George H. Warnock — Christology
b4 — The Hyssop that Springeth Out of the Wall
Incarnation as the Humiliation of God (humiliatio Christi)
Warnock devotes the central chapter of this work — “Incarnation — The Humiliation of God” — to the idea that the incarnation is the greatest possible self-emptying of God. The hyssop (a lowly, common herb) serves as a christological symbol for the Christ who has come:
“Jesus comes on the scene, and immediately we are made to realize that here is One that is Great because of His humility. Here is One who can take note of the things that are meaningless to others; for He (like the hyssop) was but a ‘Root of a dry ground.’ Here was One who ‘had no form nor comeliness’…”
Warnock, The Hyssop that Springeth Out of the Wall, hyssop2.html (sect. “Incarnation — The Humiliation of God”).
He formulates this as a universal principle:
“True greatness does not stand apart, above and beyond the ordinary. True greatness is always identified with humility and weakness and insignificance and lowliness.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
And draws from it a christological conclusion:
“That is why the great and mighty God of the universe who created all things could not for ever remain high and lifted up in the heavens… He must come down and show Himself as He really is: for God the Father, living in His own Son in all His fulness, truly revealed Himself as He really is: meek, and lowly, and compassionate.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
Interpretation: Warnock reads the incarnation not primarily as a soteriological transaction but as the ontological self-disclosure of God’s true character. The incarnation reveals who God truly is.
Incarnation as Weakness — God’s Strategy
Warnock places the incarnation within a series of divine “weakness strategies” (Noah’s ark, Moses in the reed basket, Gideon’s three hundred) and describes the birth of Christ as their culmination:
“In the story of Christ we have the most beautiful example of all, as to the weakness and the foolishness of God. Incarnation in itself was an act whereby the Mighty God of Jacob became weak.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html (sect. “A Helpless Babe exposed to the wrath of Herod”).
He adds:
“The Mighty God who hangs the world upon nothing does not hesitate to suspend the full weight of His purposes from an invisible, silken thread of His own wisdom!”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html (sect. “A Helpless Babe”).
And cites 1 Cor. 1:23-24 as the christological ground motif:
“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html (sect. “The Weakness and Foolishness of God”).
Interpretation: The incarnation for Warnock is not merely a redemptive fact but a revelatory pattern running through all of Scripture: God always works through the weak, the lowly, the insignificant.
Father-Son Unity in the Suffering Christ
Warnock formulates a pneumatological-perichoretic christology: the Father was fully present in the suffering Christ, even in the suffering itself. He writes explicitly:
“God wants us to know that when His Son walked this earth, God the Father was in that Man, walking in His sandals. And when Jesus mingled amongst men as the sinless and spotless One, showing mercy and compassion to the multitudes, it was God the Father living in His Son and walking in His Son and showing mercy through His Son.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
On the suffering at the cross:
“When He hung on the Cross… it was not a case of God the Father being indifferent to the cries of His Son as He suffered this unspeakable anguish… but in the truest sense of the word, God the Father was Himself suffering the pain of every nail that went into His hand, and every thorn that pierced His brow. And when a soldier took his sword and thrust it into the side of Jesus… Jesus felt it as a man, and God the Father who dwelt within Him felt it as the Creator of the soldier that pierced Him.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
And he connects this to the soteriological purpose:
“Yes, it was God the Father who willingly subjected Himself to the full measure of weakness, and poverty, and humiliation and suffering — in order to remove the ‘curse’ which He Himself had laid upon man because of his transgression!”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
Interpretation: [TENSION with classical distinction] Warnock states that the Father co-suffers in and through the Son. This borders on patripassianism, though Warnock intends it perichoretically: not the Father is crucified, but the Father-who-dwells-in-the-Son suffers alongside. He does not elaborate the trinitarian tension further.
Sinlessness of Christ
Warnock describes Christ’s sinlessness as the foundation of his mission among men:
“God the Father, living in His own Son… when Jesus mingled amongst men as the sinless and spotless One, showing mercy and compassion…”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
And in the context of Heb. 9:14 (on the offering of Christ):
“the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2b.html (sect. “The Ashes of a Heifer”; quoting Heb. 9:14).
Warnock connects the “without spot” character of Christ’s person with the cleansing power of his blood. The purity of the offering is prerequisite for the cleansing of the believer.
Jesus Crucified in Weakness — Christus Victor
Warnock uses the section heading “Jesus Crucified in Weakness” and formulates the tension between weakness and power on the basis of 2 Cor. 13:4:
“…but He liveth by the power of God.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html (sect. “Jesus Crucified in Weakness”).
He describes the offering as the only sacrifice that truly pleased God:
“What a stench it has been in the nostrils of men as they behold the Son of God dying the death of a criminal on Calvary’s brow! But God looked down that day and smelled a ‘sweet savour’ from this the only burnt offering that ever really delighted His heart.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html.
