George H. Warnock — Soteriology
b4 — The Hyssop that Springeth Out of the Wall
Threefold Redemption: agorazo, exagorazo, lutroo
Warnock distinguishes three Greek terms for redemption and builds a complete redemption model on them:
“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.’ Here is the picture. A slave is on the auction block at the market-place. Another man, out of mercy, lays down the redemptive money. He has bought the slave for himself by paying the price […] But he takes him ‘away from’ the marketplace. […] 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 that Springeth Out of the Wall, hyssop2.html)
Warnock adds a fourth step — the voluntary eternal servanthood, drawn from Ex. 21:2-6:
“O that we might learn with that liberated slave in Israel, that the only true freedom we shall ever enjoy is that freedom which comes to us when we become forever the captive and obedient servants of the One who purchased us and then set us FREE.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html)
Eternal Character of the Atonement
Warnock opposes a merely historical understanding of the blood sacrifice:
“There is much made in evangelical Christianity today about the once-for-all aspects of our redemption. […] But 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. […] Jesus suffered once-for-all, but 60 or more years later John on Patmos saw the ‘Lamb, as it had been slain.’ It was not a mere fact of history. lt was an act of eternal consequence.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html)
Interpretation: The blood sacrifice retains its efficacy for the present and eternity; Warnock resists reducing redemption to a completed historical event.
Justification: Judicial and Experiential
Warnock acknowledges the judicial dimension of justification — God sees the believer as clean because of the Blood — but sharply opposes an exclusively judicial view:
“Too often in our day the doctrines of the Blood have been relegated to areas described as ‘judicial,’ with very little emphasis upon the practical and experiential.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html)
“There is no thought in the heart of God that… Well, I know you are sinful and defiled by nature, and you always will be; but Jesus my Son is clean, and therefore I look upon you as clean because of Him. The Bible says that if there is true fellowship there is cleansing; and that the cleansing is from ‘all sin.‘”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html, referencing 1 John 1:7-9)
Sanctification: Full Cleansing Expected in This Life
Warnock explicitly critiques the view that full sanctification is deferred to the next life:
“The doctrine of separation and holiness and the purifying of the heart is simply laid aside as something not really to be attained to in full measure in this life; so we will just rejoice in His grace and leave holiness and heart-purity and perfection for the next life.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html)
Against this Warnock sets a positive expectation:
“But God will have a ‘glorious Church’… not in the ‘hereafter’ but ‘here.’ […] without ‘spot,’ without ‘wrinkle,’ without ‘blemish’… without ‘any such thing.’ And it will be by ‘the washing of water by the Word.‘”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html, referencing Eph. 5:27)
Blood Cleansing for Sinner and Believer Alike
Warnock states the universal operation of the Blood for all:
“The Blood of Christ avails for sinner and believer alike. And how many Christians there are who have known the covering of the blood, and have been redeemed, but have not known the fulness of redemption because of wrong attitudes, wrong motives, and wrong thoughts about God or about certain of God’s people.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html)
Conscience-Cleansing by Blood and Spirit
Warnock argues that the work of Christ’s Blood extends beyond forgiveness — it purges the conscience:
“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, hyssop2b.html, citing Heb. 9:14)
“God has a cleansing for the mind that is so total and so complete that the very conscience is purged from dead works to serve the living God, and there will remain ‘no more a conscience of sins.‘”
(Warnock, hyssop2b.html)
Warnock inseparably unites Spirit and Blood:
“In the stream of the Spirit of God there flows all the efficacy of the Blood of Christ. That Blood is alive and efficacious today, just as much alive as it was on the Day that the fountain for sin and uncleanness sprang forth out of Calvary’s mountain. We cannot partake of the Spirit without partaking of the Blood for they are co-mingled.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html)
Universal Scope of Redemption
Warnock describes the scope of Christ’s redemptive work as universal in reach:
“For Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy Blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” (Rev. 5:9)
(Warnock, hyssop1.html)
He connects this to the promise to Abraham:
“If they truly believe in Christ, then are they ‘the Seed of Abraham, and heirs according to promise.‘” (Gal. 3:29)
(Warnock, hyssop1.html)
“God, looking upon mankind with His own standard of righteousness and glory, and with the judgments of the Cross in view, declares: ‘THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.‘” (Rom. 3:22-23)
(Warnock, hyssop1.html)
Interpretation: Warnock emphasises the universal accessibility of redemption, drawing a direct line from the seed of Abraham to all believers from every nation. Apokatastasis is not explicitly named.
New Birth and Repentance via Humiliation (Hyssop)
Warnock uses the hyssop as symbol for the path to cleansing through humiliation and repentance:
“The use of the hyssop was not optional. There could be no distinction here […] The hyssop would speak of that humiliation and abasement of the human will before God — a bitter medicine as far as the sickly human heart is concerned — but fragrant and beautiful in the sight of God as He stoops low to heal the broken and the contrite heart.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html, on the Passover blood applied through hyssop)
Warnock refers to the justified publican (Luke 18:14):
“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html, citing Luke 18:14)
David prays: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps. 51:7). Warnock treats this as the path to full restoration: confess, acknowledge, be cleansed.
Levitical Purification Rites as Soteriological Types
Warnock discusses three Levitical purification rites as types of redemption:
The Passover (Ex. 12:22): blood applied by hyssop — the hyssop symbolises the accessibility of grace to all, regardless of standing or background.
The Law of the Leper (Lev. 14:2-7): two birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop — the slain bird (Christ in death) and the released bird (Christ in resurrection), the blood mingled with living water.
“The Blood is mingled with the Living Water! How determined we are sometimes to get the cleansing of the blood without the use of the hyssop.”
(Warnock, hyssop2.html)
The Ashes of a Heifer (Num. 19:9, 18): a clean person sprinkles with hyssop dipped in the water of separation.
“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 […] purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:13-14)
(Warnock, hyssop2b.html)