George H. Warnock — Soteriologie
b1 — The Feast of Tabernacles
Progressieve soteriologie: drie feesten als heilsmodel
Warnock legt de structuur van zijn soteriologie vast in de drie jaarlijkse feesten van Israël als opeenvolgende ervaringen voor de kerk:
“These three Feasts, moreover, consisted of seven major events… I The Feast of the Passover… II The Feast of Pentecost… III The Feast of Tabernacles.”
(Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, hst. 1)
De volgorde is dwingend: Pascha → Pinksteren → Loofhuttenfeest, en geen fase mag worden overgeslagen.
“Let us not stop at the Passover; but let us go on to enjoy the fruits for which Christ died, even the glories of Pentecost. And let us not stop at this partial restoration of Pentecost, but let us go on to enjoy the fulness of the Pentecostal experience… And even then, let us not stop at the fulness of Pentecost, but let us go on to appropriate and experience the glories of the Feast of Tabernacles.”
(Warnock, hst. 5)
Interpretatie: Dit schema impliceert dat de heilsorde niet eenmalig-voltooide rechtvaardiging als eindpunt kent, maar een progressieve voortgang naar eschatologische heiligmaking.
Rechtvaardiging (Pascha)
Het Pascha vertegenwoordigt rechtvaardiging door het bloed van Christus:
“An experiential appropriation of the Passover produces pardon and justification from all our sins. But that is really a negative experience: the old is taken away, sins are forgiven, the past life is forgotten, and the sinner is left with a clean record before God and ready to start a new life.”
(Warnock, hst. 5)
“In justification he is pardoned; in this new experience [Pinksteren] he is empowered for service.”
(Warnock, hst. 5)
Warnock verdedigt uitdrukkelijk de noodzaak van bloedverzoening:
“For there is positively no acceptance for any man before God except by the shedding of the precious blood of Christ. It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul, and ‘without shedding of blood is no remission.’ (Heb. 9:22).”
(Warnock, hst. 2)
Hij wijst Modernisme af dat het bloed van Christus niet erkent:
“Modernism will accept the Lamb of God as He teaches in the temple, lives a life of righteousness and purity… But they will have nothing to do with the Lamb who was crucified for their sins. And therefore the door of salvation is closed to them.”
(Warnock, hst. 2)
Rechtvaardiging is persoonlijke toe-eigening door geloof, niet universeel:
“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (Mercy Seat) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past… that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Rom. 3:25, 26).”
(Warnock, hst. 2)
En over de gratis redding door werken van de wet:
“He is not saved by works, and it is entirely unscriptural to teach holiness as the means of salvation. For it is not within the power of any man in Adam’s fallen race to present himself acceptably before God. There is none righteous, no not so much as one; and by the works of the law there shall no flesh be justified in God’s sight. (See Rom. 3:9-31).”
(Warnock, hst. 2)
Wedergeboorte
De wedergeboorte geschiedt door de Geest en is vergelijkbaar met Christus’ inblazing in Joh. 20:22:
“The original Greek of the word ‘receive ye’ proves conclusively that right there and then the Spirit of God entered into the disciples—and that imparted life brought them into the experience which we call regeneration or new birth. Just as truly as God in the beginning breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and man ‘became a living soul,‘—so now the Last Adam… breathed into the disciples the breath of spiritual life, and they passed experientially from death unto life.”
(Warnock, hst. 5)
Warnock beschrijft de wedergeboorte als een echte maar nog onvolwassen geboorte:
“Our new birth, by the Spirit, genuine as it is, has not developed into maturity. We have been reproduced after God’s likeness like the seed which is produced by the flower, or the egg that is produced by the bird. That seed or that egg is a genuine birth, containing all the potentialities of a new flower exactly like the flower that produced it… But the full glory and the potentialities of that new life lie dormant within the seed or the egg.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
Interpretatie: De wedergeboorte is voor Warnock een reëel begin maar geen eindpunt; de volle maturiteit van de wedergeboorte (volledige heiligmaking) moet nog bereikt worden.
Heiligmaking en volledige heiligmaking (Dag van Verzoening)
De Dag van Verzoening (zevende maand) vertegenwoordigt de experimentele reiniging van de kerk als lichaam:
“That full and complete Atonement was made for the whole human race by Jesus Christ on the Cross, there is no doubt whatsoever. But it is only too evident… that we have never really appropriated any real measure of the great atoning work of the Cross. And it is this experimental appropriation of the Atonement that the Church must now enter into.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
“God is now raising up a new generation who shall be empowered to take the promised land of spiritual power and authority… and enter into the realm of the Spirit of God.”
