Revelations of Divine Love · 83 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter LVa
"Christ is our Way"—"Mankind shall be restored from double death" And thus Christ is our Way, us surely leading in His laws, and Christ in His body mightily beareth us up into heaven.
For I saw that Christ, us all having in Him that shall be saved by Him, worshipfully presenteth His Father in heaven with us; which present full thankfully His Father receiveth, and courteously giveth it to His Son, Jesus Christ: which gift and working is joy to the Father, and bliss to the Son, and pleasing to the Holy Ghost.
And of all things that belong to us [to do], it is most pleasing to our Lord that we enjoy in this joy which is in the blessed Trinity [in virtue] of our salvation.
(And this was seen in the Ninth Shewing, where it speaketh more of this matter.) And notwithstanding all our feeling of woe or weal, God willeth that we should understand and hold by faith that we are more verily in heaven than in earth.
Our Faith cometh of the natural Love of our soul, and of the clear light of our Reason, and of the steadfast Mind which we have from God in our first making.
And what time that our soul is inspired into our body, in which we are made sensual, so soon mercy and grace begin to work, having of us care and keeping with pity and love: in which working the Holy Ghost formeth, in our Faith, Hope that we shall come again up above to our Substance, into the Virtue of Christ, increased and fulfilled through the Holy Ghost.
Thus I understood that the sense-soul is grounded in Nature, in Mercy, and in Grace: which Ground enableth us to receive gifts that lead us to endless life.
For I saw full assuredly that our Substance is in God, and also I saw that in our sense-soul God is: for in the self-[same] point that our Soul is made sensual, in the self-[same] point is the City of God ordained to Him from without beginning; into which seat He cometh, and never shall remove [from] it.
For God is never out of the soul: in which He dwelleth blissfully without end.
And this was seen in the Sixteenth Shewing where it saith: The place that Jesus taketh in our soul, He shall never remove [from] it .
And all the gifts that God may give to creatures, He hath given to His Son Jesus for us: which gifts He, dwelling in us, hath enclosed in Him unto the time that we be waxen and grown,—our soul with our body and our body with our soul, either of them taking help of other,—till we be brought up unto stature, as nature worketh.
And then, in the ground of nature, with working of mercy, the Holy Ghost graciously inspireth into us gifts leading to endless life.
And thus was my understanding led of God to see in Him and to understand, to perceive and to know, that our soul is made-trinity , like to the unmade blissful Trinity, known and loved from without beginning, and in the making oned to the Maker, as it is aforesaid.
This sight was full sweet and marvellous to behold, peaceable, restful, sure, and delectable.
And because of the worshipful oneing that was thus made by God betwixt the soul and body, it behoveth needs to be that mankind shall be restored from double death: which restoring might never be until the time that the Second Person in the Trinity had taken the lower part of man's nature; to Whom the highest [part] was oned in the First-making.
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 text describes God's active care, mercy, and grace working within the soul from the moment of inspiration to guide it toward endless life.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The passage explicitly identifies Christ as 'our Way' and the mediator who presents humanity to the Father, functioning as the divine Word and ordering principle.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The text explicitly states that the human soul is a 'made-trinity' mirroring the 'unmade blissful Trinity,' establishing the human as a reflection of the divine structure.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
The passage repeatedly emphasizes the 'worshipful oneing' between the soul and God, stating that God dwells blissfully within the soul and never removes.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The passage describes the soul's journey back to its 'Substance' in God and being restored from 'double death,' framing salvation as a return to the divine origin.
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 text describes the soul being 'oned to the Maker' and receiving gifts leading to endless life, reflecting the doctrine of becoming a partaker of the divine nature.