George H. Warnock — Eschatology
b6 — Who Are You?
The Day of the Lord — New Era, Not Escape
Warnock opens chapter 2 by reframing the Day of the Lord: not primarily a period of tribulation to be escaped, but God’s new day of light to be embraced.
“Is it not clear from this that the Day of the LORD is more to be desired than the night in which we now live? Who would want to miss out on the light of God’s new day? Especially when He tells us clearly that He has provided for us ‘The armor of light’?” (Ch. 2)
Source: George H. Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 2 — The Day of the Lord, georgewarnock.com.
Warnock cites Rom. 13:12 as the foundation: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.”
Interpretation: The Day of the Lord is for Warnock not a source of fear but of expectation — those clothed in God’s armor belong to the children of the day, not of the night.
Rejection of Pre-Tribulationism and the Rapture
The most direct eschatological position in Who Are You? is the explicit rejection of the pre-tribulational rapture doctrine.
“GOD HAS PROVIDED ARMOR FOR HIS PEOPLE—NOT WINGS!” (Ch. 2)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 2.
Warnock grounds this in 1 Thess. 5:4-9. He cites the passage that God’s people are “not in darkness, that that DAY should overtake you as a thief,” and points to the armor (breastplate of faith and love, helmet of salvation) as God’s provision for the tribulation — not escape from it:
“Because we are fully equipped with God’s armor, and not because he snatches us out of the battle.” (Ch. 2)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 2.
Warnock calls the rapture doctrine a “refuge of lies” and applies Isa. 28:17 to pre-tribulationism:
“And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.” (Isa. 28:17, cited in ch. 2)
“Your refuge in doctrines about the second coming that promise safety and security will be swept away when the hailstones of God begin to fall.” (Ch. 2)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 2.
Interpretation: Warnock positions himself explicitly against both pre-tribulationism and the rapture concept. He understands God’s protection of His people as a matter of armor and steadfastness in battle, not removal from tribulation.
The Great Tribulation — Framework and Function
The great tribulation coincides with the Day of the Lord and is for Warnock the context in which God’s armored people stand firm:
“The day of darkness is the inevitable result of God’s glory coming into the midst of His people. And so of course there is tribulation, for the haters of truth will certainly rise up against the light.” (Ch. 2)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 2.
The tribulation also has an ecclesiological-purifying character: God uses it to cleanse the “mixture” of holy and unholy in the congregation. Warnock connects this with Mal. 3:1-3 (the Lord as refining fire in His temple) and Isa. 4:4 (the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning).
The Day of the Lord — Multiple Dimensions
Warnock describes the Day of the Lord in chapter 2 as having several faces:
A day of mixture and cleansing — God hates the mixture of holy and unholy in His people (Isa. 5:20). The Day of the Lord once again divides light from darkness.
A day of spiritual famine — Amos 8:11 (“not a famine of bread… but of hearing the words of the LORD”). False prophets who preached “peace” will fall silent. Warnock applies this to prosperity preachers who prophesy for payment.
A day of confusion — Isa. 24:17-18: fleeing one danger leads into another. Bomb shelters and mountain retreats offer no refuge.
A day of humbling — Isa. 2:11: “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled… and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.”
A day of vengeance on Babylon — Luke 21:22 (“these be the days of vengeance”) is linked with Jer. 51:6, 11: the vengeance of the Lord is the vengeance of His temple. Babylon encompasses the political-religious world system that holds God’s people under its dominion.
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 2.
Pentecost and Feast of Tabernacles as End-Time Framework
Warnock places the end-time within the framework of the three pilgrimage feasts:
“Pentecost was a harvest of ‘firstfruits’. If the glory we once knew was ‘firstfruits’ …then we anticipate that it was but the foretaste of the glory that we shall know at harvest time, at the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Ingathering.” (Ch. 2)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 2.
Interpretation: The second coming and the end-time consummation are tied to the Feast of Tabernacles as the final harvest — a theme continuous with Warnock’s earlier work (The Feast of Tabernacles, b1).
