back down from biblical convictions as he stood face to face with Queen Mary (also known as Bloody Mary). I was shocked that he didn’t hold to the pre-existence of Christ.
Then I looked up the source and realized that there is another John Knox. This guy was a more liberal scholar in the 20th century that was, I believe, also beardless. The lesson here is to be careful when reading quotes. Be sure that it’s the same guy that you think it is. When one guy thinks of John Knox he thinks of a somewhat liberal biblical scholar and the other guy thinks of a bearded Scottish Reformer.
Kind of reminds me of this guy:
Can you think of any other people with the same name but totally different theologies?