And:
“the true Lamb of God that would take away the sins of the world.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html.
Interpretation: Warnock combines the Christus Victor motif (the mighty God conquering through weakness) with the sacrificial motif (the sweet-smelling burnt offering). The crucifixion is simultaneously the deepest humiliation and the greatest triumph.
Hyssop at Golgotha — Typological Christology
Warnock points to the presence of hyssop at the crucifixion as a reference to the Passover (Ex. 12:22) and as the fulfillment of the OT type:
“When Jesus cried ‘I thirst,’ a soldier bunched some hyssop together and lifted it to Jesus’ mouth with a sponge full of sour wine. He must use hyssop to fulfill the Scriptures, and God had provided it even on Mount Calvary! Then it was discarded… it had served its purpose.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html.
He connects this with Matt. 16:24-25:
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html (immediately following the hyssop-at-Calvary passage).
Interpretation: The hyssop at Golgotha is for Warnock not a detail but the typological completion of a line running from the Passover (Ex. 12) through the cleansing of the leper (Lev. 14) and the ashes of the red heifer (Num. 19) to the cross. Christ is the antitype of every hyssop-use in the OT.
Atonement — Threefold Redemption
Warnock analyzes the NT doctrine of atonement through three Greek verbs:
“The word ‘redemption’ in the New Testament carries with it a three-fold connotation. Its simple meaning is: we were ‘bought with a price.’ The Greek word is ‘agorazo’… ‘purchased at the market-place.’ A second word like it is prefaced with the preposition ‘ex’ (exagorazo) and means ‘purchased out of and away from the market-place.’… But there is still another word for redemption, and it is ‘lutroo,’ and it means, ‘to set free by paying a price.‘”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html (sect. “Hyssop — and the Passover”).
He adds a fourth dimension — voluntary return to service:
“the liberated slave chooses to become the lifelong slave of the man who bought him… allows his ‘ear’ to be bored through with an awl, and he becomes his master’s slave forever.” (cf. Ex. 21:2-6)
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
Interpretation: Warnock sees redemption not as a one-time juridical transaction leading to autonomy, but as the transition to voluntary, eternal surrender to the Redeemer. This is a voluntarist-relational doctrine of atonement, alongside but not replacing the substitutionary.
Christ’s Offering — Once-for-All yet Eternally Present
Warnock emphasizes the paradox of the “once-for-all” character of the offering and its ongoing actuality:
“once-for-all does not mean something that happened in the past and therefore remains a thing of the past. God’s once-for-alls have eternal significance. God’s once-for-alls are eternally present. Jesus suffered once-for-all, but 60 or more years later John on Patmos saw the ‘Lamb, as it had been slain.‘”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
And:
“Today His blood is just as real and factual as the day He hung on the Cross while the blood flowed down from His head, His side, His hands, and His feet. The blood was not lost in the stony grounds of Calvary’s hill, but in God it actually entered in behind the veil in that eternal realm.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2.html.
Interpretation: Warnock links the once-for-all character of the offering (Heb.) with its eternity (Rev. 5:6). The blood of Christ has not become a historical fact but remains an eternally present redemptive means.
Sinlessness and Cleansing — Christ as Spotless Offering (Heb. 9:14)
In discussing the purification rituals (ashes of the red heifer, Num. 19), Warnock lays the christological foundation via Heb. 9:14:
“If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2b.html (sect. “The Ashes of a Heifer”; quoting Heb. 9:13-14).
He reflects:
“The potential and the implications of the Blood of Christ, and the nature and character of the living stream of God that has absorbed the efficacy of that Blood for the cleansing of His people, goes far beyond anything that we have ever imagined or thought possible.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2b.html.
And:
“As the precious Blood of Christ was flowing down from His sacred body, the Spirit of God was there — absorbing every drop of it in His own Being. The time would come when Jesus was glorified that this Holy Spirit, impregnated with the Blood of Christ, would be shed forth upon God’s people.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop2b.html.
Interpretation: Warnock connects pneumatology and christology: the blood of Christ is not merely a juridical instrument but is “absorbed” by the Spirit and poured out through the Spirit. This is a unique pneumatological-christological connection of atonement and sanctification.
Jesus as the Way-Truth-Life — Identification, not Imitation
Warnock emphasizes that Jesus is not merely a guide but the Way itself:
“Jesus is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE — not merely the way-shower, the truth-giver and the life-imparter. In other words, He doesn’t just tell us what to do, explain to us what He means, and give to us a portion of His own life. We must become ONE with Him in all three areas.”
Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html (sect. “The People of the Way”).
Interpretation: This christological principle has ecclesiological and soteriological implications: the believer is not called to imitatio Christi but to identificatio cum Christo — union with him in his way, his truth, and his life.