The Lamb in Revelation — 28 Times
In chapter 7 Warnock centers the dominance of the Lamb-image in Revelation as the key to Christ’s end-time lordship:
“The Lion of Judah is only mentioned once in the Book of Revelation, and twenty-eight times as the Lamb!” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7 — The Wisdom of the Cross.
The exegetical core: in Rev. 5:5-6 one of the elders announces the Lion of Judah — but John sees a Lamb “as it had been slain” in the midst of the throne. Warnock concludes:
“John the beloved never saw ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah’ as a powerful lion, either here or elsewhere in the Book of Revelation. Why?—Because this ‘Lion’ was still the Lamb in heart, in nature and in character; and God wants His people to always see Him and worship Him as the Lamb on the throne, and to ‘follow the Lamb’ of meekness, rather than the Lion of power.” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
Warnock systematically traces how the Lamb appears throughout Revelation: opens the seals (ch. 6), stands on Mount Zion with the firstfruits (ch. 14), overcomes political-religious Babylon (ch. 17), receives the bride at the marriage supper (ch. 19), is the temple of New Jerusalem (ch. 21), is the lamp of the city (Rev. 21:23).
“HE REIGNS AS THE LAMB, BECAUSE IT IS HIS INTENTION TO BRING FORTH THE CHARACTER OF THE LAMB IN US, THAT WE TOO MIGHT REIGN WITH HIM, IN HIS THRONE (Rev. 3:21).” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
The Male Child (Rev. 12) — Corporate End-Time Overcomers
Warnock reads the male child of Rev. 12 not as an individual figure but as a corporate end-time community:
“Notice that the one who is called the man child in vs. 7, is called Zion’s ‘children’ in vs. 8. It is ONE but many… a corporate MAN… the corporate MAN that Paul speaks about in Eph. 4:13, a ‘perfect MAN’… a people walking in such union and harmony with Christ, that they are seen as ONE MAN.” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
The identification: “Who is this manchild, that is caught up to God and His throne? They are vessels of Mercy. They overcome, even as their Lord and Saviour overcame.” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
Interpretation: The male child is not an individual figure (Christ, or a future ruler) but the end-time community of overcomers — a corporate christology that pervades Warnock’s theology of “overcomers.”
Two Final Camps and Armageddon
Warnock describes the end-time polarization as a division into two absolute camps based on Rev. 13:8:
“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the Beast), whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8, cited in ch. 7)
“The people of the world and of the Church are going to be pressured into one camp or the other. We will have to come out for Christ… Or we will become engulfed in the domain of the Dragon, the political realm of the Beast, and the religious systems of the False Prophet.” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
Armageddon appears as the final confrontation that God himself organizes through the three unclean spirits of Rev. 16. Warnock cites the parenthesis of Rev. 16:15 — “Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame” — as a call to watchfulness and to putting on the armor:
“God is saying very clearly, Be Prepared! Lest in that day you are found naked, and not clothed upon with the Armor of Light… the Armor of Righteousness!” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
New Jerusalem as Bride of the Lamb
Warnock treats the New Jerusalem as the bride of the Lamb on the basis of Rev. 21:
“John saw ‘the bride, the Lamb’s wife’ pictured as ‘that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God’ and ‘prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’.” (Rev. 21:2, 9-10, cited in ch. 7)
In the New Jerusalem there is no temple, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it” (Rev. 21:22). The city needs neither sun nor moon: “for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Rev. 21:23).
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
Interpretation: For Warnock, the New Jerusalem is not a geo-political entity but the community of the redeemed — the bride who has made herself ready. This coheres with his corporate reading strategy of apocalyptic imagery.
The Suffering God and the Martyrs (Rev. 6:10)
Warnock reflects in ch. 7 on the cry of the martyrs under the altar (Rev. 6:10) as an expression of God’s own travail:
“God is pained with their pain, and He tells them, ‘You must wait yet a little while. I have other sons whom I am preparing for glory… they must know the sufferings of the Cross, even as you have…‘” (Ch. 7)
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.
God likens Himself to a woman in labor (Isa. 42:14): “now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.” The end-time birth of the male child is the result of this prolonged divine endurance.
Source: Warnock, Who Are You?, ch. 7.