Definition
Latter rain (Heb. מַלְקוֹשׁ malqosh; also: harvest rain) is the eschatological metaphor for the end-time outpouring of the Spirit that brings the fruit of the Spirit to maturity, distinguished from the early rain (Heb. moreh) that represents new birth as seed-germination. The biblical basis is Jas. 5:7 (the farmer who waits for early and latter rain) and Joel 2:23. In the Latter Rain Movement of the twentieth century, the concept was associated with eschatological revival; in Warnock, it is embedded in a broader pneumatologically-eschatological structure of fruit-ripening that supersedes gift-manifestation.
Usage in the Corpus
George Warnock
Warnock draws the latter-rain metaphor from the tension between conversion and eschatological fruit. New birth is the early rain — the seed germinates: “Silently does the Spirit of God come into the life and such a one is ‘born again’ by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God.” But God waits for more than germination; He waits for the harvest: “God says He is waiting for ‘precious fruit’… and has long patience over it till it receive not only the early, but the latter rain. Not only the ‘seed rain’ but the ‘harvest rain.’ Not only for the seed rain of conversion (‘being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible…’), but also for the harvest rain of the FRUIT.”
The early rain corresponds to the Pentecostal age (new birth, charismatic gifts); the latter rain to the eschatological ripening of the Body of Christ into the fullness of love. “In this realm even the gifts of the Spirit lose their significance, just as the moon loses its brightness in the dawning of the morn. The part gives way to the whole, the seed breaks forth into the blade, the ear, and the full corn. Faith proceeds unto hope, and hope buds forth in Love.”
The latter rain is thus for Warnock the eschatological consummation-program of the Spirit: the corporate ripening of the fruit of the Spirit in the overcomers to the full manifestation of love. [Warnock, Evening and Morning, Ch. 5]