Revelations of Divine Love · 40 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter XXXI-a
"The Spiritual Thirst (which was in Him from without beginning) is desire in Him as long as we be in need, drawing us up to His Bliss" And thus our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts that I might make, saying full comfortably: I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.
In that He saith, I may , I understand [it] for the Father; and in that He saith, I can , I understand [it] for the Son; and where He saith, I will , I understand [it] for the Holy Ghost; and where He saith, I shall , I understand [it] for the unity of the blessed Trinity: three Persons and one Truth; and where He saith, Thou shalt see thyself , I understand the oneing of all mankind that shall be saved unto the blessed Trinity.
And in these five words God willeth we be enclosed in rest and in peace.
Thus shall the Spiritual Thirst of Christ have an end.
For this is the Spiritual Thirst of Christ: the love-longing that lasteth, and ever shall, till we see that sight on Doomsday.
For we that shall be saved and shall be Christ's joy and His bliss, some be yet here and some be to come, and so shall some be, unto that day.
Therefore this is His thirst and love-longing, to have us altogether whole in Him, to His bliss,—as to my sight.
For we be not now as fully whole in Him as we shall be then.
For we know in our Faith, and also it was shewed in all [the Revelations] that Christ Jesus is both God and man.
And anent the Godhead, He is Himself highest bliss, and was, from without beginning, and shall be, without end: which endless bliss may never be heightened nor lowered in itself.
For this was plenteously seen in every Shewing, and specially in the Twelfth, where He saith: I am that [which] is highest .
And anent Christ's Manhood, it is known in our Faith, and also [it was] shewed, that He, with the virtue of Godhead, for love, to bring us to His bliss suffered pains and passions, and died.
And these be the works of Christ's Manhood wherein He rejoiceth; and that shewed He in the Ninth Revelation, where He saith: It is a joy and bliss and endless pleasing to me that ever I suffered Passion for thee.
And this is the bliss of Christ's works , and thus he signifieth where He saith in that same Shewing: we be His bliss, we be His meed, we be His worship, we be His crown.
For anent that Christ is our Head, He is glorified and impassible; and anent His Body in which all His members are knit, He is not yet fully glorified nor all impassible.
Therefore the same desire and thirst that He had upon the Cross (which desire, longing, and thirst, as to my sight, was in Him from without beginning) the same hath He yet, and shall [have] unto the time that the last soul that shall be saved is come up to His bliss.
For as verily as there is a property in God of ruth and pity, so verily there is a property in God of thirst and longing.
(And of the virtue of this longing in Christ, we have to long again to Him: without which no soul cometh to Heaven.) And this property of longing and thirst cometh of the endless Goodness of God, even as the property of pity cometh of His endless Goodness.
The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
The passage describes a final state in which all who shall be saved are 'altogether whole in Him' and Christ's thirst 'shall have an end,' implying a universal restoration of all the elect to their original unity with God.
The path of loving devotion and self-surrender to a personal deity as itself sufficient means of liberation — the Gita's 'to those constantly devoted, I come forward as their deliverer,' Kabir's and the Sant poets' love-religion, the devotional stream that parallels Sufi love-mysticism. Distinct from mystical_union (the resulting state), fana_annihilation (the ego's unmaking at the path's end), ladder_of_love (eros staged toward Beauty), and prayer (the practice of address): bhakti names devotion as the soteriological road itself.
The text emphasizes a reciprocal relationship of love and longing between the divine and the human as the path to union and bliss.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The repeated assurance 'I may make all thing well... I shall make all thing well' expresses a strong doctrine of divine ordering and ultimate restoration.
The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition.
Love-longing and spiritual thirst are presented as genuine properties of God and as the primary mode by which the divine knows and reaches the soul, making affect a constitutive epistemic channel.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The text references 'Doomsday' as the time when the spiritual thirst ends and the full vision of God is realized.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
The passage is framed as a direct mystical revelation ('as to my sight,' 'this was plenteously seen in every Shewing') conveying experiential knowledge of the divine nature beyond mere faith or doctrine.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The passage explicitly affirms Christ as both God and man, describing his Manhood as the specific bounded embodiment through which he suffered and died for love to draw souls to bliss.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The passage explicitly states that the saved become 'Christ's joy and His bliss,' 'His meed,' and 'His crown,' indicating a transformation into partakers of divine nature.
The doctrine that the one Godhead or first principle subsists as three co-equal aspects or persons rather than a bare unity — the Christian Father/Son/Holy Ghost invoked in the recurring liturgical formula 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but structurally the same pattern as the Egyptian Amen/Ptah/Osiris, the Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Siva, and the Kabbalistic Chochmah/Binah/Kether triads that esoteric writers explicitly map onto it as instances of one universal law. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about internal plurality) and divine_simplicity (God as having no parts or divisions at all) in asserting a definite three-aspected differentiation within a single divine essence.
The passage explicitly unpacks the five words of God into the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, the unity of the Trinity, and the oneing of mankind, making the three-personed divine structure the central theological framework.