(Warnock, hst. 1)
Warnock betoogt dat de kerk historisch nooit de volledige heiligmaking heeft bereikt:
“Real victory over sin and the carnal nature is still ahead for the Church of God.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
Hij verwerpt holiness-aanspraken die niet overeenkomen met de maatstaf van 1Joh. 3:6-9:
“‘Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.’ (1Joh. 3:9) … The only scriptural explanation of this verse is that we are not ‘born again’ in the fulness of this regenerating experience.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
De volledige heiligmaking komt niet door eigen inspanning maar via de bedieningen van Ef. 4:
“God has another plan—a far more glorious plan, and yet a very simple plan… ‘And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come… unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’ (Ef. 4:11-13).”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
“God is hastening the day and hour of Christian perfection. We do not have it, nor have we seen it in any person anywhere at any time.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
Verheerlijking: de manifestatie van de zonen Gods
Warnock beschrijft een toekomstige ‘openbaring van de zonen Gods’ als de soteriologische climax van het Loofhuttenfeest:
“In this great hour God Himself will intervene in wonderful sovereignty on behalf of those who see the vision, and will take them through to complete and glorious victory.”
(Warnock, hst. 1)
“There is no question as to the fact that one day ‘the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,’ and the saints shall be caught away to be with Him for ever. (1Tess. 4:16.) And again, ‘In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump…’ (1Kor. 15:52.) This is the final victory for the Church, when mortality is clothed upon with immortality.”
(Warnock, hst. 14)
Hij spreekt ook van een ‘opstanding hier en nu’ voor een groep overkomers, vóór de eindtijdse opstanding:
“Before this cherished rapture or resurrection takes place, there is to arise a group of overcomers who shall appropriate even here and now their heritage of Resurrection Life in Jesus Christ.”
(Warnock, hst. 14)
Overkomers (elite-soteriologie)
Warnock introduceert een onderscheid tussen gewone gelovigen en ‘overkomers’:
“Thank God, however, for the assurance that some are going to possess the land! God is not going to close this dispensation until some really enter in and possess their heritage in Christ Jesus. Paul declared, ‘Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein.’ (Heb. 4:6).”
(Warnock, hst. 1)
“He that overcometh according to the Bible enters into the very victory and triumph of Christ—a victory which can never be lost or forfeited.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
Interpretatie: Warnock hanteert een soteriologisch onderscheid waarbij niet alle gelovigen de volledige heilsrealiteit (Loofhuttenfeest) bereiken; de ‘overkomers’ vormen een apart eschatologisch segment binnen de kerk.
Verwerping pre-tribulatietheologie
“The Church of Christ is literally filled with carnal, earthly-minded Christians who sit back in ease and self-complacency and await a rapture that will translate them out of the midst of earth’s Great Tribulation… It is not true.”
(Warnock, hst. 6)
“The rapture of the Church [is not] the plan of God for the perfecting of the saints, and their deliverance from sin and carnality.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
Omvang van de verzoening
Warnock stelt dat Christus verzoening gemaakt heeft voor de hele mensheid, maar benadrukt toe-eigening door geloof:
“That full and complete Atonement was made for the whole human race by Jesus Christ on the Cross, there is no doubt whatsoever.”
(Warnock, hst. 7)
Hij verwijst ook naar Joh. 12:24 in de context dat Christus’ dood ‘veel vrucht’ zou dragen en ‘alle mensen’ zou bereiken:
“If and when His death was accomplished, then He would be able to minister life to all men, irrespective of race or nationality, in the great harvest that would follow His resurrection.”
(Warnock, hst. 4)
[SPANNING: Warnock stelt enerzijds dat de verzoening ‘voor de hele mensheid’ gemaakt is (objectieve scope), maar anderzijds dat rechtvaardiging persoonlijke toe-eigening door geloof vereist. Expliciete universalistische conclusies trekt hij niet.]
Zekerheid van behoud
Warnock wijst op de mogelijkheid dat gelovigen ‘achterblijven’ (in de woestijn, nooit Kanaän ingaan):
“The first generation that came out of Egypt by Moses failed to enter in because of unbelief, and God decreed that they would die in the wilderness.”
(Warnock, hst. 1)
Interpretatie: Warnock lijkt een veiligheid van rechtvaardiging te aanvaarden (‘God is satisfied with the work of Calvary’) maar de volledige heilsrealiteit afhankelijk te maken van geloofsvoortgang.