George H. Warnock — Bibliology
b1 — The Feast of Tabernacles
Typological Hermeneutics
Warnock explicitly establishes typological interpretation as the correct method for understanding Scripture. The Old Testament feasts of Israel are “a very beautiful type and pattern for the Church”:
“The scriptures make it very clear that ‘all these things happened unto them for ensamples (as a figure, or type): and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.‘” (1 Cor. 10:11)
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, Introduction)
Interpretation: Warnock uses 1 Cor. 10:11 as a hermeneutical key: the OT history of Israel functions typologically for the New Testament church.
He identifies an inconsistency in evangelical biblical interpretation:
“There are so many who would insist on a literal and natural interpretation if and when a spiritual interpretation would conflict with their theological views.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, “The Church in Old Testament Type and Prophecy”)
Interpretation: Warnock argues for consistent typological-spiritual interpretation and criticizes the selective use of literal interpretation when it is theologically convenient.
Relation Between Old and New Testaments
Warnock defends the position that the entire OT was written for the New Testament church:
“Unless we understand that the Bible, the whole Bible, was written for us, we are bound to deny ourselves the glory which God intended we should derive from the Word. ‘Unto us,’ the prophets ministered (1 Pet. 1:12). The history of Israel constituted them as ‘ensamples (or types)’ for us, and the records ‘are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come’ (1 Cor. 10:11). The Law, we are told, expressed ‘a shadow of (the) good things to come, and not the very image of the things.’ (Heb. 10:1).”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, “The True Israel”)
Interpretation: Warnock links three NT texts (1 Pet. 1:12; 1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 10:1) into a single hermeneutical principle: the OT is shadow/type of NT reality, and therefore fully applicable to the church.
He provides a creational-structural principle for the OT-NT relationship:
“‘Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.’ (1 Cor. 15:46). This principle is evident everywhere in the Scriptures. First the old creation, then the New.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, “The Old, the Pattern of the New”)
Warnock also appeals to the apostolic use of the OT as methodological authorization:
“If the apostle Paul was ‘rightly dividing the Word of truth’ when he made some eighty-five references to the Old Testament in the one letter he wrote to the Romans… and if Peter would dare make some thirty references or quotations from the Old Testament in his first epistle; and if the beloved John should make direct quotations from, or references to, practically four hundred Old Testament Scriptures in the Book of Revelation: then we care not in the least if orthodox theology forbids us to take Old Testament type and prophecy and apply them to the Church. The apostles have already done so under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and that is sufficient for men who believe in the verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, “How the Apostles Established Church Truth”)
Interpretation: Warnock justifies his typological method by appealing to apostolic precedent, and explicitly connects this to verbal inspiration.
Verbal Inspiration and the Authority of Scripture
Warnock explicitly invokes verbal inspiration:
“men who believe in the verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, “How the Apostles Established Church Truth”)
In the closing section he formulates the authority claim of Scripture through Jesus’ own words:
“The New Testament is now a part of the verbally-inspired Word of God; and Jesus has declared emphatically ‘The Scripture cannot be broken,’ and again, ‘The Scriptures must be fulfilled’ (Jn. 10:35; Mk. 14:49). And if this is true of the Old Testament, how much more is it true of the New Testament? Because the glory of the Old was to pass away, but the glory of the New is to remain. (2 Cor. 3:9-11).”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, final chapter “The Scripture Cannot Be Broken”)
Interpretation: Warnock affirms verbal inspiration for the entire two-part canon (OT and NT) and grounds Scriptural authority in Jesus’ own declaration in John 10:35. The inviolability of Scripture is repeated as a theological refrain in connection with NT promises that must be fulfilled.
Hermeneutics: Spirit and Scripture
Warnock establishes the Holy Spirit as the indispensable interpretive key:
“A consecrated and holy walk in the Spirit, therefore, is the only genuine basis we have for a proper understanding of the Scriptures. Without that consecration and that walk in the Spirit we might acquire a considerable understanding of theology, but it will be theology devoid of Truth.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, Introduction)
“We appeal entirely to the Word of God and the Spirit of God; for it is evident that the natural man cannot receive, much less teach, the things of the Spirit of God. If it is God’s Word, then it is infinite and eternal, and far beyond any human understanding; and only the Spirit can reveal and quicken it to us.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, Introduction)
Interpretation: Warnock distinguishes between knowledge transmitted through theology (intellectual, insufficient) and knowledge through the Spirit (living, true). The Spirit is necessary for correct understanding of Scripture — a pneumatological-hermeneutical position.
He extends this to the distinction between rational knowledge of God and revelation:
“Here is a knowledge of the Father and the Son such as no man can acquire except by revelation. Theology will unveil before the student all manner of facts relative to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, But here is a knowledge which defies any attempt of man to unravel.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, section “Union with Father and Son”)
Progressive Revelation
Warnock speaks of a “God of increasing revelation”:
“We care not for established creeds or doctrines or theological disputes, nor for the marginal notes we find in our various expository and reference Bibles. God has spoken, and that is sufficient. If Christians are content to abide by the revelation they have received at the hands of great men of the past—let them be content. But God is now leading His people onward and upward to higher heights… Therefore we fix our hopes and our eyes upon the God of increasing revelation.”
(George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1, Introduction)
Interpretation: Warnock rejects theological systems as definitively closed and advocates openness to progressive revelation through the Spirit, within the bounds of the “verbally-inspired Word of God.” The combination of verbal inspiration and progressive revelation constitutes a characteristic tension in his doctrine of Scripture.